published_or_final_version / Architecture / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Urban landscape offers an effective means to improve local capability for regional and global competitions. Along with the growing power of cultural economy, urban landscape with unique identity is increasingly repackaged as venue for cultural, particularly visual, consumption. At the same time, globally oriented cities compete with one another by promoting arts districts. In this context, arts districts have become a global urban phenomenon, contributing significantly to agglomerate cultural consumption activities. For the past two decades, arts districts in Beijing have gained rapid increase in terms of locations and spatial patterns. However ,they were called ‘artist villages’ which represent their undergrounded statues in the early 1990s.It was not until 2000s that some of them were soon commercialized with international galleries, trendy restaurants, caf?s and night clubs appearing on the scene. These underground settlements were eventually recognized as “creative clusters” by the government. Speculative developers have seized the opportunity to investigate arts districts along with the growing importance of cultural economy. Compared with western cases, Beijing’s arts districts merely took less than 20 years to shift from its isolated state to a tremendously popular one among local citizens and foreign visitors. Under this specific circumstance, the mechanism that contributes to such transformation has yet to be explored. Knowledge in this field in China is still on the stage of adopting the western model with a strong passion for explaining their economic capability. Whereas, in order to explore the relation between production landscape and consumption landscape, there is need to conduct a critical investigation for arts districts as a cultural spatial product in a social process. In light of the scenario given above, the study aims to examine the role of place identity in producing Beijing’s arts districts with special focus placed on their branding strategy. The first step of the study is to review the overall development process of Beijing’s arts districts to identify specific background conditions and analyze their development characteristics. In the given urban context, two case studies of Factory 798 and Jiuchang are carried out, which are designed to achieve the research objectives. The two cases display different patterns of development mode. However, according to the study findings, similarities between them can be explored. Based on the distinctive image that the cases create, the study arrives at a conclusion that the role of place identity is evident in forming the characteristic of the consumption pattern. The significance of place identity is recognized for lending its value to Beijing’s arts districts. Further, from production landscape to consumption landscape, the commodification process of arts districts is ineffective without the interplay of social actors. / published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Philosophy

Images of Shikumen Housing have been regularly present as Shanghai’s “collective memory”, serving as testimony to the city’s rapid growth from a backward colonial enter pot into a booming metropolis in the past decades. After 100 years of usage, it is now threatened by modern lifestyle, both functionally and materially. Revitalization is needed to extend the lifespan of the houses within. With a burgeoning enthusiasm towards urban revitalization, various approaches of revitalization have been tried, among which Tianzi Fang(田子坊), located in Taikang Road, Luwan District, is unique for its coexistence of original residents and creative industry practitioners. Results from the case study suggest that Tianzi Fang approach is more welcomed by direct stakeholders as well as visiting tourists. It challenges the conventional mode of urban revitalization by a community-initial approach. This dissertation investigates the case of Tianzi Fang. First hand survey on the spot together with secondary information collected and analyzed to have a comprehensive understanding of the characteristic and process of the revitalization for sustainable development. A literature review commented that the efficiency of public participation was appreciated which contributes a lot to Tianzi Fang’s success. A management proposal is raised at the end of the dissertation as a conclusion of the study and a reference for further research. / published_or_final_version / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation

