The subject of this diploma thesis is the issue of courtyards. Courtyard as a specific place in the city, which has lost its original function. It can serve different types of usage, among other things, it enables meeting of different groups of the city's inhabitants and their interaction nowadays. Unlike the public space, other terms of usage can be seen in the courtyards. Various social relationships can be observed in dependece of its usage. I deal with the process of negotiation of city dweller groups at two selected courtyards, the rules of their functioning and how the role of the decision- makers forms these places. I have deliberately decided to use courtyards with different visitor functions. Conflict between different views on their usage and disagreements can be seen in these courtyards. Key words: courtyard, semi-public space, negotiation proces, urbanism

Street furniture as art in public space The thesis is about street furniture and its development in the context of history of public places in the Czech Republic. The main attention is paid to its transformation into an art form - statue, memorial or site specific. The thesis is focused on artists who work with features of street furniture and public place in the Czech Republic. How street furniture completes landscape of a city and how individual artist perceive it? The main objective of this thesis is to map these art interventions and put them into the world context. Keywords street furniture, art, public space, city, intervention, site specific

This diploma thesis is focused on engaged art in the Prague public space after 2000. The theoretical part deals with the characteristics of engaged art and artivism and places them in the context of civil society. It describes the participants dealing with engaged art in Prague after 2000, the topics of the participant's interventions and the tactics they use for their implementation. The empirical part offers, based on biographical research and ethnography, an perspective of the participants. It describes their motivations leading to the creation of interventions, their relationship to public space and to the audience. Work deals with the goals of their activities and focuses on their own concept of success. Last but not least, the thesis is focused on the political orientation of the participants. The thesis thus provides a comprehensive view of contemporary engaged art and pursues on its important role in our society.

Many downtowns in North America have been severed from the rest of the city and from the contextual relationship to their surroundings. Sundered from their context, the ecological characteristics of a site are frequently taken for granted, and the disengagement of its public spaces erodes the downtown's character as well as the urban fabric. Downtown Clearwater has lost the vitality and vibrancy that once characterized it as a lively district. Because of recent developments in the downtown area, public spaces have been lost between parking lots, high rises and a small number of sporadic residential pockets. Some of the most important streets fail to create connections for the pedestrians to the surrounding public spaces and areas of interest; as a result some local businesses have dried up, affecting Downtown Clearwater's economy and its community. There is also a disconnection of the downtown with its context and it is evident that some of the major ecological and environmental characteristics of the site have been ignored through its development. This thesis studies how the ecological characteristics of a site can be integrated into the core of its design and experience. The Thesis proposes to revitalize Downtown Clearwater with a new system of green corridors that will promote activity and circulation. The corridors will define a new invigorating framework of points of interest supported by surrounding land uses. The main objectives of the project are to create a new urban destination, enhance the pedestrian experience, reconnect public spaces, cleanup water runoff and organize circulation of bicycles and pedestrians.The thesis emphasizes the design and development of a specific node and section of the green corridor system to explain the design.

This is a project that asks questions. Why are we behaving in certain ways? Why are we using objects for a certain purpose and not others? Why can’t we do it differently? Questions most of us never even consider because we have gotten so used to following the path that is predetermined for us. Throughout this work I will analyze how skateboarding poses a critique of spatial regulations and pre-defined purposes, as well as how skaters are suggesting a whole new perspective on our everyday life. I argue that skaters are in fact the post-industrial designers of their everyday life, and that the perspective of skaters carries potential for sustainable change as it favors the imagination and possibilities over restrictions and limitations. This is a perspective that I believe can help us make better use of the resources we have, both in terms of ecological sustainability, but also with regards to social aspects, as it allows for greater diversity and multitudes of behaviors within the same space. Through several design iterations I have explored how skateboarding offers tactics that can be applied by others to start a process of imagining and performing alternative ways of engaging with public spaces.

