Since taking hold in the mid 1960s, the modern atrium has become prevalent in many designs and buildings within contemporary architecture. The modern day atrium has endured to find its place amidst our current technologies and design aspirations by continuing to offer a capacity for assisting in urban strategies, providing strong economic returns on investment, conserving or recycling existing buildings, and for its potential to reduce energy consumption. Today, as concerns for energy and the environment rise to prominence within contemporary opinion, the reliance on more integrated conservational design strategies such as what the atrium offers in the matter of material and energy conservation is more relevant than ever. Yet simply including an atrium space within a building does not guarantee its effectiveness in realizing the potential for sustainable design. By selecting to survey a collection of recently completed academic buildings in Southern Ontario, the thesis aimed to examine what current reality exists in our use of the atrium with regards to its conservational characteristics. By examining the atrium’s ability to integrate sustainable design strategies in three areas: the adaptation into existing buildings and flexible program space; the use of effective daylighting; and the provisions to manage passive air handling; the thesis identified what conservational attributes are present and how often these functions are accomplished within the atrium designs of the selected study group of buildings. Overall it was found that the current trends of conservationism in atria of the studied academic buildings are constant, that is, they do not exhibit growth proportional to the increasing awareness of ‘green’ and sustainable thinking seen in today’s culture. Furthermore, the thesis closes with a concluding critique, providing a discussion surrounding the belief that though the atrium is a possible material and energy conservational tool, much of its success can be attributed to the meticulous planning and holistic approach involved in the execution of successfully resolved atria designs.

This project involved the adaptive reuse of Maw Garage at 112 King Street. The building was transformed into an interpretive centre for Winnipeg’s Exchange District. As museums are faced with challenges of being relevant in today’s context, museum planners have started to shift their attention toward new approaches for the design of these environments. The purpose of this project was to investigate the evolving nature of the museum, and to determine how its role in society could be modified to better accommodate its audience’s needs. Society’s understanding of heritage in regard to the way we interpret, relate to, and connect with objects, each other, and environments has changed. A thorough review of literature resulted in a broad understanding of post-museum, constructivist learning, and public space theories. Combined with knowledge gained from the analysis of three precedents and programming, these theories enabled the development of a contemporary museum that challenges stereotypical ideas of the museum. This design proposal illustrates one possible way in which post-museum, constructivist learning, and public space theories could be used to design a new museum. Although the solution presented here is specific to Winnipeg’s Exchange District and the Heritage Winnipeg client, conceivably, the same theories could be used to design interpretive centres elsewhere in North America.

The current human-created division between the natural and built environments has exacerbated environmental problems because nature has been designed as and, consequently, is seen as an Other to be utilized and manipulated at will. Exploring this disconnected relationship between humans and nature, as well as its origin and its effect on building occupants and the environment, is thus a necessary part of this project. The primary concern, however, centers on how we can establish a relationship with the natural environment through interior design to help foster ecological design practices and positive environmental behaviors that move beyond sustainability, resulting in a positive human-nature relation while supporting a coevolutionary perspective. Specifically, this investigation utilizes biophilic design as a solution to the division. The product is an adaptively reused structure that houses a mixed-use, multi-unit residential development, which explores the creation of human-nature connections through direct, indirect, and symbolic means.

As a master’s practicum of interior design, this project is concerned with the role of design in shaping mass and individual identity. Cultural commodities, as components of the Culture Industry, effectively define a communal identity for the individuals. The Winnipeg Metropolitan Theatre is chosen as the site of this practicum. This Practicum is interested in defining new spatial relationships and functions. In order for these goals to be achieved, a new function has been defined. The public studio for ephemeral arts is open to the whole society for being involved in the artistic process. By using a qualitative research method, this practicum studies the theoretical aspects of modern mass identity. However being an interior design project, it heavily relies on the ideas of a selected number of theorists, mainly from the Frankfurt school, for building the theoretical foundation of the design. The new design is the result of questioning the existing space’s spatial hierarchy, the new function’s spatial requirements, and a critical approach toward the adaptive reuse of an existing building.

