No description available.

This thesis explores Neighbourhood and Building Environmental Assessment Tools’ (NBEATs’) function as assessment tools and decision support, and their relation to environment, architecture and architects. This is done by analysing, testing, and discussing a number of NBEATs (LEED-NC, Code for Sustainable Homes, EcoEffect, LEED-ND, BREEAM-C, and ENSLIC-tool), their manuals and use. Moreover, professionals’ (architects’) self-rated opinions regarding use and knowledge of NBEATs and environmental aspects are surveyed. Similarities and differences in NBEATs are found regarding: content, structure, weighting and indicators used. Indicators distinguished as procedure, performance and feature are used to varying extents to assess social, environmental and technical aspects. NBEATs relation to environmental sustainability has limitations due to: non-transparency, tradable indicators, relative measures, low criteria levels, limited life cycle perspective, and exclusion of relevant environmental aspects, such as embedded toxic substances, nutrient cycles, land use change, and ecosystem services. Ratings and architecture are influenced by NBEATs in varying ways. Higher criteria levels would probably increase their impact on architecture. Thus more research regarding NBEATs and links to architectural design, theory and practice is welcomed. There is limited use of NBEATs as decision support in early design phases such as in architectural competitions. Architects rate the importance of environmental aspects high, but few rate their skill in handling environmental aspects high. This calls for increasing knowledge and know-how of environmental strategies and solutions among architects and adaptation of NBEATs to early design processes. The values NBEATs reflect and the values we want them to create is also important. To support ‘environmental’ architecture, an increased socio-eco-technological system perspective is put forward, and other measures besides NBEATs are needed. / <p>QC 20160926</p>

O foco desta pesquisa é a atuação de arquitetos e urbanistas militantes em urbanização de favelas. Para tal recorremos acasos concretos de experiências de urbanização de favelas com a participação destes técnicos na Região Metropolitana de São Paulo e Município do Rio de Janeiro da década de 60 aos anos 2010. Pretendemos desta forma olhar para este campo de atuação do arquiteto e urbanista, mas focando naqueles que historicamente têm exercitado intervenções mais justas, mais integradoras, mais emancipadas em favelas. Trata-se de um reconhecimento da atuação destes arquitetos - sujeitos políticos, mas também a apresentação de uma retrospectiva sobre as suas práticas, muitas vezes pioneiras no seu campo de atuação. Trata-se também de uma reflexão sobre os alcances e limites da sua ação militante. Selecionamos sujeitos que se destacam nessa atuação e cujas experiências que acontecem num tensionamento entre técnica, estética e ética. Na prática, os resultados são por vezes limitados, e muitas vezes frustrantes, mas ao mesmo tempo, seguramente inspiradores. A partir dos seus relatos e reflexões, mesmo que em contexto muito diversificados, encontramos pontos de contato nas metodologias, nas ações e nas intenções e que denominamos como práticas militantes em urbanização de favelas. Com esta pesquisa propomos um mapeamento de possíveis referências, mas também o questionamento sobre o lugar do arquiteto frente a territórios de conflito. / This research focus on the action of militant architects and urban planners in what regards slum upgrading processes in favelas from the 60\'s to the 10\'s decades. In order to do so, we resort to concrete cases of slum upgrading experiences in favelas that counted upon the participation of theses subjects in the metropolitan region of São Paulo, as well as in the municipality of Rio de Janeiro. We aimed at regarding this field of action of architects and urban planners focusing on the professionals that have been proposing interventions that seek to be more just, more integrated, and more emancipated in favelas. This work intends to recognize the background of these architects - understood as political subjects herein - but also, to approach a retrospective about their experiences that usually reveal to be pionneer in their professional field. It also aims at analyising the limits and advances of their militant action. We have chosen professionals that stand out in their field of action, and whose experiences stress the boundaries of ethics, aesthetics and techinique. In the end, the results of their experiences are rare, generally frustrating, but at the same time, surely inspiring. We have built our analysis upon their oral information and their own relfections over their experience, and, despite the different contexts, we have come to common points in terms of methods, practice and inteverntions, that we have have designated as militant practices in slum upgranding. Through this research, we present a mapping of possible references, but also a questioning over the role of architects in territories of conflicts.

