A city's intersections are places or voids where the trajectories, paths and commuter routes of a cities citizens collide. They are points of momentary stasis. At intersections the agents of speed and haste characteristic of the flow of the city are brought to a collective pause. The challenge of this thesis was to bring about an architectural representation of this negotiation between flow and pause. There was a desire to see the commuterscape of Vancouver as a way of allowing different publics and contrasting programmes the opportunity for chance encounters and collisions. This desire led to the design of a building which served as an intersection, sometimes carefully controlled while at others free and open to the random flows of urbanism. The site at the corner of Main and Terminal streets in Vancouver was chosen because it is a place where the di verse social, economic and historical fabrics of the city are intersecting. This site is the busiest at grade intersection in Vancouver where skytrain and bus passengers, car drivers and pedestrians are variously pushed together and pulled apart. Commuter space and commuter movement through that space are generally assumed to be unproductive, uninfected movement through vacuous and empty space. This thesis challenges that view by inserting a building into this commuter space to utilize the potentials for exchange, negotiation and encounter offered by such a space. The building is made up of two very different programs - one containing a series of small performing arts theatres, the other commercial and rentable office space. In between the two, the inbound and outbound skytrain tracks and a public walkway create varying perceptual experiences which mediate between the two different typologies. The public zones of the building are used to link the varied programs together and to create connections to the surrounding park and buildings.

A mixed integer optimization model is developed to determine both the optimal location of transit centres to serve BC Transit's Lower Mainland route network and the optimal allocation of buses to those centres. The existing five transit centres are explored as well as five candidate facilities. The model considers nonrevenue transportation cost (deadhead), capital cost of constructing candidate transit centres and the salvage values of existing centres. A linear regression is generated to produce the travel times from the terminus of a route to potential transit centre locations. The optimal solution is determined, resulting in potential annual savings of over $560,000 compared to the current location-allocation strategy. Various experiments are performed to examine the sensitivity of model parameters and to determine the effect of different planning scenarios. The effect of the optimal solution on driver relief is considered. Conclusions as well as directions for further research are offered. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

A city's intersections are places or voids where the trajectories, paths and commuter routes of a cities citizens collide. They are points of momentary stasis. At intersections the agents of speed and haste characteristic of the flow of the city are brought to a collective pause. The challenge of this thesis was to bring about an architectural representation of this negotiation between flow and pause. There was a desire to see the commuterscape of Vancouver as a way of allowing different publics and contrasting programmes the opportunity for chance encounters and collisions. This desire led to the design of a building which served as an intersection, sometimes carefully controlled while at others free and open to the random flows of urbanism. The site at the corner of Main and Terminal streets in Vancouver was chosen because it is a place where the di verse social, economic and historical fabrics of the city are intersecting. This site is the busiest at grade intersection in Vancouver where skytrain and bus passengers, car drivers and pedestrians are variously pushed together and pulled apart. Commuter space and commuter movement through that space are generally assumed to be unproductive, uninfected movement through vacuous and empty space. This thesis challenges that view by inserting a building into this commuter space to utilize the potentials for exchange, negotiation and encounter offered by such a space. The building is made up of two very different programs - one containing a series of small performing arts theatres, the other commercial and rentable office space. In between the two, the inbound and outbound skytrain tracks and a public walkway create varying perceptual experiences which mediate between the two different typologies. The public zones of the building are used to link the varied programs together and to create connections to the surrounding park and buildings. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate