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No description available.

New Urbanism is an all-encompassing term that refers to an increasingly popular set of design tenets that draw upon traditional urban forms in the creation or redevelopment of residential communities. Although design professionals are increasingly adopting these design tenets in the creation of new communities, there is no research that either supports or rejects New Urbanism's underlying assumption that neotraditional design tenets are capable of fostering a “sense of place.” Therefore, this research explores how a ”sense of place” arises for residents of a neotraditional neighborhood located in Blacksburg, Virginia. This research then investigates the influence physical form has on the development of a sense of place for the individuals living within this community. In an attempt to answer these questions, this research project employs an existential-phenomenological approach to understand the specified people-place relationships. The transformation of space into place for the participants living within the study area was consistent with two distinct, existing theories regarding the development of a sense of place. Analysis indicates that social interaction in the form of un-structured chance encounters with neighbors heavily influences the transformation of mere space into place. Further analysis indicates that such encounters are not directly related to density. Rather, the proximity of the housing, the connection between the public and private realm, and the relationship of the housing to the un-built environment all emerge as key factors in encouraging such residential experiences. The results are discussed in the context of TND design tenets and a theory of neighborhood design is presented. / Ph. D.

The first civilizations we have ever heard of were along the banks of mighty rivers like Nile, Euphrates, Indus and Huang. These civilizations developed along rivers as riverfronts provided opportunities for tradeand transportation, fertile land to grow crops, water for drinking, washing, livestock and other domestic uses and food in the form of fish. Gradually, they came to define cities, became a part of identities of people, such as "India" from "Indus," while, providing a sense of place and connecting the populace to nature. Yet rivers have often ended up being abused and neglected in our course towards urbanization. It is this "neglect" that needs to be shunned. The relationship with the rivers needs to be re-forged. To develop a strategy for this shift in attitude, this research has chosen the case of Chesapeake Bay. Chesapeake Bay is an estuary lying inland from the Atlantic Ocean. It has mainland North America to its west and Delmarva Peninsula on the east. It is the largest Estuary in the United States. More than 150 major rivers and streams flow into the Chesapeake Bay. The estuary provides habitat to several species of wildlife and aquatic life. Today, this bay faces many issues such as nutrient and sediment pollution, Storm water runoff, lowering of shellfish species etc. One of the major causes of the polluted bay is storm water runoff. Storm water washes pollution off the roads and other surfaces and takes them to the water. Stormwater is generally more polluted in urban areas than rural areas. This thesis, attempts to demonstrate what can be done with a typical pixel in the whole mosaic of the bay . The Maine Avenue Fish Market, sitting just upstream to the now being developed Southwest Waterfront, seems a perfect choice for this endeavor. This market, a small urban waterfront space, is ideal for exploring ideas and solutions to avoid water pollution by stormwater, cleaning the quality of water and also, in the process, develop the area in relation to the city and its surroundings. This thesis aims to establish an ecological and social relationship between the natural resource and the urban life. / Master of Science

Debate over land development continues to be an issue of dissension between developers and designer. Of particular contention is the issue of neighborhood design. A sector of the design profession has developed a paradigm primarily based on neighborhood design/development of the early twentieth century. This paradigm is known as New Urbanism. While some feel strongly that New Urbanism is the answer to questions related to neighborhood design, others feel that Conventional Suburban Development is what people want. This study aims to determine what the consumer wants in suburban neighborhood design through the means of survey research. The survey employed was based on a previous study conducted by the Conservation Fund in conjunction with Robert Charles Lesser Company (RCLCO) of the Atlanta housing market. The survey asks respondents to choose between attributes associated with New Urban design and those associated with Conventional Suburban Development. This study is focused on the Borough and Township of Doylestown, Pennsylvania. Neighborhoods from the Borough and Township were surveyed. The Borough neighborhood is a proxy for a New Urban neighborhood. The Township neighborhoods are Conventional Suburban Neighborhoods. The results between the two groups of respondents are compared to give further insight to consumers' preferences. Results indicate that residents of neighborhoods with New Urban attributes prefer this neighborhood style to Conventional Suburban Development. Residents of Conventional Suburban Neighborhoods are divided on their preference for neighborhood design. The findings show that approximately 25% of the Doylestown housing market desires something other than the predominant Conventional Suburban Development style. / Master of Landscape Architecture