Urban planning is not only about planning the city for people today but also planning decades of year ahead for next generations. Growing complexity and dynamics of the urban system make planning, decision-making and problem-solving to be more challenging. In order to achieve sustainable development, the notion of creative city is aroused in academic field and also advocated by many policymakers recently. Creative city notion suddenly becomes the panacea for many urban problems such as revitalizing dilapidated old urban area, enhancing the competitiveness of the city in the global economy, and boosting local employment rate, etc. However, among the polemical meditations on the creative cities notion, there is insufficient study on what vital preconditions are for creativity to be emerged in the metropolis, what creative activities are generated and how actors are interrelated with each other and with the environment regarding social, economic and physical dimensions. This dissertation proposes the “creative ecology” framework for analyzing and contextualizing the interrelationship and dynamics of stakeholders in the “creative ecology” and with the surrounding environments. An empirical study which applies the framework to a local district of Hong Kong, Yau Ma Tei, is conducted. The study tries to trace out the interrelationships of local creativity scene to the environments, and the dynamics within the ecology supported by the comprehensive study on the empirical setting from the perspective of Hong Kong to local district like Yau Ma Tei, and in-depth face-to-face interviews with key stakeholders. The analysis shows, in particular, how the “creative ecology” rooted in a local district operates and how a balanced “creative ecology” can be achieved in relation to the sustainable urban development. The recommendation is concerned passim with cultural policy and urban planning issues. The dissertation is concluded by summarizing the concept of “creative ecology” and highlighting its nature of continuous evolution, as well as addressing the main contemporary challenges while Hong Kong is in the transition process to be a more creative place. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Cultural and creative industries are often considered as one of the latest knowledge-based economy that prevailed around the world. Globalization makes the concept of cultural and creativity spread all over the world. The rise of the creative class, which has permanently transformed our economy and society, has rapidly transformed the world (Florida, 2002). Florida has suggested the creative classes have become more pronounced in recent decades and people around the world start to live differently, pursuing a new stage of lifestyles (Florida, 2002). In Hong Kong, cultural and creative industry has only been considered in the Policy Address in 2009, which has become as one of the six new pillars industry in Hong Kong. The transformation of the economic and industrial structure in Hong Kong has injected new value-added elements in economic development. How could Hong Kong react to this change? Currently, the territory does not even have policies that promoted cultural and creative industry. Cultural and creative industries are not greatly promoted. Different artists joined together and formed different artists organization in order to protect their own value and promote the concept of cultural and arts among citizens. In this dissertation, the clustering of cultural and creative industry in Hong Kong will be discussed. Different concepts and theories about the shaping of a cultural city will be analysed. Locational factors that lead to the clustering of cultural and creative industry in Hong Kong will be examined. A local case study – Fo Tan – will be examined by all the theories and concepts regarding to this clustering effect of cultural and creative industry. Fo Tan is one of the most significant industrial areas with most cultural and creative industries in Hong Kong. Different locational factors will be examined and see if they could be fitted into the local context. Moreover, the institutional setting of cultural and creative industry and urban planning system will be analysed and see if there are any deficiencies. With all the above mentioned, this dissertation hopes to see if government policies could help the development of cultural and creative industries and if different sectors in cultural and creative industries could co-exist in Fo Tan. Looking into the future, we would like to see what the Government or other private sector could do in order to help consolidate the cluster of cultural and creative industry in Fo Tan. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Adaptive reuse of industrial buildings into creative spaces has recently sparked global (Mommaas, 2000, 2004; Daniels, Ho, and Hutton, 2012)and local interests (Leung, 2010; Kong, 2012). The clustering effects of creative spaces have also inspired extensive research on how creative spaces could contribute to urban development and in particular economic growth (Pratt, Andy C., 2004; Evans, 2009; Mommaas, 2009). This dissertation critically reviews existing literature and examines the hypothesis with a comparative study of the Fotanian Artist Village (Fotanian) and Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (JCCAC), which represent two distinctive development trajectories namely organic and planned creative spaces in Hong Kong. It is argued that the development of creative spaces in industrial buildings is strongly correlated to the intention of the public sector to promote creative economies, as well as market assumptions in dealing with obsolescence in urban environment. Both are governed by the concept of neoliberalism, which advocates utilization of land resources based on exchange value rather than use value, and the use of creative spaces as urban development tools. Thus, developing creative spaces in obsolete places through adaptive reuse would restrain the organic growth of creative spaces, or result in its commodification and institutionalization. The hidden neoliberal agenda has also led to the misconception that creative spaces should be assessed for its efficiency and effectiveness as a cluster based on the agglomeration effect of industrial cluster in traditional sense. Fotanian and JCCAC are selected to test against their success performances based on the cluster theory. The two cases are compared to examine whether the planned is less successful than the organic as suggested by the literature. Findings suggest that neither one of them entirely fulfills all the conditions of creative cluster identified in the literature for a successful creative space. Indeed the clustering effect is an inconclusive, if not misleading, criterion of successful creative spaces, given that the development of creative spaces in cities might bring a variety of benefits. Studies have shown that the adaptive reuse of obsolete places might pose potential threats to creative spaces. It is argued that the success of organic and planned creative spaces can only be possible in the long term when breeding and sustaining factors are introduced. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Studiens syfte är att undersöka internetanvändares medvetenhet och åsikter om filterbubblor på sökmotorn Google. Undersökningens frågeställning är: Vad har internetanvändare för tankar och förhållningssätt till filterbubblor som skapas på Google? Studien är avgränsad till studenter vid Uppsala Universitet. Det är en population som kan förmodas vara storkonsumenter av information via sökmotorer. En stor majoritet av respondenterna menade också att Google var ett viktigt hjälpmedel i studier och vardag. För genomförandet av undersökningen användes en kvalitativ metod med fokusgrupper. 17 respondenter i fyra grupper fick diskutera medvetenhet, åsikter och uppfattningar om filterbubblor och informationsinhämtning som sker via Google. Som teoretisk vägledning användes sex olika samhällsvetenskapliga teorier mot vilka det empiriska materialet prövades. Resultatet från undersökningen visar att en majoritet av respondenterna inte var medvetna om den filtrering av informationen som sker på Google och därmed skapar filterbubblor. När respondenterna vid intervjuerna blev informerade om filterbubblor och dess effekter framkom olika uppfattningar och åsikter. Många respondenter uttryckte oro för effekterna av avskärmningen från information och utbyte med andra användare som bubblorna medför. Andra respondenter ansåg att så länge det inte medförde några negativa effekter i användandet av söktjänsten var det inget problem. Avskärmningen som filterbubblor skapar kan begränsa internetanvändares exponering för ”ny” information. Detta kan innebära en risk att människors tillgång till fri och icke styrd information manipuleras av kommersiella intressen. Detta lyfts fram i studiens analys med en teoretisk anknytning till Habermas inflytelserika arbeten om den publika sfären. Ett problem i det sammanhanget, som lyfts fram i forskning, är att filterbubblor kan komma att motsäga fundamentala demokratiska informationsprinciper. Resultatet visar därmed att filterbubblor fungerar som en slags grindvakt för internetanvändarens tillgång till information på Google. Med andra ord har en förändring skett där de “nya” nätbaserade grindvakterna saknar den mänskliga faktor som traditionella mediers grindvakter hade och som styrdes av transparanta värderingar. Respondenterna menade slutligen att Google bör vara mer transparant om problematiken med filterbubblor för att stärka sitt förtroende bland användarna.

