Thesis (M.S.)--University of Delaware, 2009. / Principal faculty advisor: Robert E. Lyons, Dept. of Plant & Soil Sciences. Includes bibliographical references.

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

The transformation of Hong Kong into a high-density city has created a unique three-dimensional urban fabric defined through networks of urban activity and infrastructure within tight spatial constraints of mountainous slopes and the island shoreline. In Hong Kong urban development, the government performs a dual role both as landlord and as administrator determining the development agenda. With limited space available for development high land price policies have restricted land supplies and priority is given to ‘economic space’ rather than ‘life space’. This has created a city of mobility based on consumption where privatized public spaces such as shopping malls, corporate plazas and elevated walkways are linked primarily to promote shopping. Public spaces are increasingly managed by private parties, and the degree of publicness of such spaces is often not clearly distinguishable to their potential users. Due to Hong Kong’s population density of approximately 33,000 persons/km2, practices of everyday life are increasingly limited by multiple restrictions controlling the use of spaces that only seem to be public. The district of Central, Hong Kong features an urban network of both publicly and privately maintained elevated pedestrian walkways that provide a secondary circulation space. Designed according to commercial priorities, the walkway system in Central typically links privately owned second floor lobbies with similar owners to promote consumption. Although these regulated spaces are required to allow public access 24 hours a day, pedestrian connectivity seems merely an after thought. In such private public spaces, pedestrians move between consumption nodes through a maze of displays and windows filled with luxury consumer goods. This study takes focus on the walkways in Central thus investigating publicness specifically within the context of Hong Kong's high-density urban fabric, then within a wider context of elevated pedestrian walkway systems in Asian Pacific cities. To this end, this thesis employs an empirical case study methodology consisting of a series of observational studies. Each of these studies publicness transcribed through observations of use, users and use patterns. This study identifies a distinction that underlies the discussion of publicness: that of non-place as opposed to place. The distinction of space and place relates to whether users establish personal relationships to the spaces they use and has drawn much critical attention in urban studies over the past several decades. Places typically provide the stage for social practices. The relationship between place and mobility at an elevated level has however, not been studied in detail yet. As mobile urban populations pass through places more than we dwell in them, a new type of space has emerged to facilitate a ‘frictionless passage’, or non-place. Within this realm of non-place pedestrians pass through zones of movement like passengers experiencing a lack of relationship or disconnectivity with a space. This leads to the question whether elevated pedestrian walkways consisting of spatial flows, movement and transitional zones are only capable of performing as non-places? Can relationships develop between the walkways and their users, making them more than non-places, but places? A case study forms the main part of this thesis and specifically focuses on observing aspect of movement and circulation within Central that determine perceptions of publicness. Findings resulting from this study provide an understanding of the ambiguous nature of spaces in Central. From a background study of elevated pedestrian walkways in six Asian Pacific cities, indicators of publicness are established that provide a framework to distinguish characteristics of elevated pedestrian walkways. In Central, gatherings among domestic helpers are found to contribute to the success of the elevated pedestrian walkway system into urban context. Results of this study indicate that elevated pedestrian walkways can be both places and non-places depending on the publicness of space and suggest how a transition of publicness can occur within such spaces. / published_or_final_version / Architecture / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

We walk along the street every day. In the densely built urban environment, streets are the most abundant public space that serve not only as channels for movement but also as public realms and places catering for social activities. Throughout the development of Hong Kong, many public streets have evolved with a unique character and local identity that are integrated into the everyday life of the community. Yet, in a rapidly transforming city like Hong Kong, redevelopment has posed considerable threats to such significant cultural landscapes of public streets. In particular, mega redevelopment projects substantially alter the physical space and also trigger subsequent changes in the social dimension of streets. Such a transformation thus results in the role of streets gradually deviating from being a public space and streets disconnected from our everyday lived experience both practically and connotatively. It is the intention of this Study to investigate how mega-redevelopment has reshaped the way public urban streets are lived. It attempts to answer such questions as what cause the changes and what the changes are. Inspired by Lefebvre’s critique of everyday life, the physical and social dimension of public streets is simultaneously formed by two interrelated constituents. On one side, planning and governance measures by the institution determine more the physical space. On the other side, these institutional tools mediate spatial practices of individual street users, which thus in turn dictate the living component of public urban streets. Through the local case study of Langham Place, a mega-redevelopment in Mong Kok, this Study illustrates the dialectic relationship between these two aspects of space. Bearing in mind the dual role of streets, the findings suggest a heightened attention to the impact of redevelopment on the social space and the importance of planning for everyday life. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

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published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

