My work attempts to enrich physical place through the creation of virtual layers that enable users to understand their contexts more meaningfully. The intention is to address the practices of spatial and information design as the same design problem, thus acknowledging the simultaneity of contemporary lifestyles. This report summarizes my explorations in graduate school to develop a methodology, which combines the use of physical and virtual components to enable the design of meaningful places. / text

This thesis tells two intertwined stories about stories about nature. One, theoretical, asks what stories and histories do and why storytelling matters in place-making and policy-making. The second questions the effect of narratives of pristine nature on place-meanings in southwest New Zealand, serving as a case study to illustrate the abstract relationships of the first. Throughout reflexive consideration of my research journey as academic storytelling contributes to my theoretical arguments. Narratives help humans make sense of time and their place in the world. Stories and histories both shape new and reflect current understandings of the world. Thus narratives of nature and place are historically, geographically, and culturally specific. Place-meanings result from the geography of stories layered over time on a physical location. In the iterative process of continually re-presenting landscapes in specific places, negotiation between storytellers with variable power shapes physical environments and future place-meanings. This thesis uses the pristine story to explore these links between stories and histories, place-meanings, and policy decisions. From the arrival of New Zealand's first colonists to today's perceived "clean green" landscape, narratives distinguishing timeless nature from human culture have influenced policy-making in multiple ways. Focusing specifically on understandings of the conservation lands now listed by UNESCO as Te Wāhipounamu South-West World Heritage Area, I trace the origins and evolution of three dominant narrative strands - world heritage, national parks, and Ngāi Tahu cultural significance. Using post-colonial understandings of conservation as cultural colonization, I consider how the pristine narrative obscured Ngāi Tahu understandings of the area. I explore how the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998 has begun to shift place-meanings by altering power-geometries between storytellers. Participant-observation in Department of Conservation visitor centres, however, illustrates that legislated stories and storytelling processes are expressed differently in representations of land in specific locations

This thesis tells two intertwined stories about stories about nature. One, theoretical, asks what stories and histories do and why storytelling matters in place-making and policy-making. The second questions the effect of narratives of pristine nature on place-meanings in southwest New Zealand, serving as a case study to illustrate the abstract relationships of the first. Throughout reflexive consideration of my research journey as academic storytelling contributes to my theoretical arguments. Narratives help humans make sense of time and their place in the world. Stories and histories both shape new and reflect current understandings of the world. Thus narratives of nature and place are historically, geographically, and culturally specific. Place-meanings result from the geography of stories layered over time on a physical location. In the iterative process of continually re-presenting landscapes in specific places, negotiation between storytellers with variable power shapes physical environments and future place-meanings. This thesis uses the pristine story to explore these links between stories and histories, place-meanings, and policy decisions. From the arrival of New Zealand's first colonists to today's perceived "clean green" landscape, narratives distinguishing timeless nature from human culture have influenced policy-making in multiple ways. Focusing specifically on understandings of the conservation lands now listed by UNESCO as Te Wāhipounamu South-West World Heritage Area, I trace the origins and evolution of three dominant narrative strands - world heritage, national parks, and Ngāi Tahu cultural significance. Using post-colonial understandings of conservation as cultural colonization, I consider how the pristine narrative obscured Ngāi Tahu understandings of the area. I explore how the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act 1998 has begun to shift place-meanings by altering power-geometries between storytellers. Participant-observation in Department of Conservation visitor centres, however, illustrates that legislated stories and storytelling processes are expressed differently in representations of land in specific locations

Proper and dignified care for an aging population, especially those with Stage IandII Alzheimer's disease is a challenge. To stay and live in one place as conditions progress irreversibly is perhaps one of the areas where architecture could make a contribution. In addition to patients, the needs of caretakers and visiting family members play a role in the program for a new facility. As an architectural premise, the focus is directed toward an environment that is memorable, provides basic comfort, and instills a sense of belonging. Essentially, the proposal advocates an architecture made operational by providing spaces that enable deep archaic memories which seem to remain present in the psyche of Alzheimer's patients even in advanced stages. / Master of Architecture

No description available.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / William P. Winslow III / College campuses are places of education and innovation for students, faculty, and the community of which they are a part. Universities have a unique opportunity to serve as the premier catalyst for development, which gives them the power to create new communities that are more than educational facilities. Nova Southeastern University, in Davie, Florida, is one such institution. The project site is 30 acres in the southwest corner of Nova’s campus. The blighted and disconnected strip mall currently composing the site will transform into an integrated and diverse mixed-use development that acts as a thriving icon for the university and surrounding community. Program elements included in the project are a medical research center, a library/bookstore, a hotel, retail, office, entertainment, and residential. Enhancing the social network of the university and community on one site, while creating a sense of place, is the design’s priority. Making an informed connection between theory and practice in landscape architecture, planning, and design is what gives this project validity. The design solution is a product of research, precedent studies, regional and site specific inventory and analysis, and client and personal goals. Integration between the campus and community is achieved by three design principles: 1) Place Making, 2) Connections, and 3) Community. These design principles establish and inform the social, physical, and natural systems at work in the design, as well as the user experience. A welcoming, comfortable, exciting, and iconic environment is created through the character of the place by attracting people to the site through place making. Connections are made between the site and the existing campus, the surrounding community, and the site users by physical layout and relationships. Program elements, dimensions, spatial ratios, building type, and shared amenities all exploit interaction and instill a sense of community. Each design principle is interconnected with the others, enhancing and enforcing the design as a whole.

