The study proposes to operationalise sustainable development within an urban environment and at a variety of scales - strategic to neighbourhood. The study examines the convergence of ideas within urbanity and sustainability, identifying inconsistencies and contradictions within current thematic research. It proposes a consensual approach to understanding the linked substantive, analytical and procedural attributes underlying a developing chronology of concepts relating to sustainability. This chronology of ideas provides the basis for a systems-based framework that recognises the complexity of urban areas. The study advocates and introduces an adaptive framework of spatial indicators of urbanism to simplify and communicate an holistic overview of attributes of sustainability. This interpretation of holism is based on thematic (qualitative / quantitative) and scalar (strategic / local) based integration on a consistent (spatial) basis. This adaptive framework is designed to be suitable for locality specific subjective interpretations of sustainability. It is linked to a non-expert methodological 'toolkit' that places an emphasis on currently undervalued qualitative and spatial data collection methods. This is a mixed and multi- method approach to understanding spatial (urban) systems that complements empirical data sets. A series of case studies are used to test and refine qualitative collection from primary and secondary sources and spatialisation methods. Sample material is then used to test the utility and ease of use of GIS for data manipulation, analysis and modelling. Two detailed and complementary applications of the adaptive framework, the data inventory / collection methods and the use of GIS based digital spatial databases are used to illustrate the potential range of applications and highlight problems of use. A number of possible future developments of the study are suggested for maximising the utility of the conceptual approach and a developed spatial database for a variety of agents, exploring additional dimensions of the urban system.

Esta dissertação procura, a partir do estudo da plataforma rodoviária de Brasília projetada pelo arquiteto e urbanista Lucio Costa, discutir questões acerca das relações entre infraestrutura, arquitetura, e a cidade. A plataforma rodoviária é um exemplo privilegiado de edificação em que se confundem o edifício arquitetônico e o sistema infraestrutural, e em que é possível avaliar o papel do desenho na produção de urbanidade, entendida como gradação da intensidade de interações entre pessoas e coisas em um determinado ambiente. A análise empreendida parte de uma abordagem ancorada na prática arquitetônica, afastando-se de leituras sociológicas, psicológicas ou puramente formais. São os aspectos materiais, descritos em detalhe, que permitem identificar a \"intenção\" da construção como simultaneamente articuladora das areas centrais do Plano Piloto e como estação rodoviária da capital do país. A partir de material iconográfico, são examinados o projeto original, as diferenças em relação ao projeto construído e desempenho do edifício hoje. Esta análise permite evidenciar problemas na construção, apontar para reformulações futuras, bem como reconhecer a generosidade do projeto em seu potencial de produção de urbanidade. / From the study of the central platform of Brasília, bus station and center of the city life at once, this dissertation seeks to discuss issues concerning the relationships between infrastructure, architecture and the city. Designed by the architect and urban planner Lucio Costa, author of Brasilia\'s urban plan, the platform is an example of building that blurs architecture and infrastructural system, and allows to investigate the role of design in the production of urbanity, understood as gradation of intensity of interactions between people and things in a certain environment. The analysis approach undertaken is rooted in architectural practice, away from sociological, psychological or purely formal readings of the urban facts. Materiality is described, identifying the \"intentions\" of a building that simultaneously articulates the central areas of Brasilia and acts as a metropolitan bus station for the capital of the country. Based on an iconographic research, the original design is examined, the differences regarding the design and as built and the performance of the building today. This analysis allows us to highlight problems in construction, point to future reformulations and acknowledge the generosity of the project in the production of potential of urbanity.

