The aim of this study is to better understand the Swedish concept of“förebyggande socialt arbete”, preventive social work. I have conducted elevenqualitative interviews with different key persons and skaters, together withparticipant observation. During the process of analyzing the material I have usedRandall Collins´ concepts of interaction ritual chains together with Jean Laves andEtienne Wengers concept of situated learning. The answers could be split up inthree areas, first those who regard prevention work as building good things for thefuture. The second group to prevent something bad to happen and the third groupregard preventive social work to be repairing what was broken. The first group,mostly architects, included all three levels of the urban system, the social culturecontext, the human interaction and the urban design. The second and third group,mostly participant from the social work area, focused on the individual level.Although social work should be involved in social policy and development areincluded in the Swedish Social Serves Act. The findings is that Swedish definitionof social work need to be wider in order to include the urban design as a part ofsocial prevention work.

Travelling and moving within urban areas in a sustainable way acquires a transition toward sustainable commuting modes. An approach to reaching the transition is recognised as sustainable mobility. According to smart mobility research, autonomous shuttle buses could contribute to achieve sustainable mobility in urban areas. This study therefore aims to evaluate to what extent autonomous shuttle buses are contributing to achieve sustainable mobility in Lindholmen and Barkarbystaden, by analysing the enabling and challenging factors of integrating autonomous shuttle buses from a spatial planning perspective. Based on a thematic analysis, three themes: integration into transport networks, urban policy integration, and spatial planning and urban design integration, emerged from a multiple-case study and an in-depth interview study. It is revealed that the buses are bringing forth a multi-modal transportation network with an extension of sustainable travel opportunities beyond the privately owned car. Nonetheless, it is evident that the autonomous shuttle buses are not eligible to cover the first-last mile accessibility gap in Lindholmen nor Barkarbystaden. Practitioners should therefore consider evaluating what autonomous shuttle buses should be used for, how and where before they decide to go any further with the integration of autonomous shuttle buses in other urban areas.

Faced with population increases but stagnant capital improvements and impacts from global warming, cities around the world are experimenting with smaller-scale and cheaper strategies in order to accommodate the new influx of residents. New York City has led the way in converting low-efficiency intersection space into public plazas with a limited range of permanently installed elements and San Francisco has pioneered the concept of the parklet, which converts two to four street parking spaces into a modular and flexible pedestrian space. I seek to answer two questions about these spaces: What are common factors influencing the viability and successful implementation of parklets and public plaza? And what are the social and environmental outcomes of constructing parklets and public plazas at a site-specific level and across larger urban scales? Previous research has examined the dynamics and components of public spaces in cities. This research builds upon previous research efforts. By answering these questions, cities and communities seeking to create more pedestrian-friendly and human-oriented space have insights into the components that make parklets and public plazas work and what impacts these developments can have throughout their built environment. I conducted theoretical research of scholarly works concerning urban ecology, resilience, and the social components of cities, and conducted structured observations of plazas and parklets and appropriate control sites in New York City and San Francisco. At a site-specific scale, these developments promote a diverse range of uses and can serve as localized nodes. Across larger scales, these developments can use design considerations to change the perception of an area or neighborhood and have the potential to create a linked system that provides widespread circulatory and ecological improvements. Creating programs that facilitate parklet installations and plaza conversions give cities and communities the most bang for their buck because they provide flexible spaces that do not involve major and expensive capital improvements. Parklets and public plazas are viable projects for providing green space and promoting pedestrian circulation within neighborhoods and communities.

This paper explores how cities have integrated formal planning into improving public space. Through a review of literature on the topic, this the paper identifies the potential design has to renovate narrow streets and alleys, within the public right of way. By preforming an assessment of plans and programs, this paper identifies the common themes or components that have been used by planners, architects, and engineers to improve the urban environment for pedestrians. Based on this information, a pilot study was created to measure the influence the most common components have on pedestrian route choice. The results are then compared to the information gathered from the assessed plans and programs. Suggestions for expanding the pilot study and other recommendations are presented upon the conclusion of this report.

Throughout history planning codes and standards have been used to regulate the built environment for health, power, order, and economic reasons. More recently, in the urban design and planning field, planning codes and standards have emerged to become tools in the process of “placemaking”. The concept of placemaking builds from the desire of humans to create places, not spaces, which are unique, attractive, identifiable, and memorable. It is a concept that is comprised of visual and social components, recognizing the need for both in the creation of successful places. In the field of urban design and planning, form-based codes (FBCs) and design guidelines have emerged to become two types of planning tools used in the process of placemaking. This study explores the relationship between FBCs, design guidelines, and placemaking, investigating it through an extensive literature review, and then in the context of the case of Hayward, California through an update of the City’s Downtown design requirements and guidelines. To frame the update of the Hayward’s Downtown design requirements and guidelines this study used an exploratory methodology that combined quantitative and qualitative methods. Archival research was conducted to provide a historical narrative of the City and the Downtown area and a documents analysis was conducted to reveal information about existing Downtown policies and programs. Community participation through the crowdsourcing platform of MindMixer was used to collect community input and feedback about concepts of place in Downtown. The data analysis and findings from these methods were combined with findings from the literature review to formulate recommendations that were used in the update of Hayward’s Downtown design requirements and guidelines document. Keywords:

