DDes Dissertations

Abstract

The shift from traditional 9:00 am to 5:00 pm work hours to more flexible work arrangements in white-collar knowledge-based private companies has increased the emphasis on minimizing workplace spatial footprint. While emerging evidence-based methods rely on real-time spatial technologies and utilization rate analysis to determine workplace spatial optimization strategies, existing methods frequently overlook daily, weekly, and monthly variations in occupancy. Consequently, there is a lack of effective methods for reducing spatial footprint that balance benefits for the company, employees, and environment.

The Real-Time Architecture dissertation presents a method through two studies for evaluating workplace utilization rates in real-time, using hourly peak measurements and accounting for employee interactions. This method shows significant improvements in estimating potential spatial downsizing. The first study analyzed 162,778 spaces across 115 companies. The results revealed the crucial significance of a detailed analysis of utilization rates in determining the potential for spatial reduction. The data indicated that individual spaces exhibit a higher frequency of use than collaboration spaces, contradicting the prevailing viewpoint among practitioners advocating for a greater emphasis on collaborative spaces. Furthermore, the findings challenge the assumption that adaptive designs are necessary.

The second study, which was conducted at the Panasonic headquarters in Japan, aimed to investigate the impact of workspace reduction on employee interpersonal interactions and meeting behavior in a controlled setting. Specifically, the study tested a reduction in formal meeting spaces by 79.3%, resulting in an overall decrease of 26.7% in the total workspace area. The utilization rate methodology, which was established in the first study, was utilized to evaluate the effects of workspace reduction. The study’s results revealed that while the occupancy of social spaces increased significantly, the hourly utilization rate of the remaining formal meeting spaces in the open-plan environment remained the same. In other words, the formal meeting spaces were used for the same time per day as before the workspace reduction. Additionally, the duration of meetings held in the formal meeting spaces decreased, with a rise in the proportion of short meetings (30 minutes or less) and a decrease in the number of lengthy meetings (1.5 hours or more). Furthermore, teams were more inclined to utilize the meeting rooms for collaborative purposes rather than individual use.

The two studies above provide valuable insights into optimizing workplace spaces by utilizing occupancy and employee interaction data. The conclusions of these studies offer a comprehensive framework for architects and corporate real estate professionals to evaluate workplace performance and identify redundant spaces. Furthermore, to advance the understanding of the effects of spatial reduction on employee interaction behavior, a comprehensive set of de-identified datasets, including 456,451 records of interactions and the building information model of the space, extracted from the second study, has been made available for use by other researchers.

Abstract

Clay, just like other natural, paste-like materials, offers a potential reduction in the embodied CO2 that the production of buildings using conventional materials emits, yet its large tolerances during printing remain an obstacle. In paste-based 3D printing, the material dries and shrinks at unpredictable rates while new layers continue to be deposited, causing increased self-weight onto the lower layers that are subjected to variable displacement. The ability to anticipate and correct the complex material behavior during the extrusion process is important in the effort to achieve accurate building components and assembly. While a possible approach is highly specialized models or workflows guiding designers to understand and model material and process variances, comprehensive models or workflows dealing with the nonlinearity of paste-based 3D printing processes are still lacking. Nonetheless, these processes promise efficient, waste-free, and sustainable production workflows at the architectural and building scale. This dissertation investigates how computational techniques based on machine learning models can enable rapid assessment and calibration of design solutions before fabrication, allowing for the prediction and simulation of final geometrical outcomes for accurate printing. The research contributes to digital fabrication by connecting digital design processes with material outcomes through a data-centered framework that leverages machine learning in novel ways. The framework offers: 1) a scanning method for a real-time calibration workflow that corrects the printing trajectories of the design object and serves as a rapid data-collection technique for machine learning applications; 2) a method for building an optimized dataset to evaluate the printability of design solutions; and 3) a method for training neural network models to calibrate the printing trajectories before fabrication. Tested in the context of clay lattice printing, an unorthodox extrusion scenario characterized by a large feature space and high material uncertainty, the framework demonstrated the ability to evaluate and calibrate the toolpath geometry of clay lattices with sufficient accuracy for manufacturing while using minimal resources, presenting an important step toward next-generation solutions for sustainable 3D printing.

Abstract

This research examines the role of desalination in the process of urbanization. The focus of the investigation is Kuwait, a country situated within a region containing some of the highest levels of water stress and per capita consumption around the world. The aim is to reveal the spatialization of desalination infrastructure, its underlying ecological epistemology, and the historic urbanization patterns that it has generated and will continue to perpetuate into the future. In doing so, this research reveals a novel view of water politics that is less focused on crisis and scarcity to instead examine the spatial practices that inform water management and consumption from the extraction of salt water to the metabolism of potable water in everyday household use.

Abstract

Provincial borders and metropolitan theories are insufficient to explain the scale and dynamics of İstanbul’s contemporary urban development. The mega projects of the Justice and Development Party (JDP) such as the İzmit Bay Bridge, the Northern Projects, the Marmaray Project and the İstanbul-Ankara High Speed Train point to a scalar shift. Triggered by mega projects, these emerging spatio-temporal relations transcend İstanbul’s administrative borders.

In the light of these developments, this study will use the term “region” to explain the emerging scale in and around İstanbul; and therefore will propose a new terminology and method to represent this new scale. The study will begin with an introduction to urban theories and concepts that explain contemporary “planetary urbanization” (Lefebvre, 2003; Brenner 2014) beyond fixed-monocentric models and constructed dichotomies such as urban-rural or built environment-nature. This theoretical framework will be followed by a discussion on the method and will then continue with a summary of the urban governance structure in Turkey and the urban planning history of the Marmara Region. Subsequently, the land-use-based analyses which enabled the researcher to demonstrate the transformation of the Marmara Region between 1990 and 2015 from different angles will be discussed. The dissertation will conclude with an overall evaluation of the findings.

Abstract

Form-finding in the current performance-driven design methodology of architectural design is typically formulated as a design optimization problem. Although effective in engineering or late-stage design problems, optimization is not suitable for the exploratory design phase due to the time intensity and cognitive load associated with the processes involved in the formulation and solution of optimization problems. The iterative, diverging nature of early-phase design is incompatible with the i) cognitive load of parametric modeling and its limited affordances for conceptual changes, ii) time and resource intensity of simulations, iii) interpretability of optimization results. This thesis suggests a framework for generating optimal performance geometries within an intuitive and interactive modeling environment in real-time. The framework includes the preparation of a synthetic dataset, modeling its probability distribution using generative models, and sampling the learned distribution under given constraints. The several components are elaborated through a case study of building form optimization for passive solar gain in Boston, MA, for a wide range of plot shapes and surroundings. Apart from the overall framework, this thesis contributes a series of methods that enable its implementation. A geometric system of orientable cuboids is introduced as a generalizable, granular modeling vocabulary. A method for efficient boundary condition sampling is suggested for the dataset preparation. A Variational Autoencoder (VAE) is extended for performance-aware geometry generation using performance-related loss functions. A series of techniques inspired by the data-imputation literature is introduced to generate optimal geometries under constraints. Last, a prototype is presented that demonstrates the abilities of a system based on the suggested framework.

Abstract

Efforts to forecast travel demand have led to the development of complex models which attempt to replicate human daily actions, choices, and movements. However, a growing body of literature suggests that the complexity of these models and their limited consideration of uncertainty have adversely affected their usefulness in the planning process. This dissertation argues that transportation planning should shift to methods that facilitate understanding and communication of uncertainty instead of relying on seemingly deterministic predictions of complex models. Two modeling paradigms – activity-based and scenario-based models are analyzed to show how they handle uncertainty in the case of assessing the travel impacts of autonomous vehicles.

Three metropolitan areas, Seattle, San Francisco, and the Detroit region, are used as case studies to estimate the impacts of autonomous vehicles on total travel and accessibility. The results of the activity-based modeling indicate that the effects of autonomous vehicles are different in different regions, primarily due to the differences in income, density, and access to public transit. While vehicle miles increase in all three regions, 17% in Seattle, 22% in the Bay Area, and 11% in Detroit, accessibility is highly dependent on the local context. The scenario-based model is not able to produce the results with this level of granularity. However, due to many unknowns associated with emerging technology, the scenario-based model proved to be better suited to incorporate various aspects of autonomous vehicles.

Beyond the estimates of travel impact, the results show that more informed planning can be achieved by moving away from deterministic forecasting and especially away from the urge to improve forecasting accuracy by building bigger models. Every piece of additional data and every additional parameter has an uncertainty cost that is compounded with the previous uncertainty costs. Instead, the modelers should aim to create more useful models by increasing the transparency of the modeling process and by reducing its complexity.

Abstract

Given the importance of sunlight on human health and how the built environment influences human interaction with sunlight, does the design of public housing in Chile address the country’s large geographic variation in order to incorporate sunlight more robustly into its design? To answer this question I look at the last thirty years of Chilean public housing development. Chile’s geography spans a North to South length of 4,270 km (2,653 mi) and has an average sunshine variation that more than doubles between the northernmost city of Arica compared to the southernmost city of Punta Arenas. In addition, in the last thirty years Chile has built over 1,250,000 public houses having with these provided homes for close to a third of its total population (27.8%). The first part of this thesis takes a close look at the medical research that studies the consequences of sunlight on health and uses this information, along with existing design recommendations to create an assessment framework through which to evaluate public housing developments in the field. The second part focuses in unraveling the historical precedents that led to the current typology, so prevalent in Chilean public housing projects today.

Abstract

This thesis presents a theoretical and practical research conducted for the last 4 years on interactive fabrication.

Interactive fabrication is an emerging field and takes as a starting point with the numerical control of digital fabrication machines, modulated with parameters of interactivity. 

I approach digital fabrication as an ambiguous technology in the ways it articulates the digital with the material, the shapeless with the finite, the abstract with the concrete. As the realm of digital fabrication expands into mainstream culture and maverick machines rise again, there is an opportunity to tamper with expectations of precision and proficiency.

Interactivity is the modus operandi for such experimentation: embracing time, latency, distance and the “decor of everyday life” as conditions. Personal data such as emails, text messages or sleeping data can turn into parameters of control of a CNC-machine, supplanting the typical predetermined file. This is the premise for a human-machine companionship or ‘embodied fabrication’.

3 art projects, Twipology, Rabota and Streamline have been prototyped to enact these possibilities. The fabricated outcomes move beyond functional or ornamental categories, inspiring a mutating and odd materiality, one of intimacy. These objects are objects of a third kind, “born witness” of a moment of interaction with the material world.

This thesis is an ‘undisciplinary’ endeavor, proposing a research method involving art, design, ontology and HCI considerations.

Abstract

Physical planning has contributed to perpetuating spatial inequality in Caracas, Venezuela, a dynamic that has many parallelisms with other processes that result in social and economic inequalities in Latin America. The consequence has been the reduction of access to spatial opportunities for people living in Self-Produced Settlements. Working with a historical lens, this thesis aims to identify the reasons why this has happened. The study begins in 1657 with the founding of Caracas and culminates in the government of Hugo Chávez the first decade of the twenty-first century. The research highlights the end of the Guzmán Blanco period at the end of the nineteenth century when the government carried out the first national population census, and the experience of Banco Obrero, a federal institution created in 1928 focused on the subject of housing for underprivileged communities. To achieve this goal, this thesis proposes an index to measure spatial opportunities, and a methodology that applies the index to the analysis of government sponsored project as well as planning reports by federal agencies since the Venezuela oil-boom to our days. Self-Produced Neighborhoods are known worldwide as slums. This thesis understands them as a form of urban development that occurs when communities manage the construction of their neighborhoods with no prior planning but through an incremental yet effective system of self-organization. From the analysis of technological, accessibility, and other infrastructural networks for the case of Latin America, we conclude that Self Production is efficient for the progressive construction of housing although fundamentally deficient in its lack of access to networked infrastructure systems. Nevertheless, most planning strategies of divergent ideological approaches have assumed fragmented and localized perspectives in planning Self-Produced Neighborhoods by providing scattered and spatially disarticulated “points of resources,” most often aimed at the construction of housing units. Instead, this thesis proposes that the framework of Spatial Opportunities, when applied to Self-Produced Environments could result in the integration of these extensive parts of the city by prioritizing networked infrastructural systems over housing units. This instrument is hinged on the right to the city discourse, which posits that cities are environments that either allow or limit the development of the capabilities of their citizens, in which the networked access to the opportunities offered by the city is a fundamental variable.

Abstract

Natural ventilation (NV) is a sustainable building strategy that improves building energy efficiency, indoor thermal environment, and air quality. The successful implementation of natural ventilation relies on various factors, such as local climate, ambient air quality, floorplan, adjacent urban environment, window configuration, and urban noise. Among these factors, climate is the most influential one that determines the potential for natural ventilation, whereas the control of the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system along with the window system becomes the most critical element for the successful natural ventilation in a given case, when only a few features are feasible to change. This dissertation investigates global natural ventilation potential through NV hours and cooling energy saving percentage and estimates China’s natural ventilation potential by taking into account the additional factor of ambient air pollution. The aggregated energy savings and carbon reductions were estimated at the city level across 35 major Chinese cities. This dissertation then focuses on developing optimal NV control strategies to coordinate window operations with HVAC systems, aiming for an optimized synergy to achieve minimal energy consumption and maximum thermal comfort. A reinforcement learning control strategy is proposed, which demonstrates better performance compared to the rule-based heuristic control in accommodating stochastic internal heat gain, maintaining steady indoor thermal comfort, and reducing HVAC system operation. Finally, the effectiveness of different levels of automation in NV control is tested in a variety of distinct climates. Specifically, spontaneous occupant manual control, informed occupant manual control, and fully automatic control (including rule-based heuristic control and model predictive control [MPC]) are evaluated. The results demonstrated the superiority of fully automatic control with MPC, which significantly enhances building energy efficiency and thermal performance. The findings from this dissertation provide information for architects, building owners, and policymakers to realize the potential for natural ventilation in buildings.

