The fashion industry is one of the largest industries in world, yet the priority of creating an adequate protection for the industry can be questioned. Thankfully, the EU introduced the UCDR in the early 21st century, which grants protection for the appearance of a design of it reaches the requirements of novelty and individual character.  The aim of this thesis has been to examine whether the UCDR is adequte for small fashion businesses and designers trying to gain a foothold in the industry. The larger businesses are not of interest as they have the resources to go through court-proceedings. As the UCDR is quite a new protection and the thesis aims to see if it is in fact the best protection for small fashion businesses, a comparison have been made with three national legislations within the EU; France, UK and Sweden. All requirements and aspects of the UCDR and the national legislations have been analysed with the finding that the UCDR, even though the french legislation is more generous in giving out protection, is the best protection for small businesses within the EU. The UCDR ensures that the copyist is caught whilst interpretations are allowed. Nevertheless, it has been found that there is a need for clarification regarding whether a design first disclosed in a third country can gain protection, if it is made available within the EU before the circles specialised operating within the Community become aware of the design. Furthermore, the time it takes to go through litigation exceeds the lifetime of the design which has been allegedly infringed. This makes the UCDR:s deterrent effect lower, although not non-existent. At the end of the thesis, suggestions have been made as to how these issues can and/or should be solved, and a basis for a future discussion have been made.

Housing in prosperous American cities is becoming increasingly expensive, forcing many municipal governments to re-evaluate how they will continue to serve lower-income residents and ensure equitable access to housing and resources. In the City of Alexandria, the Alexandria Re-Development and Housing Authority (ARHA) has worked in recent years to partner with private developers to convert its existing stock of low-density, designated-affordable housing into more dense, mixed-income communities. This is possible because many of its existing communities sit on land in now-prime locations where the City currently allows the most density, as well as bonus density through a variety of mechanisms. While these projects have succeeded to some extent, the City is unfortunately still seeing a rapid rise in rents accompanied by a rapid decrease in available affordable housing of all types, in both privately-developed and publicly-subsidized communities. Increasing income disparity is also simultaneously driving lower-income to middle-class residents to suburban and exurban sites where limited access to municipal resources and public transportation can be highly detrimental to quality of life. While additional density is the knee-jerk response to many of affordability's challenges, often the resulting built solutions seem incomplete – achieving the basic goal of housing more residents, but failing to build thriving and diverse communities that connect people the way previous communities may have. After all, the pragmatics of building generally point towards maximizing square footage, monetary return, and speed of delivery by using conventional and commonly-accepted solutions, with less energy given to resident outcomes, and how people might be affected by the change to their living environments and communities. As Jan Gehl and Jane Jacobs examined in Cities for People and The Death and Life of Great American Cities respectively, simple pragmatics do not make for livable environments. A truly humanist approach to design for living in cities requires not only good policy, practice, and engagement, but also architectural strategies that respond to how humans relate to each other and their surroundings. Convergence explores how designers can contribute to making urban housing better for everyone by addressing housing affordability, person-to-person interaction, and community engagement in increasingly-dense environments. Its primary objectives are: • Encouraging neighborliness by increasing chance encounters as well as reducing the sharp threshold between private and public space often found in apartment-style buildings. • Increasing the visibility of human activity to the street in a multi-floor, multi-family project. • Using new mass timber methods and modularity to improve initial building construction and cost while also incorporating sustainable practices to reduce resource use and operating cost. • Anticipating that modification and reconfiguration will be required in the future, and offering defined parameters to simplify that process. • Creating a variety of unit sizes while also offering future flexibility to respond to changing community needs. • Combining the familiar with the novel to connect the new community to its surroundings, bridge experiences, and manage change. / Master of Architecture / In the City of Alexandria, the Alexandria Re-Development and Housing Authority (ARHA) owns several affordable housing sites in desirable locations that it has been working to convert into more dense, mixed-income housing in partnership with private developers. While these projects have succeeded to some extent, housing in the City continues to become increasingly expensive, and wages for low-income and lower-middle class residents are not keeping pace with the increase in cost of living. This phenomenon is pushing many long-time and/or lower-wage residents to the suburbs and exurbs, limiting access to municipal resources and public transportation, and reducing quality of life. As a result, communities and families with long histories in the City are breaking apart and dispersing. Many advocates, policymakers, designers, and developers have turned to additional density as the most immediate response to these concerns. However, additional density isn’t enough; new buildings may house more people, but fail to address the other aspects of building thriving and diverse communities that connect people the way previous communities may have. Good housing and good communities need more than square footage, so it is time to look beyond conventional solutions. New approaches are needed to respond to how people are affected by changes to their living environments and communities, and create the kinds of positive outcomes that should be part of any new housing project. Therefore, if we want to design for living in cities, we have to have good policies, practices, and engagement, but we also need architectural strategies that respond to how humans relate to each other and their surroundings. Convergence explores how designers can contribute to making urban housing better for everyone by addressing housing affordability, person-to-person interaction, and community engagement in increasingly-dense environments. Its primary objectives are: • Encouraging neighborliness by increasing chance encounters as well as reducing the sharp threshold between private and public space often found in apartment-style buildings. • Increasing the visibility of human activity to the street in a multi-floor, multi-family project. • Using new mass timber methods and modularity to improve initial building construction and cost while also incorporating sustainable practices to reduce resource use and operating cost. • Anticipating that modification and reconfiguration will be required in the future, and offering defined parameters to simplify that process. • Creating a variety of unit sizes while also offering future flexibility to respond to changing community needs. • Combining the familiar with the novel to connect the new community to its surroundings, bridge experiences, and manage change.

