Vancouver’s downtown peninsula symbolically describes the sense of place unique to the city as a whole. It is a livable city with a strong connection to its natural surroundings, witnessed in its very active population. This sense of place, however, has far more to do with its relationships to its natural setting, the mountains and ocean, than its urban spaces or architecture. Most of the central public spaces are quite ordinary. Although the temperate climate is ideal for inhabiting streets and squares, the majority of the city’s prominent public spaces exist along the water’s edge. Ultimately locals and visitors gravitate to the periphery and the nearby wilderness, conditioning them to look outward on the natural setting as opposed to reflecting inward on the city. Vancouver’s iconic identity exists primarily on the panoramic level. Great cities throughout the world exist without the splendour of mountains and ocean and Vancouver must stop relying on these to constitute its important public spaces. This thesis makes a proposal for a series of large scale urban interventions on the downtown peninsula that serve to augment Vancouver’s sense of place. The first intervention will replace unnecessary car space with public space, in order to incrementally create, over a number of years, an extensive pedestrian network that links its public spaces. This will incorporate characteristics of successful urban systems found in Barcelona, Bogota, Copenhagen, Curitiba and Portland, treating the street not just as a transportation corridor but also as a public space, and a democratic forum. The second intervention will remove many low to mid-density ‘underperforming’ residential buildings, creating a diagonal pedestrian and transit boulevard that bisects the downtown peninsula, linking major public spaces such as English Bay Beach, Robson Square, and Waterfront Station. Along this diagonal, new high density mixed-use development will offer an increased number of residential, commercial and cultural facilities. The new public spaces and developments created by the proposed diagonal boulevard will provide Vancouver with a civic realm better connected than it has ever been. Vancouver will become a city of great pedestrian public spaces, strongly linked to natural surroundings that serve an active and environmentally conscious population.

Future challenges for human civilization, especially in the developing world, will increasingly be characterized by both an urban and global condition. What will be the response by design in the face of the implications of this unprecedented scale of development? The thesis is a speculative analysis of the essential nature of the phenomenon of the global mega-city, and is a necessary first step in creating a framework to answer this question. The Brazilian city of São Paulo is chosen as this thesis case study because it is a 'matured' version of this Modern urban phenomenon. Underlying and guiding the creation of this picture of the mega-city is the assertion that the fundamantal nature of the phenomenon of São Paulo is essentially an ecological one. Like any other ecological analysis, the first stage of the inquiry is to identify the motivating force that orders the system and propels the change of the urban ecology. In the case of São Paulo, the thesis develope a picture of an urban agglomeration that has been driven by the unrestrained forces of the aspirations of global Modernism and the exploitation of growing urban multitudes by the personal avarice of capitalism. São Paulo is seen as an urban experiment that rests in the tacit gamble that the economic aspirations underlying São Paulo are limitless in the face of the obvious limits of the city' and globe's biosphere. This relationship between urban organism and host ecology is characterized as parasitic and like the economic and social propelling forces of Modernity, forms the fundamental underlying relationships of the ecology of São Paulo. These relationships in juxtaposition with the propellant force of Modernism, form the sketch of a framework that the thesis proposes for a responsible position for design in the mega-city. In light of this ecological sketch of São Paulo, the underlying perpective for design in the mega-city seeks to strike a balance between economy, ecology and should be founded on a view of the city as an investment that can be evaluated for its performance in providing the context for human flourishing in relations to its use of natural resources.

Vancouver’s downtown peninsula symbolically describes the sense of place unique to the city as a whole. It is a livable city with a strong connection to its natural surroundings, witnessed in its very active population. This sense of place, however, has far more to do with its relationships to its natural setting, the mountains and ocean, than its urban spaces or architecture. Most of the central public spaces are quite ordinary. Although the temperate climate is ideal for inhabiting streets and squares, the majority of the city’s prominent public spaces exist along the water’s edge. Ultimately locals and visitors gravitate to the periphery and the nearby wilderness, conditioning them to look outward on the natural setting as opposed to reflecting inward on the city. Vancouver’s iconic identity exists primarily on the panoramic level. Great cities throughout the world exist without the splendour of mountains and ocean and Vancouver must stop relying on these to constitute its important public spaces. This thesis makes a proposal for a series of large scale urban interventions on the downtown peninsula that serve to augment Vancouver’s sense of place. The first intervention will replace unnecessary car space with public space, in order to incrementally create, over a number of years, an extensive pedestrian network that links its public spaces. This will incorporate characteristics of successful urban systems found in Barcelona, Bogota, Copenhagen, Curitiba and Portland, treating the street not just as a transportation corridor but also as a public space, and a democratic forum. The second intervention will remove many low to mid-density ‘underperforming’ residential buildings, creating a diagonal pedestrian and transit boulevard that bisects the downtown peninsula, linking major public spaces such as English Bay Beach, Robson Square, and Waterfront Station. Along this diagonal, new high density mixed-use development will offer an increased number of residential, commercial and cultural facilities. The new public spaces and developments created by the proposed diagonal boulevard will provide Vancouver with a civic realm better connected than it has ever been. Vancouver will become a city of great pedestrian public spaces, strongly linked to natural surroundings that serve an active and environmentally conscious population.

Urban planning is responsible for the arrangement of environments that we are living in as well as for the design of urban parks that allow us to escape from everyday stressors. However, we no longer live in culturally homogenous societies, and people of different backgrounds seem to have different perspectives on urban park aesthetics as well as the range of facilities and features that parks should provide. This study focuses on preferences and perspectives that people of different cultural backgrounds have of urban parks. This research was based on a single-case study of a multi-functional park – Waterloo Park, located in Kitchener-Waterloo (Ontario, Canada), and was focused on investigating urban park preferences of seven ethnic groups: Caucasian Canadians, East and North Asians, South Asians, Middle- Eastern, Arabic, African/Caribbean and African/Zimbabwean or Kenyan. The feedback obtained from face-to-face interviews with Waterloo-Park users have been analyzed in order to establish how do people of different cultural backgrounds conceptualize urban parks and what their breadth of needs are when utilizing park space. Demographic information, such as ethnic association, was obtained from the participants on a self-descriptive basis. Findings from this study indicates that there are apparent differences in expectations and needs that culturally diverse users have regarding urban parks, and provides substantial evidence that culture plays an influential role in perception and evaluation of urban parks. Recommendations for professional practice advocate shifting Canadian design practices towards a true comprehensive and multifunctional park design and incorporating the various motives and needs of a culturally diverse Canadian society.

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Landscape Architecture

The original design of Paseo de Diego, inaugurated in 1981 as the first full pedestrian mall in Puerto Rico, vanished with the consent of the agencies in charge of historic preservation in the island. Lack of maintenance and other management issues, rather than the architecture itself, led to a revitalization project that erased a vibrant and distinctive example of modernist urban design by a notable Puerto Rican architect in the barrio of Río Piedras, which is currently being nominated to the National Register of Historic Places. The story of Paseo de Diego recounts the mall's development and recent replacement with a redesign that raises serious questions about age, preservation of rich urban layering, and the policies and regulations protecting significant historic urban fabric.

In an attempt to engage the fundamental issues of design that are integral to our understanding of architecture and the built environment, this thesis investigates how spontaneous architecture can transcend political and social boundaries by acting as a catalyst in the urban environment. The act of catalyzing is exemplified in the informal sector through street markets and street vendors. And while the complexity of the current economic reality in the United States has resulted in a fragmented architectural typology, the dynamic articulation of marginalized vacant space in the urban core has become a strong player in a revival of localism. The underpinning goal of this thesis is to develop an understanding of the significance that these catalytic engines play in the reintegration of cities still fighting to overcome the spoils of modernity. Through a revival of localism and a re-appropriation of urban energies, markets exemplify the bottom-up approach of incremental urban design powered by formation of strong micro economies. Market case studies we visited in 6 cities in the United States: St. Louis, Missouri; Los Angeles, California; Portland, Oregon Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Detroit, Michigan; and New York, New York. The case studies were used as means of deriving at potential insights to the state of the American street market. An examination of prescription of catalytic opportunities – a dynamical system that has a sensitive dependence on the initial conditions of a place – presents a series of guiding principles for successful market design. / text

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone / The thesis focuses on the effects urban agriculture could have on a community and the nation. By examining current states of mental health, physical health, and societal health through the lenses of current obesity rates, driving, being outdoors, and the current agricultural system, a conclusion was formed that urban agriculture would promote overall health. Two Census tracts within Tucson, AZ, 37.01, and 21, were closely examined on the feasibility of implementing urban agriculture within their communities. The thesis resulted with the conclusion that further health studies in the tracts were necessary, but that areas with access to reclaimed water could begin implementing micro urban agriculture.

This is a class project that analyzes and critically engages the UBC south campus plan and makes recommendations based on research of exemplary approaches to systems integration.

No description available.