Abstract

This dissertation is about urban conservation and the matter of agency in post-WWII urban reconstruction. As a contested field where various interpretations of the past, competing interests in the present, and divergent expectations for the future entangle with one another, urban conservation rarely proceeds without twists and turns. Some ideas might be appealing in the early process of urban conservation but lose their luster after they play out. Some ideas might assume a marginal role on the initial stage of a project but become increasingly important as the project develops. Ideas are often not considered agents of change because there is an illusion that agency, or the capacity to wield influence, is exclusive to humans. To uncover the active role of ideas in urban conservation, this dissertation examines the reconstruction of Rotterdam, Warsaw, and Tokyo, which were all severely ravaged by the Second World War but were each rebuilt differently. How did the ideas for the city become agents that profoundly reshaped the cities during post-war reconstruction? How did transactions and communications among various agents contribute to accepting some ideas that were previously marginalized while abandoning others that were previously celebrated? How did these turnarounds happen? Through what agency was each war-torn city rebuilt in a particular way? Drawing upon the works of Bruno Latour, this dissertation explores these questions to reveal that ideas can be agents of change in urban conservation. Only through interactions with humans and nonhumans can ideas reshape the built environment. As evidenced by the case studies of the three cities, some views of urban conservation have proved untenable. Nonhumans render it obsolete to take an anthropocentric view of urban conservation and material objects cast a discursive view into doubt. To enhance the efficacy of design in addressing conflicts and complexities inherent in urban conservation, it is useful to take an agentic view which emphasizes the matter of agency. By examining humans and nonhumans as agents of change on equal terms, this view focuses on the differences they make during urban conservation rather than the differences between them. This view also rejects seeing the material through the prism of the social and cultural, or vice versa, and collapses such hierarchy to provide a fresh outlook on urban conservation.

Abstract

The operation of buildings is responsible for 30% of the world’s total energy use and 26% of global energy-related emissions. Proper control of buildings is thus economically, socially, and environmentally crucial for reducing energy consumption. However, most Building Management Systems (BMS) still operate on traditional principles, lack optimization, and function in isolation. This highlights a critical need for more advanced, adaptable, and interconnected solutions to collectively control buildings. The data-driven methods in building control show promise for scalability and transferability, offering the potential to eliminate the time and effort needed to create traditional physics-based models.

This dissertation introduces a data-driven building control framework that adapts to changing environments, coordinates multiple building systems, and balances various optimization objectives utilizing both model-based predictive control and model-free reinforcement learning (RL) control methods. The research first investigates the multi-objective smart control of nonlinear dynamic systems: specifically focusing on natural ventilation. The Ensembled Multi-time scale deep-learning-based Adaptive Model Predictive Control (EMA-MPC) system is proposed. This innovative algorithm aims to optimize thermal comfort, better indoor air quality and energy efficiency by controlling automated windows in a naturally ventilated room during winter. The EMA-MPC system demonstrates better performance as compared to basic-MPC, enhanced-MPC and baseline rule-based control. Additionally, the proposed EMA-MPC system reduces modeling efforts and provides an effective approach towards reliable use of machine learning models in smart building control. Building on the model predictive control, the research further explores model-free approach. A multi-agent RL control algorithm is proposed to tackle the challenges of coordinating control systems with diverse response times. Specifically, the research examines the coordinated optimal control for delayed/slow response radiant floor cooling and fast-response window systems in summer period. The proposed RL algorithm illustrates also better performance compared to the rule-based control in ensuring thermal comfort, maintaining indoor air quality, and minimizing cooling energy consumption. Throughout the dissertation, both the EMA-MPC and RL control algorithms are comprehensively designed, constructed, and assessed in virtual testbed and applied in real building for physical experiment, demonstrating their effectiveness and significant promise for future autonomous building applications.

Abstract

This research focuses on the conservation of historic timber structural buildings in China. Specifically, it examines the various methods, organisations, histories, and approaches to architectural conservation aimed at countering the obsolescence of traditional wooden construction, particularly in terms of its physical characteristics. It also explores geographic adaptation and misadaptation, alongside the craftsmanship and institutional arrangements of conservation. Though relatively scarce, traditional timber structures hold critical importance for modern China. As observed globally, conservation for physically deteriorated buildings is not unique to China, yet in contemporary times, it has become crucial to this nation’s identity, cultural heritage, global standing, and economic well-being.

Traditional Chinese timber architecture embodies two distinct construction thinkings: one is the object-oriented approach, which emphasises the buildings’ forms and appearances, predominantly observed in official architecture, characterised by a uniformity of form across provinces and strict hierarchical distinctions by function. The other is the process-oriented approach, primarily evident in vernacular architecture, emphasising regional adaptability and the construction process itself. In the pre-industrial era, the forms of both official and vernacular buildings were indirectly produced through carpenters’ calculations and manual construction. Moreover, the construction and conservation of buildings are integral to the evolutionary process of architectural forms. Carpenters, pivotal in traditional architectural engineering, established specific social groups around carpentry teams, known in academic circles as ‘jiangpai’, representing a guild system of apprenticeships, schools of thought, or ideological families.

Over the past century, with the advent of modern architecture in China, traditional timber structures have been progressively supplanted by modern constructions. Modern architectural professionals have largely overshadowed traditional ‘jiangpai’, though small fractions persist along China’s southeastern coast. Regarding wooden structure conservation, traditional artisans and modern architects diverge significantly; the former concentrates on the hands-on construction and maintenance process, while the latter focuses more on representing historic architectural imagery.

This research centres on one official artisan collective and two grassroots artisan groups. It investigates the histories, organisational structures, distinctive building techniques, and the transmission of knowledge among these jiangpai. Additionally, the study contrasts modern architects and scholars in the architectural field with traditional artisans, analysing disparities in conservation approaches through specific case studies. The research finds that conservation strategies centred on representing historical information in heritage buildings, typically advocated by contemporary architects, are prevalent in government-led conservation initiatives. In contrast, process-driven conservation practices, espoused by traditional artisan groups, are more common in community-led construction and conservation projects. There is increasing interaction and convergence between these two groups of practitioners. The co-existence of design-led and process-led conservation methods is evident in contemporary conservation practice. Moreover, traditional building techniques remain valuable for future conservation efforts.

Abstract

Nonhuman animals are a key parameter for processes of urbanization, but have been marginalized in both mainstream and critical frameworks of urban theory and design. This dissertation critically analyzes this proposition in relation to the history and theory of Western urbanization, using livestock production in the United States as a lens. Four core areas of engagement form the theoretical landscape of this analysis: the persistent nature/city binary in theory and design; modernity as an ideological force reifying city and nature in theory and practice; creative destruction as the propellant force driving machinations in the built environment; and, urban metabolism as a conceptualization of urbanization that offers a counter-narrative to fixed spatial boundaries. Each has played a prominent role in how we think about cities and urbanization in theory and design over the last hundred and fifty years.

Underpinning this exploration is a twofold hypothesis. First, while there has been vigorous debate over what constitutes ‘the urban’, an unexamined anthropocentric core in urban theory and allied design disciplines remains under explored, leaving nonhuman animals black-boxed. Second, while ‘nature’ has in recent years played new and larger roles in discourses like urban political ecology, landscape architecture, and architecture – its use in extant literature has tended to be narrowly focused, reducing the heterogeneity of the nonhuman to an undifferentiated mass. This dissertation argues that the coupled reduction of nature as roughly synonymous to being ‘green’, with the black-boxing of nonhuman animals, produces serious epistemological, analytical, and empirical blind spots in our understanding of urbanization. If we are to take seriously the possibility that we have entered a period of generalized urbanization – a period in need of an urban theory without an outside – then we necessarily need to bring nonhuman animals into our frame of reference, and work to incorporate them into our conceptual and theoretical apparatus.

Organized around thematic concerns that foregrounds livestock bodies as a register in which cycles of capitalist urbanization in the United States can be understood, dung, death, and disease are explored to gain analytical clarity with regard to the proposition that nonhuman animals have been, and continue to be, important to processes of urbanization. The position developed in the pages to follow is that ‘urban’, ‘nature’, and ‘urban nature’ operates beyond ‘good’ nature, and that the metabolic processes and biological labor of livestock – a kind of ‘bad’ nature – pulse through the creative destruction of the urban fabric. By illuminating these dimensions of the ‘urban’, ‘nature’, and ‘urban nature’, we can begin to render into existence a theory of urbanization as processes formed through manifold and intersecting human and nonhuman worlds.

Abstract

Infrastructural corridors of circulation and connectivity form the backbone of the colonial project of modernity, facilitating its rise, expansion, and domination over the past centuries. Contrary to the spatial imaginaries of the unhindered and smooth circulation spaces of commodities, energetics, wealth, and cargo, these global corridors are fragile zones that operate across multiple scales and temporalities of bordered and militarized circulation. This dissertation focuses primarily on the cracks and fissures of corridor infrastructures as they become entangled with postcolonial migratory moves and their creative inhabitation of these spaces for survival in the project of western modernity. Specifically, it focuses on Europe’s post-2015 self-declared migration crisis through the framework of three corridor geographies of migration and bordering: the western, central, and eastern Mediterranean corridors. Instead of a linear projection of corridor geographies, this dissertation argues for the uneven and patchworked nature of these spaces which consists of the strategic coming together of nodes, lines, and zones of simultaneous bordering and circulation. Furthermore, this work argues for the nonlinear and circular understanding of the timespace of the migratory vernacular as it manifests against the horizontality of the modern corridor ontology of unlimited extractivism and commodification of bodies and nature. In conclusion, this project by closely examining infrastructural spaces of circulation sheds new light on the less studied in-between condition of the postcolonial migratory subject: her extended liminality of nondeparture (always of there) and nonarrival (never of here).

Abstract

The focus of this study is Ulsan City, one of South Korea’s largest hydrogen producers and consumers, and its collaboration with local industries to generate both grey and blue hydrogen as alternative energy source to reduce its carbon footprint sources by 2030. Using lifecycle and material flow analysis, the study reveals that the city’s 2030 hydrogen targets will likely increase its dependency on LNG, leading to increased water consumption and CO2 emissions compared to levels recorded in 2019. Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI), a prominent industry player in Ulsan City, has also pledged hydrogen production to reduce the reliance on fossil fuel in the near future. The lifecycle analysis for transitioning from fossil fuel consumption to waste-to-hydrogen generation at HHI points towards a significant reduction in the overall environmental impact. A multi-criteria decision-making model was utilized to assess HHI and Ulsan City stakeholders’ alignment with the national hydrogen goal in terms of their renewable energy preferences. The findings point to a preference for grey and blue hydrogen due to their lower operational costs, and a lack of sufficient support for other cleaner hydrogen such as waste-to-hydrogen and green hydrogen technologies. In conclusion, the study explores the spatial and planning aspects in the Dong-gu area relating to waste-to-energy planning. It advocates for a behavioral change model for future industrial and municipal leaders and emphasizes the need to capitalize on local resources in scenarios where a decentralized energy hub is established in each community in Dong-gu area. This is particularly important in the event of potential deindustrialization of Hyundai Heavy Industries in Ulsan City in the near future.

Abstract

The present historical condition has been characterized by the impasse between two seemingly opposing narratives, one of modernization, mastery, and progress (usually associated to economic growth), and another of interdependence, precaution, and balance (usually associated to ecological integrity). In addressing the relationship between design and ecology, this dissertation’s aims are threefold. First, it problematizes the relationship between design and ecology defined by the apparently self-evident discourse of mainstream environmentalism developed since the seventies around the institutional notion of sustainability. The dissertation reveals how ecology, in its different acceptations (as a scientific field, a synonym for environmentalism, and a particular worldview) played a central role in the processes of de-politicization and re-politicization of design discourse, first as a cultural metaphor in the theoretical writings of the late 1990s and early 2000s, then as the result from the maturation of political ecology accelerated by the Global Financial Crash of 2007-9. Second, drawing from a comparative literature analysis of representative texts from different bodies of ecological scholarship (environmentalism, techno-managerialism, political ecology, and ecological philosophy), the dissertation probes the limits of different instances of the ecological metaphor and the effect these have on the construction of political narratives. Third, the dissertation rearticulates the relationship between design and ecology (now understood as an aesthetic as much as a political problem) asserting that the current cultural impasse can be overcome if politico-ecologic problems are restated as design problems.

Abstract

Svalbard is an archipelago built on an irreducible plurality of interests and Arctic design traditions. Norway has sovereignty over the island group. Contesting Svalbard combines a granular understanding of the spatial implications of multinational occupation in Svalbard with a critique of the Norwegian nationalism underlying the Svalbard project.

The Svalbard Treaty grants all 46 signatory states equal rights to conduct commercial and scientific research activities on the archipelago. This results in an intricate mix of interests and stakeholders and a unique foundation for design experimentation, collaboration, and speculation in an Arctic context. Norway is, however, tightening its grip on Svalbard, impacting the idea of Svalbard as an Arctic common imagined and designed by many nations and people groups.

Five distinct challenges in Svalbard’s built environment are identified as fertile ground to inject a range of alternative futures, catalyzing the archipelago’s multinational character. A participatory and scenario planning approach based on design research is central to such an endeavor. This study, therefore, deals with and speculates about a cross-cultural, fluid, and plural set of issues and actors in an increasingly contested Arctic common.

This study results in (i) adaptations to The Svalbard Treaty addressing climate change, the empowerment of minority groups, and the increasing diversity of interests in the region; (ii) design recommendations and scenarios foregrounding Thai and other Asian-Arctic interests in Svalbard’s built environment; (iii) a proposal for new material assemblies promoting the entanglement of multiple—existing and speculative—Arctic design traditions found in Svalbard; (iv) the introduction of a new transnational organization, The Central Arctic Ocean Design Agency, streamlining inclusive knowledge exchange across the Arctic and guiding alternative futures for Svalbard; and (v) a baseline condition where Norwegian dominance on Svalbard continues in the form of a new company town proposal.

This dissertation is geared toward an international design audience. It acts as a body of actionable knowledge to inform future development on Svalbard while curating and expanding the scope, practice, and literature on urbanism within Arctic contexts. This study also aims to supplement natural and social sciences on Arctic topics, challenge dominant literary histories, and unfold new spatial orders by transversing multiple nation-states, looking beyond the old polarities of hegemony.

Abstract

In this dissertation, I explore the community development work of three prominent African American artists who have used arts-based real estate development to create positive change in their neighborhoods. Through a multiple case study approach, I investigate the real estate, design, and artistic actions that led to the creation of these projects and if there were social benefits that followed. These benefits include social cohesion, adherence to social health determinants, minimization of displacement, and the perception of a strong cultural identity for each neighborhood. By comparing the work of all three artists, I gain insights from community partners, residents, and those within the organizations.

