For hundreds of years, the riverside area of Shanghai was one of the city's most vibrant places, making it an important part of Shanghai’s history. By following the story of the rivers, the life and culture of Shanghai's riverside neighbourhoods can be traced. While the river has always been important to the inhabitants of central Shanghai, it has become largely inaccessible during the last several decades. First, the booming manufacturing industries of the 20th century resulted in heavily polluted rivers. Second, physical barriers such as walls and roads were built, preventing access to the rivers. Both of these combine to create a landscape in which urban neighbourhoods are separated from the river as well as from each other. This thesis proposes ways in which a redesign of the riverside can strengthen the culture and community of neighbourhoods while also looking towards the present and future needs of residents and visitors.

The ferry terminal in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada is located in an important public place for the city of Halifax. This area has been subject to planning decisions that have led to its current state of reduced functionality. This project is intended to activate and restore this central, damaged urban public site through integration with the existing buildings, reconnection of the city to the waterfront, and increased amenity offered by new design and architecture. Rethinking the design of the ferry terminal and its adjacent public spaces aims to create a model for future development along the currently undeveloped Halifax waterfront.

This research examines the process by which rights to public resources, including public land, were negotiated during the Olympic bidding process in one modern western city. Toronto’s 2008 Olympic bid involved not only the framing of an important public symbol but also the shaping of symbolically significant space, the city’s waterfront. Toronto’s waterfront has always reflected a negotiation between large institutional interests and the voice of the local citizenry. The nature of this space and the implied right of the public to define and use this space has made the representation of urban public interest a matter of crucial significance. To examine the relationships between sport, space and symbols during the bidding process for the Olympic Games is to expose an ongoing ideological battle over the ownership of public land. When the development of a particular parcel of public land is said to be in the public interest, it suggests that city residents from a wide variety of publics have collaborated and developed a shared and agreed upon position about how that development should proceed. The process of adjudication that serves to legitimate the production of space and symbols is important because it has crucial implications for the production of urban order. This research demonstrates that the Olympic bidding process can be understood as a moment that fosters an articulation of social and cultural claims, that offers an opportunity for masses of citizens to mobilize, and that facilitates visions of progress. On the other hand, it can also be the occasion for the defeat of public interest. / Thesis (Ph.D, Geography) -- Queen's University, 2008-12-11 09:50:52.953

Landscape architecture has a dynamic relationship with public art. While public art may enhance a designed landscape, its success is not dependent on it. However, the sensation of how a public art piece is situated in a landscape and responds to its audience can be greatly enhanced with the help and knowledge of landscape architecture. Artists can use the knowledge and understanding of site specificity that landscape architects possess to situate respected and appreciated works of public art located in functional spaces. The purpose of this document is to explore the relationship between artists and landscape architects. Public art is an important part of our society. It can enhance the identity and character of communities, creating landmarks to be remembered. Public art can inform us about the history and culture of our environment, while evoking thought and conversations of community. It can be fun and uplifting, solemn or full of tension, and it can be mysterious and intriguing. The collaboration between artists and landscape architects can create new and wonderful spaces in our urban environments. By using nature and the surrounding environment, visitors can be completely surprised and engaged by what this collaboration can achieve.

The practicum project addresses the ongoing relationship between interior space and the urban environment. Despite a common perception of the interior and the exterior as being distinct and separate, a study of these spaces reflects a similar spatial continuum to the one that exists between public and private space. These realms are linked to each other spatially and socially. Through the development of an active transportation hub in Winnipeg, the project seeks to explore the potential of interior design to influence the wider urban environment. Placemaking and scale linking will be used to create places of meaning and identity in a mobile environment. The hub will create a place for sustainable transportation, community connection and improved quality of life for the people of Winnipeg. In this way, interiors can have a direct impact on the dynamics of the city.

Landscape architecture has a dynamic relationship with public art. While public art may enhance a designed landscape, its success is not dependent on it. However, the sensation of how a public art piece is situated in a landscape and responds to its audience can be greatly enhanced with the help and knowledge of landscape architecture. Artists can use the knowledge and understanding of site specificity that landscape architects possess to situate respected and appreciated works of public art located in functional spaces. The purpose of this document is to explore the relationship between artists and landscape architects. Public art is an important part of our society. It can enhance the identity and character of communities, creating landmarks to be remembered. Public art can inform us about the history and culture of our environment, while evoking thought and conversations of community. It can be fun and uplifting, solemn or full of tension, and it can be mysterious and intriguing. The collaboration between artists and landscape architects can create new and wonderful spaces in our urban environments. By using nature and the surrounding environment, visitors can be completely surprised and engaged by what this collaboration can achieve.

