Thesis (M. L. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes special report study entitled: The analysis of temporary market in Hong Kong. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M. L. A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2009. / Includes special report study entitled: The mixed uses of spaces. Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print.

Thesis (M.L.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 2005. / Includes special report study entitled: Modular system: review & analysis of outdoor portable structures.

While the fiction of J.G. Ballard has been primarily explored through postmodern criticism, his narratives and settings predict major issues concerning the contemporary discourse of posthumanism. His texts explore the escalating economic, social, and ecological crises converging within the material conditions of human urbanization and late capitalism. Nearly all of Ballard’s novels are as much about locations undergoing a crisis as they are about individuals or communities coming to embrace some extended period of human hysteria. His characters in The Drought, Concrete Island, and Super- Cannes, each progress through ecologically and socially alienating surroundings which invigorate them to act against classical humanism’s hegemonic and anthropocentric tendencies. By applying Henri Lefebvre’s spatial concept of “abstract space” to Ballard’s range of urban settings, this thesis investigates how Ballard’s early, middle, and late, novels continually put materiality, humanism, and technological landscapes, through different ecological and geopolitical crises in order to deconstruct a number of cultural and ideological concerns posthumanist studies seek to address.

Trata-se do projeto. Isto é: proposta e antecipação. Modificação do que aí está, especificação do que deve ser feito, de como deve ser feito e de onde deve ser feito, para instaurar um outro tempo mais humano e mais justo na cidade do homem. Ao se juntar a outros projetos, a outras propostas (a outras especificações) que virão, este projeto nada mais é do que uma contribuição, parcela e fragmento de um todo maior que se pretende, algum dia, o verdadeiro projeto coletivo nacional. Como projeto carrega várias outras intenções, além desta intenção maior. Houve uma intenção didática, de transmissão de conhecimento e experimentação. Houve também uma intenção metodológica, de instauração de um caminho a seguir, de itinerário a percorrer, de etapas a cumprir. E houve sempre, subjacente, uma intenção criativa, isto é, de produção de cultura e de comunicação do produto da cultura. / Not available

M.Arch (Prof) / The ideology of hospitality, symbolic of travel in a world filled with experiences is sought by us all. The notion of exploration as a result of our curiosity is deeply embedded in our makeup. A profound understanding of the world is one of our greatest endeavours as it is routed in the conception of cognitive thought. We are wired to settle in the most habitable parts of the planet and even then we feel the urge for discovery, we do this in the form of travel. From my own encounters as a young boy, nothing expresses this narrative better than the exhilaration and excitement I felt then I arrived in a new city. My experiences by their very nature were formulated from a multitude of sensory indulgences which were unfamiliar but most intriguing. Drawing comparison came naturally as the mind’s way of evaluating the surroundings and juxtaposing them with those of my home. This analogy was the core principle to interpreting foreign spaces and devising conclusive outlooks. During the time that one absorbs any foreign way of life, the hotel takes care of the traveler's basic needs and contributes significantly to the overall experience, lending to the enjoyment and relaxation of travel both of which are key components. The city itself encapsulates the principals of hospitality as it fundamentally offers the traveler, visitor and the local inhabitant, sustenance, safety, and shelter, essentials that are expected and in place from our early social development. These elements are the most basic necessities to sustain survival and are readily available in any city. In the past, cities were fortified against aggressors by defensive walls which enclosed the city and which apart from their utilitarian function, symbolized the status and sovereignty of the citizens and the grandeur of the city. The entrance to the city was through a befitting imposing gate which demarcated the place of arrival and entry and added to the city's standing. With the progression of time and the advent of rail travel, the city's railway station defined a place of arrival and was often among the grandest structures, designed to impress and declaring lavish opulence and wealth. This thesis investigates the possibilities of creating a place of arrival in Johannesburg both symbolically and factually. Our metropolis, known as the provincial capital of the Gauteng Province, has, due to its rapid expansion in its relatively short life, no recognizable place of arrival. The introduction of the Gautrain Station in the immediate vicinity of Park Station presented an opportunity to link the station to a hotel and creating a pedestrian throughway from the station that passes through the hotel and into the city. The passage way traverses an impressive square with features designed to create an ennobling introduction to the city. The design realizes all the criteria of arrival into the city. It combines the railway station which is the mode of travel, the squares form the introduction to the city, the symbolic entrance is the opening through the hotel building, the hotel structure acts as the city wall and the hotel is the traveler's destination offering all the comforts and sustenance. All this serves to create the right ambiance to encourage tourists to remain in the city rather than proceed elsewhere in the area. Johannesburg is unique and is irreplaceable, it has suffered abandonment and neglect but was once much loved and cherished, it is part of our identity, ours to regain and treasure and deserves a noteworthy place of arrival.

