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This thesis presents the form, development and application of generation and optimization concepts as a new CAD model for the design of the dwelling roofs in the warm-humid tropics. Generation is utilized to produce a range of feasible design solutions and optimization is utilized to offer prescriptive quantitative information, the optimum performance achievable in any given climate. The climatic and technological context of the research is presented. The performance standards for dwelling and roof design are reviewed. The process used to define the acceptable limits of ceiling surface temperature based on comfort is described. A method to predict thermal performance of roof is described. This identifies a set of variables which influence the performance of roof. From this theoretical study a new thermal performance index (TPI*) is developed to give a scientific rating to thermal behaviour of the roof system. Computer design aids presently available to the architects for energy efficient dwelling design are critically reviewed in relation to the scope and limitations of the information they provide. The new concepts of generation and optimization are then developed. The CAD model introduces the application of generation method in place of the traditional simulation. Its structure includes, the decomposition of the roof system into elements or components and the definition of their relationships based on topology, geometry and materials. The concept of design template is introduced to encode aesthetic or practical rules about the form of acceptable design solutions. Alternative design solutions are generated by paramterizing the templates using the design preferences of the architect. A material matrix form is introduced to present the alternative solutions. The CAD model includes an optimization procedure which is based on multi-criteria Pareto optimization. The use of this model is illustrated for a number of widely differing roof designs. The resulting thermal performances and optimum solutions are demonstrated for four locations from India and Australia. The value of this form of information in practice, education and research is discussed and possibilities for future development are outlined.

This research shows how the transition to a post-industrial society has transformed the use of social space in what is perhaps the archetype of postmodern urbanism in the late 20th century – the tourist city. The impact of change on the socio-spatial structure of postmodern cities is measured, the spatial patterns are quantified and the continuing applicability of the classic models is determined. A generalised pattern of social structure in a tourist city is identified and a stage of development model of spatial patterns is proposed to promote understanding of socio-spatial structure in postmodern cities. In this analysis of social structure in the recently developed tourist city of Gold Coast, physical, economic, social and political forces were found to have created a distinctive environment, an environment that, in turn, influenced the type of social structure, the spatial patterns of social variation that emerged and how these changed over time. Principal components analysis and cluster analysis were used to identify the main dimensions of social structure and their spatial representation in this tourist city at 1991 and again in 1996. The emergence of socio-economic status and family status, albeit with a number of minor dimensions and new sub-dimensions, showed that social structure in this city was fundamentally similar to that identified earlier in modern cities. These main dimensions reflected family structure, occupational and income status, while minor dimensions were associated with ethnicity and mobility. However, some change in the dimensions was identified in this research. Socio-economic status changed most over the five-year period to reveal two new sub-dimensions of social differentiation related to employment status and employment disadvantage, while family status also split to reflect new social differences according to age. These new sub-dimensions emerged from the analysis due to their growing importance in the postmodern city. Over time, these sub-dimensions have begun to account for more of the social variation in the increasingly complex contemporary city. Together these dimensions reflect a complicated interwoven social structure in contrast to the simple patterns of social structure previously identified in modern cities. The newly identified sub-dimensions are however, able to be described in terms of the commonly recognised three main dimensions of social structure and relate to aspects of employment status, employment disadvantage and lifestyle. When comparing the spatial patterns of social structure in this city to the classic sector and zone models of the modern city, some substantial differences emerged. In modern cities, socio-economic status most commonly varied in a sectoral fashion while family status varied by zone. However, in this research, socio-economic status and family status were each found to vary in both a sectoral fashion and in a zonal pattern. In another difference to the spatial patterns of the modern city, these neat zonal patterns were further complicated by the influence of secondary nodes of activity. Three such nodes were identified. Thus, the multi-nucleated settlement pattern was seen to be exerting its own influence on socio-spatial structure resulting in a complex pattern of over-lapping zones from each node. Compared with other cities, several differences in the socio-spatial structure of Australian postmodern cities were uncovered. Ethnicity did not exert as large an influence on social structure as in American or English cities. The relatively small Australian public housing sector prevented the emergence of concentrations of this type of housing being found in this postmodern city. Similarly, edge cities and concentrations of the global elite were not identified in this setting yet are typically found in American urban areas. According to the stage of development model proposed in this research, there is a range of possibilities in the socio-spatial structure of a postmodern city. The common main dimensions of social structure are likely to be in evidence but will probably split into a number of sub-dimensions reflecting the growing complexity of social differentiation in the postmodern city, as well as each city’s particular stage of development. Other minor dimensions will reflect the characteristics of the specific city. The possibilities described in this model also extend to variations in the spatial patterns of a postmodern city. One scenario involves the expansion of an expanding urban region to gradually encompass a number of previously separated nodes. The spatial patterns uncovered in this research into a contemporary tourist city were found to revolve around a number of related, but previously separated, nodes rather than a single dominant centre. This research concluded that, in the contemporary tourist city investigated, there remained strong evidence of the social structure and spatial patterns of the modern city. However, the patterns identified appear to reflect a new level of complexity and required a combination of earlier models to effectively explain. In effect, the socio-spatial patterns are a hybrid of the old and the new. Thus, we can rightfully designate this city as postmodern.

