The theory of sustainable development has received worldwide acceptance, and is characterised by the protection of environmental quality, social justice and economic development to ensure a quality of life for future generations. The concepts of sustainable development have transcended to all aspects of society, including the built environment through the Habitat Agenda and building sustainability rating tools. The thesis investigates the implications of sustainable development on how it relates to the building construction industry in South Africa. The study sought to evaluate the extent of consideration and motivation for the incorporation of sustainability criteria in building design, using the case of the South African Institute for Aquatic Biodiversity wet collection facility in Grahamstown. The goal of the thesis was achieved by evaluating sustainability considerations and barriers to adoption of sustainability criteria in the design of the SAlAB building, the rating of the building against the LEED ™ criteria, and evaluation of the applicability of the LEED ™ in the South African context. The importance of the research emanates from the fact that, despite the proliferation of sustainable development and sustainability rating tools in the world, there is no widely used building sustainability rating tool in South Africa, even though the country is industrialising with a very active built environment. The study therefore contributes to the body of knowledge necessary for the implementation of a building rating tool in the country, through an understanding of barriers to implementation. The research method used in the study was a case study with the intention of obtaining the design professional's considerations and challenges in the context of designing the SAIAB building. The case study used multiple data collection methods, with primary information obtained from interviews of professionals involved in the design of the building, whilst additional information was from analysis of technical drawings and review of literature on the subject. The findings of the research showed that there is an understanding of sustainability and consideration in the building industry even though there is no targeted intent to meet sustainability goals. The barriers to building sustainability were identified as lack of regulation, incentives, access to land, awareness, availability of professional codes and standards, economic costs and capacity. These barriers translated into a relatively low score, a silver rating for the SAlAB building when using the LEEDTM rating system. The implications of the findings suggests a need for the development of a comprehensive building sustainability rating tool suited for the South African context, with performance standards and a technical manual to support it. This should however be done in an environment where sustainability goals are supported by regulation and incentives have been developed.

Le tremblement de terre survenu le 12 janvier 2010 à Port-au-Prince, Haïti a provoqué le déplacement de milliers d’individus. Aujourd’hui, plus de 250000 habitants, dont la plupart ont été affectés par le séisme, se sont établis à Canaan, un nouvel établissement informel en périphérie de Port-au-Prince. Simultanément au cadre bâti, les habitants ont pris l’initiative de concevoir des espaces publics et de les aménager. Typiquement, la construction d’espaces publics en milieu précaire est reléguée au second plan face aux conditions de vie précaires qui y sévissent. Pourtant, des reportages démontrent que les Cananéens aspirent à faire de ce territoire une « vraie » ville et un milieu de vie sain. Ce projet de recherche exploratoire avance que les aspirations et les références ont un rôle dans le processus de conception des espaces publics à Canaan. Parallèlement, il examine la considération des aspirations et des références dans le projet de réaménagement de certaines places publiques dans le cadre du programme Canaan Upgrading and Community Development, collaboration entre plusieurs ONG. Trois cas de places ont été étudié : Horeb, Astrel et Zanmitay. Cette étude a démontré qu’il n’y a pas de lien direct entre les références en matière d’espace public et le processus de conception. De plus, les aspirations des habitants ne portent pas particulièrement sur les espaces publics, mais bien sur leur milieu de vie. Finalement, la prise en compte des aspirations et références des Cananéens a été limitée lors du projet de réaménagement d’espaces publics par des ONG. / The earthquake that occurred on January 12, 2010, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti caused the displacement of thousands of people. Today, more than 250,000 people, most of whom were affected by the earthquake, have settled in Canaan, a new informal settlement on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. Simultaneously with the built environment, the inhabitants took the initiative to design and build public spaces. Typically, the construction of public spaces in informal settlements is relegated to the background in the face of precarious living conditions. However, reports show that the Canaanites aspire to make this territory a “real” city and a healthy community. This exploratory research project argues that aspirations and references have a role in the design process of public spaces in Canaan. At the same time, it examines the consideration of aspirations and references in the proposed redevelopment of some public spaces as part of the Canaan Upgrading and Community Development (CUCD) program, a collaboration between several NGOs. Three publics spaces studied are place Horeb, place Astrel and place Zanmitay. This study shows there is no direct link between public space references and the design process. Moreover, the inhabitants’ aspirations are not particularly about public spaces, rather than their environment. Finally, the consideration for Canaanites’ aspirations and references was limited during the CUCD project.

