The work summarized in this book was undertaken for a course at the School of Community and Regional Planning at UBC. The course was entitled Theory and Methods of Urban Design and it covered the fundamentals of urban design by inviting students to apply theory to neighbourhood design. The course surveyed major historical and contemporary trends in urban design theory and practice, and introduced contemporary theories on the future forces affecting the development and functioning of urban regions. Students discussed cities at multiple scales and applied their evolving understanding to neighbourhood scale development in the Marine Drive Station Area in Marpole, Vancouver. This book presents the weekly progression of designs with summaries of the design interventions and critiques. The final outcome represents weeks of deliberation, discussion, and incremental growth towards a neighbourhood that is responsive to the anticipated challenges of climate change, peak oil, increased and aging population, and the need for complete healthy walkable communities.

Walking has become a trend in the USA. In recent years, the desire to walk has brought forth specific urban design for walkable places as well as art forms that focus on walking. Whence this trend? This dissertation studies the socio-economic and cultural context that brought forth the aestheticized forms of walking such as walking in designed walkable places and walking as art. The theoretical framework to study this genealogy is based in social anthropology, critical theory, theatre studies and the practice of audio-walks. A "dialectic of aestheticization and commodification" runs through modernity that generates aestheticized forms of walking today. While walking is initially a form of aesthetic struggle against the rational principles of modernity and the forces of capitalism, this struggle is co-opted by the logic of capital in a continuous interlacing of the processes of aestheticization and commodification. The social and spatial consequences of capitalism together with the process of aestheticization of society produce new spatial forms of capitalism, new commodified forms of social interaction, and new forms of walking. What became of the yearning for agency through walking? With "walkable urbanism", capital returns to the city center and creates new markets for a budding walkable life-style which is fed through conspicuous consumption and the commodified "walkable body". With walking as art, the struggle for more physical, intellectual and political agency through walking goes on. While fighting with the self-referential loop of postmodern performing art, art walking opens up doors to new paths for contemporary art that lead out of post-dramatic art, beyond the phenomenology of embodied experience, and out of the manipulating products of the culture industry in order to create art that offers room for imagination -- the source of social change. / Ph. D.

The ever-evolving retail landscape in the United States represents a narrative of change for local communities. While change may signify instability, it also presents opportunities for innovation. This dichotomy is particularly pertinent in small downtowns, where the faltering of both national chain and locally owned retail establishments is felt, not only by business owners, but by all members of the community. The loss of anchor stores (large stores that serve to draw patrons to a commercial center) has proven especially challenging for downtowns that formerly relied on the consumer traffic generated by a big-name retailer. The loss of anchor stores also scars the built environment, which is often not designed to respond fluidly to programmatic flux. While the default response to a failed anchor store is often to simply replace it with a slightly more robust retail anchor, this approach to renewal is shortsighted, for the replaced anchor store will inevitably fail as well. Instead, it is essential that the reuse of vacant anchor spaces be designed to not only sustainably support local economies, but also to address and enhance community and the built environment. Reprogramming, as opposed to replacing, former anchor stores presents an opportunity to embrace change in order to build a truly sustainable and vibrant neighborhood that considers retail to be one of many assets. This thesis presents a study of and an intervention at the site of a, still vacant, former Borders bookstore and café in the downtown of a New York City metro north community. The design proposal seeks to identify, develop, and celebrate the coalescence of the site’s economic, social, and architectural potentials. Paradoxically, while the proposal focuses on promoting the local capacity of a particular place, the greater implications of this study can be translated to other small downtowns nationwide, and perhaps even globally.

This master´s thesis deals with the project documentation of a kindergarten., designed for fifty children. The building is situated in the region South Bohemia in the town Týn nad Vltavou, cadastral district Týn nad Vltavou. The building is desgned as a brick building with a skeletal system. Vertical structures are designed from the structural system of ceramic bricks and a monolithic columns. Horizontal structures are designed from the monolithic ceiling slabs. The building is covered with flat walkable roog and flat non-walkable roof. The building has two floors.

