City design has long been recognized as predicated on power. Planners have the power to regulate the use and form of privately owned land—an enormous task. Zoning is the foundation of city planning. The caliber of cities' future development hinges on zoning. Over the last fifteen years, communities have been divesting themselves of their historic Euclidean zoning in favor of the newer concept of form-based code. However, changing an entire zoning code is an immense project that requires a massive investment of motivation, time, perseverance and money. Does changing code provide an answer to undesirable consequences of Euclidean zoning, or are the claims of form-based code advocates correct and their code the panacea for everything wrong with planning and development? This is a sweeping question and one that is asked in hundreds of planning offices by planners, urban designers, politicians and their communities. The primary question is why and how communities change from conventional Euclidean zoning to form-based code. This research examines the state of practice and the impact of form-based code on zoning. Issues critical to an examination of the theory and practice aspects of this investigation includes key questions: What motivates change? What difference does it make? Who are the primary motivators for change? What is the comparative analysis and the basis for change and the impact of form-based code? Two protocols, including online surveys of planning practitioners and case studies of Cincinnati, Denver and Miami, are used to investigate the intended, and often unintended, outcomes and consequences that emerge with a zoning change within an established community.

Processes of industry and economic exchange have significantly and continually defined the underlying structure and formal characteristics of the American city. Contemporary ‘distributed’ systems of economy and industry rely on the movement of goods produced in distant locations (often overseas) to their eventual point of consumption. This has created a fundamental spatial disconnect between production, manufacturing, and consumption within the city; where local economies often have no relationship with the production or subsequent economic benefit of the goods they consume. As these contemporary systems of industrial production are often reliant on Just-In-Time operational models, the speed and turnover of consumption have become the dominant metrics of economic success. Productive industrial entities and territory, once ingrained in the inhabited city fabric have gradually disappeared; leaving behind smooth, frictionless surfaces of retail, logistics, and service, lacking a social viscosity, and consideration for the public dimension of the city. This thesis argues that Walmart, the archetypal big-box retailer, forms today’s dominant industrial actor; significantly influencing the socio-economic, cultural, and physical configurations of the American city. First, Walmart’s current distributed operational model is analyzed to better understand and contextualize the connections between industry, production, consumption, and urbanization. The next sections speculate upon the long-term social, economic, and environmental sustainability of Walmart’s strategy; while examining the links between social interaction, idea exchange, innovation, and physical proximity within the city. As a result of many factors, including rising energy costs, this project predicts, and then explores a future where distributed operational models are no longer viable. This thesis predicts a subsequent transformation in manufacturing and consumption within the United States; linked to a resurgence in domestic production, by emerging micro-production formats. This scenario, coupled with a stated goal or mandate by Walmart to reduce overall supply chain energy expenditure, presents a unique opportunity for a speculative, opportunistic architecture within the American city. Walmart 2.0 radically reconsiders Walmart’s existing operational model and related built infrastructures, in the creation of a new industrial system that seeks to re-inject systems of consumption, production, and exchange, back into the urban fabric. Walmart becomes an ‘open’, ‘for-hire’ underlying facilitator for the production, consumption, and movement of goods between local nodes of economy, using their existing expertise in logistical, territorial, and data management. As such, Walmart 2.0 acts as a physical and systemic platform for self-organising production and market exchanges that are facilitated, but not controlled by Walmart. A redevelopment of the generic Walmart Supercenter creates a system of participation; where local communities of Walmart 2.0 users both create and consume the content flowing through the Walmart 2.0 system; allowing these communities to engage in the economies of their own locale. Broadly, Walmart 2.0 seeks to provoke the emergence of an urban fabric with an engrained sensitivity towards human interactions in relation to systems of production, consumption and exchange. Further, the project seeks to illustrate a method of operation, through which architects may gain an increased agency within the powerful industrial systems shaping the underlying structure of the contemporary city; a method based on the analysis of existing industrial actors, and speculating upon their future transformations with a heightened social consideration.

