This qualitative study sought to explore the Hong Kong Chinese patient's perceptions of an Intensive Care experience and their views on the introduction of feng shui principles focussing on sleep orientations, dietary management and exercise regimes. The study explored the background of feng shui as an authentic traditional Chinese belief. It also explores if incorporating these feng shui principles into the health care setting would provide a positive effect for open-heart patients in an Intensive Care Unit at the Hong Kong Adventist Hospital in Hong Kong. The major inference drawn from this study is that Chinese patients seek culturally related experiences from the health care setting. The Chinese informants showed strong belief patterns in traditional practices of feng shui, however, practiced these within the confines of their homes as these experiences were denied to them in the hospital setting. / Health Studies / M.A. (Nursing Science)

This qualitative study sought to explore the Hong Kong Chinese patient's perceptions of an Intensive Care experience and their views on the introduction of feng shui principles focussing on sleep orientations, dietary management and exercise regimes. The study explored the background of feng shui as an authentic traditional Chinese belief. It also explores if incorporating these feng shui principles into the health care setting would provide a positive effect for open-heart patients in an Intensive Care Unit at the Hong Kong Adventist Hospital in Hong Kong. The major inference drawn from this study is that Chinese patients seek culturally related experiences from the health care setting. The Chinese informants showed strong belief patterns in traditional practices of feng shui, however, practiced these within the confines of their homes as these experiences were denied to them in the hospital setting. / Health Studies / M.A. (Nursing Science)

An employed individual will spend between a quarter and a third of his or her waking life at the workplace. An estimated 40% of those in South Africa who are employed full-time work in offices. With the amount of time spend in buildings, the physical conditions in the workplace are important determinants of satisfaction, comfort, well-being, and effectiveness and can even play a role in mental health. The physical environment in offices should therefore be carefully planned, designed, and managed. This qualitative study, sought to develop an inter-cultural office design framework for South Africa combining Eastern and Western design principles. Specifically, it sought to obtain a better insight into design principles which can enhance the well-being of office workers; inter-cultural, gender neutral and age neutral design principles which can be applied in a South African context. To be able to answer these questions an intensive literature review was undertaken investigating both the Eastern design principles as expressed in feng shui and Western design principles as expressed in Environmental Social Science. The design principles of these two traditions were compared and all aspects where the two traditions did not support each other were included in the in-depth interviews. Twenty-five in-depth interviews were conducted By relying on various design cultures (e.g. Eastern and Western) an environment can be created which are pleasing and can enhance the well-being of the users. Underlying design principles are universal, but the symbolic expression thereof can differ from culture to culture. One of the conclusions from this study is that three quarters of design principles are v universal. There is no one size fits all solution and compromise is necessary from all involved. The compromise applies to the roughly a quarter of design aspects where subgroup differences have been detected. Any design should take individual and group difference into account. The only way to do this is to get proper input from all stakeholders at all stages of the design. It is critically important that the input starts before the design process commences. There are many design principles which can be implemented to improve the quality of work life of office workers in the South African context. Design can for example play a very important role in encouraging and facilitating formal and informal interaction in the workplace – bridging the gap between heterogeneous groups. Without forcing relationships, design can assist in naturally integrating heterogeneous groups. The physical environment must support the image and identity which needs to be communicated, facilitate communication and enable task accomplishment. Most of all it must become a place with which employees can identify and where they can develop a sense of place. From this study it can be concluded that not only form follows function but also that aesthetics follow function – a principle that design should be based on the primary purpose of the building, the workspace based on the needs of the stakeholders and from this starting point aesthetics will flow. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Consulting Psychology)

An employed individual will spend between a quarter and a third of his or her waking life at the workplace. An estimated 40% of those in South Africa who are employed full-time work in offices. With the amount of time spend in buildings, the physical conditions in the workplace are important determinants of satisfaction, comfort, well-being, and effectiveness and can even play a role in mental health. The physical environment in offices should therefore be carefully planned, designed, and managed. This qualitative study, sought to develop an inter-cultural office design framework for South Africa combining Eastern and Western design principles. Specifically, it sought to obtain a better insight into design principles which can enhance the well-being of office workers; inter-cultural, gender neutral and age neutral design principles which can be applied in a South African context. To be able to answer these questions an intensive literature review was undertaken investigating both the Eastern design principles as expressed in feng shui and Western design principles as expressed in Environmental Social Science. The design principles of these two traditions were compared and all aspects where the two traditions did not support each other were included in the in-depth interviews. Twenty-five in-depth interviews were conducted By relying on various design cultures (e.g. Eastern and Western) an environment can be created which are pleasing and can enhance the well-being of the users. Underlying design principles are universal, but the symbolic expression thereof can differ from culture to culture. One of the conclusions from this study is that three quarters of design principles are v universal. There is no one size fits all solution and compromise is necessary from all involved. The compromise applies to the roughly a quarter of design aspects where subgroup differences have been detected. Any design should take individual and group difference into account. The only way to do this is to get proper input from all stakeholders at all stages of the design. It is critically important that the input starts before the design process commences. There are many design principles which can be implemented to improve the quality of work life of office workers in the South African context. Design can for example play a very important role in encouraging and facilitating formal and informal interaction in the workplace – bridging the gap between heterogeneous groups. Without forcing relationships, design can assist in naturally integrating heterogeneous groups. The physical environment must support the image and identity which needs to be communicated, facilitate communication and enable task accomplishment. Most of all it must become a place with which employees can identify and where they can develop a sense of place. From this study it can be concluded that not only form follows function but also that aesthetics follow function – a principle that design should be based on the primary purpose of the building, the workspace based on the needs of the stakeholders and from this starting point aesthetics will flow. / Psychology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Consulting Psychology)

