My project investigated the spatial concepts of Japanese architecture to see if they offer a particular insight into the design of the emerging model of live/work. The search embodied in my directed study and the subsequent design, therefore, was testing this hypothesis. Among many other concepts, Japanese spatial sensibilities include harmony in crowded environs, expansion of experiential space over limited physical distances, and tripartite physical thought. I felt that in the context of evolving models of dwelling and a desired urban densification, we could learn from nations that have already dealt with similar situations. The design addresses the complexity of the social fabric of the Downtown Eastside by taking a Japanese approach to the nature of public and private space. Like an upward spiral of Kyoto storefront houses, the units cluster around a "vertical street," meant to be an extension of Dunlevy Street. During normal business hours, the public may enter the plaza level, participate in the "vertical street" and interact with the people living and working in the units. The transition between the public and private realms is thereby multi-layered. The visitor passes through an indoor/outdoor atrium space, along the "vertical street" and into the units through forecourts and implied work zones fronting the "vertical street." This "onion-like" approach to a layering of public to private space is echoed in the outer skins of the building with a double facade concept. As the atrium space creates an inside/outside ("Ma") zone for the complex itself, the double facade creates an inside/outside zone for the units themselves. This "Ma" zone can function as an extension of the inside or as a room unto itself. The sequential layering of units as discrete "gates" along the "vertical street" is another Japanese spatial idea. The passage along this "street" becomes a series of events culminating at the rooftop gallery and sculpture garden, where the experience of the multi-layered north view is realized. The events along this route and the destination provide the impetus for movement along the route itself. The completed design integrates key Japanese spatial concepts into a western context and location, resulting in a unique model for the design of live/work: one that creates community with personal privacy, yet allows commercial interaction by actively engaging the public.

In the last 15 years, urban change in Vancouver, British Columbia, has been broadly understood in racial terms. Media and academic treatments of landscape transformation have suggested that Vancouver, as a 'gateway city' to the Pacific Rim, will inevitably experience Asian-lead change, economism, and 'creative destruction'. Oppositely, white Canadians are often portrayed as the defenders of tradition, the environment, and Vancouver 'as is'. The epithet 'monster' house, used to describe large, new, and predominandy Chinese-owned houses in Vancouver's elite Anglo neighborhoods, evidences how built form has been strongly correlated with the concepts of race and culture in popular representations of landscape. This thesis problematizes these essentialist, race-driven narratives by examining the ways in which textual representations of urban change are embedded within existing relations of power, particularly taken-for-granted subject-object looking relations.

In an attempt to prove that cooperation between a public and a private agency will give a more efficient recreational programme for a specified area, the study, although strictly limited, investigates the area, and membership distribution at Alexandra House and Kitsilano Community Centre. After stating the function of a public and a private recreational agency, and describing three experimental programmes, the historical development and administration of the two agencies is outlined. Next, the study analyses the Junior teenage programme of Alexandra House, and the teenage programme at Kitsilano Community Centre on the basis of facilities, activities, leadership and programme development. The method used was to study the records of the respective agencies with particular reference to the teenage programmes mentioned. Programmes exhibiting cooperation in other cities were also studied with a view to their application to the local scene. Interviews and discussions with officials followed. The writer also drew upon his personal experiences as a social worker at Alexandra House. The study reveals facts which are important to the conclusions drawn and the recommendations made. Namely, that the area known as "Kitsilano" has not been defined, that transiency on the part of membership effects the programme, that Kitsilano High School is a common meeting ground for members of both agencies, that patterns of cooperation on the part of public and private agencies is possible, that Alexandra House, being an older agency than Kitsilano Community Centre, has worked through some of the problems facing the Centre, that administratively the two agencies are quite different. The analysis of the respective programmes points up that the two agencies are meeting the recreational needs of a large number of teenagers in different ways but that gaps in services do exist. The conclusions drawn are that the two agencies should cooperate in instigating research: to define the "Kitsilano" area, to ascertain the needs of the area in definite terms, to establish the division of labour between a public and a private agency, and to interpret a total programme of services to the public. It is further recommended that patterns of cooperation should be established along the lines of the Cleveland experiment, the Los Angeles Youth Board, and the New York City Youth Commission. / Arts, Faculty of / Social Work, School of / Graduate