Esta dissertação apresenta uma exploração teórica sobre o tema da qualidade espacial na arquitetura em suas diferentes escalas, tendo em conta o ponto de vista de um caminhante sensível ao meio que o envolve. Entende-se, no contexto teórico a ser apresentado, que o tema da qualidade do espaço público urbano tem particular relevância no atual momento das cidades, em função da prioridade destinada a automóveis e veículos automotores nas soluções da espacialidade urbana, normalmente em detrimento daquele que usa a cidade a pé. O trabalho busca fundamentação na produção literária e nas teorias de um grupo de autores com produção reconhecida no tema da espacialidade na arquitetura e nos estudos da cidade. A investigação sobre a qualidade espacial da arquitetura a ser apresentada fundamenta-se em três pilares, dois descritivos e um metodológico. De um lado estarão as descrições da configuração espacial e, de outro, em paralelo, as descrições da percepção espacial, ou seja, o modo como as situações espaciais são vividas e apreciadas pelo observador, quando o corpo e os sentidos do usuário ocupam um papel principal. Trabalhar-se-á com a hipótese de que os efeitos de configuração, sobre a qualidade espacial, ocorrem simultaneamente nas escalas local e global (AGUIAR, 2016a). Na escala global, a configuração espacial será abordada, inicialmente, através da descrição morfológica e, num segundo momento, a partir da condição de acessibilidade/sintaxe espacial e seus impactos na dita vitalidade urbana. Na escala local, a configuração espacial será examinada através tanto das características de delimitação espacial/enclausuramento quanto das características da constituição do espaço. Na sequência, tomando o corpo como categoria de percepção, o trabalho examinará as condições de legibilidade, entendida como funcionalidade visual, e de comodidade, entendida como funcionalidade háptica. Tendo em conta as descrições da qualidade espacial acima delineadas, o trabalho aborda, ao final, o tema do movimento como categoria metodológica. Seguindo esse roteiro, busca-se trazer à luz um conjunto de descrições da cidade relevantes no entendimento daquilo que se entende como qualidade espacial urbana, esperando assim contribuir para o debate sobre esse tópico, tão relevante no momento atual nos meios acadêmico e profissional. / This dissertation presents a theoretical exploration of the subject of spatial quality at different scales in architecture, taking into account the point of view of a walker sensitive to his/her surrounding environment. It is understood in the theoretical context to be presented hereafter that the subject of the quality of an urban, public space is particularly relevant to the cities of today, given the prioritization of cars and other motor vehicles in the designs of urban spaces, usually at the expense of those favored by walkers. This work is grounded in the literary production and the theories of a group of authors recognized for their authority in the field of spatiality in architecture and in the study of cities. The investigation of the spatial quality of architecture to be presented here is based on two descriptive pillars and one methodological. On the one hand, there are the descriptions of the spatial configurations and, on the other hand and in parallel, there are the descriptions of the spatial perception, namely how the observer is living and appreciating spatial situations in which the user’s body and senses play the main role. We will work on the hypothesis that the effects of configuration on the spatial quality occur simultaneously at the local and global scales (AGUIAR, 2016a). At the global scale, we will initially approach the spatial configuration through the morphological description and, in a second phase, from the condition of spatial accessibility/syntax and its impacts on the urban vitality. At the local scale, we will examine the spatial configuration on the one hand through the characteristics of the special delimitation/enclosure and, on the other hand, through the characteristics of the space’s constitution. Then, taking the body as the category of perception, our work is looking at the conditions of legibility, understood as the visual functionality, and of commodity, understood as the haptic functionality. Taking into account the descriptions of the spatial quality outlined above, we eventually address the theme of the movement as a methodological category. Following this roadmap, we aim to bring light to a series of descriptions of the city that are relevant to the comprehension of what is understood as urban quality. We hope this will contribute to the debate on this issue, which is so important currently among both academic and professional circles.

Esta dissertação procura, a partir do estudo da plataforma rodoviária de Brasília projetada pelo arquiteto e urbanista Lucio Costa, discutir questões acerca das relações entre infraestrutura, arquitetura, e a cidade. A plataforma rodoviária é um exemplo privilegiado de edificação em que se confundem o edifício arquitetônico e o sistema infraestrutural, e em que é possível avaliar o papel do desenho na produção de urbanidade, entendida como gradação da intensidade de interações entre pessoas e coisas em um determinado ambiente. A análise empreendida parte de uma abordagem ancorada na prática arquitetônica, afastando-se de leituras sociológicas, psicológicas ou puramente formais. São os aspectos materiais, descritos em detalhe, que permitem identificar a \"intenção\" da construção como simultaneamente articuladora das areas centrais do Plano Piloto e como estação rodoviária da capital do país. A partir de material iconográfico, são examinados o projeto original, as diferenças em relação ao projeto construído e desempenho do edifício hoje. Esta análise permite evidenciar problemas na construção, apontar para reformulações futuras, bem como reconhecer a generosidade do projeto em seu potencial de produção de urbanidade. / From the study of the central platform of Brasília, bus station and center of the city life at once, this dissertation seeks to discuss issues concerning the relationships between infrastructure, architecture and the city. Designed by the architect and urban planner Lucio Costa, author of Brasilia\'s urban plan, the platform is an example of building that blurs architecture and infrastructural system, and allows to investigate the role of design in the production of urbanity, understood as gradation of intensity of interactions between people and things in a certain environment. The analysis approach undertaken is rooted in architectural practice, away from sociological, psychological or purely formal readings of the urban facts. Materiality is described, identifying the \"intentions\" of a building that simultaneously articulates the central areas of Brasilia and acts as a metropolitan bus station for the capital of the country. Based on an iconographic research, the original design is examined, the differences regarding the design and as built and the performance of the building today. This analysis allows us to highlight problems in construction, point to future reformulations and acknowledge the generosity of the project in the production of potential of urbanity.

Esta dissertação apresenta uma exploração teórica sobre o tema da qualidade espacial na arquitetura em suas diferentes escalas, tendo em conta o ponto de vista de um caminhante sensível ao meio que o envolve. Entende-se, no contexto teórico a ser apresentado, que o tema da qualidade do espaço público urbano tem particular relevância no atual momento das cidades, em função da prioridade destinada a automóveis e veículos automotores nas soluções da espacialidade urbana, normalmente em detrimento daquele que usa a cidade a pé. O trabalho busca fundamentação na produção literária e nas teorias de um grupo de autores com produção reconhecida no tema da espacialidade na arquitetura e nos estudos da cidade. A investigação sobre a qualidade espacial da arquitetura a ser apresentada fundamenta-se em três pilares, dois descritivos e um metodológico. De um lado estarão as descrições da configuração espacial e, de outro, em paralelo, as descrições da percepção espacial, ou seja, o modo como as situações espaciais são vividas e apreciadas pelo observador, quando o corpo e os sentidos do usuário ocupam um papel principal. Trabalhar-se-á com a hipótese de que os efeitos de configuração, sobre a qualidade espacial, ocorrem simultaneamente nas escalas local e global (AGUIAR, 2016a). Na escala global, a configuração espacial será abordada, inicialmente, através da descrição morfológica e, num segundo momento, a partir da condição de acessibilidade/sintaxe espacial e seus impactos na dita vitalidade urbana. Na escala local, a configuração espacial será examinada através tanto das características de delimitação espacial/enclausuramento quanto das características da constituição do espaço. Na sequência, tomando o corpo como categoria de percepção, o trabalho examinará as condições de legibilidade, entendida como funcionalidade visual, e de comodidade, entendida como funcionalidade háptica. Tendo em conta as descrições da qualidade espacial acima delineadas, o trabalho aborda, ao final, o tema do movimento como categoria metodológica. Seguindo esse roteiro, busca-se trazer à luz um conjunto de descrições da cidade relevantes no entendimento daquilo que se entende como qualidade espacial urbana, esperando assim contribuir para o debate sobre esse tópico, tão relevante no momento atual nos meios acadêmico e profissional. / This dissertation presents a theoretical exploration of the subject of spatial quality at different scales in architecture, taking into account the point of view of a walker sensitive to his/her surrounding environment. It is understood in the theoretical context to be presented hereafter that the subject of the quality of an urban, public space is particularly relevant to the cities of today, given the prioritization of cars and other motor vehicles in the designs of urban spaces, usually at the expense of those favored by walkers. This work is grounded in the literary production and the theories of a group of authors recognized for their authority in the field of spatiality in architecture and in the study of cities. The investigation of the spatial quality of architecture to be presented here