The boundary between public and private dwelling presents a complex architectural problem in that it must provide separation and transition, exposure and closure, privacy and interaction, and embodiment and orientation. This thesis explores this boundary and its role in developing a sense of community in the context of artist live/work studios in a dense urban block. / Master of Architecture / This thesis explores the physical boundary between public and private space and how architectural elements can help transition the spaces to create a better connection between individuals and their communities, resulting in stronger communities. This concept is explored in the context of artist live/work studios where you have private residences overlapping more public work and display areas.

With the growing role of cities, rapid urbanization, transformation under shifting economic, environmental, social and demographic conditions, the purpose of architecture is changing too. The legacy of the modernist decades left a broken urban fabric of isolated buildings from the urban landscapes of streets, plots, and blocks. In its aftermath, professionals sought to revive the traditional city fabric starting from the block, as the basic element. Although recent developments produce blocks, the livability of streets and other public spaces remains questionable. With a newfound focus into the block, as the fundamental structural element in planning, architectural typologies become the starting point to translate the qualities of urban life. The relationship between two scales, the urban and the architectural, will be examined in this thesis. Architectural elements and typologies have the ability to enhance public life, fostering positive social relations through meaningful design. The following research will explore architecture in Stockholm from the scale of an urban block, to the building typologies, and finally to the modest details within a single building. The fundamental idea is to extract building types and architectural elements that have an impact on the daily life of individuals in the city of Stockholm.

The project focuses on the urban design of an urban residential block, primary school and park in the newly emerging ecological district of Plaines du Loup in Lausanne, Switzerland. The proposal is based on the created master plan and regulatory plan from the TRIBU architectes, which sets out the basic rules for building regulations and approach in the area.

The new urban structure is based on a moving out of the railway and bus station. These parcels are used as public places. It is a new large city park and underground two-storey parking house. All is opened to the street Koliště by new retail spaces. The old structure of a viaduct is preserved in part from 19th Century. The viaduct has a new direction and connection with a city centre. It is a new pedestrian corridor for citizens and residents of blocks of flats connected with that line in the same level. The Six-storey office buildings are playing role of a sound isolation for these living areas. The theme of diploma thesis is one urban block consisted of a two parts. One part is office buildings and the second one is blocks of flats. It is retail and parking on the first floor. The entrance of this new part of the city is accented by the tower of luxury flats with magnificent view on the city panorama and two large roof terraces. The entrance level inside of the block is raised to the line of the viaduct. Two floors under this level are designed for a parking. This green area serves for residents of flats and their free time activities.

The area of town part called Ring is situateted in Brno surrounded by Cejl, Křenová, Vlhká and Kolište Street. The main aim of the urban design is to provide the complete rehabilitation of the urban structure. The incompletely and accidentally arranged build- up area with many sandlots should be replaced with the traditional compact blocks which enable the create streets, boulevards, roads, green belts and a new piazetta. This design divides the border between private and public space. It counts with the replacement of the railway and bus station. There is designed the urban block with the dominance of the building function between the Cejl and Vlhká Street in the close neighborhood of old Edison factory. Another part of this block is created by the group of public buildings- Sport centre and Art school. There is also a hotel and an administrative building connecting few magistracies in the one place. The sport centre is divided into seven storeys respecting the fact that some storeys are 9 metres high if it requires the character of the sport space. There is a volume suitable for the basketball hall which can be reached from the entrance or from the second level. There one can found fitness centre, rehabilitation and relax centre, indoor golf, badminton, climbing wall, space for aerobic or zumba on the next floors. There is a restaurant offering the unique view on the town on the top of the building. The roof of the basketball hall is green with the minigolf. The essential component of the design is façade with blinds which enables the dynamically changing appearance of the building.

Prague and other cities in the Czech republic are currently struggling with a housing crisis, which causes raising of prices of houses and apartments. For many people it is an unapproachable goal to own a place. Suburb living projects are a slightly cheaper option, although they increase transportation demands and it is not a sustainable option in general. The city government is trying to support transformations of industrial areas - former factories or abandoned buildings – called brownfields. Vysočany district has changed a lot recently. Former industrial areas are demolished and replaced by new residential or administrative buildings. All the development projects have one thing in common – the absence of something that connects them into urban structure. The aim of this project is to desing a new construction instead of former CKD factories, which are not used anymore. Three new urban blocks nearby Kolbenova street are trying to respect other buildings around (if possible) and create a standard for future development. Also, they support the effort of the city council to create a lively boulevard on Kolbenova street. The project is designed as a polyfunctional unit to remain active during the whole day. The concept comprises urban residental blocks, administrative buildings and public spaces.

