Transportation infrastructure is important for human mobility and population well-being. However, it can also have detrimental impacts on health and equity, including through increased air pollution and its unequal social distribution. There is a need for better understanding of these impacts and for better approaches that improve health and equity outcomes of transportation planning programs. In this study, we are investigating the air pollution and health equity impacts of an ongoing large-scale metropolitan transportation improvement program, Tampa Bay Next (TBNext). Specific objectives are: 1) to characterize and quantify the air pollution levels and population exposures resulting from the roadway expansion currently planned under TBNext, and 2) to identify key attributes that could improve health and equity consideration in TBNext and similar programs. Using a multi-component modeling system that combines agent-based travel demand simulation with air pollution dispersion estimation, we simulated population exposures to oxides of nitrogen (NOx) resulting from two scenarios: one with the proposed TBNext lane expansions and one without it. To elucidate potential impacts on equity, including disparities in exposure for low-income and minority groups, the distribution of exposure among the population was compared using three measures of inequality. Additionally, through document review, we also performed a qualitative analysis of the TBNext program from a Health in All Policies (HiAP) perspective. Results from the modeling component indicate that the proposed lane scenario increased the number of vehicles, NOx emission rates, NOx concentration, and block group NOx exposure densities in downtown Tampa and its surrounding neighborhoods during the morning and evening rush hours. However, the proposed lanes also caused a decrease in the simulated total emissions and the daily average NOx concentration in Hillsborough County. The average individual-level NOx exposure also decreased, but disparities in exposure for minority and the below-poverty population groups increased in the proposed lane scenario. Results of the HiAP analysis suggest that health and equity should be priorities in major policies and programs such as transportation improvement programs. Multi-sectoral collaboration that provides benefit for all parties and stakeholders is also essential to improve the health and equity outcomes. Furthermore, health departments and public health agencies should be included in the transportation decision-making process. Finally, improving active transportation modes was commonly found in HiAP case studies to promote public health and equity in transportation planning programs. Evaluation of TBNext transportation improvement program from the HiAP perspective show that health consideration was not one of the priorities in the program. However, the Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) frequently engaged with stakeholders in community meetings throughout the recent development process of the program. Additionally, FDOT and local governments addressed some inequity issues as a response to public concerns. Through assessment of a real case study, the results of this study contribute to the body of knowledge on the air quality and equity impacts of large-scale transportation improvement programs. Further, they suggest that air quality assessments and equity analyses should be conducted in more detail than what the law currently requires for transportation programs. Lastly, this study also shows that the HiAP paradigm could promote health and equity outcomes of transportation improvement programs.

The thesis thinks over the town of Teplice and the architecture education from different points of view. First the author explores her own relationship to the town where she comes from. Then she focuses on primary grade pupils and surveys thein pre-concept concerning the town of Teplice. She also surveys how teachers handle the topic of town in the Art Education. Conclusions of these surveys are used as a basis for creating worksheets which interconnect the educational contents of Art Education, history, architecture and urban design. The objektive of the worksheets is to encourage pupils to reflect the town they live in. Author also proposes Art lessonss which correspond to the topic of the worksheets and she tests them in selected classes. The findings of test lessons are used to modify the content of the final vision of the worksheets. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Climate change presents us with greater and greater challenges and stormwater is an important part of our future water problems. In some parts of the world the increase and intensification in precipitation causes strain on existing infrastructure while, in others, draughts are becoming more and more severe. Handling stormwater sustainably does not only gain the environment by controlling pollutant spreading, helping with flooding control and water reuse but can also have added values in urban areas if included in urban planning. Implementing green infrastructure and sustainable stormwater solutions creates jobs and are in many countries seen as the future way of handling stormwater. There are many different techniques and ways of adopting sustainable stormwater handling depending on the local problem and physical as well as economic conditions. Together they all have in common of creating added values when implemented. Increased biodiversity, improved air quality, reduced noise, improved growing conditions for urban trees and aesthetical values that have a positive effect on human health are just some of the positive added values of sustainable stormwater handling. The case study in this report concerns a new development on a peninsula in the municipality on Nacka, Stockholm. The recommendation is to adopt the approach of many small solutions that combines to a sustainable way of handling stormwater that not only solves the problem but creates added values in the living and working area. Stormwater is a resource that should be used as one in order to have sustainable urban planning.