This thesis is an ethnographic study of the present day practice of traditional Chinese herbal medicine by the Chinese community of Vancouver, British Columbia. A qualitative research design was used to document the facilities, activities, people and beliefs involved in the practice of Chinese herbalism. A descriptive survey i s summarized for the 18 herbal pharmacies found in Vancouver's Chinatown. One herbal pharmacy is used as an example to provide a case study for the herbal products available and the interactions between the herbalist and the clientele. The thesis is organized around three key questions. The first concerns the social organization of traditional Chinese herbal knowledge in Vancouver. A tripartite model is used to conceptualize three distinct areas of expertise and knowledge of traditional herbalism in the Chinese community. These are the: (i) traditional Chinese herbal doctors; ( ii ) folk practitioners who are herbal pharmacists; ( iii ) family use of herbs in self-care. A major finding of the study was the central role the Chinese family plays in perpetuating the traditional use of herbs for both the prevention and treatment of disease. The second question attempts to determine how the practice of Chinese herbalism has changed due to its transplantation from Asia to Canada. The most significant difference was the minor role played by the traditional Chinese herbal doctor i n Vancouver compared to those in Hong Kong. The third question the thesis addresses is why "has Chinese herbalism persisted in a Western setting where everyone has free access to a government supported health care system. The author examines both ethnic and cultural explanations to understand the strength of the Chinese herbal tradition in Vancouver. Data on the efficacy of Chinese herbs on both physiological and cultural-symbolic levels is presented to demonstrate the viability of this healing system i n a contemporary context. The thesis concludes with a discussion on the complementarity between the Western and Chinese healing systems from both a practical and a theoretical perspective. / Arts, Faculty of / Anthropology, Department of / Graduate

Over the century 1880-1980, settlers of Chinese origin in Vancouver, British Columbia have been perceived primarily through the nexus of a racial category that defines them as pre-eminently "Chinese" or "Oriental." Similarly, their place in the urban landscape, "Chinatown," has in one sense been a product of host-society categories and institutional practices that have acted to single Chinatown out, and to render it continuously a place apart. The point of departure for this thesis is the view that "race" is not an objectively given biological trait, but an idea, defined by the significance people attach to it. It is an idiom around which have been erected epistemological distinctions of insider and outsider, "we" and "they." In view of the problematic nature of race, it is argued that one of the tasks of the social science of race relations is to uncover the socio-historical process by which racial categories are themselves constructed and institutionalized over time and in certain contexts. In developing this argument, the thesis demonstrates the role played by place and the state in the continuous making of a racial category, the "Chinese." The significance of place is identified for its role as the historically evolving nexus through which the racial category is structured. It is argued that "Chinatown" - like race - is an idea, a representation that belongs to the white European cultural tradition and the intention of the thesis is to trace the career of its social definition over the course of a century. In so doing, the claim is made that Chinatown reveals as much of the "West" as it does of the "East." Ideas of place and identity would not be so enduring or effective, however, but for the fact that they have been repeatedly inscribed in the practices of those with the power of definition. It is argued that the three levels of the Canadian state, as the legislative arms of a hegemonic "white" European historical bloc, have granted legitimacy to, and reproduced the race definition process through their national, provincial and neighbourhood practices. This process continues through the long period when "Chinatown" was reviled as a public nuisance, promoted as a "Little Corner of the Far East," reconstructed as a "slum" and finally under the aegis of multiculturalism, courted in the 1970s by the Canadian state precisely for its perceived "Chineseness." Underlying these changing definitions of Chinatown, it is argued, is a deeper racial frame of reference that has been continuously re-created through discriminatory and more subtle ways as part of the exercise of white European cultural domination. Lying behind the career of the racial category, therefore, is the history of the relationship between place, racial discourse, power and institutional practice in a British settler society. The study is undertaken with a view to uncovering those relationships and by way of a contribution to the recent rediscovery of place in human geography. / Arts, Faculty of / Geography, Department of / Graduate

This study proposes a strategy which will assist governments, the sponsors of hallmark events, and community groups to identify and plan for the negative housing impacts of such events. Hallmark events are major one-time or recurring events of limited duration, developed primarily to enhance the awareness, appeal and profitability of a tourist destination in the short and/or long term. World's Fairs and Olympic Games are two examples of hallmark events. The 1986 World's Fair (Expo 86) in Vancouver provided an opportunity to document the impacts of this hallmark event on the residents of a community which borders the fair site and on the planning practices of the local government. Five research questions are addressed: 1) How has the nature of World's Fairs changed since their emergence in the late 19th century? 2) To what extent have World's Fairs been used as an inner city redevelopment tool; what have their housing impacts been; and, how have these impacts been planned for? 3) What was the nature of the housing impacts of Expo 86 on the residents of the Downtown Eastside community in Vancouver? 4) What was the City of Vancouver's planning process with respect to the potential and then actual housing impacts of Expo 86 on the residents of the Downtown Eastside? 5) What were the reasons for the success and/or failure of the City of Vancouver's planning process? These research questions are explored by: undertaking a literature review; corresponding with academics, planners and World's Fair staff in cities where fairs have or will be held; interviewing representatives of Expo 86, the City of Vancouver and the impacted community; analyzing City files on the issue; and, personal observation. The results suggest that the nature of World's Fairs has changed considerably since their emergence. In the last two decades, their use as an inner city redevelopment tool, in combination with the pressures created by millions of fair visitors, has created four different types of housing impacts: on-site impact; post-announcement speculative impact; pre-Expo tourist demand impact; and, post-Expo impact. In Vancouver, for example, between 1,600 and 2,600 lodging house units were demolished or converted between 1978 and 1986 in a community bordering the fair site (Expo 86 was announced in 1980). In addition, between January and June, 1986, 500 to 850 residents were evicted from lodging houses (Expo 86 opened on May 2, 1986). The evaluation of the City of Vancouver's planning process for the Expo 86 housing impacts suggests that the City was adequately prepared. However, it was the politics of planning -- the issues of political jurisdiction, ideology and ideological differences -- which resulted in the City's failure to stop the negative housing impacts. This study concludes by recommending that a systematic planning process be implemented for addressing the housing impacts of hallmark events. Planners should adapt their role in the process to fit the planning environment. Lastly, governments, sponsors of hallmark events, and community groups should implement a wide range of options to prevent negative housing impacts from occurring. Examples of such options and some "points to consider" are presented in Chapter Five of this study. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