Human beings encounter cascades of a plethora of experiences, one after another, every single microsecond of our lives. There are many things happening around. The world is full of events and occurrences. As they happen, the mind reacts to every individual input. This is a very exhausting and difficult. Thus, people have developed a process of self-defense against this horrible mishmash of information. Their minds have this amazing capacity of sorting them out and making sense out of them. Humankind's survival depends on that. If one does not sort all this information out, one might not be able to make a simplest decision. As humans process the information, they learn to ignore and forget. They focus on their feelings and emotions. They forget the logic. The oversimplification process begins. Humans create rigid systems of oversimplified formulas. They assign adjectives to things, occurrences, and other people. The number of those adjectives is small. After assigning, those adjectives obscure everything else. A new world is created, stupid, limited, lazy, and in the end making humans very easy to control. What starts as a basic survival process ends up as a tool one can use to destroy the owners of the mind. In the end, the birth of consciousness leads to its death. My work fights this process. It aims to put a person back into that state of shock created by a mishmash of information and thus create the rebirth of consciousness.

This thesis deals with complex processes, relationships and phenomena which go beyond the assumed and accepted materialistic perception of the world in general and the process of architectural design specifically. It clarifies and actually redefine the sustainability from a point of higher universal principles forming our environment. At the beginning this thesis presents an extensive knowledge base of existing holistic design systems including Feng-shui, sacred geometry, geomancy or numerology. The purpose is to build and establish a solid foundation for understanding and further research as well as objectively interpreting lesser known topics as a whole. On the basis of intersecting information through the above mentioned topics we specify the hypothesis which proposes the pre-existence of one unifying design matrix of harmonic structures in architecture. The structure of its verification takes us from an analysis of the science of human perception to systems of self-similar contextual references of animated and inanimated forms. These systems of emergent form and flow are basically known as fractals, and could be expressed in both mathematical and geometrical languages. The thesis research then consists of analysing chosen examples of urban and architectural scale in sense of fractality, symbolism and geometrical matrices. We include and integrate the research of associated and relevant phenomena in pedagogical practice, and a case study of the application of fractals in development of a chosen town. From the results of this thesis we abstract five non-dogmatic guidelines or tenets for architectural design; which are supported by experimental verification on some of the author´s buildings. These tenets stand as pillars of implosive architecture. This kind of architecture in context of transcendental overlaps means a possibility of how to bring our anthropogenic environment closer to the natural and harmonic code of the Universe.

Organic architecture is often used term especially in connection with the daring and experimental form. The exact definition or division is still missing. The founder of modern organic architecture is to be generally considered as Frank Loyd Wright. He was the man who created organic architecture and also made first definition in the early twentieth century, when formulating new architectural styles. Dissertation deals with insufficiently described problem of organic architecture. The main focus is on contemporary production of residential organic architecture in Central Europe. Especially on the particular realizations in Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovak Republic, Austria, Germany and Poland. Beside detail description of European realizations, the dissertation deals also with foundations of organic architecture in U.S.A. and important realizations here. Modern organic architecture primarily originated in the United States of America. The work presents most important contemporary realizations and architects creating resident living organic architecture in other countries around the world in order to complete the overview. The objective of dissertation was describing newest trends in designing buildings for living. Find position of organic architecture and give reasons for it´s increasing popularity, spread and necessity for new development in architecture according to the new trends. Organic architecture is an alternative way of contemporary residential living. It´s popularity is growing in last years in response to the development of modern technologies and materials, the need to protect our natural resources and also to the increasing negatives of globalization and to denial of local traditions and regional specificities. Aspects of organic forms were divided into three main groups according to their main characteristics: form, harmony and sustainable development. Another objective was find location of contemporary organic residential architecture in Czech Republic and abroad. It is rather spread all over the world than concentrated on certain places. Therefore I selected countries that are richer than the others on the occurrence of organic buildings. The objective was also to address architects, specialists, public and especially university teachers of architecture and students themselves. Communication with them was mainly connected with grant project in 2010. The theme of grant project was contemporary organic architecture in residential living. There were lectures about contemporary organic architecture and exhibition on the theme: Contemporary living organic architecture. The publication of the catalog was published under the title: Contemporary organic houses - Europe. I had the opportunity to visit a number of organic family houses abroad. Specifically houses in Slovakia, Hungary and Germany. Results of survey, which was realized by questions to owners and authors of chosen buildings, are included in dissertation. The mail results of dissertation are - make a detail review of organic architecture in residential living - define trends in contemporary organic architecture and residential living - obtain and process answers from owners and authors of chosen buildings within survey - analysis of organic house ( houses) in city planning and landscape - publication of catalogue focused on organic contemporary European houses - article about contemporary organic architecture and residential living will be published in 2012 on archiweb page