<p>The objective of this study was to uncover what aspects of urban plazas and parks that are most important for users’ evaluations of places’ aesthetics and microclimate (the characteristic climate for a limited space). This was done by investigating people’s general ideas of plazas and parks (the prototypical concepts) and compare these with place users’ descriptions of four specific places. Interviews with two groups (31 and 24 persons respectively) were carried out in order to collect this information. Aspects commonly mentioned in the descriptions, but not included in the prototype, were considered salient and schema-irrelevant (perceived as outstanding but not needed as a defining attribute of the place). This part of the result was related to evaluations of aesthetics and microclimate of the specific places, as well as to subjects’ explanations of some of these evaluations. Evaluations were collected in 716 questionnaires and 1115 on-site interviews, and the explanations in the 24 persons interview concerning specific places. The results indicate that for urban places to be emotionally appreciated they have to manifest some kind of effect of contrast, i.e. they have to embrace some salient schema-irrelevant aspect outstanding enough to work as a centre of the total experience of the place. Furthermore, the results indicate that a separation between emotional and practical aspects of place experiences is needed. In view of that, for urban places to be practically useful, they have to have a prototypical character. For a plaza to be prototypical, it has to be experienced as an enclosed and mainly hard-grounded open square, with good opportunities for commerce and social life. A park has to be green and be able to house a range of activities such as relaxing, picnics and walking.</p>

Changing demographics and lifestyles in Thailand are eroding traditional patterns of family support for the elderly. Caring for the elderly within the family structure is no longer assured. However, the concept of living in retirement housing is unfamiliar to most senior Thai citizens. The purpose of this study was to examine the acceptance of nontraditional retirement housing by pre-retirees in Thailand. The study was based on Rogers' (1995) theory on diffusion of innovations. Personal innovativeness toward housing and acceptance of nontraditional retirement housing of an age-stratified sample of 423 faculty pre-retirees at selected Thai universities, representing metropolitan and non-metropolitan areas, were examined. Four types of housing, perceived as new options to Thai people, were considered: the universal designed single detached house (SD); Elder Cottage Housing Opportunity or "granny flat" (ECHO); congregate housing (CH), and the Continuing Care Retirement Community (CCRC). Independent variables were demographic characteristics (age, gender, marital status, education, and income) and housing characteristics (tenure status, dwelling expenditure, current housing type, and location). Data were collected during February 2002 through a self-administered questionnaire. Descriptive analyses of the independent variables were presented in frequencies, percentages, means, standard deviations, and t-tests and ANOVA were conducted for comparison of variables. Stepwise multiple regression and nonparametric correlation were utilized to test seven null hypotheses. Results dictated rejection of six of the seven null hypotheses. A relationship between personal innovativeness toward housing and gender, income, and education level were found. Males and those with higher income had higher mean innovativeness scores. However, those with higher education levels had lower innovativeness toward housing. Females had higher mean acceptance scores for combined non-traditional housing types. Of the four housing types, the universal designed single detached house (SD) was the most acceptable, followed by Continuing Care Retirement Housing (CCRC). Metropolitan respondents were more accepting of the CCRC than non-metropolitan. A positive correlation was found between personal innovativeness toward housing and acceptance of non-traditional housing types. Personal innovativeness also mediated the effect of demographic and housing characteristics on acceptance of all non-traditional retirement housing types. Respondents showed a medium level of personal innovativeness and a medium to high level of acceptance of non-traditional housing types. Mass media communication was suggested to promote awareness and knowledge of non-traditional housing types to prospective elderly housing consumers. Research on cultural aspects of retirement housing for Thai housing consumers was recommended for further study. / Graduation date: 2003

In contemporary debates on space, the validity of &amp / #8216 / physical space&amp / #8217 / as an indispensable category of human existence is widely questioned on the basis of the claim that the relevant interval of analysis has shifted from &amp / #8216 / space&amp / #8217 / to &amp / #8216 / time&amp / #8217 / , thanks to the technological innovations enabling the speed of present-day telecommunications. The apparent primacy of mobility of deterritorialized commodities, signs, meanings, and identities, in the contemporary society, adds new dimensions to the traumatic experience of ephemerality, in spatial and temporal categories. Through the claims declaring, the dissolution of the dichotomy between urban and rural, and redefinition of the relevant dichotomy between the &amp / #8216 / space of places&amp / #8217 / and the &amp / #8216 / space of flows&amp / #8217 / in recent theoretical efforts / we attempt to trace how the notion of &amp / #8216 / place&amp / #8217 / could be revalidated and reconstituted with reference to processes of contemporary globalization. The study examines the new paths for a constructive definition of &amp / #8216 / place&amp / #8217 / , which are opened up by the crisis in locating and representing temporal and spatial categories both physically and mentally.