The study explores the mediating role architecture should play towards the re-integration of degenerate urban spaces, within existing contemporary urban environment. The architecture proposed, in this case a Public Community Information Centre, furthermore intends to find a workable solution, in mediating between society, the city, and the environment that will acknowledge the processes associated with sustainable social production in the quest to eradicate a fragmented, and culturally segregated society. / Dissertation MArch(Prof)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Architecture / Unrestricted / 2013-4-17

This thesis focuses on areas prone to inland floods and more specifically on the municipality of Acharnes, Attica, Greece. Usually, flood risk management strategies are treated as an engineering problem. Here, the floodplains/wetlands are going to be addressed as an asset and reveal the role of the landscape as a dynamic way for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Furthermore, such an approach can also offer potentials not only for water quality and management but also for benefiting the public spaces and open a discussion concerning awareness and engagement. Within the context of Attica, flood prone areas are not only ecologically deprived but also places of inequalities and loose social capacities. Acharnes is not an exception. Thus, the vision of this thesis is to investigate an alternative way for flood resistance by incorporating tools and methods capable of strengthening local communities. The thesis will investigate the following questions: •How can cities adapt to water issues and how can public space be used towards this end? •Can design for flood management be incorporated into a greater strategy connected to building relations?

Under hösten 2013 offentliggjorde den svenska regeringen att man vill investera i att bygga ut Stockholms tunnelbana. Denna utbyggnad innefattar nio nya stationer, Sofia på Södermalm är en av dessa stationer. På grund av platsens förutsättningar kommer stationen bli en av de djupaste i världen. Detta förslag utnyttjar dessa förutsättningar för att sammankoppla gatunivån med den underjordiska perrongen och ger den vardagliga upplevelsen av rymd, atmosfär, ljus och tomrum en central position. Förslaget innefattar ett hundra meter djupt schakt, två hisschakt, ett publikt torg park och tunnelbaneperrong. / During the autumn of 2013 the Swedish government announced that they intend to invest in expanding the Stockholm Metro. The expansion includes nine new stations; Sofia on Södermalm is one of them. The conditions of the site make the station to one of the deepest in the world. This proposal makes use of these conditions to connect the street level and the underground platform level and give the everyday experience of space, atmosphere, light and void a central position. The proposal comprises a hundred meters deep shaft, two elevator shafts, a public square park and train platform.

My project creates spaces for common use, reclaiming a little left-over piece of the city landscape. The mobile culture house unfolds and fragments in interaction with the places it encounters. It is flexible, multi-use and respectful of the surrounding environment. I have attempted to answer to questions concerning the development of the city of Stockholm in times of escalating urbanization and galloping housing shortage when unreflected densification risks to erase diversity, cause gentrification and reinforce segregation. I have investigated the existing flora of small, urban grass-root, resistance movements and I have added my own contribution to the set. / Mitt projekt skapar utrymmen för gemensamt bruk genom att återta en liten bit av stadslandskapet. Det mobila kulturhuset vecklar ut och fragmenterar sig i samspel med de platser som det möter. Det är flexibelt, multi-use och respektfullt mot den omgivande miljön. Jag har försökt att svara på frågor som behandlar utvecklingen av Stockholms stad en tid av ökande urbanisering och galopperande bostadsbrist när oreflekterad förtätning riskerar att radera mångfalden, orsaka gentrifiering och förstärka segregationen. Jag har undersökt den nuvarande floran av små, ​​urbana gräsrots-motståndsrörelser, och jag har lagt mitt eget bidrag till uppsättningen.

In recent years, attention on Black British history has increased in light of the 2020 resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement that encouraged Britons to rethink their participation in suppressing racialised communities. Much of this literature fills the gaps that have long existed in the British historical canon that overlook Black Briton’s and their existence in Britain entirely. This thesis seeks to contribute to this work through analysing the remarkable role of Black British bookshops and how they functioned as political, cultural, social, and imaginative spaces between the inauguration of the first Black bookshop in 1966 and the last International Book Fair of Radical, Black and Third World Books in 1995. Jürgen Habermas’s theory of public space is used and reframed to discuss the necessity of public space for marginalised communities in democratic societies. This is seen through the multifunctional aspects of bookselling space and the testimonies of bookshop owners and users who attest to the bookshop’s significance. Whilst the political importance of the Black British bookshop space has previously been emphasised, this thesis shows that their cultural, social and imaginative functions were also important aspects that drastically impacted the lives of Black Britons in the post-war era.