No abstract was provided. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

Urban public spaces have been considered an essential part of cities throughout history. Over the span of urban life, public spaces have continuously reflected the complexities of their cities’ cultural, social, and economic contexts. Public spaces play a particular role in the life of urban areas, whether as memorable, accessible, or meaningful places. However, recent researches on public spaces reveal that some are currently experiencing a decline in their physical design and in their use. Many writers and scholars of public spaces issues identify a general decline, for which the causes and prescriptions are different according to the context of urban planning and designing. Thus, in this period of change in using public spaces, it becomes important to evaluate and investigate actual use of contemporary public spaces, how and why they are used, particularly in terms of their physical deterioration and/or improvement. Therefore, an opportunity exists to reveal and understand the interrelationship between physical patterns of contemporary public spaces and people’s activity patterns within such spaces. This thesis relates to urban public spaces uses, particularly public squares, and to the relationship between their physical and activity patterns. It considers the design features of urban public space, focusing on people’s activities and various forms of use – from passive to active engagement to understand the activity-physical patterns relationship in a selected urban public space. It therefore asks: How do people’s activities relate to the physical patterns of an urban public space? And how are people’s activities affected and encouraged by urban public space’s physical features? In order to address these questions, this thesis employs a methodology that combines direct field observations, activity mapping and Geographical Information Systems (GIS), as applied to a selected public space in Toronto, Mel Lastman Square to reveal the activity patterns that appear to be correlated with particular use of design features within the square. Thus, the value of this thesis is in studying the relationship between the activities and the physical settings of urban public spaces through using a proposed methodology and exploring GIS as an analytical tool to describe the activity-patterns relationship. Analyzing this relationship will add insights into and complement the application of urban design theories and practice which could lead to further studies to improve the public spaces design and planning process.

The purpose of this thesis is to question the art historical notion of influences, specifically in the case of the seventeenth century Spanish Baroque artist Diego Velázquez. His work is often seen as an extension of the realist movements in Flanders and Italy at the turn of the seventeenth century, but that view is extremely reductive. Velázquez strove to depict the world around him as he saw it, attempting to incorporate the transient nature of the scenes before him into his works. The city of Seville, in which Velázquez lived and worked, provided the setting and cultural elements that would orient his work He was able to simultaneously break free of the conventions that had been placed on artists in the early seventeenth century and embrace his proto-impressionistic artistic style while developing himself as an artist. His paintings, especially his bodegones, showcase the low-class culture and citizens of Seville. Velázquez's subjective representation of these low class subjects and scenes allow him to re-create the city of Seville on his canvas, allowing the modern-day viewer to experience the represented environment. Velázquez's artwork allows his viewers to be immersed Interweltsien (in-the-world) and experience the world that he was depicting. This thesis will use both Place Theory and Phenomenology to better understand the works that Velázquez created while he was living in Seville.

This project centers on an office environment and the physical and psychological well-being of the people who work within it. Located at 525 Beresford Avenue in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the Churchill Park United Church was converted to serve as an office space for a hypothetical publishing firm, Choice Publications. With recent knowledge concerning the health and well-being of employees, the design of workplaces has shifted to comprise a human-centered approach. The purpose of this practicum project was to investigate the evolving nature of the office and to determine its role regarding the identity, well-being, and behavior of individuals in order to better accommodate their needs. Central to the exploration is the study of environmental psychology theories and the introvert-extrovert dichotomy. Research into third place theory and the significance of home act as the primary lenses to evolve conventional office design into a hybrid of new typologies. / October 2015

Urban public spaces have been considered an essential part of cities throughout history. Over the span of urban life, public spaces have continuously reflected the complexities of their cities’ cultural, social, and economic contexts. Public spaces play a particular role in the life of urban areas, whether as memorable, accessible, or meaningful places. However, recent researches on public spaces reveal that some are currently experiencing a decline in their physical design and in their use. Many writers and scholars of public spaces issues identify a general decline, for which the causes and prescriptions are different according to the context of urban planning and designing. Thus, in this period of change in using public spaces, it becomes important to evaluate and investigate actual use of contemporary public spaces, how and why they are used, particularly in terms of their physical deterioration and/or improvement. Therefore, an opportunity exists to reveal and understand the interrelationship between physical patterns of contemporary public spaces and people’s activity patterns within such spaces. This thesis relates to urban public spaces uses, particularly public squares, and to the relationship between their physical and activity patterns. It considers the design features of urban public space, focusing on people’s activities and various forms of use – from passive to active engagement to understand the activity-physical patterns relationship in a selected urban public space. It therefore asks: How do people’s activities relate to the physical patterns of an urban public space? And how are people’s activities affected and encouraged by urban public space’s physical features? In order to address these questions, this thesis employs a methodology that combines direct field observations, activity mapping and Geographical Information Systems (GIS), as applied to a selected public space in Toronto, Mel Lastman Square to reveal the activity patterns that appear to be correlated with particular use of design features within the square. Thus, the value of this thesis is in studying the relationship between the activities and the physical settings of urban public spaces through using a proposed methodology and exploring GIS as an analytical tool to describe the activity-patterns relationship. Analyzing this relationship will add insights into and complement the application of urban design theories and practice which could lead to further studies to improve the public spaces design and planning process.

How interactive new media art can effectively communicate an indigenous philosophical concept. The sophistication and complexity of the philosophical concept concerning relationships between land and people and between people, intrinsic to the laws and customs of Australian Indigenous society, has begun to be communicated and accessed beyond the realm of anthropological and ethnological domains of Western scholarship. The exciting scope and rapid development of new media arts presents an innovative means of creating an interactive relationship with the general Australian public, addressing the urgent need for an understanding of Indigenous Australian concepts of relationship to land, and to each other, absent from Western narratives. The study is framed by an Indigenous concept of place, and relationships between land and people and between people; and explores how this concept can be clearly communicated through interactive new media arts. It involves: a creative project, the development of an interactive new media art project, a website work-in-progress titled site\sight\cite; and an exegesis, a Novella of Ideas, on the origins, influences, objectives, and potential of creative practices and processes engaged in the creative project. Research undertaken for the creative project and exegesis extended my creative practice into the use of interdisciplinary arts, expressly for the expression of philosophical concepts, consolidating 23 years experience in Indigenous community arts development. The creative project and exegesis contributes to an existing body of Indigenous work in a range of areas - including education, the arts and humanities - which bridges old and new society in Australia. In this study, old and new society is defined by the time of the initial production of art and foundations of knowledge, in the country of its origins, in Indigenous Australia dating back at least 40,000 years.

No description available.

Providing a nation’s citizens with timely and effective police services is a complex task, particularly in rural areas where limited resources must be allocated across vast, sparsely populated areas—to date, little research has sought to understand this process. The aim of this thesis is to assess the accessibility of police services in Sweden. Central place theory (CPT) serves as a theoretical framework for understanding how police services are spatially arranged. Differences in accessibility are evaluated with respect to two low-mobility groups—older adults, and women. This thesis employs open data provided by the Swedish police, Statistics Sweden (SCB), and Eurostat. Geographic information systems (GIS) are used to perform network analyses by which drive-times to police stations are calculated. Group differences in accessibility are examined by comparing average drive-times between areas where standardized population ratios (SPR) reveal differences in group representation. Results show that the spatial structure of police services resembles CPT’s prediction in that important services are widely distributed, whereas specialized services are found in more central cities. However, the observations do not perfectly adhere to the theoretical structure, implying that factors exogenous to CPT have some role in determining service point locations. Regarding accessibility, older adults tend to be overrepresented in areas far from police stations, suggesting lower levels of access to the services they offer. Sex was not found to be a significant factor influencing access, except in that men tend to be overrepresented in remote parts of northern Sweden. / Att tillhandahålla effektiva och lägliga polistjänster är en komplex uppgift för ett lands medborgare, särskilt på landsbygden där begränsade resurser måste tilldelas över omfattande och glesbefolkade områden— hittills har lite forskning eftersträvat att förstå denna process. Målet av denna avhandling är att bedöma den rumsliga strukturen och tillgängligheten av polistjänster i Sverige. Teorin känd som "Central place theory (CPT)" fungerar som en teoretisk ram för att förstå hur polistjänster är rumsligt anordnade. Skillnader i tillgänglighet bedöms med avseende på två grupper med låg rörlighet- äldre vuxna och kvinnor. Denna avhandling använder öppna data tillhandahållna av svensk polis, Statistiska Centralbyrån (SCB), och Eurostat. Geografiska informationssystem (GIS) används för att utföra nätverksanalyser genom vilka körtider till polisstationer beräknas. Gruppskillnader i tillgänglighet utvärderas genom att jämföra genomsnittliga körtider mellan områden där standardiserade befolkningsförhållanden, eller "standardized population ratios", (SPR), avslöjar skillnader i grupprepresentation. Resultat visar att den rumsliga strukturen av polistjänster liknar CPTs förutsägelse att viktiga tjänster är allmänt fördelade, medan specialiserade tjänster kan hittas i mer centrala städer. Däremot håller inte observationerna helt fast vid den teoretiska strukturen, vilket innebär att faktorer som är exogena till CPT har en viss roll i att bestämma tjänstlägen. När det gäller tillgänglighet, brukar äldre vuxna vara överrepresenterade i områden långt från polisstationer, vilket tyder på lägre nivåer av tillgänglighet till tjänsterna de erbjuder. Kön befanns inte vara en betydande faktor som påverkar tillgänglighet, förutom att män tenderar att vara överrepresenterade i avlägsna norra områden.

The patterns of certain groups of urban places, selected on the basis of population size and area location, in southern Saskatchewan are classified by the use of the nearest neighbour technique. Through a study of the variations within the overall pattern, which are revealed by differences in the derived pattern statistic, a partial contribution is made to the understanding of the distributive process that underlies the observed settlement pattern. Explanations for the variations in the nature of the spatial arrangement of the various groups of places are suggested through the use of multivariate analysis, and by reference to theoretical and empirical works in the field of Central Place Theory. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

No description available.