There is no abstract available for this thesis. / Department of Architecture

We all have desires- dreams and goals that beg to be realized at some future date. When such desires are so strong that their creation becomes a quest, they take on a hazy quality that place them between the realm of dream and reality.Where does THE REALITY stop?Where does THE DREAM begin?The realm between dreams and reality Is very difficult to grasp.I have created a word that for me, expresses the realm of dreams and reality: This in between state will be called a 'DREALM'.This creative project Is a study of my 'DREALM'. It may or may not come true.Or,Is there really something called Real? Are they all just IMAGES?IMAGES,that We createorthat WE spend all our lives to create. / Department of Architecture

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The housing problem in South Africa is complicated by the cultural diversity and the rapidly changing nature of the population. This indicates a need for research to help to determine "what appropriate housing is" for various sectors of the South African population. Social researchers and design professionals therefore have to combine their efforts to provide house designs that will be appropriate to the housing needs and values of a variety of future occupants. This study focuses on the impact of rapid change in the sociophysical environment (modernization) on people's experience of the quality of their relationship with their home environments. An approach is proposed through which groups of individuals, who share similar needs and requirements regarding their housing, can be identified for inclusion in a process of participatory design. A theoretical framework is developed to account for the variety of perspectives of participants (users, researchers and design professionals) in the design process. Through application of the theoretical framework, a novel approach to the determination of "what to design for whom" is developed. The "modernity fit" concept is introduced to describe the quality of the relationship between people and their housing in terms of a rating of the modernity of both human and housing characteristics. It is proposed that the quality of the relationship or "fit" between the modernity of human characteristics and the modernity of the physical characteristics of the house influences people's experience of their houses. Results of this study indicate that the "modernity fit" concept opens up new avenues for research to assist in the design of housing in developing countries. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

The housing problem in South Africa is complicated by the cultural diversity and the rapidly changing nature of the population. This indicates a need for research to help to determine "what appropriate housing is" for various sectors of the South African population. Social researchers and design professionals therefore have to combine their efforts to provide house designs that will be appropriate to the housing needs and values of a variety of future occupants. This study focuses on the impact of rapid change in the sociophysical environment (modernization) on people's experience of the quality of their relationship with their home environments. An approach is proposed through which groups of individuals, who share similar needs and requirements regarding their housing, can be identified for inclusion in a process of participatory design. A theoretical framework is developed to account for the variety of perspectives of participants (users, researchers and design professionals) in the design process. Through application of the theoretical framework, a novel approach to the determination of "what to design for whom" is developed. The "modernity fit" concept is introduced to describe the quality of the relationship between people and their housing in terms of a rating of the modernity of both human and housing characteristics. It is proposed that the quality of the relationship or "fit" between the modernity of human characteristics and the modernity of the physical characteristics of the house influences people's experience of their houses. Results of this study indicate that the "modernity fit" concept opens up new avenues for research to assist in the design of housing in developing countries. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

