Thesis (M.L.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 45).

Thesis (M.L.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 45) Also available in print.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--University of Hong Kong, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

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This document is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree: Master of Architecture [Professional] at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, in the year 2013. / In the Centre for Animal Assisted Therapy, animals act as a therapeutic intervention to improve the well-being of therapy patients. The main medical success of this mode of therapy lies within the tactile experience of touch. This thesis is about discovering an architecture that acts as a platform for interaction between humans and domesticated animals. The human-animal relationship and the architectural spaces it would require to enhance the gathering, are investigated. It explores an architectural language that is inclusive, involved and focused on a worthy spatial perception based on enhanced tactile experiences.

The population of the city of Gauteng is expected to double by 2055 (Landau and Gindrey, 2008), which in turn is expected to exacerbate the effects of climate change within the city of Johannesburg. As pressure from the growing population and climate change mounts, existing open space will have to be assessed and its value will determine its function on a natural, social and economic level. This thesis explores the distinct spatial condition of the Johannesburg ridge as a contested landscape of sensitive ecologies and cultures. These remaining fragments of ecological infrastructures within the city can manifest spaces of encounters and introduce a discussion about climate change and the future. This dissertation investigates architecture’s mediating role in the contested landscapes, both physical and psychological. In terms of the physical landscape, any architectural interventions erected on the ridge would need to act as a mediator between the sensitive ridge ecology and the temporality of its diverse multicultural user composition. Design spaces and their proposed uses would need to work towards promoting a successful balance between different modes of knowledge. I propose a research institute located on the Melville Koppies West (MKW) ridge that will provide an interface between science and society that is accessible to the public. For the purpose of this dissertation I will call the research institute the Johannesburg Climate Change Observatory (JCCO). By creating a platform where different constituencies can overlap, new meanings can be negotiated and a cross-pollination of knowledge can thrive. I have studied the contested landscape extensively and have documented my observations through a series of interviews, photographs, mappings, sketches and physical models. The general consensus in the scientific community is that if we do not change the way we think about climate change by the year 2045 we will reach a point of no return for our planet. The JCCO is constructed to be dismantled because of the sensitive nature of the site and as a commentary on the nature of climate change. The intervention then becomes an extension of the site, improving ecological function and extending the existing sacred landscape. This in turn preserves the evolving palimpsest that is the Melville Koppies. As climate change affects communities all over the world the JCCO will become a critical intervention against entrenched practices that are contributing to climate change. It is a building typology that has been constructed through understanding the social dimensions of a physical phenomenon in a particular place, and is one that should be considered everywhere as each intervention of this nature needs to emerge from a similarly meaningful understanding relevant to the dynamics of different sites. The MKW presents a unique opportunity to preserve an ancient ecological landscape, to maintain an active cultural landscape, and at the same time, by respecting both, to create a new space that could give rise to new ideas and paradigms that in turn will lead to the transformative change required to address climate change.

This thesis aims to study the idea of non-place; a point on the line between a beginning and an end. My site is in the Soutpansberg mountain range in the Limpopo province. There is a rich history of movement in the area, from ancient trade routes, to central African migration, the Voortrekkers, the British ideal of a Great North Road, apartheid homelands and currently, the Zimbabwean diaspora. All of these stages are examples of flux, movement, non-place… I have aimed to take a history of the area and apply its relevance to a scarred landscape that is bisected by the N1 highway. Perhaps turning a non-place into a place; perhaps just giving a non-place some relevance. By placing a large service station, a market and a place to sleep onto this site, I wish to revive what it has always been: a movement route, a point on the line; and once again bring to the Great North Road, something so general and banal, yet something fundamentally etched with its DNA. A place en route in the great space between.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1980. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: leaves 77-78. / by Thomas Randolph Selden. / M.Arch.

Thesis. 1977. M.Arch.A.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Blank leaf bound in after leaf 5; no leaf 148. / Includes bibliographical references. / M.Arch.A.S.

Thesis. 1978. M.Arch--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography: leaves 123-128. / M.Arch