Among the many and varied episodes in the history of twentieth century architecture and urban planning, the British Townscape movement is usually associated with the rear guards of these fields; both conservative and nostalgic. If mentioned at all, historical accounts generally portray Townscape as a brief and sometimes necessary interlude to subsequent movements of greater consequence. This reception is due, in part, to contemporary movements such as the so-called ‘New Urbanism’, through which the more culturally conservative aspects of Townscape’s doctrine continue to persist, arguably masking and debasing an earlier and largely forgotten Townscape, originally intended to be modernist, visually striking and to challenge notions of tradition and taste in architectural and urban discourses. The following thesis proposes that Townscape’s contributions to the discourses and practices of the twentieth century are far more considerable than has been held to date. In its early phase, Townscape introduced several important conceptual innovations whose influence can still be felt within contemporary discourses, such as: ‘contextual’ or site specific design practice; comprehensive urban design, regardless of scale or disciplinarian frameworks; the insistence on the inclusion of historic buildings and urban fabric; and its promotion of a more scenographic, synthetic, compromised and pluralist approach, which resulted in informal, irregular and asymmetrical design solutions in architecture and urban planning. From today’s standpoint Townscape has historical interest, standing at the junction of some of the greater developments in architecture and urban planning, such as the transition from architectural modernism to post-modernism, and the rise of ‘urbanism’ and its positioning as the supreme question of architecture in the post-war period by architectural movements such as contextualism, neo-rationalism and post-modernism more generally. This thesis proposes that Townscape’s influence on these movements and their authors was far more substantial than is generally acknowledged. In architecture, personalities such as Colin Rowe, Leon and Rob Krier, Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, and Alison and Peter Smithson can be counted among those reacting to and to some degree influenced by the movement. In urban planning discourses, prominent reformists such as Jane Jacobs, Kevin Lynch and Christopher Tunnard also appear to have drawn on Townscape’s lessons in their criticism. In revisiting Townscape it is hoped that not only can a fairer and fuller picture of the movement emerge, but the scale and duration of the movement and the roles of its initiators and various supporters be duly appreciated. A thorough survey of the Architectural Review from 1930 to the 1980s shows some 1,400 articles relating to Townscape’s campaign, most of which have hitherto gone unnoticed in the scholarship on the period. These were contributed by around 200 authors, many of whom are rarely associated with the movement. This survey also reveals that most of the concepts and the rhetoric of Townscape was set much earlier than is usually thought, from the late 1930s to the early 1950s, that its intended scope was much more extensive than commonly held, and that it was planned, initiated and directed by Nikolaus Pevsner (1902-1983) and Hubert de Cronin Hastings (1902-1986). Both Pevsner and Hastings were occupied with Townscape throughout the 1940s and variously referred to the movement as ‘Visual Planning’ and ‘Exterior Furnishing’, which was more widely understood to relate to the picturesque revival carried out largely under Pevsner’s name in the Architectural Review. Throughout the 1940s Pevsner published extensively on the subject, while Hastings anonymously and pseudononymously directed discussion on the movement as executive editor of the Architectural Review, as well as from the less prominent position as proprietor of the influential Architectural Press. It is this body of work, its authors and its associated discourses that are the focus of the present enquiry. An analysis of these publications and their authors promises new insights into the early phase of the Townscape movement: its sources, originality, theory, objectives, and its influence and legacy in the practice and discourses of today. As an early reform movement of modernism, the view of Townscape put forward in this thesis challenges current historiographies, which tend to marginalize the movement’s position in the period. In its early phase Townscape was starkly modernist, but it contained much of the critique later taken up within the architectural urbanism of the 1960s and 1970s and can be seen as an important percussor to post-modernism. Additionally, Townscape’s particular approach to architecture and urban design reveals a greater value in contemporary discourses; one founded in its stylistic pluralism, its undogmatic interpretation of modernism, its insistence on historical and cultural continuity, its attention to the visual aspects and heterogeneity of the built environment, along with an aesthetic based on compromise, synthesis and inclusion.

Perth, Western Australia - a city become region one hundred kilometres in length and expanding yet - is a place variously adored and scorned; one noted widely for its landscape and its horizon, and relatively rarely for its architecture. Young, low lying, and sparsely lined with built form, Perth might be described as a thin city. The intent of this research is to entreat an optimistic and inquisitive reading of the city of Perth through the conceptualisation of a set of six narrative threads. Six fictive interpretations of Perth, each denoting qualities of thinness, are cast toward the factual city, inviting both confirmation and opposition to their themes. They are: private city, wide city, even city, city of the immediate future, reserve city and city of form fixation. The process of elucidating and questioning the presence of these narratives allows for thicknesses to emerge from the city region; latencies with which the city can be redressed. The mechanism for directing this interpretive view of the city is the process of mapping. Each narrative thread has been explored through the formulation of a set of maps as a visual text. Through the paired workings of the narratives and the mappings, opportune conditions and operations are uncovered within the thin city, complexities that belie the ubiquity of its surface. Mappings shift in scope from the scale of the region to a site of richness at its core, sampling out entities, structures and performative processes at work in the city's plan, distilling opportune sites that are then explored via the architectural project. At once analytical and synthetic, mappings identify existing points of intrigue and simultaneously invite their extrapolation. With the thin city narratives driving the content of the maps and forming the basis for their projectual exploration, this research seeks to engage with the nascent city and offer to it an armature for its amplification that operates within the city's delirium, its peculiarity, its distinctiveness.