There are two significant impedances to the realization of the potential of ontologies. First, many ontology designers lack the necessary background in formal logics to express their intuitions clearly and precisely, resulting in the proliferation of ontologies with low expressivity. Concurrently, developing semantic mappings between existing ontologies is difficult, because much of the semantics is external to the representation. This thesis uses the idea of metaphor to develop architectures for ontology repositories to serve as bottom-up reusable resources. Moreover, an ontology design algorithm has been developed that allows designers to communicate their ideas at the semantic level, simply by generating and vetting models. Finally, a semantic mapping algorithm has been developed that uses an ontology repository to determine the similarities and differences between any number of target ontologies. An ontology for partial orders has been elaborated to demonstrate the proof of concept and populate the first iteration of the repository.

There are two significant impedances to the realization of the potential of ontologies. First, many ontology designers lack the necessary background in formal logics to express their intuitions clearly and precisely, resulting in the proliferation of ontologies with low expressivity. Concurrently, developing semantic mappings between existing ontologies is difficult, because much of the semantics is external to the representation. This thesis uses the idea of metaphor to develop architectures for ontology repositories to serve as bottom-up reusable resources. Moreover, an ontology design algorithm has been developed that allows designers to communicate their ideas at the semantic level, simply by generating and vetting models. Finally, a semantic mapping algorithm has been developed that uses an ontology repository to determine the similarities and differences between any number of target ontologies. An ontology for partial orders has been elaborated to demonstrate the proof of concept and populate the first iteration of the repository.

This thesis aims to develop a knowledge structuring framework to organize knowledge according to means-ends relationships. Means-ends relationships are particularly relevant in technology and goal-oriented domains such as the geo-engineering domain, where technical problems are identified, and solutions proposed. The proposed goal oriented representation in this thesis does not replace current classification methodologies. In this project, a small corpus of research publications from a technology domain is used to help construct the framework. The main means-ends relationships from the articles are manually extracted and represented in a graphical model showing which problems are approached, by which solutions proposed, and in which publications. Proposed solutions can lead to new problems which are in turn addressed by solutions proposed in other publications. A metamodel is derived to capture the important concepts and relationships relevant for this purpose. The metamodel, and the framework have undergone several iterations before finalization.

Inner city blighted industrial sites are primarily associated with the general phenomenon of deindustrialization within the post-industrial inner city that is caused by spatial and functional restructuring of the industrial activity. Blighted industrial sites are vacant, obsolete, or underutilized industrial buildings, facilities and other related industrial functions and areas. Such blighted areas may have physical, functional, social, economic, and environmental impact problems both within the site, as well as on surrounding properties. Brownfield sites represent a severe form of blighted sites which include real or perceived environmental contamination. Brownfield redevelopment requires environmental clean-up to acceptable regulatory standards which may result in a costly process. The general research goal is to achieve an understanding of this complex problem context as well as to establish the pertinent planning framework for redevelopment of blighted industrial sites within the Canadian inner city. The research process includes three parts. Part One includes an extensive preliminary literature review of brownfield redevelopment case studies in Canada, United States, and the United Kingdom. It also includes an outline of general planning theory and related interdisciplinary theories. The preliminary findings of literature review reveal a multiple component interactive problem context that indicates a need for an integrative planning framework addressing multiple problem components. The preliminary research findings for the planning framework are further studied and examined in four empirical case studies included in Part Two. The specific research objectives and research questions address three constituent parts of the planning framework including the nature of the problem context, potential policy directions, and the planning process. The central research question is “what is the appropriate planning framework and approach for brownfield redevelopment given a multiple component interactive problem context? Part Three synthesizes the findings of Parts One and Two, which highlights the proposed planning framework for brownfield redevelopment, including an outline of major problems and policy directions based on impact evaluation by key participants in the empirical case studies, as well as outlining the main characteristics of the planning process. Some of the main problems and issues include site contamination and related legal liabilities, cost of site remediation that may exceed property value, stakeholders’ conflicting objectives, social stigma associated with brownfields, clarity and consistency of the environmental approval process as, community support. The proposed policy directions also represent multiple components and they are mainly as follows: • To prepare an inventory of brownfield sites, • To establish public-private partnership for project financing especially for site remediation, • To develop self-financing mechanism (like TIF/TIEF) to finance cost of site remediation, • To establish a redevelopment authority that is directly responsible for the process, • To foster public-private-community collaboration and partnership, • To secure accessibility of local residents to newly provided opportunities (like jobs), • To adopt multiple-component integrative planning framework to link major problem components and planning sub-processes The research findings also highlight the planning process being manifested at two main poles including the project developer and his consulting team, the public approval authority, in addition to community residents and interest groups that are involved in the public consultation process. The development approval process is the common organizational set-up and interface for stakeholders’ involvement in the process. The main characteristics of the proposed planning process include multiple-component multi-disciplinary context consisting of interactive planning sub-processes within each component, multi-level spatial contexts, involvement of multi-stakeholders with conflicting objectives and vision, incrementally adaptive, critical time and timing context, and mixed-rationality comprehensive planning vision. This research asserts the need for addressing the multiple components of environmental, physical, economic, social, and political planning without prior bias or predominance to any of these components. This also asserts the need for multi-stakeholder public-private-community collaboration and partnership.