The word revise means to reconsider or modify as with text. If we think of the suburban landscape as a text, the culture of each era left documentation of their values, policies and way of life in the form of transportation networks and other infrastructure, such as Main Streets, squares and public buildings. While evidence of most of the everyday life of individuals of every era gets erased by the following era, infrastructure investments of each era are adaptively reused and remain to tell the story. This thesis documents the adaptive reuse of these suburban frameworks and develops a proposition for the appropriate next layer to accommodate a new culture of inhabitants. Focusing on second generation suburbs, using Gwinnett County as a case study, this analysis identifies three problems of the current suburban situation: the problem of abandoned strips, a demographic shift, and the need for place. As new strip highways develop, old strips decline leaving abandoned shopping centers and declining property values. New development continues to move north and out of the county, and middle class residents, for which existing auto-oriented suburbs were created, move as well. A new, poorer, and more ethnically diverse population inherits the auto-oriented landscape left behind. This phenomenon is particularly concentrated along the southern portion of the Buford Highway corridor. Those with more money move closer to new development, while those with less money have less choice and are found near declining strips with fewer services, poorer quality housing and lower quality of life. Finally, county officials have expressed a desire for defining "the epicenter of Gwinnett." I believe that there is no one "center" of Gwinnett, but a series of places defined by memory, design or events. I propose to improve the situation of these three problems with a light rail line that connects existing places and creates new walkable, livable places to improve quality of life. This connective piece will serve as a social condenser in lieu of a center, provide links between polar populations, and reactivate declining strips while creating a sustainable infrastructural spine for future growth in the region.

「内発的地域イノベーション・エコシステム」とは、地域課題の革新的な解決を可能にする多様なプレイヤーによる機能的ネットワークであり、相互作用と共進化により持続する自律的システムである。人口減少を迎える小規模自治体において、いかにそうしたエコシステムを生み出し、地域公共財としての社会関係資本を蓄積しながら、しなやかに地域社会を維持・発展させていくことが可能なのかについて、国内の先進事例をもとに分析を行った。 / "Endogenous Regional Social Innovation Ecosystem" is that enable innovative solutions to regional challenges. It is a functional network of multi-sectoral players that is autonomous, sustained by interaction and co-evolution among the players. I analyzed based on advanced cases in Japan, about how it is possible for domestic small municipalities with declining populations to maintain and develop the local community in a flexible manner by creating such an ecosystem while accumulating social capital as local public goods. / 博士(ソーシャル・イノベーション) / Doctor of Philosophy in Social Innovation / 同志社大学 / Doshisha University