Este trabalho resulta da procura de relações entre arquitetura e cidade a partir da experiência de realizar projetos na cidade de São Paulo. Nesta organização desta experiência monta-se um panorama da evolução das linhas mais gerais da estruturação urbana em construção na intenção de criar sentidos para probabilidades de evolução destas linhas mais gerais onde essas intervenções pontuais como estudos, se apresentam como partes. / This work is the result of the search of relationships between architecture and the city from the experience of accomplish urban design projects in São Paulo city. To organize this experience a panorama of the evolution of the most general guidelines of the urban structure construction is made in order to create meanings for its future evolution probabilities, where the punctual interventions, as studies, are presented as parts.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional & Community Planning / Laurence A. Clement / The Power & Light District is a mixed-use, urban district in the heart of the central business district. The area has seen rapid revitalization since construction began in 2005, and become a popular destination. This project examined the area using a chosen design framework. Documentation and reflection on the application of the design framework was then used to judge its efficacy when applied at the district scale. To gain the desired outcome of this study, there is a two-part research question. 1. How is Kansas City, Missouri’s Power & Light District viewed, and how well does the district score, when using the design framework created in Re-Framing Urban Space: Urban Design for Emerging Hybrid and High-Density Conditions? 2. How well does the Re-Framing Urban Space: Urban Design for Emerging Hybrid and High-Density Conditions design framework work when applied to the Power & Light District in Kansas City, Missouri? This project used several methods to research design frameworks and the Power & Light District. The literature review studies urban design and several design frameworks. GIS diagrams were used to study the Power & Light District. On-site surveys were used to provide public input. Finally, the chosen design framework was used to score the area. Documentation on the use of the design framework was used to reflect on the design framework’s efficacy. Chapter 4 Results and Chapter 5 Conclusions show the application of the design framework to the Power & Light District, and reflections on the efficacy of the framework. The district scores very well with an urban space value of 77%. While the design framework is very extensive, it is meant to judge sites at a smaller scale. For a more accurate scoring of the Power & Light District, the design framework could be adapted to better judge sites at a district scale.

Informal settlements are a common occurrence in South African due to housing backlogs and shortage of housing subsidies, and are often located on disputed land. To improve in-situ circumstances of these communities, informal settlement upgrades and urban design is required. Spatial data and maps are essential throughout the entire upgrading and urban design process in order to understand the current environment, plan new developments and communicate planned developments. All stakeholders need to understand maps to ensure active participation in the urban design process. Previous research demonstrated that a large number of planning professionals in South Africa have a relatively low level of map literacy, which is considered to be inadequate for effective planning. Many researchers proclaimed that because 3D visualisations resemble the real environment more than traditional maps, and are more intuitive, therefore 3D geovisualisations are easier to interpret. The goal of this research is to investigate the use of 3D geovisualisations (specifically 3D city models) for urban design in informal settlement upgrading in South Africa. To achieve this goal, the following topics were investigated: modelling processes (manual and procedural); visual design (visual characteristics, visual complexity and visual variables); and cognition related to spatial tasks on 3D geovisualisations and comparable alternatives (i.e. topographic maps, aerial photographs, 2D maps) when performing basic map reading tasks. Procedural modelling was found to be a feasible alternative to time-consuming manual modelling and has the capabilities to produce high-quality models. When investigating the visual design, the visualisation characteristics of 3D models of informal settlements, and relevance of a subset of visual variables for urban design activities of informal settlement upgrades were assessed. The results were used to produce various maps and 3D geovisualisations that were presented in quantitative user studies and expert interviews. The results of four user studies and expert interviews contributed to understanding the impact of various levels of complexity in 3D city models and map literacy of future geoinformatics and planning