I aim to make explicit the actualisation of heritage, following this orienting question: how do human beings come to qualify a thing, be it tangible or intangible, as heritage? I argue that heritage is at the same time a quality allocated by human beings in their relation with things and a fiction that circulates between and anchors in situation(s). To support this assertion, I focus on one element of official heritage, namely houses in the medina of Fez in Morocco, a World Heritage site listed in 1981. <p>Firstly, I follow medina houses in terms of networks, that is to say the various ways to engage with their materiality in the everyday life. In this ethnographic report, I wonder how to inhabit houses located in a World Heritage site. This ethnography allows to question notions such as legality, taste, privacy, hospitality tradition or agency, and it brings to the fore a debate concerning the skills of Moroccan inhabitants to take care of their house and their blindness to heritage. I argue that houses have another story the official heritage one because they offer holds, affordances, to which human actors qualify. Heritage is one of these qualities. <p>I then focus on heritage as a trajectory to shed light on how houses cross the heritage border – are qualified as heritage. I firstly add the category of autodidact experts and I propose a wider definition of expertise as an ability "to speak in the name of". I then underline the importance of senses and affects in the relation with houses and I suggest that they are one possible component in the heritage qualification together with actions and justification. Finally, I argue that better than the notion of heritage border, the notion of attachment allows grasping the qualification of houses as heritage for it stresses both the similarities and the differences between houses and elements of heritage. Heritage as a quality results from a "plus of attention" and relates to nostalgia or a feeling of threat, loss and disappearing; values related to purity, materiality and time; and actions of preservation and transmission. <p>Finally, houses may be heritage through their qualification but heritage is also something else than houses in Fez, such as a label or a justification for members of institution in charge of tourism development or heritage preservation, a tool for sustainable development in the context of international projects, a definition assorted with criteria, an object to preserve for experts, an object of research in the field of social sciences, or a legal object. These are forms of heritage circulating between situations in which they anchor and are actualised. Each form has its own characteristics, its own criteria of (e)valuation, while all the forms share similarities that I define as the heritage fiction, namely a specific relation to the past, the idea of culture as a specific entity, the importance of experts, and moral principles. In a last time, I take as a basis the circulation and the anchorage of the heritage fiction and its forms to think of the local and the global as qualities and not as scales or levels. <p><p>Mon objectif est d'expliciter l'actualisation du patrimoine en décrivant la manière dont les individus qualifient une chose, dans ce cas les maisons de la médina de Fès au Maroc (site du patrimoine mondial depuis 1981), de patrimoine. Dans ce cadre, je définis le patrimoine à la fois comme une qualité que les individus attribuent à cette chose dans leur relation avec elle, et comme une fiction qui circule entre et s'ancre en situation(s). <p>Tout d'abord, je m'intéresse aux réseaux qui passent par et se croisent dans les maisons et je pose la question de l'engagement des individus avec la matérialité des maisons. Cette ethnographie de l'habitat quotidien dans un site du patrimoine mondial permet d'aborder des notions telles la légalité, le goût, l'intimité, l'hospitalité, la tradition ou l'agency. Elle met également en avant un débat sur les compétences des habitants à prendre soin de leur maison et sur leur aveuglement au patrimoine. Je défends l'idée que les maisons ont une autre histoire que celle, officielle, du patrimoine national et mondial et qu'elles proposent aux individus des prises et affordances que ces derniers peuvent qualifier. Le patrimoine est une de ces qualités. <p>Une étude de la trajectoire du patrimoine permet alors d'expliciter comment les maisons traversent la frontière patrimoniale (sont qualifiées de patrimoine). Tout en proposant une définition plus large de l'expertise comme la capacité de "parler au nom de", je relative l'opposition entre experts et non-experts avec la catégorie intermédiaire d'amateur. Je souligne également l'importance des sens et des affects dans la relation aux maisons qui, tout comme les actions et les justifications, constituent des composantes possibles de la qualification patrimoniale. Enfin, la notion d'attachement, mieux que celle de frontière patrimoniale, met en lumière à la fois ce qui est similaire et ce qui distingue les maisons et les éléments de patrimoine. Le patrimoine est une qualité qui résulte d'un "plus d'attention" relatifs à de la nostalgie ou un sentiment de perte, de menace ou de disparition; des valeurs de pureté, matérielles et temporelles; et des actions de préservation et de transmission. <p>Finalement, le patrimoine est aussi autre chose que des maisons à Fès, comme un objet à préserver, un objet légal, un objet de recherche pour les universitaires, un label servant de justification ou d'accroche promotionnelle de la ville, un outil dans le cadre du développement durable, une définition assortie de critères. Ces multiples patrimoines sont autant de formes de la "fiction patrimoniale" qui circulent entre et s'ancrent en situation(s). Si chacune possède ses caractéristiques et critères d'évaluation, toutes partagent les caractéristiques de la fiction patrimoniale, à savoir un rapport spécifique au temps, l'importance des experts, des principes moraux et une idée de la culture comme entité particulière. Je me base sur la circulation et l'ancrage de la fiction et de ses formes pour penser le local et le global comme des qualités d'une chose et non comme des niveaux ou des échelles. <p> / Doctorat en Sciences politiques et sociales / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished