As models and methods of educational pedagogy are altered by social media and digital technology, so too are the spaces where learning takes place. Creative education, particularly the education of design students, does not fit into the “typical” higher education classroom, and therefore requires a different physical setting. Despite changes in learning styles, there are many unchanged traditions and functions of the physical setting of design education. The lack of changes has continued to isolate architectural education from the real, urban experience of the city. This practicum aims to address these issues by proposing a satellite campus in an authentic urban environment for the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture students and teachers. I will investigate theories regarding emerging trends in higher education, the importance of place in education, and the process of educating designers. Throughout this investigation, emphasis is placed on creativity, collaboration, and flexibility in design education.

As the world shifts and changes, so do its people, and every day, more refugees are forced out-of-place, out of their homelands, and into a foreign and unfamiliar context. Many of these refugees are women, single mothers, who along with their children, are set to face many challenges in the process of re-settling into a new cultural landscape. This project is a study on how the design of an interior can aid in the difficult process of transitioning between lands and cultures. Within it, I explore the making of place through the design of a transitional residence for women and children refugees, set within the dynamic urban landscape of West Broadway in Winnipeg, Manitoba. I proceed through this project through an exploration of four conceptual frameworks and examine the project and its users in relation to movement and migration, to boundaries, to the contact zone, and finally to weaving.

As models and methods of educational pedagogy are altered by social media and digital technology, so too are the spaces where learning takes place. Creative education, particularly the education of design students, does not fit into the “typical” higher education classroom, and therefore requires a different physical setting. Despite changes in learning styles, there are many unchanged traditions and functions of the physical setting of design education. The lack of changes has continued to isolate architectural education from the real, urban experience of the city. This practicum aims to address these issues by proposing a satellite campus in an authentic urban environment for the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Architecture students and teachers. I will investigate theories regarding emerging trends in higher education, the importance of place in education, and the process of educating designers. Throughout this investigation, emphasis is placed on creativity, collaboration, and flexibility in design education.

Planning for transportation within northern Canadian communities presents unique challenges, but new research tools offer opportunities for testing potentially innovative solutions that might help improve mobility within these communities. In particular, problem solving has been enriched in recent years by using the spatial modeling methods offered by Geographical Information Systems (GIS). This thesis first reviews various GIS methods before applying one method – the ‘Route Utility Theory’ – to a newly-developed set of metrics for determining the cost of alternate modes of intracommunity transportation. This set of metrics is applied to a data set that represents the trips or journeys made by non-car users in Iqaluit, the capital city of Nunavut Territory. GIS data on roads, walking trails, land contours, and public and residential neighbourhoods are analyzed. The results facilitate comparisons between road options and trail options for improving the movement of people within Iqaluit. Five bus routes were then custom designed and compared using the study’s metrics. The study found that increasing bus and trail options within Iqaluit would provide more efficient options for non-car users. It is argued that the study’s metrics can be adapted for application in other northern communities, and possibly in other isolated and rural communities in different world situations. / Graduate

The initial goal of this effort is to develop a discussion on urban design process and thinking that acknowledges the needs of places with meaning in the design of the urban waterfront. The thesis addresses the fact that the problematic of the coastal formulation is intricate, comprising not only aspects related to the spatial organization and design of its domain but also shared properties originated by the presence and movement of the perceiving subject in the area. In this framework, the research attempts to provide an understanding of the main relationships that the subject cultivates inside the coastal space and to offer a broader spatial reading of its narrative function. On the hypothesis that this function is susceptible of interpretation, the thesis develops an interest in examining the effects of the psychospatial nature of meaning on the design and experience of the urban edge, for to interpret a narrative spatial construct is to specify its meaning. To explore the issue of waterfront places that speak of the subject, the research conceives the coastal space as a field of mediated parameters that pertain to three crucial operational premises: the symbolic function of the urban space near the water, the meaning behind the coastal form, and the engagement of the perceiving subject in the conscious or reflexive appropriation of the waterfront setting. These premises, traced as psychophysiological spaces, determine the intermediary, the integrative, and the expressive discourses for the development of places with meaning near the water. Through them, the thesis attempts a reading of the coastal domain based upon the material interpretation of the meanings and messages associated with the immediate experience of the onset of water‐born notions, concepts, and images. Writing about the dialectics between the psychospatial inquiry and the spatial experience of the edge, this thesis suggests that, contrary to the established preconception, the psychology of human‐edge relations submits the perceiving subject to the conception of the coastal form and shape. / QC 20110907

This thesis presents the results from a comparative study of travel patterns among residents of four suburban residential areas in metropolitan Adelaide. Using existing datasets together with inventory data of urban environment characteristics from original fieldwork, this research examines to what extent there are associations between various attributes of a particular urban location as they relate to travel behaviour and household socio-economics. The findings derived from quantitative and qualitative methods suggest that urban form/design must be taken into consideration in policy making for mobility reduction.

Fysisk förtätning är en strategi som i Sverige har fått ett stort genomslag. Städer har traditionellt i första hand vuxit utåt och tagit upp onödigt mycket mark och resurser i processen. I nutid har fysisk förtätning i stora drag blivit synonymt med den hållbara utvecklingen men har samtidigt stött på mycket kritik. Denna studie avser att undersöka hur fysisk förtätning kan bidra till att främja och implementera social hållbarhet och jämställdhet.  Syftet med studien är att skapa ett gestaltningsförslag som bidrar till att göra en plats i Sandvikens centrum mer levande och förstärka det stadsmässiga rummet. I kapitel 2.1 beskrivs närmare vad som i denna studie menas med stadsmässig rumslighet och social hållbarhet. Uppsatsen inleds med en djupgående litteraturstudie inom ämnet. Val av plats har skett genom ett platsbesök, en SWOT- analys och en kompletterande platsanalys. Inom ramen för uppsatsen har kvalitativa, semistrukturerade intervjuer med tjänstemän brukats som utgångspunkt och kunskapskälla till gestaltningsförslaget.  Gestaltningsförslaget har utformats med fokus på sociala hållbarhetsfaktorer och element som främjar jämställdhet och följaktligen trygghet. Dessa är: kvarter i rutnät med korta avstånd, naturliga stråk, grönska, god genomströmning, lätt orientering, belysning, sittplatser, faciliteter och goda siktvägar. Faktorerna har använts i studien för att implementera och stärka jämställdhetsintegreringen inom fysisk förtätning. Förslaget framhåller en mångfunktionell markanvändning som möjliggör en mer dynamisk miljö för boende och besökare i området. Vidare föreslår studien nya bostäder och verksamheter tillsammans med ett nytt parkområde som skapar liv och rörelse. Social hållbarhet har i gestaltningsförslaget hanterats genom att främja sociala interaktioner och etableringen av fler mötesplatser. Detta har stärkts genom ny bebyggelse med blandade upplåtelseformer i kombination med nya verksamheter. Studien fortsätter med en diskussion som motiverar gestaltningsförslagets utformning och förfarande. Diskussionen avrundas med en avslutande metodkritik tillsammans med öppningar som behandlar fortsatta studier. Denna studie har därmed medverkat till framtagandet av en utformning i samband med fysisk förtätning som bidrar till aspekter lämpliga för främjandet av social hållbarhet och jämställdhet. Denna studie har därmed medverkat till en flexibel och dynamisk utformning, som syftar till att attrahera människor. / The compact city and urban densification is a popular strategy in Sweden. Since cities mostly have been growing horizontally and occupied unnecessary land and resources in the process, the concept of the compact city reveals a new and improved way to build cities. This new way of building cities has become synonymous with sustainable development. This study is an intention on research in regard to how the compact city and urban densification can conduce to promoting and implementing social sustainability and gender equality.  The aim of the study is to create a proposal on urban densification for an area in Sandviken municipality, in the county of Gävleborg, Sweden. The proposal aims to make an area of choice with apparent shortcomings in social sustainability and equality more vibrant and to contribute to making Sandviken more urbane. Chapter 2.1 describes more precisely what in this study is meant by urbane. An analysis of shortcomings in social sustainability will be described in chapter 2.1. The report begins with a profound literature review of the topics that has been chosen. An assorted selection of location has been carried out, followed by a SWOT analysis and a site analysis. Semi structured interviews with urban planners have also been done. The purpose of the site selection has been to sort out an appropriate place for the study based on social sustainability and gender equality.  New housing with mixed use and a green area that function as a social meeting point is the core of the proposal. The proposal has been designed with a focus on social sustainability factors and elements that promote gender equality at the site of the study. These factors are specified in Chapter 2.2. A final methodological criticism along with ideas regarding further studies summarized the discussion. This study has thus contributed to the development of a design that contributes to factors that are appropriate for promoting gender equality and social sustainability in connection with urban densification.

In the low cost housing programs, the standardization and climatic inadequacy of design solutions have resulted in uncomfortable thermal conditions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the thermal quality of different urban design arrangements of vertical blocks dwellings destinated to the low income population in the city of Maceió - AL. The comparative, qualitative and quantitative analysis was carried through three different blocks disposed at different urban arrangement. The qualitative evaluation was based on bioclimatic attributes of the urban form and the quantitative one was based on indoor climatic monitoring, outdoor microclimatic measurements and further models simulation using CFD software. It was observed that the air temperature and relative humidity values corresponded up to 95,7% of indoor thermal discomfort hours. The results of models simulations have shown that, the factors that had most affected the studied thermal conditions had been: bad localization of the openings in relation to the local prevailing winds, bad distribution and orientation of the blocks in the evaluated urban constructive arrangements and little air porosity of the buildings. It is expected that these information could help future low-cost buildings projects in hot-humidity climate cities as Maceió-AL. / Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado de Alagoas / Nos programas habitacionais destinados à população de baixa renda, a padronização de soluções e a desconsideração das peculiaridades climáticas locais têm resultado em construções que não atendem às necessidades de conforto térmico de seus usuários. O objetivo do presente trabalho foi avaliar a qualidade térmica de edificações verticais a partir da análise de diferentes configurações construtivas e princípios de desenho urbano existentes em conjuntos habitacionais destinados à população de baixa renda em Maceió AL. Foi realizada a análise comparativa, qualitativa e quantitativa, de três arranjos urbanos de conjuntos habitacionais verticais. A avaliação qualitativa foi baseada nas observações dos atributos bioclimatizantes da forma urbana e a quantitativa a partir da coleta de dados das variáveis ambientais, temperatura e umidade relativa do ar, nos ambientes internos das unidades residenciais e nos espaços externos imediatos, através das medições móveis microclimáticas e simulação de modelos através de um programa computacional de dinâmica dos fluídos (CFD). Identificaram-se valores de temperatura e umidade relativa do ar que correspondem a até 95,7% de horas de desconforto térmico em ambientes internos. Os resultados simulados comprovaram que, dentre os fatores que mais afetaram as condições térmicas estudadas foram: má localização das aberturas em relação ao aproveitamento da ventilação natural, má distribuição e orientação das edificações nos arranjos construtivos urbanos avaliados e pouca porosidade dos edifícios. Espera-se que as informações apresentadas na respectiva análise possam auxiliar o planejamento de futuros conjuntos verticais em cidades de clima quente e úmido, como Maceió-AL.

The increase in urban violence in Brazil became a frequent subject in the media and the general fear changes the constructed space to reflect and produce even more insecurity. The city has changed, individuals are isolated and ancient streets that were crowded are now lifeless spaces, further causing this feeling of insecurity. Within this context this work seeks to understand how urban design can help prevent various forms of violence that occur on city streets. To better understand this, maps were initially performed with the spatial data of violence in the city of Maceió, which formed the basis for the choice of the study area. The process resulted in the selection of the Ponta da Terra neighbourhood, for some features like great movement and a variety of uses, and its data violence is small compared to the data of the neighbourhoods that surround it. The analysis was done with maps, interviews to understand the perception of residents regarding violence in the neighborhood, and using criteria of CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Enviromental Design), where the physical, functional and environmental characteristics of areas were analyzed. This dissertation aims to discuss the influence of spatial factors in the local crime such as block sizes, lighting distribution and existence of shields that prevent or hinder the view of passers-by, among other things. The problem should be seen in a larger context, the city, the state, the country so that the intervention in an area does not lead to increased crime in another, since the lack of space planning could only move the crimes to other areas. Public policies must be integrated in orderto meet the basic needs of the population and public safety one. / O aumento da violência no Brasil tornou-se assunto frequente nas mídias e o medo generalizado leva o espaço construído a insumos que refletem na produção de mais insegurança. A cidade se transformou, a sociedade se isolou e as ruas antigas que eram movimentadas deram lugar a espaços sem vida, causando ainda mais esse sentimento de insegurança. Dentro desse contexto esse trabalho procura compreender como o desenho urbano pode ajudar a prevenir diversas formas de violência que ocorrem nas ruas das cidades. Para essa compreensão inicialmente foram realizados mapeamentos com a espacialização dos dados de violência no Município de Maceió, que serviram de base para a escolha da área de estudo. O processo resultou na escolha do bairro Ponta da Terra, por algumas características como grande movimentação e a diversidade de usos, e por seus dados de violência ser menores se comparados aos dados dos bairros que o circundam. A análise foi feita com mapeamentos, entrevistas para compreensão da percepção dos moradores com relação à violência no bairro, utilizando-se de critérios do CPTED (Crime Prevention Through Enviromental Design), onde foram analisadas as características físicas, funcionais e ambientais dos espaços. Esta dissertação objetiva discutir a influência dos fatores espaciais na criminalidade local, tais como tamanho de quadras, distribuição de iluminação e existência de anteparos que impedem ou dificultam a visualização dos transeuntes, entre outros aspectos. Estes devem ser considerados e o problema deve ser visto em um contexto maior, a cidade, o estado, o país de modo que a intervenção em uma área não implique no aumento da criminalidade em outra, já que a falta de planejamento do espaço poderia apenas mover os crimes para outras áreas. As políticas devem ser integradas no sentido de atender às necessidades básicas da população, sendo a segurança pública uma delas.

A temática abordada na pesquisa trata dos problemas associados aos rios urbanos, onde a degradação ambiental ocasionada pelo desenvolvimento das cidades afeta a qualidade das águas e do espaço urbano. No Brasil, a maioria dos rios e arroios urbanos é utilizada como parte integrante da rede de coleta de esgoto sanitário e, por isso, são frequentemente canalizados. A situação se agrava nas áreas de ocupação espontânea a beira de mananciais e cursos d’água. Nesses locais a inexistência ou precariedade da infraestrutura de drenagem e saneamento básico colaboram para o aumento da frequência de inundações que causam danos ambientais e sociais a cidade. No entanto, a revitalização de rios urbanos é uma ação adotada a fim de reverter os impactos negativos gerados pelos usos indevidos dos corredores fluviais. O estudo tem como objetivo contribuir no entendimento de aspectos associados a gestão pública, infraestrutura, estrutura, uso e estética na revitalização de arroios em áreas de ocupação espontânea. A Microbacia do Arroio Riacho Doce, integrante da Bacia Hidrográfica do Arroio Dilúvio, em Porto Alegre, foi escolhida como área de estudo. A metodologia utilizada no trabalho, fundamentada na área de estudos de Ambiente-Comportamento, busca avaliar as atitudes e comportamentos diante das características físico-espaciais percebidas pelos habitantes da bacia. O uso de maquetes e simulações gráficas foi adotado a fim de facilitar o entendimento da população inquirida a respeito das avaliações propostas pela pesquisa. Os principais resultados obtidos revelam que embora os arroios da Vila Pinto apresentem uma situação grave de degradação ambiental associada a uma aparência negativa, os moradores desejam a revitalização dos corredores fluviais da Microbacia Riacho Doce. Indica-se, além da despoluição de seus arroios e a provisão de infraestrutura urbana de saneamento e drenagem: a provisão de usos de lazer diversificados em sua orla; a implantação de trilhas e ciclovias visando a priorização da circulação de pessoas e ciclistas em relação a circulação de veículos; a distribuição de vegetação na orla de forma que favoreça a criação de zonas de contato com a água, áreas sombreadas e ensolaradas, promovendo o uso sazonal e a estética da paisagem fluvial. / River environmental degradation related to water quality and urban area due to the uncontrolled city’s development is discussed in this work. In Brazil, most urban rivers and streams are piped due to the usage as a part of the sewage system. This scenario worsen when there is irregular occupations around water supply sources. Moreover, the absence of water and sewer drainage and services increases inundation numbers harming cities environmentally and socially. However, river revitalization is an action performed with the purpose to repair negative impacts of undue usage of river corridors. Thus, this study aimed to contribute in the knowledge of subjects related to public management, infrastructure, structure, usage, and aesthetics in stream revitalization of irregular occupation areas. It was chosen the Riacho Doce micro watershed as the studied area, part of Arroio Dilúvio watershed, at Porto Alegre. The methodology used in this work is based on the Environment-Behavior area of study, and it aimed to evaluate attitudes and behaviors of inhabitants from this micro watershed over physical-spatial characteristics. It was used models and draws simulations to facilitate the understanding for the enquired population around the proposed evaluations in this work. Results revealed that inhabitants desires the revitalization of river corridors even that streams from Vila Pinto has a severe environmental degradation linked to a negative appearance. Analysis of inhabitant’s environmental perception showed that stream remediation and infrastructure provision are recommended as well as other important actions. Thus, the supply of leisure spaces around the waterfront, construction of trails for pedestrians and bicycle riders apart from roads, build a contact zones with water in green area, construction of shadow areas with different degrees of sun incidence are some actions strongly recommended to promote seasonal usage and river landscape aesthetic in the studied region.