professionals when using aerial photographs, 2D maps and 3D models. The research results could assist planners in designing suitable 3D models for use throughout the entire urban design process. / As gevolg van agterstande met behuising en ’n tekort aan behuisingsubsidies, is informele woongebiede ’n algemene verskynsel in Suid-Afrika en is dit dikwels op betwiste grond geleë. Om hierdie in-situ omstandighede van die gemeenskappe te verbeter, is daar opgradering en stedelike beplanning nodig. Ruimtelike data en kaarte is deurlopend noodsaaklik vir die volledige opgradering en stadsbeplanningproses om sodoende die huidige omgewing te verstaan, nuwe ontwikkelings te beplan en die beplande ontwikkelings te kommunikeer. Dit is noodsaaklik dat alle rolspelers kaarte verstaan om aktiewe deelname aan die stedelike beplanningsproses te verseker. Vorige navorsing het getoon dat ’n groot aantal professionele beplanners in Suid-Afrika ’n relatiewe lae vlak van kaartgeletterdheid het, wat beskou word as onvoldoende om doeltreffende beplanning te kan doen. Baie navorsers maak daarop aanspraak dat 3D geovisualiserings nader aan die werklike omgewing is en dat dit meer intuïtief en makliker as tradisionele kaarte vertolk kan word. Die doel van hierdie navorsing is om die gebruik van 3D geovisualiserings (meer spesifiek 3D stadsmodelle) te ondersoek om die ontwikkeling van stadsbeplanning in informele woongebiede in Suid-Afrika op te gradeer. Om hierdie doelwit te bereik, is die volgende onderwerpe nagevors: modelleringsprosesse (volgens handleidings en prosesse); visuele ontwerp (visuele eienskappe, visuele kompleksiteit en visuele veranderlikes); en die herkenning van verwante ruimtelike take op 3D geovisualiserings en vergelykbare alternatiewe (byvoorbeeld topografiese kaarte, lugfoto’s, 2D kaarte) wanneer basiese kaartlees take uitgevoer word. Prosedurele modellering is ’n haalbare alternatief teenoor tydrowende modellering volgens handleidings en dit het die moontlikhede om hoë kwaliteit modelle te lewer. By die ondersoek van visuele ontwerp is die visuele karaktereienskappe van 3D modelle van informele woongebiede en die relevantheid van ’n onderafdeling van visuele veranderlikes beoordeel/geassesseer vir ontwerpaktiwiteite by informele nedersettings. Die resultate is gebruik om verskillende kaarte en 3D geovisualiserings te skep wat in kwantitatiewe gebruikerstudies en in onderhoude met kenners aangebied is. Die resultate van vier gebruikerstudies en onderhoude met kenners, het bygedra om die impak te verstaan van verskillende moeilikheidsvlakke van 3D stadsmodelle en kaartgeletterdheid van toekomstige geoinformatika- en professionele beplanners wanneer lugfoto’s, 2D kaarte en 3D modelle gebruik word. Die navorsingsresultate kan beplanners ondersteun om geskikte 3D modelle te ontwerp wat deurlopend in die stedelike beplanningsproses gebruik kan word. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / National Research Foundation (NRF) / German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) / University of Pretoria’s vice-chancellor academic development grant / University of Pretoria’s Study Abroad programme / Centre for Geoinformation Science / Geography, Geoinformatics and Meteorology / PhD / Unrestricted

Orientador: Silvia Aparecida Mikami Gonçalves Pina / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Civil, Arquitetura e Urbanismo / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-27T16:48:16Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Conde_KarlaMoreira_D.pdf: 12205712 bytes, checksum: 4cb3a0bd8342e55846f9a2ce49c7752b (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015 / Resumo: A qualidade ambiental urbana é influenciada por uma ampla gama de aspectos que compõem suas dimensões físicas e sistemas de atividades que interagem com as pessoas por meio de vivências, percepções e ações cotidianas. Assim, está relacionada a como a cidade é vivenciada em lugares que se mantêm atraentes para o uso e vida em comunidade. Tais dimensões urbanas, por sua vez, compreendem o conjunto de elementos e características do lugar e sua associação a aspectos multidimensionais do valor de quem o usa, influenciando os espaços e o cotidiano das pessoas. A principal característica de áreas identificadas como de alta qualidade ambiental é a vivacidade de seus espaços ao longo dos anos. O desenho urbano apresenta-se como possível elemento gerador dessa vivacidade, possibilitando melhorar a qualidade de vida nas cidades. Tal observação leva à hipótese de que determinadas dimensões da cidade associadas ao desenho urbano podem construir e manter uma qualidade ambiental em bairros habitacionais, cujo valor é percebido e vivenciado pela comunidade. Esta pesquisa tem por objetivo identificar as possíveis dimensões urbanas que permitam e incentivem a permanência da vivacidade em bairros habitacionais. A cidade de Vitória, capital do Estado do Espírito Santo, possui na área leste continental do município uma sequência de bairros residenciais que se destacam e despertam o