The intellectual boundaries of heritage have developed considerably during the last half-century. The theme ‘historic urban landscape’ has replaced such older expressions as ‘monuments’, ‘historic area’, and ‘old town’, and the term ‘conservation’ has been reinterpreted as a sustainable basis for development. Despite these more flexible meanings the spatial boundaries of ‘heritage’ often remain tightly restricted to ancient monuments and sites, and nowhere is this more evident than in Iran where the preservation of outstanding monuments is constantly in tension with the spatial demand of the modern cities. Maibud provides the basis from which a new methodological approach to conservation is developed. It is a city that has a history of several millennia yet has a scale that renders it manageable as a case study with archaeological remains that range across several phases of building development. It is, arguably, an archetypal example of middle-sized Iranian cities, and affords the possibility to study the entire urban landscape and its spatial, functional and morphological iterations. Within this overall picture a methodology was developed to explore and analyse various typological elements of the city, the three key components of which are the town plan, the building type, and construction materials. The analysis combines a rigorous survey and observation of the standing structures with scarce archaeological and written sources that shed light on an interpretation of the urban fabric. The methodologies developed as the basis for a study of Maibud provide new perspectives on Islamic urbanism in general, and Islamic urbanism in Iran particularly. An analysis of the town plan illustrated a slow process of change over many centuries that contributed to the permanence of street systems and property boundaries. This durability of the town plan explains how the inherited urban nucleus of late antiquity mutated gradually in the early Islamic period and how there was concentration of development around the early mosque. The building fabric demonstrated that there existed not only commonalities between buildings of the same period, but between buildings of different periods in the same region. A gradual mutation of building form and its synchronic and diachronic progression was noted, through the identification of building typologies as characterised in the urban fabric of Maibud. Consequently, it has been hypothesised that the pre-Islamic matrix of char-suffa, a small courtyard house, gradually developed into medieval and late-medieval houses, and that this incremental development of traditional houses of the region ultimately reached its latest transformation in its modern form. A study of earthen construction and the inherent feature of mud brick has been advanced, featuring its availability, flexibility, homogeneity, sustainability, as well as its vulnerability. A detailed study of these characteristics, coupled with an ability to date the different types and sizes of mud bricks has facilitated an understanding of construction and allows researchers to meet the challenge of dating and interpreting buildings. By concentrating on the ‘laboratory’ city of Maibud and the specificities of its earthen construction, a chronological table of mud brick has been developed. A synthesis has been advanced, based on archaeological, architectural, epigraphic and textual evidence, that the streets of the town plan are the most durable feature of urban landscapes and once laid out, they change very little. Consequently, property boundaries have essentially remained fixed with most dating back to the medieval period. By contrast, buildings and particularly residential buildings were the least durable element of the urban fabric, and changed faster based still on earlier designs. It is imperative that these interrelationships − of town plan, buildings and materials – must be understood in order to formulate an approach for the management and conservation of historic urban landscapes.