Winnipeg is a spatially, culturally, psychologically and visually fragmented city, particularly due to the vehicular-oriented growth which has engendered segmented land-use, dismantled walkable networks and provoked disconnection between culture and nature as well as within nature itself. In particular, the displacement of daily life from the complex web of interrelationships in ecosystems, which are essentially the mechanisms supporting our existence, should be the primary concern of urban design. In order to resolve this critical issue, this practicum will isolate and examine a problematic site while deconstructing fragmentation into specific causes, namely pollution, habitat degradation, placelessness and lack of urban ecological education. Concluding that this condition is ultimately created by our own fragmented thinking, the production of pragmatic solutions which continually evoke further fragmentation, I present a series of solutions to these challenges in the form of a landscape architectural design proposal for the City of Winnipeg.

Winnipeg is a spatially, culturally, psychologically and visually fragmented city, particularly due to the vehicular-oriented growth which has engendered segmented land-use, dismantled walkable networks and provoked disconnection between culture and nature as well as within nature itself. In particular, the displacement of daily life from the complex web of interrelationships in ecosystems, which are essentially the mechanisms supporting our existence, should be the primary concern of urban design. In order to resolve this critical issue, this practicum will isolate and examine a problematic site while deconstructing fragmentation into specific causes, namely pollution, habitat degradation, placelessness and lack of urban ecological education. Concluding that this condition is ultimately created by our own fragmented thinking, the production of pragmatic solutions which continually evoke further fragmentation, I present a series of solutions to these challenges in the form of a landscape architectural design proposal for the City of Winnipeg.

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Theme of this thesis was to design and process a project of Apartment building in Valašske Meziříčí. The building is situated in the city center, close to hospital. Designed apartment building with four floors and a basement is located on a sloping terrain. Surrounding buildings are costisted of blocks of flats that were built in last century. Goal of the thesis was to design apartment house which will fit to the neighborhood. There are technical backround and parking slots in the basement of the bilding. Apartments are situated in above-ground floors. The grocery store lies on the northern side of the building on the same level as first floor. The apartmen building is covered by single-skinned flat roof.

Contemporary urban development seems to, globally and simultaneously, aim for the same results; densification, connections and an active urban life. In Stockholm this is emphasized through the comprehensive plan, The Walkable City. This thesis aims to research the com- plexities of open space, in-between areas and cultural practices on borders of territories. I have visited two neighborhoods, one in Stureby, Stockholm and one in Madison, Wisconsin as part of an art-based research where places for cultural practices have been observed and performed by me as a way to investigate in-between areas and what role they take in everyday lives. I have met with inhabitants for observations and interviews as well as performing an everyday life of my own when staying in Madison for two weeks. I have used a few different pictures of neighborliness to see what exists between the frame of the pictures and the situation, and related this to Miwon Kwon’s notion about places situated next to each other. I have also looked into the concept of territory, the ambiguous space between them and the communication that occurs on interfaces. In Stockholm's comprehensive plan and the research of Alexander Ståhle, I see an aiming for densification through connections, e.g. in walkability. I emphasize on a difference between connections and communication. With this thesis I suggest to change the topic of a planning discussion going on in Stockholm as well as globally, from how to create walkability to how to make use of interfaces of ambiguous open space when densifying cities.

‘Norrtullsgatan Living Street’ is a public life investigation and design proposal to increase accessibility and attractiveness for people along Norrtullsgatan in Vasastaden, Stockholm. It is a response to the Levande Stockholm Programme, an urban place-making strategy to test potential pedestrian streets by restricting traffic and introducing pop-up furniture during the summer and winter months to create pedestrian-friendly environments. Vasastaden is located North of the city center with the major public transport hub of Odenplan and a significant number of people walking along its narrow sidewalks towards Drottninggatan. This area is an important pedestrian zone that connects the city center to other parts of Stockholm with great potential to activate already existing public spaces and create a network of livable streets. This thesis aims to investigate possible long-term strategies based on public life studies, a comprehensive street analysis, and urban place-making interventions that focus on pedestrians, cyclists, and the experience at the street level to create a ‘living street’. This project wants to strengthen and highlight the benefits of walking not only as a choice of mobility but also as a social, economic, and well-being outcome for the city. Moreover, it instigates further the concept of what makes a walkable city. People want to feel comfortable and safe during their walk but they also want to have a pleasurable experience. Urban design qualities, by all means, influence those choices. By following the evaluation of the temporary design during the summer and winter streets, this project re-assess those strategies to proposed permanent design to promote inclusive public spaces. As a result, this thesis emphasizes the importance of design strategies that are well-integrated into a community by taking into consideration site-specific conditions and users. At the same time, it hopes to contribute with input to the already tested pedestrian zones to become meeting places with rich content, high urban qualities, and a strong identity.