The first chapter of my dissertation highlights the importance of arts in city and neighborhood development and government policies to aid vulnerable communities. The second chapter reviews scholarly literature on the relationship between artists, neighborhood change, and development. In the third chapter, I discuss my research methods and evaluate the benefits and limitations of the case study approach. Chapter four investigates each artist and their organization, exploring their creative practices, the motivations behind their projects, and the real estate actions that made them possible. I examine neighborhood dynamics and the perceived impacts of these projects, discussing the opportunities and challenges they present. In the fifth chapter, I critically analyze the effects of these projects. In the final chapter, I draw conclusions and highlight areas for further research. While these arts-based development projects have positively impacted their neighborhoods, it is essential to note the challenges of maintaining an arts-led community organization. Ultimately, these projects cannot please everyone, but their benefits are far reaching including improved social cohesion and cultural preservation.

Abstract

This dissertation explores the dynamic relationship between material formations of data and the processes of data-driven urbanization within an increasingly planetary context. In this pursuit the project articulates the deeply territorial operations of tech corporations such as Google and frames their spatial footprints and urban projects within an inherently expansionist logic. In developing a contextual-spatial understanding of the landscape of data, this work addresses the grounded materiality and geographic specificity of data infrastructures on one hand, and the influence of the centralizing logic of “the cloud” on practices and processes of spatial production on the other hand. This work is enacted through three main lines of investigation: First, deconstruction of the ideologies, concepts, and politics underlying the sociotechnical construction of “the cloud,” as an emerging global organizational model that operates through platforms of data extraction and mediation. Second, clarification of the role of accidents, errors, and disruptions in unearthing the hidden forms and agendas of global infrastructures of data, as well as a historical contextualization of this hidden form within the long process of under-grounding urban infrastructure since the turn of the 20th century. And third, tracing the inherently global geography of data that materially, socially, and territorially grounds the forms and processes of data extraction and monetization of urban data within processes of advanced capitalism. These investigations bring together perspectives and methods from media studies, communication geography, critical urban studies, cartography, urbanism, and architecture to bear upon some of the most pressing issues facing cities and their citizens as they transition towards emerging paradigms of cloud-driven urbanism.

Abstract

In most design problems, there are multiple schemas, or ways or orienting and organizing the knowledge content in the problem domain, and which by extension defines the range and bearing of solutions. This dissertation examines the properties of individual and clusters of schemas in a problem domain through the highly specific problem of building in seismic regions, a persistent class of design problem found around across diverse cultures and geographic regions. Using case studies, mostly of exemplary historical and contemporary building projects from seismic regions, as well as examples from a wider range of genera and disciplines, including artworks, literature, religious texts, and academic papers, this dissertation identifies and traces six prominent schemas in contemporary design practice, examining its conceptual origins, historical development, and opportunities and limitations in design applications. The six schemas are: 1) lightness, or the subtraction of weight, 2) quickness, or the maintenance of readiness, 3) exactitude, or the need for approximations, 4) visibility, or the rendering of invisible problems, 5) multiplicity, or the curation of diversity, and 6) consistency, or the assurance of a predictable sameness. The general schemas structures, if not the specific know-how of seismic engineering, appears to be widely applicable across problem domains.

Abstract

Industrial robots have been around since the 70s, with massive rates of adoption in the manufacturing industry. Additionally, during the last decade, there has been an increasing interest in the potential of robotic making in non-engineering fields, such as digital fabrication, architecture and art installations, with designers, researchers and artists experimenting with creative applications of these technologies. However, the typical tools used to program and control robots usually fail to address the needs of these groups. Most robots can only be controlled by writing routines through their own graphical user interfaces or vendor-specific programming languages, which often require significant knowledge of spatial transformations, forward and inverse kinematics, mechanical engineering and computer science. These requirements make robots notoriously hard to program, and pose a great entry barrier, especially for novice and non-technical users. Moreover, and similarly to 3D printers, robot programming tools are biased towards the offline control style, one where all the planning and decision making are pre-generated on a digital environment and, upon execution of the compiled instruction file, the programmer becomes completely detached from it. This model is suitable for highly calibrated and predictable environments, but can hardly accommodate more complex forms of control such as responding to feedback from the context, adapting to changing conditions on a construction site or on-the-fly decision making by a controller agent. This research introduces Enactive Robotics, a conceptual model for the design of concurrent control systems for mechanical actuators. The main goal of this model is to blur the distinction between creating and executing a robotic program, integrating them into a process where behavior can be enacted on the machine during the design phase. Drawing inspiration from developmental and cognitive theories, the model is grounded on the capacity of a central decision-making agent to interface in real time with the control system via a set of high-level, universal and platform-agnostic requests named actions. These actions conform the atomic units of cognitive interaction with the robot, and their effect on a particular device is dependent on its nature and state. This paradigm crucially involves considering the large-scale shift between mechanical and computational run times, and proposes the centrality of a state representation as the core mediator between them. The action-state model seeks to break from the unidirectional offline control paradigm, and favor programming styles that are reactive to changes in the dynamic execution of the robot, rather than prescriptive about it. The main thesis in this dissertation is that applications built following the principles of the Enactive Robotics model provide an easier and more immediate entry point to robotics for novel users, since they provide an enactive, rather than symbolic representation of the system, hence aiding the cognitive processes that lead to understanding motion planning and control. Additionally, it provides a framework with greater depth of possibilities for advanced users, in which its real-time nature and immediate feedback facilitates experimentation, flow of thought and creative inquiry. While the work presented in this dissertation focuses mainly on industrial robotic arms, it will be shown how this model can be extended to any programmable machine that performs spatial motion. In this dissertation the general architecture of the model is presented, as well as two sample technical implementations following these principles. The first implementation is a pure .NET library designed for power-users and tech-savvy individuals, while the second is an ecosystem of UI-based applications and utility libraries geared towards novice and entry-level users. A collection of projects built with these implementations is presented as case studies, to showcase the capacity of the model to systematically enable richer interaction paradigms with robotic systems. Furthermore, the results of a controlled user study are presented, in order to evidence the capacity of the model to provide an easier and more accessible entry point to robot programming for novice users.

Abstract

This dissertation outlines a portrait of the skyscraper within the context of the contemporary urban world, undertaking an analysis that spans the period contained between 1973 and the present. Through a critique of key theoretical texts from the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, the project traces the building’s manifold relations with logics of financial abstraction and urbanization, as well as its complex symbolic and spatial roles amid a period characterized by global crises and the deployment of capital at a planetary scale. Assembled as a multilayered narrative in which architectural theory intersects with a constellation of critical discourses and a mosaic of visual materials, The Late Capitalist Skyscraper reads the ongoing metamorphoses of the type as intrinsically connected to emerging modalities of capital accumulation and its associated socio-spatial implications across a wide range of vertical urban landscapes and territorial formations.

Abstract

Things are getting smaller. Energy use is getting bigger. These statements roughly summarize the current state of the material sciences and climate control in buildings, respectively. This thesis presents a novel opportunity to translate micro-scale technologies into environmental building design. This work looks to the fabrication, design, and thermodynamic principles of micro- and milli-scale flow systems from a broad range of industries and scientific applications. The thesis asks how and where these technologies may benefit building design. Strategies for building heating and cooling that prioritize low-temperature lift heat exchangers and increased connectivity to freely available energy in the building environment are identified. From this, a series of experimentally intensive studies are conducted that ask: How do we design and size vascular flow systems? Where do we apply these systems? And how do we make them? The resulting work contributes novel design methods for the vascularization of buildings. The novel contributions of this research include the following: (1) Experimentally derived design rules and a numerical modeling method for optimizing the design and element sizing of a thin film micro-channel device that can provide cooling fluxes suitable for thermal regulation in buildings using modest flow of room temperature water; (2) Fabrication strategies, prediction models, and experimental data for a novel vascularized chilled ceiling prototype that achieves increased heat transfer and cooling performance through the design of laminate micro-channel water-circuits embedded in origami-inspired surface geometries; (3) Prediction models, numerical models, and experimental data for the design of heat-exchanging vascular-porous materials that pre-heat incoming air that is pulled across a building’s envelope by a fan or chimney.

Abstract

The formation of ‘Urban Networks’ has become a wide-spread phenomenon around the world. In the study of metropolitan regions, there are competing or diverging views about management and control of environmental and land-use factors. Especially in China, these matters, regulatory aspects, infrastructure applications, and resource allocations, are important due to population concentrations and the overlapping of urban areas with other land resources. On the other hand, the increasing sophistication of models operating on iterative computational power and widely-available spatial information and techniques make it possible to investigate the spatial distribution of urban territories at a regional scale.

This thesis applies a Scenario Cellular Automata (SCA) model to the case study of the Changjiang Delta Region, which produces useful and predictive scenario-based projections within the region, using quantitative methods and baseline conditions that address issues of regional urban development. The contribution of the research includes the improvement of computer simulation of urban growth, the application of urban form and other indices to evaluate complex urban conditions, and a heightened understanding of the performance of an urban network in the Changjiang Delta Region composed of big, medium, and small-sized cities and towns.

Abstract

Despite obvious distortion and intentional biases, heritage has a history. When did a particular heritage story arise? Why did it arise at that time? What purposes does it serve? Using archival and ethnographic fieldwork, I examine the power interplay and conflicts between UNESCO’s Outstanding Universal Values, Chinese nationalistic discourses and practices of heritage, and local responses from a perspective of authenticity construction. The research is conducted through a careful examination of spatial and socio-cultural changes at two Chinese sites: Quanzhou World Heritage Sites in Fujian Province and the Taoxichuan Creative Park in Jingdezhen, Jiangxi Province. By dissecting the construction of discursive authenticity, affectionate authenticity, and living authenticity, I argue that authenticity and the consequent heritage conservation practices are inevitably political because there is always a failure of mapping the living cultural practices onto the authorized heritage discourses/doctrines. In contrast to a binary thinking in the prevalent heritage studies adopt, the contemporary Chinese heritage practices show us there is less of a clear demarcation between the majority and the minority, the ruler and the ruled, the elite and the common folk, etc. Thus, by thinking across scales and looking beyond the legibility project of the state, this dissertation analyzes how the socio-cultural and political agents have empowered themselves to muddle through the contemporary Chinese heritagization process and the power geometry of it. A porous discursive mechanism of authenticity is the tie and the means for weaving the power web.

The following questions are addressed in this dissertation to reveal the underlying power structure behind contemporary China’s use of heritage and history: How does UNESCO intersect with different levels of the Chinese government to affect the narratives and spatial and socio-cultural character of the heritage site? What kinds of spatial interventions are imposed on the heritage site and how do the spatial changes inform socio-cultural changes on the heritage site? How are different levels of governments, local social groups, and conservation experts engaged in the formation of heritage narratives and spatial practices? What different roles do they play in the knowledge production of heritage?

Abstract

Machine learning (ML) and deep learning (DL) have become more prominent in the building, architecture, and construction industries. One area ideally suited to exploit this powerful new technology is building performance simulation (BPS) for sustainable building design. Physics-based models have traditionally been used to estimate the energy flow, air movement, and heat balance of buildings. The algorithms behind physics-based models, however, involve solving complex differential equations that require many assumptions, significant computational power, and a considerable amount of time to output predictions. With the advent of DL, which can handle large amounts of computation in a short period of time, data-driven models for predicting the physical properties of buildings are becoming increasingly popular due to their simplicity and efficiency. As such, artificial neural networks (ANNs) with measured or simulated data for environmental analysis are likely to be a more feasible option for designers during the early design phase. To train ANN models, 3D data is an asset to computer vision because they provide rich information about the geometry and the related environment. Depending on the 3D data representation considered, different challenges may emerge when using trained ANN models. Hence, an interoperability framework is required for converting building geometries and environment-related information into relevant 3D matrices for model training and utilization. However, to date there has been no research on this topic in the BPS field; thus, this research proposes a new data interoperability framework for ANN models with 3D buildings serving as inputs. The framework has been subjected to a trial investigation using several ANN modeling studies on radiation and airflow simulation. The result is a comprehensive process map that includes the BPS requirement for ANN modeling, related subprocesses (i.e., building geometry and environmental levels), specific rules and methods for modeling, and processing of input and output data. To accomplish this, data exchangers for the ANN models, geometry representation tool (GRT), and BIM specification tool (BST) were introduced and developed as computational tools. The comprehensive framework has been validated using the developed case studies, demonstrating its applicability for different Computer-aided design tools (i.e., Rhinoceros and Revit) and ANN models (i.e., radiation and airflow) and illustrating the future capacity of integrated ANNs to serve as a tool for use in BPS and early-stage modeling.

Abstract

Urban infrastructure has replaced what once was biologically rich soil with compacted, sterile substrates severing the underground networks that facilitate mutualistic relationships between plants and mycorrhizal fungi. This dissertation argues that one way of reintegrating mycorrhizal networks – and thereby restoring the health and resilience of the urban biota—is by redesigning underground environments. An extensive literature review was first undertaken to develop a comprehensive understanding of current research across the fields of landscape architecture, microbiology and ecology. The review revealed a lack of cross disciplinary collaboration and highlighted the need for a more integrative approach to studying and designing urban environments. Central to this dissertation is the design, development and testing of the soil conduit—a new form of green infrastructure designed to connect trees physically in order to help foster the growth of fungal networks in urban conditions. By creating a connected rhizosphere, the soil conduit enables trees to exchange nutrients, which encourages health and resilience through cooperative dynamics. To demonstrate the feasibility and impact of the soil conduit, this research employed two proof of concepts at different scales. At the micro scale, a controlled experiment was conducted in a greenhouse with 53 oak saplings to evaluate the effects of the soil conduit on tree health and fungal communities. Over the course of the study, samples were collected from the soil and the root zones, to be analysed using molecular and microscopic techniques.

The results confirmed the presence of ectomycorrhizal fungi in the soil conduit, in addition to improved tree health-scores and growth measurements in connected treatments. These findings suggest that the conduit is effective in promoting underground connectivity and ecological resilience in urban landscapes. At the macro scale, a mapping exercise was undertaken to analyse the spatial and infrastructural conditions that support soil connectivity and tree health. A study explored trees growing in parks and sidewalks to determine the effects of fragmentation in an urban context on the structure of the soil as well as the health score and growth measurements of trees. Here mapping is also suggested as a tool to begin speculating about potential underground fungal networks in the built environment and how a soil conduit might enhance this connectivity, thereby enhancing the resilience of the urban forest. This research demonstrates the soil conduit’s potential to transform how we design for urban ecosystems, reimagining the underground landscapes as a site of connection rather than isolation by offering a scalable and design-oriented framework for reintegrating mycorrhizal fungi—and the vital ecological functions they support—into the urban fabric.