não há resumo em português / This is a study of the analysis of the concept of sustainable development. The linkages between environment and development, the meaning of sustainability and a critique of the decision making process are analysed through the comparison of two case studies the Aral Sea and the Billings reservoir. The rst study case is the Aral Sea. During the last thirty years the development of crop production was the goal of regional strategy of the Aral region countries. Wirhdrawls from the rivers caused inows to the Aral to fall at an average of over 50 km3 annually to 1-5 km3 in the 80´s. There have been observed accute environmental, health and social problems attributed to the development process. The Billings reservoir is located at the Southeastern region of the city of São Paulo, and was constructed in I937 with the objective of energy generation. During the years it was turned into a multiple-use reservoir including domestic and industrial water uses, as well as well as domestic and industrial deject reception. The accelerated development of the city and the lack of basic infrastructure projects such as sewage treatment have led to the advanced degradation of the reservoir. and to negative impacts and conicts for the entities and communities involved in the system. The study has shown that integration of environmental and developmental issues is very important for a balanced and efficient decisionmaking. This can be achieved through thorough studies of ervironmental, economic and social factors of the system under analysis. The meaning of sustainability has different dimensions for each system. Also a reformulation of the decisionmaking process is essential for the concept become operational.

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The thesis is a retrospective reporting and a critical examination of HyperSteel. This is a hypermedia application for architectural education intended to function as a learning bridge between structural knowledge-acquisition and intuitive use. It is one of many parallel developments in software design that have occurred around the world in the last decade (Mitchell 1995). Hypermedia is a set of procedures applied to computer aided learning that is based upon interactive software, typically Apple Computer's Hypercard©, and its successors. How can this medium with its strongly cinematographic characteristics best be used in the imaginative and intuitive processes of an architectural education? The term cinema - whether it means the discipline and industry of film making or whether it is the architecture of a place of entertainment - evokes diverse concepts and images. These include illusions of time and space, the sense of seeing more than one reality at the same time; and of existing at the intersection of art and technology. This thesis argues that these related concepts and images can be distilled from cinema and other established disciplines, and adapted into a common aesthetic for hypermedia. The thesis posits a chronotopic theory with respect to the computer-human interface, whose integral imaginative mechanism is the click-jump of the user interface device. Mikhail Bakhtin's chronotopic event is borrowed from literary theory to describe the progression and development of time and space as they intersect (Bakhtin 1937). It is argued that this moment of the man-machine coordinated action is the act which puts imaginative control of the learning process into the hands of the learner and thus becomes the central vehicle of knowledge delivery. The theoretical underpinning for this argument refers to depictions of architecture as a space-time experience used by historian Sigfried Giedion (1941). The perception of the intuition as tacit knowledge is developed from Michael Polanyi (1969), and the conclusions of cognitive psychologist Allan Paivio and others provide an educational principle of dual processing as a model for learning by hypermedia (Paivio 1986).The writings of Paul Ricoeur (1988) on the nature of a meaning for narrative which encompasses both time and space along one horizon in which the traveller - in this case the student architect - arrives at perceptive understanding in their learning The thesis is a retrospective reporting and a critical examination of HyperSteel. This is a hypermedia application for architectural education intended to function as a learning bridge between structural knowledge-acquisition and intuitive use. It is one of many parallel developments in software design that have occurred around the world in the last decade (Mitchell 1991). Hypermedia is a set of procedures applied to computer aided learning that is based upon interactive software, typically Apple Computer's Hypercard©, and its successors. How can this medium with its strongly cinematographic characteristics best be used in the imaginative and intuitive processes of an architectural education? The term cinema - whether it means the discipline and industry of film making or whether it is the architecture of a place of entertainment - evokes diverse concepts and images. These