The practicum project addresses the ongoing relationship between interior space and the urban environment. Despite a common perception of the interior and the exterior as being distinct and separate, a study of these spaces reflects a similar spatial continuum to the one that exists between public and private space. These realms are linked to each other spatially and socially. Through the development of an active transportation hub in Winnipeg, the project seeks to explore the potential of interior design to influence the wider urban environment. Placemaking and scale linking will be used to create places of meaning and identity in a mobile environment. The hub will create a place for sustainable transportation, community connection and improved quality of life for the people of Winnipeg. In this way, interiors can have a direct impact on the dynamics of the city.

The roles of urban public spaces in urban cores are being re-assessed across many North American cities. Public spaces within downtown cores are essential in ensuring the long- term viability of such urban centers economically and socially. Public spaces have been researched by utilizing a number of theories and frameworks in the past few decades, most notably through a socio-cultural lens. Another possible method of assessing what makes a great public space in a downtown core is by looking at how diverse a range of activities and uses it provides. The City of Vancouver’s downtown core has undergone massive redevelopment schemes in the past two decades. The downtown area has been transformed into a hub that not only retains major commercial and retail functions in the City but also boasting an active and increasing residential population living in mixed-use high density condominiums. Downtown Vancouver’s public spaces have also been increasing in number during the past two decades, on par with promoting a more active outdoor lifestyle for both residents and visitors. Assessing the degree to which the range of uses and activities meet the diverse range of users’ expectations and requirements is a possible method of analyzing these spaces’ viability in the public realm. Data for this research was collected by reviewing previous literature, unobtrusive observation and mapping of activities, compiling contextual maps of surrounding areas and usage maps for each selected public space, administering on-site user surveys, and conducting semi-structured interviews with professional and academic actors involved with planning, maintaining, and designing public spaces. Through conducting this research, it was found out that while some public spaces in Downtown Vancouver are more successful in terms of being used in a variety of ways, others are less so. Downtown Vancouver was also found to be lacking central public spaces such as plazas and squares, as these spaces would provide for a wider range of activities in the public realm. A number of strategies need to be taken by planners, officials in the City, and other actors in order to ensure more diverse range of activities in Downtown Vancouver’s public spaces in the future.

Medina, as the second holy city for Muslims around the world and a place where the Prophet (peace be upon him) lived and is buried, has a distinctive identity. On the contrary, however, the central part of the city, the area where the old city was located, has lost its traditional identity in favour of globalization and modernization. One major factor that affects a location’s sense of place is the absence of public space and green space. In other words, the negligence of the public space’s role in reviving and restoring the identity of a place results in a sense of non-place. For many visitors to Medina, the current state (the contemporary urban setting) of the central city fails to match their expectations. Inserting an urban park (public space) within the area will enhance and help conserve the place’s identity, meet visitors’ visions, and allow more social interactions among visitors and locals. My design proposal is to create an urban park and a public space located at the periphery of the Prophet’s Mosque. The park will offer visitors a quiet place of refuge within the busy surrounding urban context and will demonstrate the location’s identity through shading structures. The program will consist of shading structures, mobile eateries, seating areas, public space, and vegetation.

Orientador: Maria Encarnação Beltrão Sposito / Banca: Beatriz Ribeiro Soares / Banca: Margarida Maria de Andrade / Banca: Arthur Magon Whitacker / Banca: Raul Borges Guimarães / Resumo: Os espaços públicos de Presidente Prudente são analisados na perspectiva de sua dinâmica geral, visando o entendimento da cidade. Nesse sentido, no seu processo de produção e apropriação demonstram a existência de uma sociabilidade segmentada. As reflexões sobre a produção do espaço público são organizadas em três níveis analíticos: a dominação política, a acumulação de capital e a realização da vida. Os dois primeiros níveis estão relacionados ao campo da dominação - no primeiro caso, trata-se da dominação política analisada por meio das ações do poder municipal e das elites locais; no segundo caso, da dominação econômica, as reflexões giraram em torno dos processos de acumulação e reprodução do capital. O terceiro nível de análise desloca o foco da dominação para a apropriação do espaço, ou seja, para as relações socioespaciais produzidas pelo uso, nas práticas cotidianas que conformam o plano do vivido. É, precisamente, nesse plano que as reflexões permitem a leitura das possibilidades de transformação e abrem campo para a esperança. / Abstract: The public spaces of Presidente Prudente are analyzed in their general dynamics perspective, looking for the urban space understanding. In this sense, in their production and reproduction process they reveal the existence of a segmented sociability. The concerns about the production of the public space are organized in three analytic levels: political domination, accumulation of capital and the accomplishment of the life. The first and second levels are related to the domination ground. In the first case we argue the political domination analyzed through the local power and the local elites actions. In the second case, the economic domination, our concerns are the accumulation and reproduction of capital. In the third level the focus is the appropriation of space, we mean, the social-spatial relationships, which are produced by the use, in the everyday practices, which conform the lived space. It's, just, in this level that our concerns allow us to read the possibilities of transformation and hope. / Doutor