Abstract

My dissertation aims to design a proposed solution by studying and better understanding the specific cultural related issues of water conservation. Water, a valuable element of life, has had and continues to have a significant impact on communities; culturally, socially, ecologically, politically, and on places globally. Conserving water is today’s imperative need, and can more likely be implemented with a more specific culturally thoughtful policy design to help change the societal behavior, attitude, feeling, and awareness toward the water crisis. Specifically, for this dissertation, I use the Azraq Oasis in Jordan as a case study. I define and investigate the cultural component of water scarcity and its role in implementing effective water conservation practices using Laureano’s four cultural dimensions – cognitive (knowledge), attitude, active (behavior) and effective (feeling) parameters. I accomplished this by observing daily practices of the five sub cultural groups, the Druze, Chechens, Refugees, Minority, and Bedouins residing in Azraq. These parameters were collected through surveys, quantified and statistical models were created in order to help design a better resolution for this specific population. The results indicated that the knowledge and behavior models are more significant than the attitude and feeling models. Survey results for daily practices for conserving water had variations in terms of awareness (knowledge) of water conservation. All of the five sub cultural groups display positive behavior and attitudes towards willingness to conserve water. However, the one disparity is that the refugees, as much as they agreed that water conservation is needed, disagree that it is their responsibility to conserve water, but indicated that they save water wherever they can. In sum, all five cultural groups share similar feelings about water shortage and water quality seems to be their primary concern. This dissertation makes a contribution in the water use and conservation literature and provides quantifiable data of the role of the culture on water conservation for policy designers. The policy designers can then potentially implement or learn from this dissertation in their own country to design culturally sensitive policies that would potentially help eradicate water scarcity.

Abstract

This dissertation questioned the tendency toward varied architectural forms in US housing projects, given that the function of the public housing program evolved over time. This work contributed to existing studies on public housing by driving at the heterogeneity in the architecture hit by the forces at play—ideological, political, racial, and economic—echoing certain norms prevalent in the nation’s urban centers. In other words, beneath the story of variation in US housing project designs, the architecture reflected and expressed ‘cultural moments,’ defined here as the temporary alignment of beliefs about society, politics, the economy, and architecture that prevailed at periods of time.
The investigative lens used in this study—the concept of cultural moments—extended conceptual frameworks on historical progressions to the architecture of public housing—notably, geographer Peter Taylor’s (1999) ‘prime modernities’, and, alternatively, ‘modernity’ in the work of historian Miriam Levin et al (2010). The methodology employed was case study-based, a qualitative research design which combined historical, cultural, and architectural analyses. The dissertation’s core methods relied on archival research, architectural precedent study, the generation of interpretive drawings, census data, and four in-depth interviews. To answer the research question, the study investigated three housing projects illustrative of their milieux—subdivided into three chapters. These projects were Langston Terrace in Washington, DC, Schuylkill Falls in Philadelphia, and Centennial Place in Atlanta. The three projects were chosen because they reflected housing project design’s evolution, representing critical periods of intensification in the history of public housing—the 1930s, 1950s and 1990s. The methodology interrogated the key reasons why, in each period, abrupt shifts in American’s attitudes toward low-income housing provision followed a pattern of breaking with the past.
Our findings showed that political forces lie beneath the variation in US housing project designs in nearly every aspect of their creation. The findings also revealed that integral to each cultural moment were change agents and their motivations—political, social, and economic—shaping the architecture. Third and most important, our findings underscored that hybrids in style and form, embodying their cultural moments, were indispensable to America’s housing officials in achieving social good when little consensus existed. Architectural hybrids defined in this dissertation—the combination of any historical style in a single project—resulted from the necessary convergence of competing claims about location, projects’ financing, construction, and tenantry, spread across a wide range of stakeholders’ opinions. Taken together, our findings show that housing project design, by nature, was an iterative process shaped by the times.

Abstract

Since its inception, Shenzhen has been widely understood by both academics and the public alike as a city whose development is, and has been, primarily driven by strong market forces. However, if one looks beyond the surface of this conventional view, we see that the Chinese party-state (primarily in the form of SOEs, especially central SOEs) has been the true underlying force advancing the city’s development, especially in its early stages. Mainly through the use of industrial zones, Chinese SOEs have continuously intervened in the city’s development, shaping the city’s urban structure, and arguably operating as the invisible planners who have guided the city’s overall development. Thus, against to the predominant conventional view, I argue that the Chinese state (in the form of SOEs) had been in fact the driving force behind the development of Shenzhen. In addition to shaping the city’s physical and economic structures, the central SOEs (especially the China Merchants Group in Shekou) are also responsible for pioneering China’s reform experiments. Against this backdrop, I explore the critical question of “Why SOEs for the reform?” First, by analyzing the important role of personal power interests in policy making on the basis of many veteran scholars’ lengthy observations of political developments in China, I contend that the success of the reform is where Deng Xiaoping’s legitimacy and political power came from. Here it is important that significant temporal pressure was built into the reform. As such, for Deng and his pro-reform allies, I argue that along with the cumbersome politics and tightened fiscal situation of the central government at that time, Deng and his allies could not rely on the existing formal bureaucratic system to function efficiently as the main policy implementation channel. This is why Deng and his allies made use of SOEs (especially central SOEs) to implement their reforms. This is what I call the “political logic of the SOEs in the making of Shenzhen”.
The case study of the establishment and development of Shekou by the China Merchants Group clearly embodies this political logic. Highlighting the informal political decision-making processes between the pro-reform central leaders and the leaders of the China Merchants Group, I argue that Deng, along with his allies, came to rely on the China Merchants Group as a personal political tool for carrying out his political and economic visions and ultimately to consolidate the political power. My claim that China’s central SOEs functioned as the personal political tool of Deng and other leaders is further substantiated and generalized after identifying a similar practice in the era of Xi Jinping. By analyzing the role of central SOEs in the “Belt and Road Initiative” and case studies in the development of Chinese metropolitan regions, I further argue that central SOEs have continued to play a critical role in implementing Xi’s foreign and domestic policies, which not only serve national interests but also Xi’s interest for the consolidation of his political power. Beyond contributing to our understanding of the state-driven development model of Shenzhen, this study advances our knowledge of the political logic of China’s SOEs in the making of the city as well as the role of the individual leaders’ motives in the politics of leadership surrounding the use of SOEs in China. This analysis of SOEs within the context of the pursuit of leaders for political power helps to illuminate many of the decisions concerning SOEs as well as the rationale behind many of the activities carried out by China’s SOEs.

Abstract

The Massachusetts Community Preservation Act (CPA), enacted in 2000, provides a dedicated funding source for local open space and recreation, historic preservation, and affordable housing initiatives. CPA authorizes local governments to impose real estate tax surcharges to fund eligible programs and projects, with the state offering matching funds from its Community Preservation Trust Fund to incentivize participation. In its 22-year history, the CPA has generated $3.15 billion in total funding for participating municipalities, with over $1 billion allocated to affordable housing activities, resulting in more than 10,000 new housing units and an additional 16,500 units subsidized by CPA-funded programs. While some CPA jurisdictions have effectively utilized the program to make significant investments in affordable housing, half of participating municipalities are consistently unable to appropriate even the minimum required percentage for this purpose.  Drawing on insights from an empirical analysis of more than 1,000 affordable housing appropriations funded by the CPA from 2018 to 2022, the dissertation outlines municipal affordable housing strategies that offer viable funding options for diverse local CPA budgets and community contexts.   It also highlights the flexibility of CPA funding to cater to a broader range of household incomes than other municipal, state, and federal affordable housing programs.   It further emphasizes the critical role played by municipal CPA funding awards in demonstrating the local financial commitment required to leverage additional state and federal housing subsidies needed to undertake more ambitious affordable housing projects and programs. In light of Massachusetts’s escalating housing crisis, the dissertation advocates for enhanced state oversight of local CPA programs as well as policy reforms than can enable CPA municipalities to achieve greater impact with their affordable housing appropriations by funding regional projects.  Pursuing these strategies could bolster the Community Preservation Act’s capacity to subsidize an even greater number of affordable housing projects and programs than it has to date.

Abstract

Every building, infrastructure, or city is the spatial manifestation of metabolizing multiple materials, energy, labor relations, and capital investments from local and distant sources. Yet, an overemphasis on specific sites or projects easily obscures these metabolic interdependencies at a broader scale. Working on urban metabolism concepts, this dissertation examines the role of design in regulating how materials and energy flows circulate, metabolize, and produce urban form. It articulates how the separate realms of extraction, production, circulation, accumulation, and disposal of metabolic flows are integral and generative for design. It elucidates a critical position for design discourse and practice through a boundary-exploding inquiry of transcalar feedback loops between design projects and their life-supporting spaces. Selecting wood as the metabolic flow of analysis examines how the laborious effort of orchestrating its associated social and ecological processes can enable designers to engage with urgent problematiques of anthropocentric and non-anthropocentric concern.

Articulated via the concept of metabolic urbanism, this dissertation proceeds in three parts: epistemologies, lineages, and prospects. Part I offers an intellectual history of the epistemologies of urban metabolism by different scholarly clusters. Part II re-examines an intradisciplinary lineage of design discourses, models, and interventions driven by metabolic considerations. Finally, Part III reflects on metabolically significant design prospects where wood, as one critical flow of urbanization, plays a key role. Metabolic urbanism critically advances the knowledge of urban metabolism in design by following the intricate flows that comprise the urban fabric at a planetary scale. It articulates the discursive and projective potentials of architecture and urbanism when shaped by metabolic transcalar interdependencies.

Abstract

“Lagos is a complex entity that subverts common expectations. It is not just its demographic size that makes it a megacity, but also its social and cultural contradictions … a mega-slum and megacity — in that order.” — Oka Obono (2007)

The sociologist Oka Obono’s characterization of Lagos brings to the forefront the opposing realities of (post)colonial African urbanisms more generally: abundance as opposed to scarcity, colonial hegemony as opposed to cultural diversity, and crippling elitism as opposed to the lived experiences of the vast majority of urban dwellers experiencing poverty. Urban landscapes are inevitably marked by the fluidity of the spaces produced by contradictions like these—a fluidity that, in Lagos, is marked by the richness of culture and vibrancy of peoples while at the same time making manifest oppression, suffering, and collective trauma. The interaction of group identity and physical space here is simultaneously reciprocal and contested, uniting and fracturing.

With Lagos as its focus, this dissertation addresses the interaction of group identity and physical space by bringing several disciplinary perspectives into conversation: urban planning, preservation, anthropology, religion, and postcolonial theory. It takes as its subject a city whose constituent parts, which are bound by water, serve as the unstable container for dramatic ethnic and religious differences, for competing narratives of cultural identity, and for profound socioeconomic divide. Indeed, ethnic and religious contestation, marginalization, and inequality in Lagos exemplify the non-neutrality of physical spaces in which they are made visible. The built environment is both the container of inequality and the stage on which colonial pasts, cultural hierarchies, and social exclusions continuously play out. So, what are the means of describing Lagos in all this complexity? How might such a description lead to a better understanding of the urban environment and to proposals for a more equitable and just city?

The dissertation is structured by a sequence of chapters in which the aforementioned non-neutrality of physical space is foregrounded at different urban scales: first, how the traces of colonial urbanism leave their imprint on modern networks; second, how the urban governance and planning interact with current social hierarchies in contexts such as outdoor markets; and, finally, how the physical manifestation of urban informalization offers up forms of resistance. These chapters and the scales they offer as objects of study—the urban grid, the streetscape, and the informalized district—speak in different ways to broader issues of social inequality, the physical unfolding of the urban fabric, and the ways in which this urban fabric shapes and reflects identity, hierarchy, culture, and exclusion. They exemplify the different modalities that construct various political narratives of place in Lagos, resulting in vastly unequal distributions of capital and services.

Abstract

In 2008, California introduced the first-in-the-nation Green Building Standards Code to encourage sustainable construction practices. While the adoption of the CALGreen Code marked a significant moment in the process of the greening of building regulations, it represents only one moment in the nation’s history of code-making, and that of environmental action. Two parallel narratives, and their eventual mergence are the subject of this study. The first one is a story of the agendas that shaped the American house, and the regulations that govern it; the second an account of the rise of environmental awareness as gradually standardized by law-makers and normalized by economists. The goal is to evaluate the wide-ranging consequences of their convergence – not just the isolated green building standards. Essentially, while environmentalists criticize the devastating global effects of consumerism, free trade, and fossil fuels; governments and local authorities focus on fine-tuning of individual standards, and diffusion of efficient technologies at the scale of households. It remains to be seen whether these measures will minimize the environmental impact of American houses, or simply perpetuate the market-driven image of sustainability, and further complicate the multi-layered building code that they try to mend. This research is ultimately concerned with an apparatus which uses the house, and green technologies as a vehicle for economic growth. For this reason, it would remain incomplete if it exclusively focused on ecological ideas and legislative programs, disregarding economic forces, market instruments, and technology. The first part of this study provides an account of ecological ideas, economic agendas, and regulatory programs as they emerged, influenced each other, and informed the character of environmental action and American households, specifically those built in California, and the City of Los Angeles. The second part investigates the mechanics of the regulations used to standardize building practices, and financial incentives used to promote green technologies. As Bateson observed, ideas and programs interact and survive in circuits. It would then be a fallacy to assume that by changing ideas and programs, and updating standards and recipes, we can change our environmental awareness. Ideas and standards must be questioned, but the matrix from which they originate needs to be occasionally re-circuited as well.

Abstract

United Parcel Service Inc., universally known as UPS, is the largest shipping company in the world. Holding one of the largest cargo airlines, continental ground networks, and oceanic freight forwarding systems across the globe, UPS is one of the key players in commercial and industrial logistics, globally. Crossing over two hundred countries and territories, and passing through all climate zones, UPS operations navigate terrestrial, oceanic, and fluvial spaces of the earth into a practically seamless and thickened landscape of logistical movements. Through an aggressively integrated process of incorporation and diversification of products, services, operations, and modes of transportation, UPS has become a vastly incorporated spatial system of adaptation, whose primary function is, as the company claims, “synchronizing the world of commerce.” In this sense, this incorporated state of logistics can be understood as a centralized organizational mechanism of contemporary global trade and internalized computational platform of a globalized supply chain of third-party agents, where geospatial arrangements and configurations follow temporal forces of an ever-expanding transnational trade space.