My project investigated the spatial concepts of Japanese architecture to see if they offer a particular insight into the design of the emerging model of live/work. The search embodied in my directed study and the subsequent design, therefore, was testing this hypothesis. Among many other concepts, Japanese spatial sensibilities include harmony in crowded environs, expansion of experiential space over limited physical distances, and tripartite physical thought. I felt that in the context of evolving models of dwelling and a desired urban densification, we could learn from nations that have already dealt with similar situations. The design addresses the complexity of the social fabric of the Downtown Eastside by taking a Japanese approach to the nature of public and private space. Like an upward spiral of Kyoto storefront houses, the units cluster around a "vertical street," meant to be an extension of Dunlevy Street. During normal business hours, the public may enter the plaza level, participate in the "vertical street" and interact with the people living and working in the units. The transition between the public and private realms is thereby multi-layered. The visitor passes through an indoor/outdoor atrium space, along the "vertical street" and into the units through forecourts and implied work zones fronting the "vertical street." This "onion-like" approach to a layering of public to private space is echoed in the outer skins of the building with a double facade concept. As the atrium space creates an inside/outside ("Ma") zone for the complex itself, the double facade creates an inside/outside zone for the units themselves. This "Ma" zone can function as an extension of the inside or as a room unto itself. The sequential layering of units as discrete "gates" along the "vertical street" is another Japanese spatial idea. The passage along this "street" becomes a series of events culminating at the rooftop gallery and sculpture garden, where the experience of the multi-layered north view is realized. The events along this route and the destination provide the impetus for movement along the route itself. The completed design integrates key Japanese spatial concepts into a western context and location, resulting in a unique model for the design of live/work: one that creates community with personal privacy, yet allows commercial interaction by actively engaging the public. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

In the last 15 years, urban change in Vancouver, British Columbia, has been broadly understood in racial terms. Media and academic treatments of landscape transformation have suggested that Vancouver, as a 'gateway city' to the Pacific Rim, will inevitably experience Asian-lead change, economism, and 'creative destruction'. Oppositely, white Canadians are often portrayed as the defenders of tradition, the environment, and Vancouver 'as is'. The epithet 'monster' house, used to describe large, new, and predominandy Chinese-owned houses in Vancouver's elite Anglo neighborhoods, evidences how built form has been strongly correlated with the concepts of race and culture in popular representations of landscape. This thesis problematizes these essentialist, race-driven narratives by examining the ways in which textual representations of urban change are embedded within existing relations of power, particularly taken-for-granted subject-object looking relations. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

The 1941 Binning House in West Vancouver has long been hailed as a pioneer of Modernism in domestic Canadian architecture, and an inspiration for much of the West Coast Architecture that followed. Although it is usually described as product of Corbusian rationalism and a paradigm of low-cost dwelling, in fact it is neither. Rather, it is a composite of several competing strains of Modernism and aesthetic values prevalent in London during the year (1938-39) in which Binning resided there to study fine art. The Binning House is often misread as an austerely functionalist plan with an orthogonal layout, but a closer observation and actual measurement of wall and window angles reveals that Binning actually inflected the orthogonal, generating a splayed geometric layout with obtuse and acute angles in several corners, trapezoidal forms in the built-in furniture and studio clerestory window, and a dynamic sense of visual expansion and contraction. Binning's study with Henry Moore was evidently tremendously influential in this regard, as Moore avoided the machine-like aesthetic of the orthogonal and instead imbued his art with oblique, irregular and rounded lines. The oblique motif also manifests in Binning's own drawings of this time. Also empathetic to this approach was Berthold Lubetkin, whose Whipsnade Bungalow near London defied the doctrines of orthogonal functionalism. Binning viewed plans and photos of Whipsnade and other emblems of early European modernism at a seminal 1939 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This exhibition synthesized many of the ideas and forms that Binning had been exposed to in London and seems to have served as a catalyst for the house plan he was about to compose. In converging these various strains of early Modernism, Binning has transcended the dogma of architectural discourse and rendered it meaningful for a local, individual context. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of / Graduate

Project Report (M.Pub.) - Simon Fraser University, 2005. / Project Report (Master of Publishing Program) / Simon Fraser University. Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.