is based on two descriptive pillars and one methodological. On the one hand, there are the descriptions of the spatial configurations and, on the other hand and in parallel, there are the descriptions of the spatial perception, namely how the observer is living and appreciating spatial situations in which the user’s body and senses play the main role. We will work on the hypothesis that the effects of configuration on the spatial quality occur simultaneously at the local and global scales (AGUIAR, 2016a). At the global scale, we will initially approach the spatial configuration through the morphological description and, in a second phase, from the condition of spatial accessibility/syntax and its impacts on the urban vitality. At the local scale, we will examine the spatial configuration on the one hand through the characteristics of the special delimitation/enclosure and, on the other hand, through the characteristics of the space’s constitution. Then, taking the body as the category of perception, our work is looking at the conditions of legibility, understood as the visual functionality, and of commodity, understood as the haptic functionality. Taking into account the descriptions of the spatial quality outlined above, we eventually address the theme of the movement as a methodological category. Following this roadmap, we aim to bring light to a series of descriptions of the city that are relevant to the comprehension of what is understood as urban quality. We hope this will contribute to the debate on this issue, which is so important currently among both academic and professional circles.

This study inspects how an urban place is made in HafenCity, Hamburg, currently one of Europe’s largest urban development projects. This process is illustrated as a co-production of residential initiative and planners' facilitation in developing a nascent urban district into a self-sustained community. The qualitative approach draws on interviews with 55 residents, interviews with planning agents and participant observation. Planners' agendas and policies are set in relation to residents' local activities, to display how physical engineering and social appropriation are moments conjoined in urban place-making. Newly-built riverside developments have commonly been characterised as enclaves of private affluence with weak attachments of their residents to the local area. Middle class professionals enjoy a ready-made lifestyle marked by private consumption and domestic services that enable them to socially disengage from their surrounding neighbourhood. HafenCity bucks this trend in regard to its dynamic neighbourhood life unfolding among its residents. It is argued that the situation of first-time occupation of a neighbourhood spurs the development of residential relationships and their intensification more readily than in established neighbourhoods. An initial merely aesthetic identification of incoming residents with the lures of their chosen destination is a precondition for the generation of farther reaching identifications, epitomised in engagements with place as something valorised in its own right. The facilitation of such associations is grounded in the intersection of two important factors. As a residential site, HafenCity selectively attracts educated middle class cohorts, implying that cultural capital concentrates within a very confined geographical setting that characterised HafenCity at its earliest stage. The personal identification of many incomers with HafenCity as a place of desire and their resulting optimism after arrival translates into a shared positive sense of place among individuals feeling similarly. This 'community in the mind' facilitates familiarisation among residents and the transition of neighbourly interactions into more meaningful voluntary associations serving needs of sociability, cultural indulgence, economic wellbeing, and most prominently, political engagement seeking to make HafenCity's official planning policy more foreseeable and accountable. In essence, the abundance of cultural capital at the neighbourhood scale acts as a favourable condition for its conversion into social capital for the advancement of a new area into a community of strong residential ties marked by attentiveness to one another's needs. The spatial situation of 'under-construction' encourages residents to voluntary engagement in HafenCity’s development policy. While the planning authority itself stimulates such participative mechanisms, they are at the same time concessions made to legitimise and reinforce the power held by this authority. As a consequence, participation in the development process becomes an ambiguous amalgam of volunteering and institutional intervention. While participation facilitates dialogical structures between residents and planners, it does not increase residents’ actual influence in urban policy making. Through their facilitation of residents' place-making, planners can credit themselves with treating the issue of planning in a foresighted way that refutes notions of technocratic blindness to human needs. Such active promotion of residents' attachments to their place however has its limits. While planners have a vested interest in an active residential community they can showcase as a testimonial to the reasonability of their agenda, they are unable to resolve conflicts of interests among residents that thwart the project of joint place-making. The scope of planners in collaborative place-making is circumscribed by the competencies of an authority that de-legitimises the actual engineering of interpersonal relationships at the neighbourhood level.

