The purpose of this study is to investigate ritual in order to establish an intimacy between architecture and its users. The lithurgy of the Roman Catholic Church is used as a point of departure, but the study is especially concerned with personal secular ritual. The intervention will function as an urban retreat. It consists of a series of contemplative spaces that facilitate a spiritual journey. The Retreat is based on ideas surrounding the traditional Roman Catholic Convent, which informed the accommodation schedule to a great extend. The study recognizes the new approach of the Roman Catholic Religion, which entails a holistic ministry that plays an increasingly critical and social role. The Retreat will therefore function as a base for religious and social organizations to work from in the inner-city of Pretoria. The retreat will also offer limited social facilities such as counselling and seminar rooms. The site is situated in the inner-city of Pretoria, in the block directly north-east of Church Square. The site consists of two properties: the northern consists of the National Library of South Africa (NLSA), with the southern being a pan-handle erf that functions as a service courtyard for commercial ventures on Church Street. The Noordvaal thoroughfare runs parallel to the site on its western edge, linking Church and Vermeulen Streets. The site exists unnoticed by pedestrians using the arcade, because of a boundary wall. Of further importance is the 2,8 m slope of the site from south to north over a distance of 140 m. The project directly addresses urban issues as well as spatial and emotional ones. The intervention is seen as part of a process of architectural proliferation. It takes the existing fabric and current conditions and rather than replacing them, creates a synthesis of elements so as to evolve a new urban condition; i.e. how to grow a piece of city rather than how you build it. Design decisions were influenced by Pallasmaa's ideas on fragile architecture: it is concerned with real sensory interaction instead of conceptual manifestations. Problems and opportunities are identified on a small scale and the response is focussed on these: it is an architecture that grows and opens up. / Dissertation (MArch (Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2005. / Architecture / unrestricted

BMA Innovation Consulting is committed to serving consumers products that can play a more meaningful role in household cleaning. So far, their innovation department has used psychology-based principles and approaches that have helped them understand consumers’ preferences, attitudes and claimed needs in household cleaning. That said, little information has been collected on the active role that products play or could play as participants in the everyday dynamics of US consumers. An anthropological approach to the study of U.S. kitchens, as an important center of family interaction in U.S. households, should yield important insights to the design and development of products that can more effectively and more actively participate in those dynamics. With this project I am fundamentally proposing a new approach to the identification of critical product design requirements. Figure on the right shows the key differences between the psychology-derived principles the organization is mostly using today vs. the anthropological lenses through which I will be conducting my research. Overall, I will be leveraging existing knowledge in the “individual desires” realm, connecting it to the collective situation & cultural context within which “cleaning action” emerges.

The purpose of this thesis is to establish whether Swedish fan conventions organised around East-Asian popular culture such as anime and manga can be identified as a form of secular ritual. The methods used to determine this include participant observation, interviews and ethnographic data. Defining secular ritual as a performance event that establishes an alternative context that transforms the everyday without being connected to a religious or supernatural worldview or origin, we find that Swedish conventions of this kind may be called a form of ritual that engages people united by a common, broad field of interests and a notion of being outside of society’s norms in different ways, most notably in regards to sexuality and gender. This opens a discussion about Swedish fan conventions and how they may inform us about the use and function of rituals in a secularised society.

Ce mémoire de maîtrise vise à contribuer aux études rituelles et à l’anthropologie du sécularisme. Sur la base d’une recherche ethnographique menée au Québec, nous étudions la pratique des officiants de rites de passage séculiers qui opèrent en dehors de la religion organisée. Il s’agit de comprendre comment ceux-ci renouvèlent les rites de passage en dehors d’un appui ou d’une régulation institutionnels. Nous traitons des cérémonies de naissance et de mariage et cherchons spécifiquement à étudier comment ces célébrants, tels qu’ils se décrivent, recourent à l’innovation et à la créativité rituelle pour offrir des rites porteurs de sens dans un contexte social marqué par une hétérogénéité de sensibilités religieuses. En effet, les célébrants séculiers s’adressent à des individus distanciés de la religion instituée et doivent donc satisfaire leurs valeurs, croyances et visions du monde ainsi que celles des membres de leur entourage encore proches de la tradition catholique. Les résultats de cette recherche qualitative se basent sur un échantillon de dix célébrants séculiers établis au Québec et présentant une diversité d’approches et de contextes de pratique. La collecte de données est basée sur des entretiens semi-dirigés ainsi que des observations effectuées auprès d’eux. Cette étude montre que les célébrants les plus créatifs sont motivés par la dimension sociale et spirituelle de la célébration plutôt que par des motifs économiques. Même s’ils opèrent en atomes libres, ils s’inscrivent dans un nouveau paradigme rituel plus large observé par Catherine Bell (2009). Celui-ci est axé sur les éléments suivant : une conception du rite qui dépasse la frontière du religieux et devient un moyen universel d’épanouissement du soi et du collectif ; un rite de passage qui est conçu comme un processus transformationnel et réflexif pour les principaux participants; une fonction sociale du rite qui se manifeste dans la consolidation du relationnel et un registre d’authenticité alors que les croyances religieuses deviennent secondaires ; une autorité du célébrant qui diminue en faveur de celle des participants ; une dimension expérientielle et participative du rite qui est fortement investie. / This master thesis aims at making a contribution to ritual studies and the anthropology of secularism. The ethnographic research I present is based in Quebec and centers on new specialists of secular rites of passage, who are ritual makers that practice outside of organized religion. My central objective is to understand how these self-described celebrants creatively contribute to the practice of rites of passage, without relying purely on institutional support or regulation. The focus of this thesis is on birth and wedding ceremonies. I present how these celebrants use ritual innovation and creativity to offer meaningful rites in a social context marked by diversity with respect to different religious sensitivities. Indeed, secular celebrants direct their services toward people who are distanced from institutionalized religion and therefore must satisfy their values, beliefs and worldviews, in addition to elder members of the community that may still adhere to catholic traditions. The results of this qualitative research are based on a sample of ten secular celebrants operating in Quebec and displaying a variety of approaches to ritual making. The primary mode of data gathering is through semi-directed interviews and observational interactions with ritual practitioners. This study demonstrates that the social and spiritual dimensions of the wedding and birth celebrations drive the ritual celebrants, rather than purely economical motivations. Even though ritual makers may develop their practice independently from one another, the most innovative celebrants share traits and participate in a larger emerging ritual paradigm observed by Catherine Bell (2009). This paradigm is characterized by a vision where rites of passage are considered a universal means for the empowerment of the self and the community; rites of passage become a transformational as well as reflexive process for the core ritual participants; the social function of ritual is emphasized toward an ideal of authenticity whereas religious beliefs take a secondary importance; the ritual leader loses authority in favour of the participants; the experiential and participatory component of ritual are strongly invested.