Today s market is driven by the desire for increasingly complex products that perform well from manufacturing to disposal. Designing these products for multiple lifecycle phases requires effective management of engineering knowledge and integration of this knowledge across multiple disciplines. By managing this knowledge, products can be realized faster, perform better and be more complex. However, management techniques are often very costly and managers can easily become bogged down with large quantities of information, slowing the design process and degrading knowledge transfer. Thus, a need exists for effective yet inexpensive knowledge management. One approach for decreasing the costs associated with generating design knowledge is to reuse modules of existing knowledge. In Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE), information about a design is stored formally in many knowledge structures, or models, including requirements, stakeholders, and analyses. To support the reuse of the existing knowledge in design, MBSE is used as a basis for integrating engineering analysis models. In this thesis, a framework is presented for model classification that organizes models by components and aspects. This scheme is found to be useful in classifying engineering analysis models for reuse by storing them as a set in containers known as Multi-Aspect Component Models (MAsCoMs). Each model in a MAsCoM is related to the formal structure model of a physical component, and to the many aspects of the component that the model represents. The Systems Modeling Language, OMG SysML, is used to implement MAsCoMs and support MBSE. Validation of the MAsCoM concept is performed with fluid-power design examples, including a log splitter, scissor lift, and hydraulic excavator. In these examples, MAsCoMs improve design value by 1) Classifying modular and composable engineering analysis models for reuse in multiple disciplines, and 2) Providing knowledge modules to computer-automated algorithms for the future automated composition of component models into system models to perform system-level analyses.

Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) desize effluent is a high COD contributor to towel manufacturing plant's Primary Oxygenation Treatment of Water operation, and being non-biodegradable, is a threat to the environment. When all-PVA/wax size is used in weaving, significant incentives exist to recover the synthetic polymer material from the desize wash water stream and reuse it. A new technology that would eliminate the disadvantages of the current Reverse Osmosis Ultrafiltration (UF) PVA recovery process is Vacuum Flash Evaporation (VFE). This research adapts the VFE process to the recovery and reuse of all-PVA size emanating from towel manufacturing, and compares the economics of its implementation in a model plant to current plant systems that use PVA/starch blend sizes with no materials/water recovery. After bench scale research optimized the VFE PVA recovery process from the desize effluent and determined the mass of virgin PVA that was required to be added to the final, recycled PVA size formulations. The physical changes in the recycled size film and yarn composite properties from those of the initial (conventional) slashing were determined using a number of characterization techniques, including DSC, TGA, SEM, tensile testing, viscometry, number of abrasion cycles to first yarn breaks, microscopy and contact angle measurements. Cotton chemical impurities extracted from the yarns during desizing played an important role in the recovered PVA film physical properties. The recovered PVA improved the slashed yarn weave ability. Along with recovered PVA, pure hot water was recovered from the VFE. Virgin wax adds to the final, recycled size formulations were determined to be unnecessary, as the impurities extracted into the desize effluent stream performed the same functions in the size as the wax. Using the bench results, the overall VFE process was optimized and demonstrated to be technically viable through six cycles, proof-of-concept trials conducted on a Webtex Continuous Pilot Slasher. Based on the pilot scale trials, comparative economics were developed. Incorporation of the VFE technology for PVA size recovery and recycling resulted in ~$3.2M/year in savings over the conventional PVA/starch/wax process, yielding a raw ROI of less than one year based on a $3M turnkey capital investment.