Esta dissertação apresenta uma exploração teórica sobre o tema da qualidade espacial na arquitetura em suas diferentes escalas, tendo em conta o ponto de vista de um caminhante sensível ao meio que o envolve. Entende-se, no contexto teórico a ser apresentado, que o tema da qualidade do espaço público urbano tem particular relevância no atual momento das cidades, em função da prioridade destinada a automóveis e veículos automotores nas soluções da espacialidade urbana, normalmente em detrimento daquele que usa a cidade a pé. O trabalho busca fundamentação na produção literária e nas teorias de um grupo de autores com produção reconhecida no tema da espacialidade na arquitetura e nos estudos da cidade. A investigação sobre a qualidade espacial da arquitetura a ser apresentada fundamenta-se em três pilares, dois descritivos e um metodológico. De um lado estarão as descrições da configuração espacial e, de outro, em paralelo, as descrições da percepção espacial, ou seja, o modo como as situações espaciais são vividas e apreciadas pelo observador, quando o corpo e os sentidos do usuário ocupam um papel principal. Trabalhar-se-á com a hipótese de que os efeitos de configuração, sobre a qualidade espacial, ocorrem simultaneamente nas escalas local e global (AGUIAR, 2016a). Na escala global, a configuração espacial será abordada, inicialmente, através da descrição morfológica e, num segundo momento, a partir da condição de acessibilidade/sintaxe espacial e seus impactos na dita vitalidade urbana. Na escala local, a configuração espacial será examinada através tanto das características de delimitação espacial/enclausuramento quanto das características da constituição do espaço. Na sequência, tomando o corpo como categoria de percepção, o trabalho examinará as condições de legibilidade, entendida como funcionalidade visual, e de comodidade, entendida como funcionalidade háptica. Tendo em conta as descrições da qualidade espacial acima delineadas, o trabalho aborda, ao final, o tema do movimento como categoria metodológica. Seguindo esse roteiro, busca-se trazer à luz um conjunto de descrições da cidade relevantes no entendimento daquilo que se entende como qualidade espacial urbana, esperando assim contribuir para o debate sobre esse tópico, tão relevante no momento atual nos meios acadêmico e profissional. / This dissertation presents a theoretical exploration of the subject of spatial quality at different scales in architecture, taking into account the point of view of a walker sensitive to his/her surrounding environment. It is understood in the theoretical context to be presented hereafter that the subject of the quality of an urban, public space is particularly relevant to the cities of today, given the prioritization of cars and other motor vehicles in the designs of urban spaces, usually at the expense of those favored by walkers. This work is grounded in the literary production and the theories of a group of authors recognized for their authority in the field of spatiality in architecture and in the study of cities. The investigation of the spatial quality of architecture to be presented here is based on two descriptive pillars and one methodological. On the one hand, there are the descriptions of the spatial configurations and, on the other hand and in parallel, there are the descriptions of the spatial perception, namely how the observer is living and appreciating spatial situations in which the user’s body and senses play the main role. We will work on the hypothesis that the effects of configuration on the spatial quality occur simultaneously at the local and global scales (AGUIAR, 2016a). At the global scale, we will initially approach the spatial configuration through the morphological description and, in a second phase, from the condition of spatial accessibility/syntax and its impacts on the urban vitality. At the local scale, we will examine the spatial configuration on the one hand through the characteristics of the special delimitation/enclosure and, on the other hand, through the characteristics of the space’s constitution. Then, taking the body as the category of perception, our work is looking at the conditions of legibility, understood as the visual functionality, and of commodity, understood as the haptic functionality. Taking into account the descriptions of the spatial quality outlined above, we eventually address the theme of the movement as a methodological category. Following this roadmap, we aim to bring light to a series of descriptions of the city that are relevant to the comprehension of what is understood as urban quality. We hope this will contribute to the debate on this issue, which is so important currently among both academic and professional circles.