The aim of this project report is to investigate and identify the needs of the historic area (focus area) in the City of Milpitas, to positively contribute to the City’s planning process, and to make recommendations for the focus area’s future development. In the first chapters, City and focus area research results are presented. Currently, there is a lack of exclusive regulatory standards for attractive development in the City’s historic core. The project report then discusses the results of a short empirical everyday user survey, a parcel-by-parcel land use survey, and a walkability analysis. Research results indicate that the focus area could benefit from historic identity preservation, additional public open space and recreation, and economic development. The project report then identifies three case studies and analyzes each under an urban design framework regarding walkability and gateway development. Here, the project report draws on a number of sources regarding positive place making and urban design to highlight the focus area’s opportunities and constraints. In conclusion, the project report argues that the City’s location in the Bay Area and proximity to Silicon Valley requires accommodation and competition for development while coordinating current focus area development to contribute to an overall well-designed site plan with a focus on walkability and an attractive gateway image. Recommendations are provided in the form of design guidelines.

As a result of economic, social, and cultural changes, cities across the country are looking to outdated and abandoned infrastructure for use as public space. The primary objective of this study is to comprehensively examine one such project, the High Line in New York City, to contribute to the body of literature related to urban transformation, reuse, and analogous projects. In this thesis, the High Line was analyzed as a case study and examined in-depth, through an array of data gathering methods. A historical study of the site was conducted through archival research. A typology, and subsequent description, of the key role-player involved with the project was also established through analysis of over 300 newspaper and blog sources. The design and creation process concludes the archival research portion of the study. Subsequently, the designed environment of the High Line was evaluated for its role as public space, measured against established principal elements found in urban design literature. Special attention was paid to the places where the former infrastructural use has been utilized to provide those public space elements. Behavior observations, surveys, and interviews helped determine how the space is used and perceived by its visitors. Research indicated that while the High Line looks different than traditional public space, it contains all the elements crucial to making public spaces successful. Additionally, it was discovered that the High Line influences perceptions of the City of New York, beyond the physical structure of the High Line. The final outcome of this study is a complete narrative portrait of the High Line from the creation and subsequent reuse, the influencing surrounding factors such as cultural context and physical setting, and how the space is actually used and perceived. The narrative informed implications on the utility of the High line model for other cities across looking to create similar reuse projects.

Swedish municipalities increasingly prioritize blue-green infrastructure in response to the changing climate and precipitation. This study focuses on Norrköping, Huddinge, Nyköping, and Kalmar and how urban planning develops strategies for implementing blue-green infrastructure. Through document content analysis, the municipalities recognize the importance of blue-green infrastructure for stormwater management. However, challenges with implementation remain. Clashes with higher legal and economic interests impede progress. There are issues with responsibility allocation and operation. Most of the challenges can be ascribed to the absence of a comprehensive framework for sustainable stormwater management. Each municipality has developed unique practices to handle this, which have emerged through the interviews. The strategies break down to collaborative models involving multiple stakeholders. These findings advocate for a holistic approach suggest potential for a unified framework, and a path forward in sustainable urban planning.

In brownfield regeneration models, extraction sites are often left out of the question because of degradation, severe contamination, or economic viability and are usually abandoned, after the minimal remediations. These exhaustions not only impact the environment and economy in spatial relations but also influence the growth of the communities cultured by them. With millions of abandoned sites around the globe, there is a demand for building a vision that develops - the ideas of emergence and diversification over time and space, as a base framework for similar towns and communities before they disappear. Underpinning the urgent need and evolving theme of ecologies, 'Reclaiming Kiruna' is an investigation of a vision for a post-exhaustion site of Kiruna mine, which is the world's largest underground mine, by developing landscape ecologies in the present framework that builds and adapts with time and space before the mine gets exhausted. The project reveals the concept of landscape as an amalgamation of production and recreation ecologies, synergizing with the existing potentials of nature, resources, and society. The work focuses on translating the knowns and unknowns of three time periods, synced with proposed plans of the New Kiruna settlement area, through programs of care and thinking that involve, engage, and encourage people (of Kiruna) in redefining the image of Kiruna beyond just a mine. The project unfolds new prospects offered by planned urban transformations, mining systems, and changing climate, which are integrated into building new economies and relations. The project is limited by the uncertainty of the future but attempts to initiate a dialogue in finding new positions as urban designers to contest with the present frameworks in building alternatives of change and novelty, for a sustainable future.

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