In dense cities, the interactions between all structures, from tall skyscrapers to complex underground tunnel systems, need to be carefully analysed as soon as a new project is considered. This is necessary because of the stress changes in the soil induced by each new construction. Demolishing a building could cause heave at the base of the excavation, deflections in supporting structures and settlements of the surroundings. The behaviour can be modelled in order to predict how large the deformations will be. This thesis investigates the effectiveness of such models. This is done through the application of a parameter sensitivity analysis on models created in Plaxis. The purpose of the analysis is to identify which factors cause discrepancies between the models and the actual displacements monitored on site. The project being examined is located in central London. The analysis focuses on the displacements of existing tunnels below the site caused by the demolition of two buildings. An analysis was carried out to investigate the significance of different parameters, of different material models and methods of analysis, of 3D effects and of inaccurate groundwater data. Ground investigations, laboratory tests and published data were the main sources used to collect reliable initial input parameters for the material models. A model was created in Plaxis 2D using the Mohr-Coulomb and the Hardening Soil with small-strain stiffness material models, using two types of undrained analysis. A model using the Mohr-Coulomb material model was created in Plaxis 3D as well. A sensitivity analysis was then carried out on the 2D models to identify which input parameters were most significant to the tunnel displacements. The results were compared to monitoring data and a back-analysis was carried out to produce more accurate results. The initial and adjusted input parameters were also tested on the 3D model. Finally, the groundwater level was altered. The results indicate that soil stiffness and effective cohesion are the most significant. Small-strain stiffness is shown to be especially important when analysing small tunnel deformation. The 3D model generally yielded more accurate results than the 2D model, while the groundwater level did not appear to affect the deformations. / I tätbebyggda städer bör samspelet mellan olika konstruktioner, från skyskrapor till tunnelsystem, analyseras noga så fort ett nytt projekt ska påbörjas. Detta är kritiskt på grund av den förändrade spänningsfördelning som uppstår i marken vid varje ny byggnation. Marken häver sig, stödmurar deformeras och den omkringliggande marken sätter sig när en byggnad rivs. Denna process kan modelleras för att uppskatta hur stora deformationerna kommer att bli. Det här examensarbetet utvärderar hur effektiv en sådan modell är. En känslighetsanalys utfördes på modeller skapade i Plaxis. Syftet med denna analys är att undersöka vilka faktorer som orsakar skillnader mellan modellerna och mätdata. Projektet ligger i centrala London och analysen fokuserar på tunneldeformationer orsakade av att två byggnader rivs. Tunnlarna befinner sig i ett lager av Londonlera under byggarbetsplatsen. En analys utfördes för att undersöka huruvida olika parameterar, olika materialmodeller och analysmetoder, 3D effekter och grundvattennivån påverkar tunnelförflyttningarna. Markundersökningar, labbtester och publicerad data användes som grund för att bestämma indatavärden. En 2D modell skapades i Plaxis genom att använda materialmodellerna Mohr-Coulomb och ”Hardening Soil with small-strain stiffness”. En Mohr-Coulomb modell skapades dessutom i Plaxis 3D. En känslighetsanalys utfördes sedan på 2D modellen för att identifiera vilka parametrar som påverkade tunnelförflyttningarna mest. Resultaten jämfördes med mätdata och viktiga parameterar ändrades för att ge bättre resultat. Inverkan av att ändra dessa värden undersöktes även i 3D modellen. Slutligen undersöktes påverkan av en förhöjd grundvattennivå. Resultaten antyder att jordens styvhet och den effektiva kohesionen har störst inverkan på resultaten. Styvheten vid små töjningar visar sig vara särskilt viktigt eftersom deformationerna år små. 3D modellen gav generellt sätt mer korrekta resultat än modellen i 2D. En högre grundvattennivå påverkade inte resultaten nämnvärt.

Located in eastern London and beside the Olympic legacy there is this knotty hood, called Hackney Wick. A public realm has been proposed in the London Borough of Hackney local development masterplan for this neighbourhood. The project is a communal hall settled in the heart of this town context, has been challenged to tie with the dodgy surroundings. Coming from Olympic park, passing over the separating river and going to Victoria Park, is the main walking and cycling path. Also having the bus route on the same side, makes the northern side more exposed to the people. Facing the northern side of the site is the overground which generates views from the train to the project. As a result, in all the studied schemes, it has been tried to have a big opening looking towards this side. Observing the whole hood, you will find out the context is dominated by typical London brick walls, mostly filled with graffiti arts. This creates a special character for the area, and at the same time brings out some dodgy views. So the idea was to get benefit of the existing wall in the boundary of the site, as a tool to block the ugly views and create an inner paradise, and at the same time, with the aim of the brick nature of that wall, relate to the character of the context. However eventually, it ended up to propose to rebuild the wall with reused bricks, and cover the new added parts in white plaster. So finally, there would be this perception as if there is a new object over the existing, and the old brick wall remains at the bottom exposed to graffiti arts and keeps the same nature as it used to have.