This dissertation studies a critical turn in Southern European discourses on urban form, one that shaped new approaches to political engagement in architecture and urbanism in the 1970s. Beginning in the 1960s, a group of left-leaning architects and intellectuals in Italian academia, concerned with the effects of speculative development on urban populations, theorized a new political approach to the city based on critical histories of urban form. I argue that this discourse on urban form carried an “historical imperative”—a demand to analyze the history of a city prior to any plan or project. Essential to this imperative was the idea that the history of modernity, in its processes of development and social relations, was inscribed in urban form. Accessing this knowledge via urban analysis meant accessing tools to reposition the architectural profession and critically engage with the development of the city. This study examines the discourses on urban form in the context of the Spanish and Portuguese transition to democracy, and how Iberian architects translated and deployed the central concepts of typology and urban morphology toward democratic processes such as decentralization, social preservation, and urban rights. While the history of modern architecture and politics has been typically associated with visionary utopias and state technocracy, this dissertation challenges this perspective by concentrating on the translation of discourse into the reform of professional institutions. In a circular movement between Italian theories—of Carlo Aymonino, Aldo Rossi, and Manfredo Tafuri, among others—and their Iberian translations, this study traces four institutional fronts reshaped by this critical approach to urban form: the reform of urban pedagogy and planning led by Manuel Solà-Morales in Barcelona; the introduction of typology in the preservation of historical centers; the creation of a decentralized housing program in the Portuguese SAAL process; and the revision of modern architectural historiography by Ignasi Solà-Morales, Josep Quetglas, and Víctor Perez Escolano. Interweaving the histories of Italian and Iberian architectural discourse in an expanded intellectual map, this study offers a critical reflection on the intersection of conceptual and institutional frameworks of architecture, politics, and urban form, and repositions architecture in relation to democratic processes pertaining the city.

This study investigates the changing understanding of the role of the ???architect??? in Italy during the sixteenth century by examining frontispieces to published architectural treatises. From analysis of these illustrations four attributes emerge as important to new societal understandings of the role of ???architect.??? The first attribute is the desire to delineate the boundaries of knowledge for architecture as a discipline, relevant to sixteenth-century society. The second is the depiction of the ???architect,??? as an intellectual engaged in the resolution of practical, political, economic and philosophical considerations of his practice. The third represents the ???architect??? having a specific domain of activity in the design of civic spaces of magnificence not only for patrons but also for the city per se. The fourth represents the ???architect??? and society as perceiving a commonality of an architectural role beyond the boundary of individual locations and patrons. Five treatises meet the criteria set for this study: Sebastiano Serlio???s Regole generali di architetura sopra le Cinque maniere de gli edifici cio??, Toscano, Dorico, Ionico, Corinthio, et Composito, con gli essempi dell???antiquita, che, per la magior parte concordano con la dottrina di Vitruvio, 1537, his, Il Terzo libro nel qual si figurano, e descrivono le antichita di Roma, 1540, Cosimo Bartoli???s translation of Alberti???s De re aedificatoria titled L???architettura di Leonbattista Alberti, tradotta in lingua fiorentina da Cossimo Bartoli, Gentilhuomo, & Academico Fiorentino, 1550; Daniele Barbaro???s translation and commentary on Vitruvius??? De???architetura titled, I dieci libri dell???architettura di M. Vitruvio tradutti et commentati da monsignor Barbaro eletto Patriarca d???Aquileggia, 1556; and Andrea Palladio???s I quattro libri dell???architettura, 1570. A second aim for the study was to review the usefulness of frontispieces as an historical archive. It was found that frontispieces visually structure important ideas by providing a narrative with meaning as an integral part of the illustration. In this narrative frontispiece illustrations prioritise concepts found in the accompanying text and impose a hierarchical structure of importance for fundamental ideas.

PhD / In design literature, how designers think and how they design have been identified as a reflection of how they interact with their sketches. Sketching in architectural design is still a central concern which shapes our understanding of the design process and the development of new tools. Sketching not only serves as a visual aid to store and retrieve conceptualisations, but as a medium to facilitate more ideas, and to revise and refine these ideas. This thesis examined how mental imagery and sketching is used in designing by conducting a protocol analysis study with six expert architects. Each architect was required to think aloud and design under two different conditions: one in which s/he had access to sketching and one in which s/he was blindfolded (s/he did not have access to sketching). At the end of the blindfold condition the architects were required to quickly sketch what they held in their minds. The architects were able to come up with satisfying design solutions and some reported that using their imagery could be another way of designing. The resulting sketches were assessed by judges and were found to have no significant differences in overall quality. Expert architects were able to construct and maintain the design of a building without having access to sketching. The analysis of the blindfold and sketching design protocols did not demonstrate any differences in the quantity of cognitive actions in perceptual, conceptual, functional and evaluative categories. Each architect’s cognitive structure and designing behaviour in the blindfold activity mimicked her/his cognitive structure and designing behaviour in the sketching activity. The analysis of links between the design ideas demonstrated that architects’ performance in idea development was higher under the blindfold condition, compared to their sketching condition. It was also found that architects’ blindfold design performance was improved when they were more familiar with the site layout. These results imply that expert designers may not need sketching as a medium for their reflective conversation with the situation. This study indicates that constructing internal representations can be a strong tool for designing. Future studies may show that designers may not need sketching for the generation of certain designs during the early phases of conceptual designing.