Due to rising energy costs and concerns about global climate change, high performance buildings are more in demand than ever before. With roughly 20% of the total energy consumption in the United States being devoted to residential use, this sector represents a significant opportunity for future savings. There are many guidelines and standards for reducing building energy consumption. One of the most stringent is the Passive House Standard. The standard requires that that air infiltration is less than or equal to 0.6 air changes per hour at a 50 Pascal pressure difference (ACH 50), annual heating energy is less than or equal to 15kWh/m2, and total annual source energy is less than or equal to 120 kWh/m2. For comparison, the typical West coast US residence has an ACH50 of 5 and annually uses more than 174 kWh/m2 of source energy according to the 2009 Residential Energy Consumption Survey. With these challenging requirements, successful implementation of the Passive House Standard requires effective strategies to substantially reduce energy consumption for all end uses. Heating and cooling loads are low by necessity in a Passive House. As such this makes end uses like water heating a much larger fraction of total energy use than they would be in a typical building. When air to water heat pumps are employed the energy consumption by water heating is lowered significantly. By employing innovative heat recovery strategies the energy consumption for water heating and HVAC can be reduced even further. This study uses energy modeling and project cost analysis to evaluate three innovative control strategies. Results for a Passive House in Portland Oregon show a savings of about $70 annually with a payback period of 10 years. The same Passive House in Fairbanks Alaska with a different strategy would save $150 annually with a payback period of 5 years.

No description available.

Die vorliegende Dissertationsschrift befaßt sich mit der Kultur der Gärten, wie sie alltäglich an unseren Eigenheimen stattfindet. Sie fragt danach, was uns unsere Gärten heute eigentlich bedeuten. Sind sie bloßes Abstandsgrün oder kleine Paradiese? Brauchen wir sie als Reste von Natur oder dienen sie uns als dekorierte Garagenzufahrten? Ziehen wir uns in ihre Idylle zurück oder präsentieren wir uns mit ihnen der Öffentlichkeit? Sind die Gärten Inseln der Kreativität oder ist alles schon vom Baumarktsortiment vorgegeben? Die Studie sucht nicht so sehr Antworten, sondern ist darauf gerichtet, die relevanten Fragen zu finden, die uns ermöglichen, das Phänomen Eigenheimgarten zu erschließen. Aufgrund des geringen Forschungsstandes zum Thema wurde ein Ansatz gewählt, der mit möglichst offenen, explorativen und interpretativen Mitteln das Feld erschließen kann, dabei aber ungeprüfte Annahmen und Vorurteile weitestgehend auszuschließen vermag. Mit Methoden der Qualitativen Sozialanalyse wurden Gartenbesitzer befragt und ihre Gärten interpretiert. Dabei wurden Interviewdaten, fotodokumentarische und plangrafische Daten erhoben und mit hermeneutischen Verfahren ausgewertet. Das Ergebnis der Studie ist eine Sammlung und Diskussion für die heutige private Gartenkultur relevanter Themenbereiche und Fragestellungen.

Nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is one of the leading causes of water quality problems in the United States. Bioretention has become one of the more frequently used stormwater management practices for addressing NPS pollution in urbanized watersheds in New England. Yet despite increased acceptance, bioretention is not widely practiced. This study explores and evaluates the efficacy of bioretention for protecting urban water quality. This research found that numerous monitoring methods are used by researchers and industry experts to assess the effectiveness of stormwater best management practices (BMPs) and low impact development (LID) practices that include bioretention. The two most common methods for analyzing and evaluating water quality data are pollutant removal efficiency and effluent quality. While effluent quality data is useful for characterizing classes of BMP treatment performance on a statistical basis, pollutant removal efficiency is more representative of the actual pollutant load being reduced by the stormwater treatment practice over time, and is used in Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) assessments. However, despite this difference, monitoring is still arguably the best method for determining the effectiveness of stormwater treatment practices. Monitoring of bioretention performance results is needed to inform improvements to design standards and guidance to aid state and local municipalities in the proper selection of bioretention/stormwater controls. This study advocates for instituting fine-scale, “safe-to-fail” design experiments as part of an adaptive management process that is used to advance bioretention design guidance and future applications of monitoring practice(s) that target reduction of pollutants in downstream receiving waterbodies. This innovative approach could result in increased use of bioretention in New England urban environments.

While documentation of the work of a select group of modernist landscape architects of the mid-twentieth century is available, little is known about the professional contributions of transitional landscape architects active in the period following World War II. Using selected projects framed by existing literature covering contemporary social, economic, political, and artistic influences, this study examines the career of one such transitional figure, Sidney Nichols Shurcliff (1906-1981). Project descriptions and analysis measure the scope of Shurcliff's work and the degree to which he contributed to the discipline and its transition to modernism, thereby augmenting the history of landscape architecture practice.

Gender issues in the landscape, for a long time, have belonged to the fields of social and political science, which remain relatively unfamiliar to both practitioners and students in the discipline of landscape architecture. Previous scholars have put effort into examining questions of gender, culture and landscape in order to clarify the issues that researchers may encounter in today’s field of study. Among these gender classifications, questions in feminist inquiry have provided a historical setting to this study: what are the forms, transitions and design approaches that women employ as creators of the built landscapes? Through reviewing the past literature and surveying today’s practitioners, an understanding emerges of how female landscape designers think about their gender identity as a variable in the design process. In addition, several issues are further identified, including the female awareness of their gender identity in the workplace, types of female work, transitions in design approach since the 1899 American Society of Landscape Architects was founded to the present day, cultural discourse in female landscape forms, and so on. The major goal of this study is not to build a description of history that asks how women may design differently than men, but to reexamine the idea that has made such stereotypes invalid; gender may influence design approaches but not outcome. Furthermore, this study also attempts to identify the potential gender issues in today’s profession, and to provide a viewpoint to landscape designers of any gender: How does our innate gender identity potentially influence design thinking? Finally, as a designer who is drawn to the cultural dimension of landscape architecture, I hope this study will be helpful to landscape professionals in developing a more complex approach and critical eye for looking at designed landscape forms as cultural vehicles for gender construction.

The larger architectural context of cities must be understood in order to effectively design buildings. If a building ignores its surroundings, it will not hold up to time and will adversely affect the city in which it stands. This can be seen in multiple of disarrayed cities and their commercial-driven building inventory. So, what makes a good city stand out, and how can this be applied to buildings? There are the four basic principles designers and planners seemed to have forgotten. The first is the layout of basic city components and their influence on current and future identity. The second is the aesthetic principles of scale and proportion. Choosing appropriate material permanence to your location is also important because it enhances or subtracts from the city’s identity. And finally, the experience of the observer must be impactful. If these principles are applied correctly and harmoniously, they can effectively heal the conflicting issues of transportation, pedestrian access, social venues, historic reverence and much more. But most importantly, they can be applied to buildings. Buildings can individually initiate the healing of an urban fabric if they are cognizant to their surroundings. Therefore in this thesis, I want to apply these four basic principles in the rehabilitation of a malfunctioning junction in my hometown of Helena, Montana. By designing a singular building with a guiding master plan, I hope to stimulate a chain reaction. This transformation would take the current issues and interweave these principles into an effective solution that will not only revitalize the area but also become a tourist destination.

This thesis explores three state-run green building programs (California, Minnesota and New York) through comparative case-study analysis. Main topics discussed include cost benefits, health benefits, certification (i.e. LEED or other), and lessons learned from direct interviews with program staff.