This dissertation consists of three chapters that examine the spatial distribution of economic activities. The first chapter examines how disasters as well as individuals’ expectations of what others will do affect the development of cities. The development of cities often involves the rejuvenation or replacement of existing structures. However, history, in the form of the sunk cost of existing durable structures, often serves as an impediment to urban development. In theory, by reducing the opportunity cost of waiting to rebuild to zero, disasters can eliminate these frictions and bring about higher quality structures. In addition, the simultaneous rebuilding after a disaster would allow property owners to experience stronger cross-building spillovers which would encourage further upgrades of nearby buildings. Nevertheless, these are not sufficient to guarantee higher quality buildings. This is because individuals’ investment decisions also depend on their expectations of what others will do. Therefore, in this chapter, we examine both of these issues using the 1666 Great Fire of London as a natural experiment. First, using a difference-in-differences (DiD) strategy, we show evidence that the Fire was able to free parishes within London from the constraints of their existing durable structures and move them to a new equilibrium involving higher quality structures. Second, using DiD and an IV strategy, we find that legal rulings arising from the Fire Court – a court specially set up by the English Parliament to hear rebuilding disputes – were able to anchor expectations and in so doing, helped to facilitate the development of London. Providing causal evidence that legal rulings can be a main driver in the formation of expectations is the main contribution of our paper. The second chapter examines how the quirks of history shape present-day economic outcomes. Building on Bazzi et al. (2020), I study how a particular episode of history – time at the frontier – helps to explain the present-day manufacturing production patterns across American counties. First, I show empirical evidence that there are fewer establishments and lower employment in counties that spent a longer time on the frontier. The same results hold for industries that are more “contractible” (i.e., easier to specify in contracts and hence less susceptible to holdup). Second, using a DiD strategy, I show that firms in high “contractibility” industries sort into producing at counties that spent a longer time on the frontier. I hypothesize that due to “rugged individualism”, individuals in counties that spent a longer time on the frontier are less likely to trust other people. Therefore, anything that is not “contractible” becomes harder and more costly to enforce. Consequently, only the more “contractible” industries locate in counties that spent a longer time on the frontier. The third chapter examines how land use regulations and NIMBY (“not in my back yard”) behavior affect housing prices in the UK. In the UK, developers have to apply to the local planning authority to seek development permission. Applicants who have their plans rejected can appeal to the Secretary of State, via the Planning Inspectorate. The Planning Inspectorate then assigns an inspector to decide whether to overturn the local authority’s decision. We propose a theoretical model which shows that in locations with high levels of NIMBY-ism, developers are better off getting their plans rejected by the local authority and gambling on drawing an inspector who is less sympathetic towards locals’ NIMBY behavior. Our empirical strategy exploits the fact that inspectors are quasi-randomly assigned to the appeals. This allows us to use inspector leniency as an instrument for whether an appeal is successful. We find that overturning the local authority’s decision does not lead to a large fall in housing prices. For some projects, the impact may in fact be positive because they also add to local amenities such as retail shops. This suggests a prevalence of NIMBY-ism, as locals pressure authorities to reject even relatively benign projects.

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Der Wandel des moralisch-ethischen Denkens in den Dekaden um 1700 ist eine black box. Denn gedruckte Morallehren und Rechtstheorien dokumentieren vorrangig die etablierten, nicht die neuen, zukunftsweisenden Auffassungen. Darauf, was sich verändert und Menschen bewegt, haben die Zeitgenossen in der Transformationsphase kaum verbalsprachlichen Zugriff. In diesem Dilemma bietet das Musiktheater einen Ausweg an. In der barocken und frühaufklärerischen Oper wurden nicht nur absolutistische Fürsten verherrlicht und politisch-amouröse Intrigen inszeniert. Die Musiktheaterbühne war vor allem auch progressive moralische Anstalt. Hier bildeten sich mit rein dramatischen, impliziten Mitteln neue, visionäre ethische Ideen aus und wurden einem größeren Publikum vorgestellt. Die Monographie rekonstruiert die damalige Gemengelage aus alten und neuen moralisch-ethischen Anschauungen, wie sie sich im Musiktheater in drei europäischen Kulturzentren manifestiert: Paris/Versailles, Hamburg und London. Sie zeigt, dass an der Neugestaltung der moralisch-ethischen Visionen nicht nur die Librettisten der zu vertonenden Verse, sondern auch die Komponisten – und zwar mit musikalischen Mitteln – mitwirkten.

This dissertation argues that John Quincy Adams’s American identity and views on the United States’ nation building process in the early republic were directly influenced by Great Britain’s politics and culture over his lengthy public service career. From this argument, this project inverts historiographical trends that tend to treat Adams as a footnote to the rise of Jacksonian Democracy or focus on his late career battles against slavery in the House of Representatives. Instead of these limiting approaches, I examine Adams’s complicated relationship with Britain by unpacking the distinct periods when he lived in London from the 1783 to 1817. Over six chapters, I focus on his three stays in London in the 1780s, diplomatic missions of varying lengths from 1794 to 1797, and his two years as ambassador in Britain from 1815-1817. I reveal how Adams, with unquestionable ties to the American Revolution through his parents John and Abigail, navigated a paradoxical relationship with Britain as a prominent public figure in the United States. He both engaged with and admired Britain’s relative stability, social life, and spectrum of reforming ideas while remaining wary of its diplomacy and perceived corrupting influences. Given Adams’s career longevity, he can be viewed as a central link between the American Revolution and the Civil War and, by proxy, both his and his nation’s complicated uncoupling from Britain as he served his nation nearly continuously from 1781 to 1848. This dissertation argues that even after the United States declared its independence from Britain, Adams’s worldview continued to be shaped by his travels to Britain, marriage to an Englishwoman, and consumption of British culture. They ensured his life-long, inextricable ties to Great Britain and are valuable lenses to illustrate America’s nation building into the 1840s from a biographical perspective. In constructing these arguments, my research draws primarily from Adams’s voluminous personal papers, namely his 14,000-page diary. These sources are contextualized by underutilized British sources on Adams from the Public Record and Foreign Offices in addition to personal papers from his British associates. / 2025-11-30T00:00:00Z

The purpose of this dissertation is to demonstrate how the London Corresponding Society, during the last decade of the 18th Century, sought Parliamentary reform that would end the system of government controlled and corrupted by the rich English landholding gentry.