The Heart of the Park works to expose, preserve, and interpret the many layers of social history, fact, and fiction within Iowa City's City Park. This exhibition is a result of archival research, interviews, and on-site investigation. As a guide, I followed the path of Enoch Emery, a park-haunting voyeur featured in Flannery O'Connor's first novel, Wise Blood, which she wrote after graduating from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Details of O'Connor's fictional version of City Park, in Chapter 5 of Wise Blood, as well as Enoch's relationship with the park, led to further discoveries regarding the park's history, and ultimately, a reinterpretation of these seemingly disparate layers of fact and fiction. While the contemporary archive claims depoliticized and anonymous reasons and methods for preservation, my hybrid practice creates a role for the subjective, idiosyncratic archivist, who suffuses factual research with myth-making. The Heart of the Park is one glimpse into an ongoing collection of interpreted sites, in which I attempt to prevent the loss of local histories, and enact the inevitable chain of reinterpretations of site.

The purpose of this research is to expand knowledge regarding the presence and quality of expression of certain place-making patterns that contribute to place being experienced as sacred. The results are intended to validate and make available an assessment method based on pattern presence and pattern quality for determining whether a specific built environment is more likely to be experienced as sacred or secular. In addition, the results are intended to provide architects with research-informed design guidelines for sacred place-making. This research explores the difference in the presence and quality of expression of certain placemaking patterns at two selected sacred and secular buildings, i.e., Rothko Chapel and Contemporary Arts Museum, both in Houston, Texas. Two key literature references were used as a basis for identifying place-making patterns used in this research: 1) Sacred Place: The Presence of Archetypal Patterns in Place Creation, authored by Phillip Tabb in 1996; and 2) Using the Place-Creation Myth to Develop Design Guidelines for Sacred Space, authored by Michael Brill in 1985. Three types of data were collected and analyzed: graphical data, questionnaire data, and focus group discussion data. Graphical data included photographs and sketches with field notes. A total of forty-eight (48) questionnaires (24 at each setting) were administered to twenty-four (24) Houston architects at the selected buildings. The focus group discussion panel consisted of 6 participants – three architects and three spiritual mentors from Houston, Texas. Relative frequencies were calculated for multiplechoice answers in the questionnaire, while open ended questionnaire items were subjected to inductive content analysis. Focus group discussion data was examined and coded by means of open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. The analyzed data were synthesized to test whether the presence and quality of expression of certain place-making patterns contributed to place being experienced as sacred. This study concludes that built environments which possess a higher presence and higher quality of expression of certain place-making patterns are more likely to be experienced as sacred than built environments with a lower presence and lower quality of expression of the place-making patterns. A set of design guidelines for sacred place-making were produced and a place-making pattern matrix was developed as part of this study.

Through diachronic examination of communicative acts, this dissertation explores intertwined processes of social memory, remembering, forgetting and place-making that have involved the former Cook County Hospital, located in Chicago, Illinois. With emphasis on narratives, nomination practices, and social contexts, this project illuminates and examines discourse conveyed during three 'moments' of material rupture and transformation of the Cook County Hospital facilities. A central perspective of this dissertation is that discourse articulated during these 'moments' reveals social remembering and memory with regard to place-making involving the former hospital and Main Building, as well as evidences social forgetting occurring between the years 1873 to 2007. For purposes of this project, three 'moments' of material transformation are regarded as bracketed by the years 1873 through 1876, the years 1910 through 1914, and the year 2002 through a year that is, as of yet, undetermined. These 'moments' were identified through examination of articulation and recoding of labels that could be regarded more informal than official for the county hospital facilities. This project illuminates the importance and complexity of naming in place-making processes, and the necessity of diachronic approaches to exploring social remembering and forgetting relevant to place. In highlighting the fluidity of social remembering, this dissertation emphasizes value of making primary source materials accessible in public domain, for future generations. Further illuminated is the value of newsprint as channels of mass communication through which aspects of social remembering, forgetting, and place-making can be investigated. Whether to demolish or re-use the now vacant Main Building became an issue of public contestation in 2002. This project was inspired, in part, by contestation concerning the proposed demolition, by senses of the city, and by the diverse and proliferating interdisciplinary ‘corpus’ of scholarship that articulates notions of social memory, remembering, and forgetting. / text

In an increasingly globalized world, emphasis on attracting investment, talent and tourists has resulted in similar iconic urban landscapes in cities. This has increased concerns on the reduction or complete loss of local identity along urban waterfronts. This study aimed to develop a set of design guidelines that contribute to the establishment of local identity on urban waterfronts. The research focused on the history and current status of urban waterfront development, globalization impacts on urban landscape, notions of place identity and place making. It defined local identity as one type of place identity and explored the key aspects that foster local identity in waterfront development. A case study was conducted by analyzing these key aspects in a successful waterfront development. From a synthesis of the findings, a set of design guidelines was developed and then tested on an unsuccessful project; recommendations for future improvement were based on the developed guidelines.