<p>U radu su istražene transformacije gradskog bloka tokom XX i početkom XXI veka. U cilju razumevanja ovih procesa i načina na koji arhitektonski sklopovi predstavljaju određene socijalne, društvene vrednosti kroz prostor, proučeni su različiti aspekti tih odnosa kao što su veze između određenih arhitektonskih i urbanističkih modela i društvenih okolnosti u kojima nastaju, kao i veze određenih modela življenja i prostornih sklopova kroz njihove uzore i tehnike nastajanja. Razumevanje odnosa između različitih prostornih nivoa, na vrstu i prirodu tranzicije između javnog, privatnog i kolektivnog, gde se gradski blok i njegove transformacije pojavljuju kao glavno mesto, polje tih odnosa čini značajan deo ovog rada.</p> / <p>This thesis explores the transformation of a urban block in the XX and at beginning XXI century. In order to understand these processes and the ways in which architectural assemblies represent certain social values through space, this thesis explores and identifies various aspects of these relations as links between specific architectural and urban models and social circumstances in which they occur, it also define relationship between certain models of living and spatial configarations through their ideals and techniques of becoming. Understanding the relationships between different spatial levels, the type and nature of the transition between the public, private and collective, where transformations of urban block apperes as the main place of these relationships is also important part of this thesis.</p>

Space organisation of urban blocks is a significant topic of urban design field to achieve correlated urban parts that enhance the variety in urban spaces. However, the rapid urban transformation experienced in the Turkish cities resulted in the generation of similar urban blocks with the lack of spatial variety. Therefore, a re-evolution of space organisation concepts for urban blocks emerges as a design problem in order to cope with the defined problem. From this point of view, the interfaces among public, common and private spaces as the formative parts of space organisation process constitute the essence of this study. Thus, the morphological elements of urban blocks as street, plot and building are constantly reshaped and redefined based on the correlations of this realms. Within this scope, Conzen&rsquo / s town plan method has been adopted in this study for Bah&ccedil / elievler Housing Cooperative Site, to reveal the transformation experienced and the changing relations of street, plot and building throughout the morphological formation processes. In the light of this problem case and method implemented, this research indicates that in Bah&ccedil / elievler, the changing relations between street, plot and buildings are an outcome of the interfaces among public, common and private regarding the permeability along boundaries. Based on this outcome, this study suggests that a new understanding of space organisation in urban blocks regarding the interfaces among public, common and private spaces as counterparts of street, plot and buildings arises as a significant issue that needs to be reconsidered by urban designers, planners, architects and public authorities while defining the design and planning process.

The diploma thesis is concerned on the conceptual definition of a quality place and what defines the quality of places in general. Then the approach is applied on the urban block on the Udolni street in the city of Brno. The goal is to make lives of inhabitants better. In the end, a highly synergical urban block is designed, with functions and forms such as coworking, cohousing and new models of sharing. The whole urban block is connected through a garden which extends the Spilberk castle park.

Cities worldwide are facing problems to mitigate the impact of urban stormwater runoff caused by the increasing occurrence of heavy rainfall events and urban re-densification. This study presents a new approach for estimating the potential of the Management of Urban STormwater at Block-level (MUST-B) by decentralized blue-green infrastructures here called low-impact developments (LIDs) for already existing urban environments. The MUST-B method was applied to a study area in the northern part of the City of Leipzig, Germany. The Study areas was divided into blocks smallest functional units and considering two different soil permeability and three different rainfall events, seven scenarios have been developed: current situation, surface infiltration, swale infiltration, trench infiltration, trough-trench infiltration, and three different combinations of extensive roof greening, trough-trench infiltration, and shaft infiltration. The LIDs have been simulated and their maximum retention/infiltration potential and the required area have been estimated together with a cost calculation. The results showed that even stormwater of a 100 year rainfall event can be fully retained and infiltrated within the blocks on a soil with low permeability (kf = 10−6 m/s). The cost and the required area for the LIDs differed depending on the scenario and responded to the soil permeability and rainfall events. It is shown that the MUST-B method allows a simple down- and up-scaling process for different urban settings and facilitates decision making for implementing decentralized blue-green-infrastructure that retain, store, and infiltrate stormwater at block level.