Enabled by and engaged in a range of urban territories, regions, and spaces, UPS not only ships goods according to an ever-growing electronic market place, it actually responds to and shapes processes of urbanization through a calibrated process of mobilization of resources, systems, services, cargo, and labor. Building upon a range of empirical, analytical, and observed sources, this study purposely and necessarily engages multiple fields of expertise at the intersection of geography, landscape, and territorial studies, and the fields of political economy, science and technology. Through text, image, and mapping, this infrastructural ethnography thus depicts, and potentially redefines, the world according to UPS.

Rethinking the conventions of corporate case studies, this dissertation formulates an understanding of urbanization through the infrastructural and ethnographic lens of UPS Inc. drawn by an emerging series of processes, including manifold processes of technological mobilization and the grounds they require for the largest logistics systems company in the world to operate, expand, and adapt. Avoiding the positivism of techno-logistical narratives, this dissertation seeks to establish a much-needed discourse on both the nascent territorial agencies and spatial limits of logistical states of incorporation beyond the flattened fiscal, financial, and legal space of corporate and industrial entities.

Exposing the intensively-material grounds of these logistics systems, this dissertation seeks to untangle the messiness of movements and flows of goods in an otherwise globalized supply chain by revealing the deep and multi-layered organizational intelligence of geographic, spatial, and biophysical interdependencies that is often masked by the simplicity of synchronized, apparently smooth, and so-called seamless systems of commodity circulation. Proposed as a set of large, integrated infrastructural systems, the organizational ecology of UPS can therefore be understood far beyond its economic calculus of balance sheets and minute signals of barcodes, but through its realization and manifestation as territorial agent and political force whose forces are simultaneously planetary as much as they are bodily—a countermap to metropolitanization.

How then can corporate systems be understood as spatial and geographic? How do technical demands invoke new and existing territories? How do market pressures and logistical demands transform urban space?

Adopting an ethnographic approach to studies in industrial planning and scientific management, this dissertation is therefore organized in three case studies to address these questions by analyzing three different dimensions and layers of this complex of logistical incorporations—sites, systems, and standards—through the lens of the world’s largest shipping company. Titled UPS Worldport: from Port to Plot, the first chapter delineates the geospatial and geohistorical extents of UPS logistics bases that originate from its central operating headquarters in Louisville, Kentucky. Beyond and between these sites, the second chapter titled UPS Freight: from Fleet to Fuel traces the geopolitical and biotechnological interdependencies that support and secure its operational fleet and attendant mobile infrastructures in response to market demands, globally. And finally, the third chapter titled UPS Supply Chain Solutions: from Box to Barcode reveals how UPS system of standards—from containerized packaging to controlled spaces to monitored environments—not only regulate environmental conditions of logistical movements but also shape consumer demand through attendant infrastructural imperatives. Taken together, these case studies not only break down the complex footprints of port-hub-outpost that characterize this corporate logistics complex but redraw their territorial imprints that have been adapted and re-adapted over the past century. Seen across time, these case studies delineate and decode the intricate temporalities that are registered, inscribed, and embedded within these ecologies of operational and organizational logistics. Working in between and across the space of nation-states, the lens through which UPS operates can then be understood as an emergent spatial strategy, a state of territorial adaptation, whose sustainability uniquely and exceptionally depends on perpetual techniques, technologies, and methods of adaptive, minute-by-minute management and large scale, systemic synchronization. In other words, UPS not only manages time but it also draws and designs time, as its contingent, operational territories continually transform, move, and change.

Abstract

From Hinterland to Hinterglobe investigates urbanization as a mode of generalized geographical organization in which agglomerations, although covering no more than 3% of the total land surface, are connected to the reconfiguration of most of the 70% of the planetary terrain currently used. Urbanization has always been characterized by a condition of biogeographical interdependency between areas of concentration of population and economic activity, and extensive areas of primary production, circulation and waste disposal. Historically confined at the regional scale, what has been conceptualized as a relationship between cities and their hinterlands, is becoming increasingly elusive to define under conditions of globalized urbanization: On the one hand, agglomerations densify, diffuse and expand into unprecedented, increasingly continuous zones. On the other hand, through a thickening web of transport infrastructures, they become increasingly interwoven with the operationalization of multiscalar, increasingly discontinuous and specialized agricultural, forestry, grazing, energy and mineral extraction zones. The later constitute the majority of the used part of the earth’s surface; yet they remain a ‘terra incognita’ to the study of urbanization. Although various strands of scholarship have highlighted the multiscalar impact of urbanization on shaping global patterns of socio-economic development and environmental transformation, the question of the hinterland has remained deeply inscribed within a set of persistent dichotomies: From a demographic perspective, the dichotomy between densely populated ‘urban’ agglomerations and low density ‘rural’ hinterlands; from a land-use perspective, between densely built-up ‘hardscapes’ of agglomerations and thinly equipped ‘softscapes’ of hinterlands; from an economic perspective, between agglomerations as economic generators, and hinterlands as void of economic performance; and from an ecological perspective, between agglomerations as ‘entropic black holes’, and hinterlands as producers of ecological surplus. Building upon the agenda of Planetary Urbanization, I critically revisit and deconstruct the concept of the hinterland aiming to transcend its associated dichotomies and limitations. I introduce the meta-categories of agglomeration landscapes and operational landscapes as landscapes of possible externalities associated with particular operations: Agglomeration landscapes are characterized by the presence of ‘urban’ and ‘clustering’ externalities; operational landscapes are mostly connected with ‘locational’ externalities. I investigate how these externalities emerge out of, or are prohibited by, particular compositions of asymmetrically distributed, but largely continuous, elements of geographical organization (elements of the natural environment, elements of infrastructural equipment, demographic factors, institutional and regulatory frameworks). Instead of trying to delineate the particular hinterlands of cities, or chart the flows that connect them, I suggest that all processes of urbanization include the activation of a multitude of both agglomeration landscapes and operational landscapes. These are brought together through complex webs of commodity chains, reflecting the advanced division of labor that characterizes industrial and postindustrial societies. According to this framework, agglomeration landscapes are presented as the main locations for operations of the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy, while operational landscapes for operations of the primary sector of the economy. In this way, I claim that, while urban economies have been only associated with the former, the economies of urbanization should be also stretched to include the latter. In addition to introducing these novel categories, I also explore how they could be cartographically defined through the composite charting of the various geographical elements that constitute them. As a result, my research blends a theoretical apparatus, building upon theories of the social and ecological production of space under capitalism; with a cartographic and geostatistical apparatus, building upon a critical engagement with selected global geospatial datasets. Finally, as a means of exploring the capacities of these novel concepts, I attempt a historical overview of the development of urbanization as geographical organization over the past two centuries: I claim that as urbanization generalizes a condition of biogeographical interdependency, operational landscapes expand and specialize constructing a globalized shared assembly. Instrumentalized through global commodity chains, this planetary operational totality signals the shift from the universe of fragmented hinterlands, to the totality of the Hinterglobe: an alternative interpretation of the complete urbanization of the world.

Abstract

This mixed methods study examines the citizen’s role in the production of space in the peripheral urban spaces of post-colonial Botswana, aiming to shape collective imagined futures for housing policy. Current research is silent on the citizen’s lived experience in policy formulation. At most, discourse on policy formulation in Botswana analyzes the influence of policy on spatial representations or the socio-economic outcomes of policy. There is a disconcerting silence on the citizen’s role, engagement, and agency in the production of space. In response to this silence, this research embraces African epistemology as a decolonizing approach, recognizing indigenous knowledge systems. This methodology responds to the call for scholars studying African phenomena to dismantle the barriers that obscure local perspectives. Using an exploratory sequential design, the study identified key variables from citizens’ lived experiences regarding housing and translated qualitative findings into a game. The study sample comprised participants from the peri-urban villages of Mogoditshane, Oodi, and Tlokweng, located at the periphery of Botswana’s capital city, Gaborone. The research methodology was structured in three phases: an initial phase involved narrative interviews with 31 participants, followed by the iterative design of a cooperative strategy game called MOOT City Game, and concluded by testing the game on a sample of 102 participants. An integrated interpretation approach contextualized the qualitative data and determined the nature of the game, while the quantitative data collected during the game were analyzed in relation to the qualitative findings. The first key finding of the study was its essential invariant structure: the interconnectedness of community through collaboration and cooperation in housing production was a consistent lived experience for the participants. Additionally, the study revealed a significant relationship between collaboration and imagination: participants who collaborated during the game reported higher levels of satisfaction with the game’s outcome than those who did not. Furthermore, male participants who collaborated in a game that featured Molao, or the leader, expressed higher satisfaction with the game’s outcome than their female counterparts. Ultimately, the study found that participants’ agency flourished in an environment that fostered collective imagination rather than individualistic imagination.
This research underscores the value of contextualized local knowledge in crafting innovative solutions for democratizing policy formulation and advancing decolonization efforts in epistemology. Furthermore, the methodology contributes to the literature by linking gamification theory, serious games, and practical applications beyond participant engagement and motivation. The combined approach of the methodology and MOOT City Game serves as a valuable urban planning tool for policymakers, an empowering mechanism for citizens, a new way of thinking about urban planning as collaborative puzzle-solving., and an opportunity to build community beyond formal structures. Future research could involve testing the game in diverse cultural contexts and investigating the potential of the methodology to produce localized urban technologies.

Abstract

This research examines the economic impact of climate change adaptation measures on the housing markets of two representative coastal cities in the United States located along the Atlantic Ocean. The results shed light on how adaptation measures and investments influence housing values and local economies with respect to their place-based and local forms of implementation. Numerous quantitative approaches, including multiple sets of geospatial modeling and panel-data hedonic regression analyses, are used to examine changes in property values associated with climate adaptation measures and the dynamics of risk perception. The results also signal how risk perception and hurricane characteristics are reflected in housing markets, thereby shedding light on the effects of anticipatory and reactive adaptation strategies in the reclassified categories of hard infrastructure, green infrastructure, adaptive capacity, and private adaptation on property values in these coastal communities. Collectively, the study suggests which adaptation strategies, characteristics, and attributes can contribute to maximizing both community resilience and economic benefits against the weather extremes caused by climate change. This study highlights that natural green infrastructure as a climate adaptation measure is associated with a housing price appreciation of 9.6% in Miami-Dade County and 2.7% in New York City. Structural elevation achieved by raising foundations provides 6.6% and 13.8% in housing price increases in Miami-Dade County and New York City, respectively. Adaptation measures for storm surges provide the largest positive impact on housing prices at 15.4% in Miami-Dade County. The study further suggests that implementation of climate adaptation should be based on local-specific information, rather than relying upon national or state-level data, due to local idiosyncrasies, location-specific storm characteristics, and the subjective nature of risk perception. Together, this study helps to provide a clearer understanding of how different types of climate adaptation measures interacting with storm characteristics and risk perception are contributing to reinforcing a coastal community resiliency.

Abstract

This dissertation examines William Brewster’s (1851-1919) seminal yet underappreciated contributions to ornithology through the analysis of his extensive archival materials—including field notes, journals, diaries, systematic bird observations, photographic prints, and voluminous correspondence. The thesis elucidates the development and impact of Brewster’s ethically driven, non-lethal observational methodologies, contrasting substantially with the earlier practices of John James Audubon (1785-1851), which involved the widespread killing of birds for illustration purposes. Brewster’s approach marked a pivotal shift towards more ethical scientific inquiry and early conservation principles.

Housed at Harvard University’s Ernst Mayr Library at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Brewster’s archives span five decades and provide an unparalleled dataset of bird behavior, habitats, vocalizations, and population changes, alongside notes on the changing landscape. This dissertation probes the evolution from visually biased scientific methods to sensory-integrated observational practices, examining the implications of Brewster’s auditory and multi-sensory engagements in the broader context of 19th-century scientific epistemology. By intersecting theoretical frameworks such as Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, Tim Ingold’s work on “phenomena of the weather-world” and Steven Feld’s “acoustemology” with archival methodologies informed by Jacques Derrida’s concept of “archive fever,” Frédérique Aït-Touati’s analysis of Robert Hooke’s Micrographia, and Friedrich Kittler’s media theory, this work offers an analytical discourse of the archive as a technological apparatus.

Key research questions guiding this dissertation include: How did Brewster and Audubon’s ornithological methods navigate tensions between scientific objectivity and subjectivity in the representation of birds? What do their methodologies reveal about the evolving notion of the scientific self and ethical engagement with avian species during the 19th century? How did contemporary technological advancements and cultural perceptions of the so-called “nature” shape their observational practices and understanding of human-animal-machine interactions? Critically, how did Brewster’s implementation of non-lethal observation methodologies and his meticulous documentation of ecological changes contribute to early notions of conservation and foreshadow contemporary multispecies approaches as articulated by scholars like Donna Haraway and Anna Tsing?

By integrating frameworks from the history of art and sciences with critical theory across critical posthumanities, new materialisms, cultural geography, media, and sound studies, this interdisciplinary inquiry underscores the vital role urban environments play in conservation efforts. The study foregrounds how contemporary artistic practices and digital scholarship could not only contextualize Brewster’s legacy within the historical trajectory of ornithology but also advocate for the re-evaluation of ethical practices in current scientific disciplines. It underscores the urgency of fostering multispecies cohabitation and sustainable living practices in the Anthropocene (a contested term), thereby addressing broader ecological crises and redefining human-animal-machine relations. Engaging multispecies perspectives in multiple modalities offers insights for cultivating more ethical and sustainable ways of living on a damaged planet (Tsing 2017).