This paper explored the knowledge dynamics of cultural industries in Yogyakarta Region. The aims of this paper are to explain how local knowledge is circulated and how new elements are added, as well as to find out how different kinds of knowledge are anchored. This thesis contributes to fill the gap of the lack of research conducted to explain knowledge dynamics in the context of Indonesian cultural industries. Cultural industries have been increasingly considered important towards economic development, whereas territorial knowledge dynamics (TKD) is considered as an update of the traditional territorial innovation models (TIM). The empirical part of this paper contains data collected from interviews with the representatives of sixteen firms, five government institutions, three local trade associations, one local youth organisation and one non-governmental organisation. The finding reveals that direct observation, face-to-face contact, and local buzz are important towards the circulation of local knowledge within the clusters. Different kinds of innovations were also found, involving multidimensional aspects at micro-levels. In a few cases, innovation was influenced by the presence of global pipelines. Knowledge anchoring happened in a complex process and involved a number of actors in multiple locations and scales. This thesis argues that policy makers should increasingly incorporate the concept of territorial knowledge dynamics (TKD) in the development of Indonesian cultural industries.

In the knowledge economy, the 'creative industries' are recognised as a new paradigm. They are industries which use creativity as an intangible asset to generate wealth. The creative industries are described as 'evolving' and their outcomes frequently categorised as 'intangibles'. The thesis outlines what I term a creative industries approach to the engagement of visual artists with industry. The artist-in-industry program, a component of New Possibilities for Paper, was established with an explicit brief to generate creative products and contained an implicit agenda to breed intellectual capital. It was conceived as a means of crossfertilising hitherto siloed sectors -- an arts environment with entrenched attitudes towards the subsidy, proprietorship and authority of creativity and the traditionally conservative paper industry. Establishing creative industries characteristics and indicators to describe and measure creative industries operation in this program required careful consideration, with the characteristics and indicators selected able to recognise trends or changes. The analysis of the seven partnerships confirmed that the artistin-industry program is a creative industries approach upon which future programs between visual artists and the paper industry could be constructed. The research found that the creative industries processes in most need of being addressed, if visual artists are to maximise their benefits, included an understanding and utilisation of intellectual property, knowledge of commercialisation processes and a positive attitude towards commercialisation. For paper companies that invest in R&D, there is recognition that potential tangible and intangible benefits can result from engaging in such partnerships. Additionally, a partnership in which the artist's role (or service) is focused on the industry's customers and contributes to employee knowledge was seen as being of greatest value to the paper industry.

This study seeks to improve the understanding of Indigenous Enterprise Development (IED) efforts undertaken on communal Indigenous land in the Northern Territory of Australia. Success in enterprise may support the achievement of a range of social, political and economic objectives for Indigenous peoples. The thesis offers a contribution to knowledge and literature on IED by bringing understanding to the meaning of success for Indigenous enterprise, identifying those factors that contribute to its success as well as presenting the barriers that prevent it. / Thesis (PhD)--University of South Australia, 2008.