include illusions of time and space, the sense of seeing more than one reality at the same time; and of existing at the intersection of art and technology. This thesis argues that these related concepts and images can be distilled from cinema and other established disciplines, and adapted into a common aesthetic for hypermedia. The thesis posits a chronotopic theory with respect to the computer-human interface, whose integral imaginative mechanism is the click-jump of the user interface device. Mikhail Bakhtin's chronotopic event is borrowed from literary theory to describe the progression and development of time and space as they intersect (Bakhtin 1937). It is argued that this moment of the man-machine coordinated action is the act which puts imaginative control of the learning process into the hands of the learner and thus becomes the central vehicle of knowledge delivery. The theoretical underpinning for this argument refers to depictions of architecture as a space-time experience used by historian Sigfried Giedion (1941). The perception of the intuition as tacit knowledge is developed from Michael Polanyi (1969), and the conclusions of cognitive psychologist Allan Paivio and others provide an educational principle of dual processing as a model for learning by hypermedia (Paivio 1986).The writings of Paul Ricoeur (1988) on the nature of a meaning for narrative which encompasses both time and space along one horizon in which the traveller - in this case the student architect - arrives at perceptive understanding in their learning process, will also inform this theoretical perspective. The intention of the thesis is- to identify, and theorise digital chronotopicity as it functions in architecture education. My conclusion is that there is a role for the media practitioner and theorist in making interactive software tools effective in the context of computer technologies and architecture education.

The thesis is an attempt to find whether there is any perceived or actual correlation between people (personal characteristics, or characteristics of subgroups) and the environments they choose--in particular, their houses; that is, to correlate identifiable physical aspects of environment with various identifiable personal or social characteristics, and to attempt to explain why such correlations occur; thence to postulate theories which will enable environments to be designed to be acceptable to particular groups of people. "The thesis", part 1 of the thesis, is a theoretical statement comprising, in Chapter I, an explicit statement of the theoretical framework in the form of five premises derived from philosophy and theories of psychology, art and architecture, and sociology. And, in Chapter II, a statement of the two hypotheses (that dwelling environments are perceived as "meaning" the people who live in them and that people choose dwelling environments, other things being equal, according to their concept of the kind of people they are) and the assumptions necessary to test them. In Part 2: "The Research Method" Chapter III covers the development of the measure of closure in dwelling environments. Closure was chosen in Chapter II as the environmental variable to be used for the purposes of this study. The final measure comprises five sets of four bird’s eye view perspective line drawings depicting five situations in a typical house in which closure is varied in four steps from very open to very closed. Chapter IV describes the development of the measure of household identity. The measure of household identity was developed especially to be of relevance to the choice of degrees of closure in dwelling environments. The measure is derived from actual verbal responses of the respondents to open ended questions asked in pilot studies. In Chapter V, the last chapter in Part 2, the research design of the survey study is described: the research model used, the design of the questionnaire, and the sampling method. The first chapter of Part 3: "The Results and Discussion of the Results", Chapter VI, presents the sample size (610) and shows that the sample is representative of the population of the Auckland greater urban area. In Chapter VII, the results relating to hypothesis I are presented and discussed. The results weakly support the hypothesis but the correlations are not of sufficient strength to be used predictively. In Chapter VIII the results of hypothesis 2 are presented and discussed. These results also support the hypothesis but even less strongly so than for hypothesis 1. Chapter VIII also covers sub-hypothesis 1, that people choose dwelling environments according to their "objective” household identity, In Chapter IX the results of the hypotheses are compared and summarized. And in Chapter X the implications of the results are outlined: an attempt is made to relative the results to the theoretical framework and from this implications for a possible theory of aesthetics are drawn. The implications of the results for the theory and practice of architecture are delineated and finally suggestions for future research are outlined.