Abstract

This dissertation concerns the growing role of China, specifically Chinese state capital, in reshaping the built environment through financing, building, and operating mega infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka over the past two decades. In the early 21st century, China quickly emerged as the world’s largest official financier of infrastructure projects around the world, providing a cumulative total of nearly one trillion U.S. dollars by 2022. Of the 165 recipient countries, Sri Lanka stands out as a country that has seen one of the most dramatic – and uneven – restructuring of urban space. Observing that China-backed megaprojects had divergent performance and spatial outcomes in Sri Lanka during Mahinda Rajapaksa’s presidency, the dissertation explains this curious within-country variation by comparing three China-backed megaproject cases with otherwise similar characteristics. Why did the Colombo Port City project succeed in producing early agglomeration effects while the Mattala Airport project became a wasteful “white elephant”? Why did the Hambantota Port project become more successful over time after initial struggles? The dissertation finds that the length of time horizon in Chinese state capital and the degree of power concentration in Sri Lanka’s planning process are key determinants. It shows how a toxic combination of an authoritarian approach to planning in Sri Lanka and short-term oriented Chinese capital can lead to mega infrastructure projects built at the wrong scale, at the wrong place, or at the wrong time. It also shows how a patient form of Chinese state capital and a more inclusive approach to planning can result in better performance. In so doing, the dissertation highlights the politics of risk allocation. It details the circumstances under which specific risk management strategies were adopted, and how different incentive structures shape the relationship between planning power and Chinese capital. While the dissertation is focused on Sri Lanka, the findings hold broader implications for the theory and practice of megaproject planning across the Global South.

Abstract

During China’s thirty years planned economy era (1949-1978), including the following two decades, the work-unit system has played a significant role in the country and has effectively promoted its economic growth by virtue of the system’s combined political, economic and social functions. However, as the domestic and international environment changed around the 1980s, the government slowly abandoned the work-unit system after deeming it an impediment to the country’s modernization. While the policies could be implemented quickly, the system’s physical space, which mostly consists of the working quarter and the living quarter, was not so easily erased. In reality, because of the economic situation’ limitations and the political priorities concerning the working quarter redevelopment in the reform’s early stage in the country, there has appeared a separation of working and living, and a lag of the work-unit community (the living quarter) development in the country. While large numbers of working quarters have been regenerated, relocated or demolished, and lots of researches have been done on the work-unit redevelopment, the majority of which are centered around the working quarter, most of the work-unit community are left behind and faced with the lash of the market economy, rapid urban development and physical deterioration on their own. Today, forty years have passed since the 1978 economic reform, due to all kinds of changes that have happened in the country, such as the new economic situation, urban sprawl and the existing stock-based development policy, there now exists a viable housing stock in the work-unit community area and it would be necessary and enforceable to retrofit them. In this context, in order to fill the gap of the work-unit community study in the country, to provide innovative research ideas and methodologies for the field, to provide strategic support for the national existing stock-based development policy, and to enrich the research on work-units in the second-tier cities of the country, this research aims to explore reasonable and applicable retrofitting strategies that would follow the inner self-organizing logic of the work-unit community. This will be done by studying both the administrative and morphological evolution of specific work-unit community cases in Nanjing, with the self-organization theory as a supporting theory and the typo-morphology approach as the primary physically-oriented methodology. In summary, administratively, residents’ sense of autonomy is the key to the retrofitting of the work-unit community. In the meanwhile, other participants in the community management should assist residents in the process, especially the street office, residents’ committee, planners and designers. Morphologically, three main retrofitting strategies are finally proposed. Namely, to increase the degree of openness in a limited way, to improve the competition mechanism in the work-unit community, and to focus on variable retrofitting strategies.

Abstract

The global housing affordability crisis has reached critical proportions in major cities like New York and Taipei, where soaring housing prices have placed immense pressure on homebuyers and residents. Governments worldwide are actively seeking effective solutions, with property tax emerging as a commonly employed approach due to the regulatory powers governments possess in tax systems. New York State initiated property tax caps in 2012, known as the levy cap, which restrained property tax levy growth to either 2% or the inflation rate. In contrast, Taipei City introduced distinct measures, namely the Hoarding Tax, in 2014, aiming to encourage property hoarders to release vacant units into the housing market. These divergent approaches raise critical questions: What motivated these cities to adopt such contrasting policies, and what are the outcomes in terms of housing affordability?

This dissertation contributes to the discourse by conducting semi-structured interviews, validating hypotheses through interrupted time series (ITS) and Difference-in-Differences (DID) analyses, and offering insights into the effectiveness of property tax caps at the regional or district level. Our quantitative models indicate the potential for property tax caps to raise housing prices, but the Hoarding Tax’s intended objectives were not fully realized. Surprisingly, the Hoarding Tax did not effectively mitigate inflation and appeared to facilitate the transfer of the tax burden from sellers to homebuyers, leading to higher prices in most areas. This study contextualizes these findings within market, cultural, and governance factors unique to each case, offering comprehensive insights into policy effects and their underlying rationales, decisions, and multifaceted implications.

Abstract

This dissertation introduces urbanism to the discourse on autonomy within design. Autonomy is a critical method in design, engaging the social, economic, political, racial, gender, or environmental tensions derived from the processes of urbanization. The introduction of autonomy into architecture in the 1930s created a design system sensitive to cultural phenomena. However, architectural autonomy gradually departed from social, cultural, human, and urban conditions as the century matured. The social and cultural unrest in the second half of the twentieth century precipitated the use, and abuse, of the term, acting as a catalyst to redefine the disciplinary parameters of architecture. When autonomous discourse within architecture reappeared, it overemphasized architectural form to counter the commodification of culture, the professionalism of architecture, reliance on quantitative methods, and the degradation of the modern city. But the impulsive conception of autonomous architecture remained prevalent, condemning the term’s cultural and historical formation to oblivion, leading to the alienation of disciplinary knowledge over time.

This dissertation offers a critical reconsideration of the evolution of the term within the design fields, from its initial formulation in the eighteenth century by Immanuel Kant (autonomy of the will), to its introduction to architecture by the art historian Emil Kaufmann (autonomen Architektur) in 1933, to the successive interpretations of architectural autonomy in Europe and the United States. In contrast to etymological wisdom, Kant’s “autonomy of the will” implies engagement rather than detachment. The Kantian autonomy influenced the construction of the modern consciousness of the Western individual as both cause and consequence of eighteenth-century social and political changes, such as the French Revolution. Autonomy’s influence on aesthetics, political theory, and architecture during the subsequent centuries attests to its importance as a reflection on our cultural successes and failures. Nevertheless, the design fields often omit that autonomy implies a productive tension between individual and collective aspirations. Galileo Galilei’s use of the telescope promoted the autonomy of the modern individual. Scientific discoveries expanded our knowledge of the external world (Galileo’s telescope) and motivated the philosophical exploration of our inner selves (Kant’s epistemology). With these examples in mind, the more we look outside ourselves, the more we need to look inside ourselves. We have developed a critique within architecture (architectural criticism) but not a self-critique. Instead, it is a critique of design by design through our engagement with the urban condition. This self-awareness redefines the terms of our engagement as individuals, designers, or members of society with the world. Thus, the more design explores the urban reality, the more it needs to reevaluate the premises of its disciplinary engagement with the urban condition.

Individuality is not individualism. The general maxim of autonomy is that (disciplinary) self-governance is sensitive to social, cultural, human, and urban conditions despite, paradoxically, its rebuttal of cultural and historical determinism. The alliance between Urbanism and Autonomy adopts the artist’s critical eye and rejects the supposed moral superiority of the religious and non-religious priest. In contrast, this dissertation aspires to operate in a social space that escapes the jurisdiction of traditional disciplines or the aesthetic blindness of dogmatic critiques. This effort advocates an epistemological search, through cinematic language, for new knowledge, experiences, methods, contents, contexts, and aesthetics.

Abstract

Due to its potential significance to both individuals and society, walking as a type of transport mode or physical activity has been intensively discussed by scholars in urban planning and public health fields. However, the impact of culture on walking needs further research. This dissertation poses two questions: 1) What are the characteristics of the culture of walking in China? and 2) How does culture influence walking behavior? For this dissertation, culture is defined as the shared values in a social group. This dissertation uses a mixed-method research strategy to obtain a multi-perspective understanding and to allow triangulation between results. The data were collected through analyzing documents, observation, in-depth semi-structured interviews, and questionnaires recruited with non-random sampling approaches. Data analysis methods include content analysis, critical discourse analysis, the analysis of variance, and regressions. This dissertation finds that 1) Chinese culture has advocated walking in both ancient and modern times; 2) In Beijing, people commonly walk for physical health and other benefits such as mental health, communication, and observing the city, contributing to a culture that views walking as good; 3) urban residents in Beijing inherit the value that walking is good for physical health from traditional Chinese culture, while contemporary culture influences individuals through education, peer influence, and other incentives; and, 4) people with strong positive values about walking are likely to spend much time walking for either transport or leisure or both. This dissertation concludes that culture supports walking in China, and it influences walking by transmitting values. It implies that cultural strategies such as long-term publicity and education can be used to further strengthen this culture and thus encourage walking in Chinese cities.

Abstract

This dissertation explores the digital transformation of urban governance, the city and its governing institutions, and its dynamic relationship with urban restructuring and economic development. As digital transformation policies expand in the political agendas of local governments of various sizes and socioeconomic backgrounds, the in-depth and up-close study of existing smart cities becomes critical to understand, challenge, and improve this policy instrument. The dissertation asks: how path-dependent is the digital transformation of governance in a mid-size American city? To set the analytical framework for the empirical inquiry, the research asks what policymaking context mainstreams digital governance institutions and whether digital governance is a new governance model or the continuation of existing models through new technological tools. In Syracuse, NY, a mid-size and post-industrial city, which serves as the contextual focus of this research, the digital transformation policy agenda is instrumentalized to reverse the urban and economic decline through Syracuse Surge, the city’s strategic plan for the growth in the New Economy. This research is enacted through four main lines of inquiry: first, investigating how digital transformation policy responded to the complexity of coordinating operationally autonomous yet systematically inter-dependent networks of individuals and organizations in a rapidly changing environment. Second, identifying actors, the symbolic media of communication such as money, law, and knowledge they use, and its efficiencies to create a shared agenda to advance urban governance transformation. Third, tracing moments of disjuncture that happen through accidents, errors, and disruptions due to the immaturity of the technological tools and methods and insufficiency of infrastructural and implementational capacity. And fourth, grounding the smart city spaces of visibility and related urban revitalization projects to pinpoint the change in intra-urban geographies of uneven development within capitalist production processes. The investigation brings together perspectives and methods from political science, critical governance and policy studies, and urban studies to bear upon some of the most pressing issues facing local governments and their constituents as cities transition towards emerging paradigms of digital transformation. The main finding is that the utopian rhetoric of the project did not correspond with the reality due to the lack of resources, problematic national regulations, organizational readiness, and co-ordination problems among multiple stakeholders and expectations. Therefore, the implementation of the policy agenda is highly context-specific and path-dependent. At the theoretical level, the research finds that even though the extant political and economic policymaking conditions have not changed, multiple interdependent actors, perspectives, and resources involved in the digital transformation policy agenda negotiation and implementation have changed the organizational settings and governing techniques. I conclude that the heterarchic urban governance that foregrounds and is forged by the instrumentalization of the digital transformation policy agenda captures the current changes in urban governance.

Abstract

This dissertation examines the complex interactions between urban religiosity and modernity in the context of Dhaka, Bangladesh, focusing on the celebration of Eid ul Adha. As a South Asian megacity, Dhaka undergoes significant transformations during this annual religious festival, temporarily disrupting the city’s usual modernist development trajectory. The thesis introduces the concept of “Sacrificing Cities” to describe how Dhaka, like several other South Asian cities, tends to sacrifice its modern development mandates temporarily to accommodate traditional religious practices. These sacrifices manifest in various urban domains, including infrastructure, institutions, markets, and technology.

The study is based on three years of ethnographic fieldwork in Dhaka, exploring how the city manages the influx of millions of rural cattle farmers and traders, the transformation of urban spaces into makeshift cattle markets, and the temporary suspension of regular urban activities during Eid ul Adha. The research highlights the adaptability of Dhaka’s urban infrastructure and institutions to non-secular functions and the role of the informal economic sector in managing the festival’s demands. It also discusses the challenges posed by digitalization in maintaining traditional communal practices and religious sentiments.

By situating Dhaka within the broader frameworks of postcolonial, modern, and global city discourses, the thesis argues that the city’s temporary disruptions during Eid ul Adha challenge conventional understandings of urban modernity. The concept of “Sacrificing Cities” provides a new lens for analyzing how cities in the Global South negotiate between tradition and modernity, revealing the unique ways in which urban religiosity shapes economic and political pathways. Through detailed case studies, the thesis explores the justifications and mechanisms that enable Dhaka to temporarily deviate from its modern development goals, emphasizing the importance of understanding these practices within the context of South Asian urbanism. The findings contribute to broader discussions in critical urban development, postcolonialism, modernism, and developmental studies, offering insights into the evolution, development, and functioning of cities like Dhaka.

Abstract

Spaceport: Technical Lands for Departing Earth proposes a new way of understanding how technological uses of place-based science was designed and imagined for both industrial and military activities in postwar America. It is argued in this book, the American spaceport as a complex series of technical lands were enabled through its architecture and aesthetics in the background of Cold War politics, economics, and technologies. Beginning with the opaque blockhouse underground as a port and expanding facilities for assembly, the entire spaceport complex can be understood as an enclosed system of both architectural and geographic space. This design research of the spaceport is not a linear history of postwar America. As dissertation of design, this research is structured by moving across space and time—beginning inside the launch complex interior and outwards through the mobile architectural objects at the departure of earth. This translation of spatial movement starts with the core and ends with the capsules at the scale of the expanded geographic frontier. The spaceport signals changes in structure, scale, and space. Departing earth through a series of carefully enclosed and discrete objects, architecture began to move further outwards in space. As a nuanced condition, the spaceport as a constellation of architectural objects problematizes its contribution with respect to the policies and history of aerospace technology. As a non-linear critical narrative, this dissertation is told as a concept from the construction of the spaceport imaginaries to its inevitable abandonment as wasteland.

Abstract

The capacity of health care has transcended the provision of medical care in the past decades. Consumption associated with public and private spending on health care, as well as innovation produced by advancement in biotechnology, have together constantly reshaped the socio-economic order and urban landscape of cities. In the United States, health care is an urban asset that transforms the urban economy from the industrial past to the knowledge economy around life sciences. This economic transformation has produced medical cities that aggregate medical, university, and research institutions in cities. As an international counterpart, medical cities in China originated from a vastly different socio-political background. The changing demography and central leadership’s policy directives promoting various aspects of health have created opportunities for the government and real estate developers to build various forms of medical cities to mobilize resources from the market, universities, and medical institutions. As the semantic definitions of “medical city” have departed in the distinct institutional contexts in the United States and China, their practical experiences should also be contradistinguished.