Urban decline is one of the most important factors dealing with the creation of urban ills and formation of slums in the city centers. This study investigates the roots of urban decline in urban areas. In order to do so, symptoms, types, causes and participant factors dealing with the process of urban decline are investigated. Also functional decline, as one of the most important triggers of urban decline, is introduced and its force that results in low quality of urban places is explored. The scale of participant factors in the process of functional decline is various. These factors are observed from changes in the global political trends and economy till the regulation changes in local scale. Moreover the ways of talking with urban and functional decline, that is classified into four major category of political considerations, economic financing, planning policy and enhancing the quality of places are explored. Finally the forces of urban and functional decline that have lead to low quality of place in the case of Salipazari, Istanbul are examined. As the scale of study area is in the neighborhood scale, the most important concern will be on the low quality of place in exploring decline in this area.

The signing of the Ta'if Agreement on October 22, 1989 marked the beginning of the end of the divisive and destructive Lebanese Civil War that had raged since 1975. The war was finally ended in March 1991, when the new Lebanese Parliament enacted the General Amnesty Law, which stated that there were to be no victors and no victims in the war ( la ghalib le maghlub). Unfortunately, this law allowed the Lebanese people to turn a blind eye to the ugly truths of the war, and it ushered in an era of uneasy silence in Lebanon. Today, as Lebanon's political battle for independence and a unified national identity continues, there is still no government supported public attempt to break this silence. I believe that this legislated lack of collective/public self-expression has rendered both the local and the Diaspora populations incapable of reconciliation with their recent traumatic past, let alone allowing them to forge a brighter future. This thesis investigates the unrelenting silence permeating every layer of Lebanese society today and proposes architectural solutions that may help to break the silence and thus reconcile Lebanese to their past. The core of this study consists of three architectural interventions aimed at breaching this silence. These are put into context through historical analysis, family interviews, and personal narratives from field research to Beirut conducted by the author in the fall of 2005, as well as photographs, maps, illustrations, and other documents drawn from first person experience. As such, this thesis probes not just the public, but also a personal experience in overcoming Lebanon's silence. Certainly, there can be no reconciliation based on silence.

The signing of the Ta'if Agreement on October 22, 1989 marked the beginning of the end of the divisive and destructive Lebanese Civil War that had raged since 1975. The war was finally ended in March 1991, when the new Lebanese Parliament enacted the General Amnesty Law, which stated that there were to be no victors and no victims in the war ( la ghalib le maghlub). Unfortunately, this law allowed the Lebanese people to turn a blind eye to the ugly truths of the war, and it ushered in an era of uneasy silence in Lebanon. Today, as Lebanon's political battle for independence and a unified national identity continues, there is still no government supported public attempt to break this silence. I believe that this legislated lack of collective/public self-expression has rendered both the local and the Diaspora populations incapable of reconciliation with their recent traumatic past, let alone allowing them to forge a brighter future. This thesis investigates the unrelenting silence permeating every layer of Lebanese society today and proposes architectural solutions that may help to break the silence and thus reconcile Lebanese to their past. The core of this study consists of three architectural interventions aimed at breaching this silence. These are put into context through historical analysis, family interviews, and personal narratives from field research to Beirut conducted by the author in the fall of 2005, as well as photographs, maps, illustrations, and other documents drawn from first person experience. As such, this thesis probes not just the public, but also a personal experience in overcoming Lebanon's silence. Certainly, there can be no reconciliation based on silence.