This thesis introduces <em>Interstitial Urbanity</em> as a strategy for addressing issues of urbanity and place within New York's peripheral developments. Driven primarily by market forces, these developer led office and condominium complexes are currently being constructed along the post-industrial shorelines of New York's outer boroughs. Interstitial urbanity proposes an urban centre: a fragment of place within a non-place settlement. The theory is manifested in the design of an interstice that sits within the Queens West development on the Long Island City waterfront. Taking the form of a multi-layered public space, the interstice is comprised of a waterfront market square flanked by a commuter train terminal and an arts centre housed in a turn of the century power plant.

This thesis introduces <em>Interstitial Urbanity</em> as a strategy for addressing issues of urbanity and place within New York's peripheral developments. Driven primarily by market forces, these developer led office and condominium complexes are currently being constructed along the post-industrial shorelines of New York's outer boroughs. Interstitial urbanity proposes an urban centre: a fragment of place within a non-place settlement. The theory is manifested in the design of an interstice that sits within the Queens West development on the Long Island City waterfront. Taking the form of a multi-layered public space, the interstice is comprised of a waterfront market square flanked by a commuter train terminal and an arts centre housed in a turn of the century power plant.

A Idade do Bronze Ibérico foi um período marcado pela chegada dos fenícios na Ibéria. Essa população semítica fundou diversos assentamentos ao longo das margens mediterrânea e atlântica da Península Ibérica. No entanto, será na antiga Gádir (atual Cádiz), que se encontram um dos registros arqueológicos mais antigos que testemunham essa expansão fenícia frente aos já estabelecidos assentamentos tartésicos. Esta pesquisa tem como objetivo estudar o desenvolvimento da cidade de Gádir, na Baía de Cádiz, sul da Península Ibérica, a partir do contato entre fenícios e tartésicos do século IX a.C. até o século VI a.C. assim como verificar, pelo uso do Sistema de Informação Geográfico (SIG), nos valendo de técnicas de geoprocessamento aplicadas à Arqueologia, tais como o DEM (Digital Elevation Model), o LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), Ortofotografias bem como a Análise Espacial de Visibilidade (Viewshed Analysis) para compreender como uma nova paisagem foi construída em um ambiente de intensas trocas culturais entre autóctones e alóctones. Temos como intenção, apoiados nas discussões mais recentes, averiguar a progressão urbana fenícia frente à uma hinterlândia tartésica e como foi o o processo dessa interação e sua consequência para ambos. É nossa intenção, sobretudo, trazer o Extremo Ocidente para o debate uma vez que esta é considerada uma região periférica no Mundo Antigo. / The Iberian Bronze Age was a period marked by the arrival of the Phoenicians in Iberia. This Semitic population founded several settlements along the Mediterranean and Atlantic shores of the Iberian Peninsula. However, it will be in ancient Gádir (present-day Cadiz) that one of the earliest archaeological records that testify to this Phoenician expansion in front of the established Tartessian settlements. This research aims to study the development of the city of Gádir in the Bay of Cadiz, south of the Iberian Peninsula, from the contact between Phoenicians and Tartesians from the 9th century BC until the 6th century BC, as well as verifying, through the use of the Information System (GIS), using geoprocessing techniques applied to Archaeology, such as the Digital Elevation Model (DEM), LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), Orthophotos as well as the Viewshed Analysis to understand how a new landscape was built in an environment of intense cultural exchanges between autochthonous and allochthonous. We intend, based on the most recent discussions, to ascertain the Phoenician urban progression ahead of the Tartessian hinterland and how was the process of this interaction and its consequences for both. It is our intention, above all, to bring the Far West to the debate since it is considered a peripheral region in the Ancient World.