A class of migrant workers in China that have left their official rural residence in search of work and wealth in the more developed coastal cities have created a new process of urbanization. The ‘floating population’ numbering 150 million has created immense demand for low-cost housing. Village enterprises within the city region of expanding metropolises have self-organized to supply affordable housing. However, economic incentives and ownership constraints on rural land deter long-term considerations and favour rapid development. The building (and destruction) of a country cannot be recklessly left to coincidental solutions of profit opportunities in remnant policies. An understanding of the systemic political, economic and social properties that generate the built fabric of today and of traditional villages can allow us to manipulate the current process of development. The village of Zhangpeng in Dongguan city of the Pearl River Delta region is on the brink of explosive growth. Major infrastructural developments have been constructed and planned on its expropriated lands. Without proper guidance, the status quo process of urbanization will destroy the village overnight. The proposed alternative is to manipulate market-demand through village-led investment in its public space network in order to spur private development of village properties. The method is through strategic and incremental investment on village public space and property and monitoring the catalytic effect of these changes on private redevelopment. Adjustments in land development is made to steer the built fabric into a form between what the village wants it to become and what it has the propensity to be. The aim is to create a system of land development that will preserve, adapt and extend traditional village fabric and its way of life.

Sited prominently in midtown Houston, XS Elementary explores eccentricity as a new spatial and graphic model for the public elementary school in order to reconfigure the structure of the learning and urban environment, establishing flexibility through architectural specificity and formal affect. The project draws from the legacy of mat buildings, employing a dense unit-based framework that is both rationally systematic and embedded with pockets of productively discontinuous eccentric spaces. These auxiliary learning spaces expand education beyond the generic classroom and into an interconnected spatial sequence. Graphic and spatial techniques of jitter, shift, and overprinting reveal, generate, and reinforce moments of internal eccentricity, embuing an internal urbanity to the school and allowing the city to penetrate the institution. By engaging longstanding disciplinary efforts to design learning environments suitable to our time, this thesis confronts today’s electronic delivery methods and emphasis on efficient standardization, asserting that spatial, graphic, and urban play (the slightly off, odd, and peculiar in the face of standardization) is the avenue through which Architecture can exercise innovative and dynamic design, moving beyond the banal mediocrity of design for specialized efficiency’s sake.

Syftet med denna uppsats var att undersöka välfärdsmodellens förändring i form av privatisering genom kommunal upphandling och nya konstellationer av offentlig och privat verksamhet. Frågeställningarna besvaras utifrån en fallstudie gjord på den upphandlade ungdomsverksamheten Blå Huset i Tensta (Stockholm) och den metodologiska utgångspunkten bottnar i de kvalitativa sätten, mer specifikt Burawoys Extended Case Method. Genom att kombinera organisationsteoretiska begrepp och utgångspunkter med urbansociologiska perspektiv har resultatet fått ett djup och en bredd som visar på offentlig - privata partnerskaps relationers komplexitet vad gäller legitimitet och dess inverkan i den urbana kontexten. Resultatet visar på strategier som sammankopplar rationaliserande myter med kognitiva institutioner exempelvis i form av nyliberala initiativ inom den urbana kontexten. / The purpose of this paper was to get a deeper understanding of the transformations in the Swedish welfare model, which includes privatization through contracting out and new combinations of public and private actors. A case study was done on the youth centre Blå Huset in the suburb Tensta (Stockholm) using qualitative methods, and more specifically Burawoys Extended Case Method. Through combining organizational concepts with urban sociological perspectives the results showed both depth and width in illustrating the complexity of public - private partnerships in terms of legitimacy and effects on the urban context. The results showed strategies connecting rationalized myths with cognitive institutions such as neoliberal initiatives in the urban context.