interesse em estudos desta natureza pela particularidade de sua formação e desenvolvimento. Mesmo com crescimento populacional e mudanças ocorridas na sua ocupação, tais bairros têm preservado sua vivacidade ao longo de décadas. Para tanto, realizou-se um estudo de caso da área habitacional composta por dois bairros na cidade de Vitória/ES: Jardim da Penha e Mata da Praia. A análise focou os aspectos sociais, elementos da forma urbana, da percepção e valor socioambiental. Como contribuição foram desenvolvidas recomendações projetuais para bairros habitacionais no âmbito do desenho urbano no sentido de contribuir para a permanência da qualidade ambiental urbana em bairros existentes e especialmente para a sua introdução em novos projetos / Abstract: The quality of urban environment is influenced by a wide range of aspects that constitute its physical dimensions, and by systems of activities interacting with people through their living, perceptions, and daily actions. It is thus related to how the city is experienced in places that are kept attractive to community life and use. Such urban dimensions in turn consist of the set of elements and characteristics of the place together with its association with multidimensional aspects of the value added by who uses the place, thereby influencing the spaces and their daily lives. The main feature of the areas identified as of high environmental quality is the livability of their spaces over the years. Urban design is presented as a feasible element generating such livability, contributing to higher quality of life in cities. This observation leads to the hypothesis that certain aspects of urban design can build and keep urban environmental quality in residential neighborhoods, whose value is perceived and experienced by the community. Thus, the objective of this research is to identify the possible urban dimensions that contribute to keeping the livability of residential neighborhoods. The city of Vitória, in the state capital of Espírito Santo has in its continental eastern area of the city a row of residential neighborhoods that stand out and arouse interest in studies alike, due to the particularity of its formation and development. Even with population growth and changes in their occupation, such neighborhoods have preserved its vitality over the decades. To achieve such objective a case study of the residential area consisting of two neighborhoods in the city of Vitória / ES, i.e. Jardim da Penha and Mata da Praia are carried out. The analysis focused on the social aspects, elements of urban form, the perception and environmental value. As a contribution were developed urban design recommendations for residential neighborhoods to contribute to the persistence of urban environmental quality in existing neighborhoods and especially for its introduction in new designs / Doutorado / Arquitetura, Tecnologia e Cidade / Doutora em Arquitetura, Tecnologia e Cidade

Baserat på det teoretiska ramverket “Mind the G.A.P.S” har fältstudier utförts på ett antal platser i Malmö för att undersöka vad som utgör ett stressfritt, tryggt och trivsamt urbant stadsrum. En litteraturöversikt har sammanställts, som tillsammans med resultat från egna etnografiska studier har använts för att besvara forskningsfrågan, nämligen; “Hur kan vi utforma stadsrum idag med avsikten att reducera stress, inducera kognitiv stimulans och inge känslan av samhörighet hos invånarna i städer?”. Utifrån resultaten har en arkitektonisk modell av ett utvalt stadsrum i Malmö tagits fram, för att konkretisera och demonstrera exempel på hur justeringar och bearbetningar av stadsrum kan utföras med avsikt att minska stress, öka trivsel och bidra till psykiskt välmående i våra stadsmiljöer. / Based on the theoretical framework “Mind the GAPS”, field studies have been conducted at different locations in Malmö to investigate how these relate to the question of what constitutes a stress-free, safe and pleasant urban space. A literature review has been compiled, which together with results from our own ethnographic studies, have been used to answer the research questions, namely; “How can we design urban environments today, with the intent of reducing stress-levels, induce cognitive stimulus, and establish the sense of solidarity?”. Based on the results, we have built an architectural model to concretise and demonstrate examples of how adjustments and adaptations of urban spaces can be carried out with the intention of reducing stress, increasing wellbeing and contributing to mental wellbeing in our urban environment.

The subject of the masters thesis is an urban solution of the area circumscribed by the streets Sportovní, Drobného, tř. Gen. Píky, Porgesova. The emphasis is put primarily on restoring and enhancing the central point, which is the football stadium, building more effective conection to nearby traffic hubs and revitalising the surrounding parks. Estimated result is to bring back the sport function to the area as well as overall increase of the interest from public.