This dissertation presents a study of the urban form of the Old Town of Ghat, the historical sultanate of the Azjer Tuareg. An analysis of the public and private spaces of this collective artifact is presented in order to comprehend and document the relationship between this Saharan town's architecture and Ghatian society. This study illustrates how Ghat's vernacular architecture represents a range of culturally distinct meanings and values and how this architecture reflects Ghatian life. In order to analyze the built environment of Ghat and the pattern of use of public and private spaces, this dissertation investigates Azjer Tuareg culture and documents the various existing nomadic and semi-nomadic Azjer Tuareg housing typologies in Libya. It investigates not only the contribution of the socio-cultural practices of this culture to the way spaces were configured, organized, and used, but also the Ghatian peoples' daily and seasonal life routines as well as their various social and economic activities. / This dissertation explores Ghat's spaces at three levels of its urban environment: the home (domestic), the neighbourhood (communal), and the town (public). It focuses on the relationship between the social aspects of Ghatian culture and the formation and use of the town's spaces. It also investigates the affect of trans-Saharan trade and the colonization and ruling history of Old Ghat on its formation and/or growth and the creation of public and private spatial domains in an attempt to understand the embedded meanings of Ghat's built environment. This study also investigates the role of climate in the formation of Old Ghat and the ingenious architecture and structure of its dwellings. This architecture reflects local construction techniques and limited local resources, consequently imparting distinct meaning to the built form of Ghat.

Mobile technologies are the latest technologies in the realm of communication media. They have the potential to flatten the world by making it a place where gender, age, class, race and nationality can no longer hold us back from being heard and being informed. We have learned that these technologies can help to liberate and empower us, and they can lead to a collective cognition as much as they can distract us from what we need to know about the world we live in. In Greece thousands of years ago, a selected number of Greeks had a public space called the Agora to discuss the issues that concerned the public, meaning each and every citizen. They were the first to be able to create the space and place were the word “democracy” could be brought into language; the very word that was used to start a new war in the era of a communication revolution in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. There are still issues that concern the public today such as wars, global warming, homelessness or human rights which are all matters of our collective cognition. However, today in an age of information revolution the public life of people and their collective cognition is being exercised mostly in the virtual spaces of the Internet. Simultaneously, some physical spaces are being abandoned by people. This thesis investigates the possibility of having physical public spaces that are enriched with communication media and not weakened by it. If architects rethink their designs based on a new understanding of the networked society it might be possible to turn this “networked individualism” into a networked collectivism. However, most designed public spaces fail to offer new possibilities that can transform space for the new generation of users. Here, the aim is to understand a new generation of users. Who have they become as a result of new communication media? And how can architects design in a way that responds to this new subject in architecture?

Public space is an integral part of every downtown centre. It forms the connective tissue which binds the downtown together and allows for human exchange and activity to occur. Successful public spaces attract potential users and keep them there. They do so by satisfying the most significant of human needs. Downtown New Westminster possesses a collection of public spaces which do not function well within the urban environment. Not only are they underused but they lack identity and linkages to one another and the surrounding community. To create a successful public realm, the Downtown requires a comprehensive public space plan. The purpose of this thesis is to present the appropriate tools necessary to accomplish this task. These tools include a public space planning framework, a series of practical guiding principles, and a planning strategy. The planning framework outlines the most significant user needs and the methods with which to achieve them. The human needs addressed include community, democratic, physical, psychological, ecological, functional and economic needs. In addition, a systems/ecological planning approach and an implementation and monitoring strategy provide the basis from which the planning strategy is developed. The practical guiding principles are derived from an analysis of the public space planning practices of San Francisco, California, Portland, Oregon and Victoria, British Columbia. They focus primarily on the approach, content and presentation of public space plans which facilitate the development of a successful public realm. Specifically, the guiding principles promote the use of a holistic planning approach, the creation of specific yet flexible directives, the need to keep public space planning active in downtown centres, and the easy interpretation and implementation of public space planning initiatives. The public space planning strategy is a plan of action designed to guide the creation of a public space plan for Downtown New Westminster. Based on the planning framework, the practical guiding principles, and the review of the Downtown and its public space planning efforts, the strategy outlines each consecutive step of the process, the tasks involved, and the agencies responsible for carrying them out. The twenty steps involved range from obtaining City support to conduct a public space plan for the Downtown to the creation and implementation of the plan itself. Together, these public space planning tools - the planning framework, the guiding principles and the strategy - form the foundation of a public space plan for the Downtown neighbourhood. If these tools are implemented in the proposed manner, it is likely that a successful public realm may be achieved.

When undertaking the renovation of large-scale road infrastructure, there is a unique design opportunity to reconsider the role of road networks and their effect on our contemporary urban landscape. This study analyses Montreal’s trenched Décarie Expressway to explore the potential space created by road infrastructure and its role as a key element in urban renewal. The urban design takes shape according to the specific characteristics of the neighborhoods adjacent to the Décarie axis. Remediation of these neighborhoods occurs here by introducing public spaces and inserting real-estate development over the expressway. The design concentrates on connecting pedestrian paths along a new public plinth. Since we have inherited the road infrastructure developed by modern car culture, we must begin to envision transportation infrastructure as an opportunity for public spaces with real three-dimensional connectivity that would marry civic needs with cultural amenities and ultimately symbolize the physical rehabilitation of the Décarie axis.