This dissertation aims at offering insights into medical cities in the United States and China, and contextualizes them in the different institutional, political, and economic environments. The research concerns the differences between medical cities in the two countries and explores the underlying factors that have shaped these differences. It proposes the “Knowledge-Material Circuit” to examine the significance of American medical cities, and the “Institutionalized Spatial Practice” to unfold the complexities of medical cities in China. Supported by comparative studies of four case studies in Boston, Houston, Beijing, and Shanghai, medical cities are situated in their wider narratives of the transforming economy, the shifting realm of urban governance, the varying degree of civic engagement, and the changing perception of the civic-health relationship. Drawing upon the findings, recommendations are made to address the future path of medical cities.

The research finds that medical city in the U.S. is a reaction to the public and private, for-profit and non-profit interests of the health care system, a result of the state, market, and civic leadership, a culmination of place-based policies by the entrepreneurial states, and a representation of the spatial concentration of knowledge production and innovation. Medical city in China is a result of the changing state-market interests, a contestation between central and local governments, a trophy to inter-local competitions, an instrumentalized mega project to mobilize state resources, a negotiation between the public and private hospitals, and an experiment for the health care system under reforms. The significance of medical city extends beyond its physical planning and urban form – its interpretation has to be embedded in the dialogues among various participants from the state and the market, from the public and the private.

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the principles, processes, and strategies to develop multiscale material systems for buildings that interact with heat in novel ways. The overall theoretical framework consists of (1) utilizing the multiscale configuration of biological material systems as the principle for the design of building element; (2) using the shape and size of heat flow as the key parameter for the design and optimization of the building elements; and (3) applying the principles of materials and material processes for selecting and configuring the material systems. This framework is examined in Part I through literature review and case studies; and implemented in Part II through a series of experiments for the designing, prototyping and testing a thermally augmented building envelope system. The results of the analytical model and the physical testing show strong correlations which validate the usage of the analytical model in the thermal optimization of building elements at a wide range of geometric and temperature variations. To evaluate the performance of the system standards including the recommended U-value for building envelopes and the targeted ventilation and heat recovery rate per occupant is used. The overall dissertation can provide architects with the essential knowledge and strategies for developing thermally augmented building elements. Similarly, the research can also inform the scientists and engineers on the thermal design constraints and opportunities relating to building applications. Although this research is focused on heat as the key environmental factor, the theoretical framework can be extended to other factors such as light and sound.

Abstract

Forms of Ecology examines the main narratives through which ecology has come to the forefront of landscape architecture during the last two decades, criticizes their reductive implications for design, and proposes a series of alternative narratives of ecology that emphasize ideas of form, by which it fosters new relationships between ecology and landscape architecture as a way to bolster the agency of design as a cultural project.

The dissertation departs from a critique of the emphasis on the operative capacities of landscape brought about by ecology’s move to the foreground of landscape architecture. Indeed, the last decades have witnessed a proliferation of ecologically-grounded landscape architecture discourses and built works that emphasize notions of performance—the capacity to carry out work—and adaptation—the capacity to accommodate change in order to endure. While performance and adaptation, as the revision of several case studies shall show, have been extremely fruitful ideas in expanding the field of landscape architecture and its modes of practice, they also entail limitations for design. Through performance, landscape architecture is often invoked as a problem-solving practice, invested in the production of systems to assist in the ecological project of environmental efficiency, and largely unaware of landscape formal associations, that is, landscape’s possibility of being looked at and deciphered. Adaptation, on the other hand, calls for landscape strategies that privilege ecological complexity and its process-based notions of indeterminacy, unpredictability, and open-endedness, which often restrain landscape architecture’s agency in favor of passive positions that relinquish the specification of design outcomes to external forces.

In order to overcome these limitations, the dissertation investigates the origins of these ecological views and their biased interpretations of system and process. In so doing, it draws a lineage of the core debates in the evolution of ecological theory during the twentieth century. Amply overlooked in contemporary landscape architecture, core to these debates were questions around the fundamental ecological entity—whether it is the biotic community or the individual organism—and the different modes of interaction that exist between them, as well as around the homeostatic and stochastic nature of environmental processes. The research looks back into the nineteenth century embryonic stages of ecological theory, where these ideas were not so neatly delineated but, instead, embedded within metaphysical and epistemological concepts of form.

In seeking to forge new relationships between ecology and landscape architecture, the dissertation applies the conceptual frameworks derived from these debates to the examination of a series of case studies that emphasize the legibility of the different modes of interaction established between designed landscapes and their environment and the different ways by which design deliberately speeds up or slows down the processes through which the environment is formed. In so doing, it contributes to the formulation of new epistemological binds between landscape architecture and ecology. Such an expanded field of reciprocity between design and science allows for a better understanding of the formative processes and interactions of designed landscapes and for an increase in landscape architecture’s potential to articulate new forms of thought that both work on the environment and render it legible as a social construction.

Abstract

This dissertation emphasizes the critical role of architectural materiality on health by investigating how the perceptual qualities of materials modulate cognitive and physiological symptoms of stress, with a particular focus on individuals with heightened anxiety sensitivity. While architecture often engages questions of space, form, and sustainability, it has yet to fully address how material perception operates on a subconscious level to influence well-being. In response, this work proposes that materials, particularly when activated through movement, rhythm, and multisensory patterning, can become powerful agents in shaping emotional and physiological experience. Employing an interdisciplinary methodological framework that integrates virtual reality (VR), wearable biometric sensors, and programmable material prototypes, this research systematically quantifies psychophysiological responses while enriching them through qualitative analysis. Three empirical studies were conducted to evaluate the extent to which material perception, specifically; texture, naturalness, color, and rhythmic motion, shapes cognitive appraisal and autonomic recovery during moments of stress. Findings reveal that natural materials, especially wood, consistently reduce physiological stress markers, while materials animated with rhythmic motion most effectively support parasympathetic recovery, as indicated by lowered electrodermal activity (EDA) and increased heart rate variability (HRV). Unexpectedly, participants who were given control over material behavior during stress experienced diminished recovery and more negative subjective reports, highlighting the cognitive load that perceived agency may impose in emotionally heightened states. Across all studies, a disconnect emerged between subjective preference and physiological response, suggesting that embodied experience often speaks more clearly through the body than through conscious awareness. The research and methodological contributions in this dissertation offer not only notable potential for advancing the discipline but also raise critical questions about the complexities of instinctual responses, cultural associations, and multisensory interpretations that lie at the heart of what distinguishes materiality from material. These results support the development of animated materiality as both a conceptual framework and design strategy, one that reimagines materials as dynamic, perceptually rich agents capable of responding meaningfully to human states. This shift calls for a rigorous and ongoing exploration of how the synergy of technology, perceptual science, and historical context can be mobilized to address the pervasive mental strain of our time. Ultimately, this work underscores the profound responsibility, and opportunity, architects and designers have to create spaces that not only alleviate stress but also foster resilience and enhance the human condition in meaningful and lasting ways.

Abstract

Addressing climate change requires public and private organizations with varying disciplinary approaches to collaborate in cross-functional partnerships. This research investigates how cross-functional teams learn new knowledge and skills while developing adaptive responses to large scale climate challenges.

Two case studies of cross-functional teams working on sustainability programs in a federally owned electric utility in the American South demonstrate the importance of managing data pathways as the basis for team learning. Project scope and preconceptions of colleagues’ professional identities were major factors that affected how the teams acquired and utilized information.

Technological advances have made tools for complex data analysis and interpretation widely accessible. The findings from this research provide guidelines that help leaders of cross-functional public sector teams maximize the data their teams use to learn about and develop adaptive solutions to climate challenges.

Abstract

In recent years, child advocates, international organizations, and foundations have seen a move toward child-friendly cities (UNICEF, 2004). This movement advocates for urban interventions that reflect children’s rights, policies, and programs, all designed to enhance child health and wellbeing (Woolcock, G., Gleeson, B., & Randolph, B., 2010). Children’s environments can either provide the conditions for biological systems to produce positive health outcomes, or enable toxic environmental experiences in the early stages of life. Negative environments can affect the brain architecture of a child, and lead to negative developmental and mental health outcomes later in adulthood. (Shonkoff, J.P. & Phillips, D.A. (Eds.), 2000; Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University, 2010). Spatial constraints of young people’s lives today in cities direct our attention to the necessity of creating cities where children can successfully develop rather than constraining them to particular play spaces (Freeman, 2006). Despite this need, policy makers still struggle to adopt the mindsets and behavioral changes needed to create child-friendly cities (Moore-Cherry, 2014). If cities aren’t child-friendly, then how can we make them so? In order to answer this, we need to understand the following:

How can we understand, define, develop, and implement a new approach for child-friendly cities that takes into account differences across cities and nations? This dissertation argues that it’s not only a priority to invest in building child-friendly cities based on other than European models, but also to design local specific approaches where every child within every neighborhood is reached in a more effective, just, and equitable way. Building on a conceptual framework through literature review and on a comparative analysis using interviews, this study has sought to understand how local actors are working on the ground to implement different processes of child friendliness in Brazilian cities. This research has aimed to identify barriers that are preventing such cities from becoming child-friendly. Further, its interpretations bring a contribution to the field by advancing new possibilities and perspectives that promote social inclusion, equity, and justice for all children when envisioning and implementing child friendliness in cities worldwide.

What are child-friendly cities, and what is preventing them from being created?

How are local actors working on the ground toward building positive environments for children in cities?

Abstract

A highly restrictive and over-regulated space, the urban night has been historically omitted from governance structures. Nestled in a tradition of leisure and culture that began in the 1990s, the night became a subset of cultural studies and a staple of plans to revitalize the post-industrial city. Over the past two decades more than 40 cities all over the world have introduced specialized offices or “night mayors” to manage their changing nocturnal environments. By using a multiple-case study design to trace the history of night-time regulations in three emblematic cities—Amsterdam, London and New York—from the 1990s until today, this dissertation provides new knowledge about the variations of night-time governance and the relevance of new time-based regimes for urban planning and policy. These three case studies demonstrate that cities respond to the same nocturnal challenges by using different assemblages. Also, while the incorporation of new actors has promoted a more collaborative vision of the night, night-time governance regimes remain highly focused on enabling consumption-related nightlife, overlooking the needs of other economic sectors and failing to notice the health and environmental costs of expanding urban activity after dark. In the context of crises or unexpected events, the relationship between nighttime governance actors is reorganized: while some assemblages prevail, others become overshadowed by traditional actors such as the police. In light of these results, this comparative work provides an understanding of night-time governance regimes and their relation to day-time governance, and proposes a broader framework grounded in the planning discipline to support more diverse and inclusive urban dynamics throughout the day.

Abstract

Confronted by escalating planetary environmental crises, the global demand for “green” energy solutions has paradoxically intensified historically extractive practices in peripheral regions. This dissertation studies one such case: pine biomass in the Southeastern United States. Pine biomass is often misrepresented as a carbon-neutral energy source, and its production relies on patterns of social and environmental appropriation inherited from plantation systems established in the 18th and 19th centuries.

By foregrounding the role of pine as both an industrial commodity and an arboreal tool of enclosure, this dissertation demonstrates how military, carceral, and logistical landscapes are fragmented, reclassified, and concealed under “greening” agendas to stake political claims to ecology. The View from Nowhere mobilizes an experimental geographic methodology that combines political ecology, environmental history, and critical realist filmmaking to move between scalar frames, from the situated to the systemic. The aim is to interrogate the epistemic frameworks and visual paradigms that render these landscapes inevitable and invisible, with the purpose of illuminating crucial opportunities for reconfiguring our engagements with land, labor, and ecology. At stake is not only an alternative representation of energy transition, but a broader critique of the spatial and economic models that structure our understanding of crises. Through bottom-up accounts of socio-natural processes in Georgia, The View from Nowhere – and its film component, Under Story – resist the dominant technocratic view of “the planetary” as an object of totality and instead seeks to reawaken its productive tensions and inevitable distances. Ultimately, these paradigm shifts seek to assert the political agency of subjects embedded within socio-spatial transformations.

Abstract

Nature State: Incentivized Forests in Southern Ontario investigates the rapid growth of voluntary private land conservation efforts in suburban and rural Ontario, focusing on the rise of incentivized management from the mid-1990s until present day. Using a mixed methods approach the study combines semi-structured interviews, archival research, and GIS analysis with case studies in southern Ontario. This research considers the coevolution of new taxation schemes for conservation, devolved governance, and privatized approaches to owning land and resources. In particular, this work examines the growing use of programs such as the Managed Forest Tax Incentive Program in order to manage environmental change and biodiversity of forested lands within an extended urban fabric. Incentivized environmental management raises important questions about the growing interdependence between suburban land conservation and urban housing affordability, the changing scales of stewardship, and the increasing role of finance in land conservation. My findings reveal the development of new actor assemblages and knowledge geographies that have come about due to the transfer of forest management activities from the state to landowners, the new spatialities of protected areas and their land use dynamics, as well as the integrated role of civil society and stewardship in addressing urban climate futures.

Abstract

In dense urban settings, efficient use of land is a crucial issue. Especially, urban parks take a large amount of space in high land value areas. Creating an attractive park environment for current and future visitors has the potential to increase the benefits provided by parks to surrounding communities as well as individual park visitors (Dramstad, Tveit, Fjellstad, & Fry, 2006; Roberts, McEachan, Margary, Conner, & Kellar, 2016; Whyte, 1980). This study provides models to predict the number of annual visitors to parks, and identifies the associations between park visitations and environmental factors in parks with a specific focus on medium sized neighborhood parks. The main research questions that this study addresses include the followings. Are the proportions of specific land covers (tree, water, and building) associated with visitation volumes after removing the effects from park land size and demographic variables? If so, what are the characteristics and magnitudes of the associations? This study uses neighborhood parks in Tokyo, Japan as its samples. Among more than 5,000 official urban parks in the 23 central wards of Tokyo, 185 medium-sized parks between 1ha and 10ha were selected. The annual visitation to parks was estimated through cell-phone GPS records. This GPS processing method effectively estimates visitation to medium sized parks that oftentimes are impossible to acquire. Through this application, this study exemplifies how newly emerging industry scale data can contribute to understanding of everyday activities of people that can aid more efficient planning and design (Calabrese, Diao, Di Lorenzo, Ferreira, & Ratti, 2013; Girardin, Vaccari, Gerber, Biderman, & Ratti, 2009). This study investigates the research questions through both OLS and multi-level models. First, a baseline model with three most probable factors – park size, surrounding population, and building footprint – were carefully established. The associations between land cover variables and visitation volumes were estimated on top of the baseline model. To enable a more robust conclusion, several sensitivity tests were conducted. The final baseline model found to have a very high fit (R2=0.8628), and the estimation remained robust when multi-level modeling was introduced. When several models were tested, the quadratic relationship between visitation and tree cover percentage appeared clearly and consistently. Although less clear than tree cover percentage, there was a positive association between visitation and water cover percentage in an acceptable significance. Also, the magnitude and certainty of the association between visitation and tree cover percentage remained almost same after water cover was added to the model. This study found there is an approximate optimal value of tree cover, which is 45%. When tree cover percentage increases from 10% to 30%, the number of visitors is likely to go up by 21,696 people yearly and 59 people daily. When tree cover percentage increases from 60% to 80%, the number of visitors is likely to decrease by 22,124 people yearly and 61 people daily. As for water cover, 10% increase in water cover percentage is likely to be related with 14,168 more visitors per year and 39 more visitors per day. The magnitudes of these associations are considerable, even when compared to the baseline factors. For example, 1ha increase in park land area is associated with an increase of 15,527 visitors yearly. These results, although not strictly causal, suggest that design or environmental quality variables in parks are important in attracting more people to parks. Careful design of parks with appropriate amount of diverse environmental elements may be more effective than creating large parks in terms of benefitting individuals and community. Furthermore, considering the high land values of large cities such as Tokyo, these findings can help the government with cost-effective park planning.