No description available.

We have a problem, which is that we as a society are simply consuming too much. We have modified an economic system that tends to define modernity and development as a linear process. A system in which consumption is of profound importance. However, by bringing in alternative and new ideas of how to manage our economic assets, a transformation might be feasible. There are several forms of alternative economies that redefine the role of the consumer and that all share a common goal of seeking a more sustainable approach when dealing with economic issues. The Sharing economy is based on a comprehensive concept where, instead of promoting private own­ership, it is better and more sustainable to share, swap and lend, which in turn gives people access to goods and services. Also, this idea is used to reduce the ecological footprint of hyper-con­sumption which pressures the global climate. If we are trying to design sustainable cities and if we seek to reduce consumption, adapting sharing economy in urban planning might be part of the solution.

This project seeks new forms of housing production that answer to the disappearance of the welfare state and provides structures for self-organization. It stretches the limits of the housing policies and explores new flexible design solutions. It addresses social and economical adaptability where both the city and the dwellers have responsibility for the process and development of new housing. The adaptable city is a city where dwellers co-create their housing environment.

King City is a new citycenter in the expanding Kungens Kurva area in the southern part of Stockholm that combines shopping, service, dwellings and workplaces into a coherent urban environment. The project deals with the expanding city of Stockholm, where areas that before where seen as external, now form the basis of a polycentric city where the divide between innercity and suburbia is disolving.The Kungens Kurva area is today the result of “laissez-faire” planing principles that have allowed big retail companies to establish themself in the area. Since the ninities when the neoliberal ideology prevailed as the new guiding principle for Swedens economy, Kungens Kurva, as well as the retailmarket, has been expanding in a accelerating paste. King City is a architectural answer that anticipates our future city, driven by corporate power and diminishing public planning. / King City är ett nytt stadsdelsscentrum i det expanderande Kungens Kurva-området i södra Stockholm. Det nya centrumet sammanför handel, service och bostäder till en sammanhållen urban miljö. Kungens Kurva-området, som tidigare sågs som externt, håller nu på att bilda ett av centrumen i den polycentrisk storstad, där uppdelningen mellan innerstad och förort allmer minskar i betydelse. Kungens Kurva-området är idag resultatet av olika kortsiktiga planeringsstrategier som sedan 1960-talet bjudit in stora varukedjor att etablera sig i området.  Däribland IKEA. Sedan 1990-talet när den nyliberala ekonomin på allvar gjorde sitt intåg i Sverige, har Kungens Kurva tillsammans med hela detaljhandeln, expanderat i accelererande fart. King City är ett arkitektoniskt förslag som förutser vår framtida stad, driven av privata intressen och krympande offentliga resurser.

Through a methodological approach this project examines possibilites for a more flexible and direct citizien participation within the framework of an urban design project. Allthroughout the process opportunities to influence the progressing workflow is exemplified by recurring phases of participation. The case study of examining the transformation of a motorized highway into an urban street network also serves as an interesting plattform which from an analytical perspective presents a variety of different presets that exposes valuable assets for the development.

No description available.

Emerging technologies, such as; Artificial Intelligence, extended reality technologies (MR, AR and VR), and sensor technologies are increasingly used during knowledge production within urban design processes. This thesis shows that the combination of different paradigms underlying experimental initiatives that bring together design and technology can lead to either vicious loops that continue to reinforce the modernist city, or virtuous loops where the interweaving of fundamentally different paradigms of knowledge production with emerging technology possess potential for radical urban transformation.  The key findings of this work include: Sensorial ways of knowing the city can be in synergy with these emerging technologies 1) augmenting our human senses and overcoming spatial-temporal constraints in experiencing ecological change, 2) they can create fully embodied experiences of sidelined or marginalized narratives in urban planning and the future of cities, 3) they open up new space for more collaboration in research design and planning. In the same way, democratization and co-production of knowledge for urban design, can be in synergy with these emerging technologies that; 1) allow for the expansion of collaboration and the integration of multiple sources of knowledge, 2) that promote an open relation with the future by rapid prototyping of alternative scenarios, and that 3) democratize the power over the process of data collection and data analysis all the way to ‘open-sourcing’ the tools themselves.