Orientador: Norma Regina Truppel Constantino / Resumo: A presente pesquisa apresenta uma análise da construção da paisagem tendo como base a chegada de imigrantes japoneses no Oeste paulista em meados de 1930, na região onde hoje é a cidade de Pereira Barreto (SP) e a reformulação total da paisagem por conta da inundação gerada pelo represamento das águas do rio Tietê, para o funcionamento da hidrelétrica Três Irmãos e abastecimento hídrico da represa de Ilha Solteira (SP), para geração de energia e funcionamento das turbinas da mesma. O objetivo geral deste trabalho é analisar a transformação da paisagem urbana através do aumento do nível das águas do rio Tietê e sua infraestrutura para a viabilização das turbinas da hidrelétrica de Ilha Solteira, no período de estiagem. Os dois reservatórios levando em conta suas especificidades, seriam interligados por um canal, o canal Deoclécio Bispo dos Santos construído na década de 80 e que ainda é considerado o maior canal da América Latina. Este canal é popularmente conhecido como canal Pereira Barreto. A metodologia de trabalho, compreende mapeamentos, pesquisas documentais, levantamentos bibliográficos e entrevistas no Museu da Cultura Japonesa da cidade de Pereira Barreto. Como procedimento metodológico foram utilizadas as portas da paisagem de Jean-Marc Besse, indicando as possíveis chaves para a leitura e compreensão da paisagem estudada. Esta leitura serviu de embasamento para a análise da reconstrução da paisagem local, as condições de resiliência, vulnerabilidade e adaptação da ... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Mestre

The focus of this study is the design of a public open space on the Mutha River corridor at Pune in India. Like any other river in India, the Mutha River has religious significance to the region. The river has influenced the location and development of the city and featured prominently in the history of the region. Most of the historic heritage values of the city are along the river and are located in the study area. Though the river has been abused by damming of the catchment, removal of vegetation for urbanization, polluted by human and industrial waste and channelization, it still provides opportunities to be developed as a recreational resource. Insights from a study of water bodies in Canberra, Australia, where the design of the water bodies for urban recreation encompass ideas of sustainable design, combined with an appreciation of the heritage of Indian design, are used for the river corridor development at Pune. The proposed development of the river corridor to include parkland is designed to provide a recreational open space for the community as well as improve the overall health and management of the Mutha River corridor. The proposal will also try and achieve long-term sustainability of the river. The design considers hydrological, morphological, ecological, water quality, aesthetic, vegetation, recreation and cultural issues. A more naturalistic channel as an alternative to a hard engineering solution is proposed. It provides protection from flood and erosion hazards, addresses social concerns like environment and health, and provides a more attractive landscape in the high-density section of the city

ABSTRACT The effect of the urban landscape development influenced by the urban architecture movement through the means of participation during the evaluation process of the Yuan-Ye Building Landscape Award, sponsored by the Kaohsiung Judicious Creative Architecture Association is presented. The optimum resolutions of the public issues and policies through applying the mechanism of the participation of the public during the judging process have made the Award distinct from the others. In the process, the Award has implemented the following steps to accomplish the objectives: applying the resource control from top down with a communication channel from bottom up, creating a new type of workgroup among the sponsors, professionals, and the public through participation of working with and learning from each other, forming of informal team to reduce miscommunications between the fields, conducting community meetings and revising questionnaire to modify participation strategy to seek urban space issues and to set the judging criteria, and, finally, offering realistic solutions to resolve the actual urban space issues. To act on a theory as a study method, the Award, through the participants¡¦ comments of different roles to the situations and environments in the evaluation process while maintaining a comprehensive recordation, has developed a model of execution with suggested steps. In the process of action, with the complexity of the model and the growing number of participants and societies, the scale and the influenced range expanded gradually. In order to clear the situations, the report divided the system into two stages, the development stage and the fulfillment stage. Each stage has different steps with different events. The events such as the milestone of the event, the cooperation of the government, the reaction of the professionals and the expected result, all will interact on each other causing different effects to the whole operation. The feedback of the action can be extended to analysis the mechanism and interact of the model. The suggestion of improvement can be supplied to provide helpful information for the future reference. Key words¡GArchitecture¡BYuan-Ye Award ¡BUrban landscape development¡BParticipation.