Information Technology (IT) systems have become essential components of our society. These IT systems have an internal structure called the system's architecture. This architecture directly affects the system's performance and ability to meet business objectives. The people who design this structure are called IT Architects. Investigating the capabilities that distinguish highly-skilled IT Architects contributes to IT knowledge and practice and supports improving the design of systems' architectures as well as the selection and development of IT Architects. This thesis examines some of the capabilities that distinguish highly-skilled IT Architects and applies the resulting understanding to the education of post-graduate IT students. By investigating selected capabilities of highly-skilled IT Architects, how this group of IT Architects differ from their colleagues with respect to highly-valued capabilities and how these capabilities could be taught, we clarify both a professional and an educational basis for improvement. The research has a three stage, multi-method design. The initial stage, undertaken in 2004, consists of interview-based qualitative research with fourteen practicing IT Architects to understand the characteristics of highly-skilled IT Architects. The interviewees were chosen through personal relationships and subsequent snowball sampling and through the interviews and subsequent analysis, we identify eight capabilities, four personality traits and a range of experience that is valuable for highly-skilled IT Architects. These results support prior research that identified the importance of communications and business knowledge while extending the range of valuable characteristics for the IT Architect role. The next quantitative stage surveys 82 practicing IT Architects and 97 other IT professionals using four psychological measures; the Cognitive Style Inventory (CSI), the Problem Solving Inventory (PSI), the Vividness of Visual Imagery Questionnaire (VVIQ), and Zimbardo's Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI). The analysis, undertaken in 2005, identifies two statistically significant differentiating capabilities that distinguish highly-skilled IT Architects from less skilled IT Architects. The first capability is that the highly-skilled IT Architects approach problems differently and generate more alternatives before attempting solutions and spend more effort evaluating outcomes than the less skilled IT Architects. The second capability is that the less skilled IT Architects have a different attitude towards time and do not always act consistently with a longer term perspective. The final stage of research investigates whether the teaching of material related to the two distinguishing capabilities improve students outcomes for these capabilities. In 2006 we measured the initial student capability level of 35 students, the level of 28 of these students at the conclusion of the subject, and again in 2007, one-year later 16 students were measured. We again use quantitative surveys with the PSI and ZTPI instruments and found that whilst we measure a change in student capability for problem solving, the two capabilities we targeted are not significantly affected through the teaching. Interviews with the participants indicate that the teaching is effective and the lack of significant differences in the targeted capabilities is because of external factors overriding what they are learning. Our research contributes to the field of Computer Science and Information Technology by providing: (i) the basis for improved identification and selection of IT Architects for industry and providing additional information to enhance their professional education through the identification of distinguishing capabilities of highly-skilled IT Architects; (ii) information for educators about IT Architect capabilities and capability development that are important for highly-skilled IT Architects and some considerations when teaching these capabilities; (iii) a foundation for research that compares and contrasts capabilities within other IT professions; and (iv) results that can be used to improve the process of architecting IT systems. More generally, the research contributes to the body of knowledge regarding IT skills and requirements for different roles.

At this stage, enterprises are faced with rapidly changing business environment. With estimated the relative reaction time and decision-making has also become very short time. Any decision-making will be on corporate organizational structure and business process changes consequent. The adjustments of the enterprises would require the co-ordination of Information Systems. How to quickly modify the information system for the enterprises has become a very important issue. This thesis has a website for example that describes how to use the Service-Oriented Architects Association Website Model (SOAAWM) of the amendment to the enterprise information system. SOAAWM uses four tools such as architecture hierarchy diagram, service operation diagram, structure-behavior coalescence diagram, and business process diagram to build up the website. SOAAWM is based on the service-oriented theory and method. By using the structure-behavior coalescence approach embedded in SOAAWM, we are able to describe working situations of organizational structures, business processes, and information systems clearly enough to reduce the business risks. In this study, through structure-behavior coalescence approach embedded in the theory and method of service-oriented re-planning of the organizational structures and business processes, making such a great level of complexity and impact of information systems can be avoided in the build omissions or bias, but also enhance the post on-line information system communication efficiency and maintain quality. This is the major achievement of our research.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 92-96).

published_or_final_version / Chinese Historical Studies / Master / Master of Arts