In my encounter of Peter Zumthor’s Seniors’ Home and Kolumba Museum, I found architecture to affect well-being within the daily course of life. I saw the Seniors' Home contribute to the dwelling of the entire being of the elderly residents within the challenging yet hopeful season of life they face in aging, while at Kolumba Museum I encountered an experience of aesthetic embodying meaningful knowledge that addressed not only my mind but also my heart. Centered on the inherent operative dimensions of aesthetic at these two buildings—as an intervention, as a material reality, as an image, and as something we are positioned in and move in—and deepened by aesthetic philosophy and spiritual readings, I seek for an awareness of the way architectural decisions influence the human journey through space and time, and for principles and considerations that supplied and realized this architecture to be vitally contributive. The thesis is a meditation on the vitality of the medium, searching for a relevance that can justify architecture not as mere shelter that barely satisfies nor as inessential excess, but as an efficacious act that can satisfy the human being who encounters it and truly improve well-being in its existing. The thesis posits that architecture is fundamentally a craft and an act of giving a gift to the other. Its created existence in space and time is capable of producing lasting good in the world, if the design of architecture, through love, is primarily concerned about its affect on the other and the world rather than its object.

The research presented in this thesis is intended to reveal the layers of social and cultural meaning invested in a building conventionally regarded as a work of abstract aesthetic modernism, and one which has been evaluated, within the framework of a national heritage preservation policy, as an architectural landmark of the post-war era of urban reconstruction. By combining the research methods of architectural history (archival) and of anthropology (ethnographic) I have located and interpreted the architecture of the Brunswick within a larger social story that demonstrates how the lived experience of a particular environment exists in parallel with the more objective official discourse that invests a work of architecture or art with cultural significance. The thesis traces the architectural inception and complex evolution of the building, its critical reception, and the proposals for redevelopment that culminated in a major refurbishment and transformation of the shopping precinct in 2006. It goes on to present an ethnographic account of the Brunswick as a social, as much as an architectural space, and an anthropological interpretation of the relationship between identity and place in terms of the specific qualities of the built environment. It shows that the material environment becomes real and vivid to people as an embodiment of the social dimensions of their lives, and that the boundaries between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ – the private space of the home, and the layered sequence of public spaces extending through the building to the city beyond - are not objectively fixed, but subjectively perceived and negotiated in different ways. Although the Brunswick exerts considerable power as a unique architectural image, its boundaries do not define an integrated social space, nor a unified experience of the place as a living environment. Nevertheless, repeated interaction and sensory experience make it a tangible architectural framework for everyday and domestic life which evidently shapes the view from the inside looking out. The research aims to make a significant contribution to knowledge at a meeting-point between anthropology and architecture, which might help to inform future understanding of the interaction between people and the built habitat in modern urban societies.

This study contributes to the growth of design knowledge in China, where vehicle design for the local, older user is in its initial developmental stages. Therefore, this research has explored the travel needs of older Chinese vehicle users in order to assist designers to better understand users’ current and future needs. A triangulation method consisting of interviews, logbook and co-discovery was used to collect multiple forms of data and so explore the research question. Grounded theory has been employed to analyze the research data. This study found that users’ needs are reflected through various ‘meanings’ that they attach to vehicles – meanings that give a tangible expression to their experiences. This study identified six older-user need categories: (i) safety, (ii) utility, (iii) comfort, (iv) identity, (v) emotion and (vi) spirituality. The interrelationships among these six categories are seen as an interactive structure, rather than as a linear or hierarchical arrangement. Chinese cultural values, which are generated from particular local context and users’ social practice, will play a dynamic role in linking and shaping the travel needs of older vehicle users in the future. Moreover, this study structures the older-user needs model into three levels of meaning, to give guidance to vehicle design direction: (i) the practical meaning level, (ii) the social meaning level and (ii) the cultural meaning level. This study suggests that a more comprehensive explanation exists if designers can identify the vehicle’s meaning and property associated with the fulfilled older users’ needs. However, these needs will vary, and must be related to particular technological, social, and cultural contexts. The significance of this study lies in its contributions to the body of knowledge in three areas: research methodology, theory and design. These theoretical contributions provide a series of methodological tools, models and approaches from a vehicle design perspective. These include a conditional/consequential matrix, a travel needs identification model, an older users’ travel-related needs framework, a user information structure model, and an Older-User-Need-Based vehicle design approach. These models suggest a basic framework for the new design process which might assist in the design of new vehicles to fulfil the needs of future, aging Chinese generations. The models have the potential to be transferred to other design domains and different cultural contexts.