This thesis will empirically examine the distribution of centers of commercial activity in the modern city. Using measures of built space for different types of activity in Atlanta, we will map the distribution of activity in the city; then we will derive the system of centers distributed throughout the city. This system of centers will be sorted into scales, from global to local, so that the morphological properties of the street network associated with each scale may be analyzed using space syntax and other tools. We will then compare the distribution of centers in different portions of Atlanta, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Finally, we will compate the emergent distribution of centers to distributions proposed by Doxiadis, Alexander, Central Place Theory, and others.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Oregon, 2003. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-121).

The report evolves from previous work in the field that questions the efficacy of the 50-year rule, or criterion consideration G, of the National Register of Historic Places program to register and protect modern and recent past resources. Proponents of the recent past argue that by restricting evaluation of historic architecture to only that which is 50-years or older is leading to widespread endangerment and demolition of buildings and sites with periods of significance from the postwar era. This report studies the use of criterion G in-depth since the inception of the National Register program and attempts to identify and quantify the resources lost through continued adherence to the 50-year rule. The analysis is done in two parts. Part one examines the history of the use of criterion G by tracking patterns in the National Register of Historic Places data between 1966 and 2010 to determine how and where the case for exceptional significance has been made. Part two challenges the capacity of the existing framework of the 50-year rule and the NRHP program to protect the recent past by surveying the current status of a 145 AIA award-winning buildings from the 1960s. Most are virtually undiscovered in the canon of American architectural history, and all could likely be found as exceptionally significant. The study finds more than 75% of the AIA award-winners standing and possessing good integrity, but only 6% actually listed on the Register. The report concludes that we are losing less to outright demolition than estimated, but lack of context studies and an inconsistent vocabulary for postwar architecture is preventing the registration of intact resources from the 1960s that could greatly benefit from the awareness and recognition that is the primary purpose of the National Register. / text

This study forms part of a larger study funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) -FA 2006041100003, stretching across five years within AUTHeR (Africa Unit for Transdisciplinary Health Research), in the Faculty of Health Sciences at the North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus. The aim of the larger study is to gain a better understanding of alcohol consumption patterns and causes as well as consequences of binge drinking. While the link between binge drinking and interpersonal violence is well documented, paucity of researched information focusing on the nature of the link was identified. The identified problem pointed to a need for a theoretical study, accomplished by means of a literature review. It is concluded that while binge drinking and interpersonal violence co-occur, there is no evidence that binge drinking causes interpersonal violence. Literature is systematically reviewed to understand the social aspects of alcohol abuse in the broader South Africa. The review concluded that alcohol abuse is caused by a multiplicity of factors and does pose a threat to the quality of life of many South Africans. It has conclusively been determined that there is a need to readdress existing liquor policies. Factors contributing to binge drinking and interpersonal violence at and around different alcohol drinking outlets were explored, following an observational study. The investigation produced some of the following findings: • Neighbourhoods with a higher density of alcohol drinking outlets tend to display public disorder. • Poor management of alcohol outlets poses a health and physical hazard to patrons. • Marketing strategies used are aggressive and irresponsible. It is concluded that there seem discrepancies between existing liquor policies and the actual running of liquor businesses. Narratives of binge drinkers and those of non-binge drinkers were analysed using focus groups and in-depth interviews. The analysis revealed some of the following as precipitating and maintenance factors of the alcohol-violence link: • A culture of drinking: Participants drink alcohol for social, cultural, coping, and enhancement motives. • A culture of violence: Men seem violent prior to consuming alcohol, and violence seems to be a learned behaviour. • Traditional gender roles seem transgressed by women mainly through their drinking of alcohol in public. These findings necessitated further investigation into services in the North West Province in terms of job creation, liquor licensing, non-adherence to ethics and unavailability on weekends by some service providers, and the shifting of traditional gender roles of women. Based on the critical analysis of service delivery networks in the North West Province by interviewing key informants and analysing documents, it was revealed that, not withstanding gaps, the province has policies in place dealing with: job creation; liquor regulation; ethically bound police services; specialized social work services to sexually assaulted victims on weekdays and weekends, and the empowerment of men. It has conclusively been determined that the analysed services, when re-addressed, hold possibilities of instilling hope in community members, including victims and perpetrators of alcohol-induced violence. / Thesis (Ph.D. (Social Work))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2010.