Abstract

During the pandemic, millions of workers transitioned from working in office buildings to working at home, bringing into focus worker perceptions of their physical work environment. Currently, limited data is available on the role of the physical work environment on biopsychosocial aspects of worker well-being in home and office (hybrid) workplaces. Additionally, utilization of complex statistical tools for quantifying the impact of the interaction of multiple workplace spatial attributes using a holistic, systems-based approach has also not been fully explored. Machine learning tools hold great potential for understanding occupant behavior and predicting human perceptions in future scenarios. This research analyzed workplace design using a data-driven approach to measure and model the impact of spatial attributes of home and office workplaces on perceived productivity, physical activity, comfort, and sense of connection. In the first study, a nationwide survey  (N=617) administered during the pandemic indicated that overall perceived work performance was higher at the office, while perceived well-being and comfort were higher when working at home. Machine learning models found that temperature, noise, and furniture were the best predictors of work performance, while access to amenities and the outdoors predicted physical activity and social interaction. To complement the birds-eye snapshot of the large-scale survey, a small-scale study (N=15) involving fine-grained wearable data and qualitative assessments examined participants working in a hybrid situation. Real time data from wearable devices revealed that participants had significantly greater step counts on days when they worked in an office. Machine learning models also showed that stair use, time spent walking while commuting to office or during breaks at home were significant predictors of increased daily step count. Lastly, the third study developed a framework to computationally create architectural images of workplaces and crowdsource perceptions (N=23,820) of productivity, comfort, and connection to coworkers. The machine learning models trained in this study predicted perceptions of new, “unseen” office workplace images based on spatial attributes present in the image.   Insights from the studies can inform the design of future workplaces that optimize the benefits of working at home and in an office to promote health and well-being. Moreover, the novel user-perception-informed methodology developed through this research can serve as a pioneering framework for designers to better understand and predict the impact of their yet-unbuilt environments.

Abstract

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has constructed locks and dams throughout North America to achieve hegemonic control over riparian landscapes and the people occupying those spaces. Deployed liberally throughout Haha Wakpa / Gichi-ziibi (the Dakota and Ojibwe names for what settlers call the Mississippi River), these infrastructural projects were frequently built on Native land and designed in such a way that actively disenfranchises Native people. This dissertation examines how the U.S. government and Native nations have engaged with river infrastructure to assert sovereignty along the Upper Mississippi River Watershed, both historically and today. Understanding infrastructure as texts that can be read for underlying socio-political agendas, this project will consider how locks, dams, and reservoirs in the regions of the Upper Mississippi River Watershed that no longer serve navigational purposes could be Indigenized through redesigning or removing locks and dams, informed by Dakota and Ojibwe perspectives.

By observing governance and activism tactics, the research compares how historic settler-Native relationships have played out at river infrastructure operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and how contemporary Dakota and Ojibwe land and water management practices establish a new framework for the redesign, management, or removal of these locks and dams, as well as the landscapes that surround them. The research is grounded in six months of fieldwork on Dakota and Ojibwe homelands, which included participant observation at public events and interviews with non-profit organizers, as well as several canoe and kayak trips to observe and photograph lock and dam sites along the river. Additionally, archival research at the Army Corps of Engineers St. Paul District Library and the Gale Family Library at the Minnesota Historical Society provided a wealth of historical material to contextualize the governance tactics at play along the river today. Based on these experiences, the dissertation concludes with a collection of Indigenous infrastructures for stewarding rivers that address riparian health and wellbeing in ways that are overlooked by current settler river management practices. In contrast to rigid material infrastructures deployed by settlers, Indigenous infrastructures include grounded socio-political tactics to care for Haha Wakpa / Gichi-ziibi, such as storytelling, mapping for rematriation, lobbying for land back, and designing “in a good way.” Through these practices, Dakota and Ojibwe leaders are inscribing a path towards strengthened reciprocal relationships between humans and rivers. While the projects discussed in this dissertation are specifically attuned to the conditions on Dakota and Ojibwe homelands, they serve as a meaningful example of Indigenous governance tactics that can be adapted to other riparian landscapes. Ultimately, as more settler infrastructure wanes, these Indigenous infrastructures present a contemporary approach for designing and stewarding rivers and their surrounding landscapes in the future.

Abstract

Urban scholars can now investigate complex phenomena on a larger scale and with lower costs, thanks to the advancements in big data collection and analyses. Among these data sources, social media data has been argued to be very useful for understanding human behavior and opinions. However, despite the considerable efforts in gathering and analyzing this emerging data source and the intense critics of its poor representation and potential biases, rare efforts have been made to compare the results generated by social media data and those revealed by other research methods. My dissertation lays out a research framework to explore the potentials and limitations of large-scale social media data in capturing and understanding human behavior, compared to traditional fieldwork methods (e.g., observation). Focusing on park use behavior, an essential pathway linking the built environment with human well-being outcomes, I extract behavior metrics from social media data using state-of-the-art machine learning models, triangulate social media-based results via systematic fieldwork, investigate how and why the discrepancies emerge, and propose responsible ways to deal with them. This study aims to create a heuristic about how to appropriately apply new technology for the betterment of cities and society.

Abstract

This dissertation examines how design teams have created and users have occupied spaces intended to support interdisciplinary collaboration, connections to the community, and innovation activity on higher education academic campuses. It combines several forms of investigation, including a review of academic and professional literature, an inventory of existing buildings, an evaluation of building assessments, and a case study of an exemplar innovation center using interviews with 50 occupants and design team members to evaluate the design and operation of the emerging postsecondary innovation center typology. Through these investigations, three themes emerged. First, although proponents of innovation centers suggest that “if you build it [an innovation center], they will innovate”, most occupants already had begun to innovate prior to visiting the innovation center. Second, occupants did report that the design of the case study innovation center did aid many of their innovation activities, particularly their informal collaborations with peers and mentors. Third, contextual factors can increase or reduce the extent to which occupants find innovation center buildings useful, including building location, occupant characteristics, tensions between design team goals and user needs (e.g., transparency vs. privacy), and a lack of a universal design approach. Based on these findings, a series of considerations are proposed to support future postsecondary innovation center design team members.

Abstract

As populations rise, the global building stock is predicted to double in floor area in the next 40 years. As a result, the embodied carbon footprint of the construction industry, which the UN has estimated to be 11% of global emissions, becomes a critical impasse in attempts to confront the climate crisis. This dissertation attempts to develop a new material system to address the issue of embodied carbon in construction from both a top-down ecosystem and a bottom-up material perspective. A circular approach to the cultivation of carbon-sequestering microalgal biomass is proposed, and the research develops the technological capacities to 3D print the micron-sized biomass into structural objects. After optimization, the final algae-based material features similar mechanical properties to engineered wood products. The proposed systems exhibit a negative upfront carbon footprint, as the carbon dioxide absorbed by the algae through photosynthesis outweighs the cultivation and manufacturing emissions. Furthermore, analysis shows an immense capacity to grow this biomass as a part of nutrient recovery systems. The dissertation points towards a possible future in which architecture itself is used as a carbon sequestration device, storing tons of atmospheric carbon for the lifetime of the material.

Abstract

Energy consumption for building thermoregulation is a major contributor to the environmental impact of our built environment. Building envelope systems that actively tune their heat transfer rate in response to environmental stimuli and leverage the free energy the exterior environment has to offer, thus represent a promising solution to make building thermoregulation more energy efficient. This dissertation investigates the means and methods to develop façade systems that tune heat flow by drawing inspiration from nature and leveraging the unique properties of compliant materials. The research encompasses a wide range of highly complementary fields including thermodynamics, materials science, and soft actuators, all of which are framed within the context of employing nature’s design rules for tuning heat transfer and generating motion. From these interdisciplinary investigations, two novel thermoregulatory concepts are presented in the form of mechanically actuated designs made from the optically transparent elastomer polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). Inspired by the chromatophores in coleoid cephalopod skin, the first example is a novel infrared light-modulating technology constructed from a PDMS film with a thin gold surface coating. Inspired by the cutaneous cardiovascular system in endothermic homeotherms, the second example consists of a PDMS-based vascular device that modulates conductive and convective heat transfer. Through both experimental projects, the work investigated how to translate biological design principles into our own concepts for tunable systems, how to fabricate these systems, how they can be actuated, how to evaluate their performance, and where and how to apply them in our building envelopes to benefit building thermoregulation. To achieve these goals, the research encompasses an extensive literature review of the biological precedents, iterative and functional prototyping, and performance analysis through numerical modeling and experimentation. The results from these efforts demonstrate how the new concepts provide opportunities for optimizing heat transfer and utilizing freely available solar energy and wind, and consequently, significantly reducing energy use for building thermoregulation. Fundamentally, the work demonstrates how a design strategy that integrates science, technology, and design creates new design opportunities for façade systems with tunable heat transfer.

Abstract

The production of space as an internal condition to the scientific production of knowledge is an under investigated and seldom theorized process within the studies of science, technology, and society (STS), and the spatial disciplines. Through a comparative study of the world’s four leading radio telescopes (the Arecibo Observatory, the Atacama Millimeter/submillimeter Array, the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope, and MeerKAT), I examine the territorial, concentrated, and contingent spatialities of these scientific sites through the multidisciplinary lens of fortress science. Each telescope embodies differing spatial formations as a product of their institutional makeup, scientific goals, and political contexts, but exhibits similar spatial formations with regards to territorial transformations and human material concentrations. We can read these formations through the metaphor of the glacis, an historical fortress technology that acts as an obscuration in which apparent ‘emptiness’ conceals significant influence and connectivity. I draw on this analogy as an embodiment of the conceptual tools underlying the dissertation – that of technology and infrastructure, and landscape and territory – and I use these tools to position fortress science as structuring an analytical fusion of space and science. Spatial process is found to be enmeshed in the structure of scientific research itself, and as a result scientific production is found to alter, structure, and restructure space as an active force.

Abstract

In this thesis, I take a post-cognitivist view of design and use eye-tracking to study the oculomotor behavior of architects during different exploratory model-making activities. My interest is to determine to what extent eye movements may yield a useful low-level, fine-grained understanding of design cognition in exploratory model making. I do this by designing and conducting a mixed-methods, observational exploratory eye-tracking study. The study consists of a series of block assembly tasks that are increasingly complex from a design standpoint. I develop a multi-tier coding scheme and propose original metrics that link eye movements, hand motoric action, and design operations together. By doing so, I show the unique opportunities that eye-tracking methods offer to the understanding of design cognition in exploratory model making ;furthermore, I outline a set of preliminary hypotheses about the role of eye movements in exploratory model making to inform future research in this topic.

Abstract

With climate change adaptation becoming ever more urgent, decisions about how to allocate adaptation resources have become increasingly important. For instance, should decision-makers in flood-prone areas fund a sea wall to protect a larger community, provide subsidies to property owners to raise minimum floor heights to avoid flooding, or consider relocating a neighborhood to accommodate increased river discharges? Making these choices means evaluating and prioritizing potential responses to climate risks and understanding how they will impact communities living in these vulnerable areas. Though questions of who benefits and who is burdened apply to all public policy decisions, climate change adaptation forms a particularly challenging context due to its conditions of high urgency, existential threat, deep uncertainty, conflicting notions of justice and stakeholders’ valuation of risk and prioritization of objectives.

This doctoral research investigates how local governmental bodies are making decisions on resource allocation to address flood risk in the context of climate change adaptation and in what ways they take into account social equity in their adaptation responses. Through plan analysis of adaptation plans in the United States and the Netherlands and two in-depth case studies of the flood-prone urban regions of Houston, TX and Rotterdam in the Netherlands, I develop a set of lessons learned on equitable climate change adaptation. These lessons learned include the need for political and administrative commitment at all levels of decision-making; the effectiveness of an explicit and formal framework for equity consideration; the role of inclusive stakeholder engagement; the need for a broad and dynamic understanding of social vulnerability; the role of data in countering systemic injustice; the importance of trust, accountability, transparency and recognition of historical marginalization and injustice; and opportunities for a comprehensive assessment of benefits and costs of adaptation measures.

Abstract

While a lack of design decision-making support for natural ventilation evaluation in the early stage is noticeable, the interest in high performance naturally ventilated buildings has been rapidly growing in recent years. As a response, the target of this dissertation was to develop a design decision-making support system, including a new index and a calculation procedure, to help designers make better informed decisions in the early stage by taking natural ventilation into account.

To achieve this goal, the objective of this research had to be defined first. This meant defining the index to be used when evaluating natural ventilation in the early design stage. The study began by reviewing current practices of natural ventilation evaluation in the literature and identifying the problems of current indices. Considering the precision criterion was special for this stage and the available design information was limited, a new index had to be developed. A Design-Based Natural Ventilation Potential was proposed as the evaluation index of natural ventilation, especially for the early design stage.

After defining the objective, a procedure for calculating the natural ventilation evaluation index was developed. The calculation procedure study consisted of two main parts, outdoor wind environment simulation and indoor natural ventilation calculation. For the outdoor wind environment simulation, an automatic process of computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulation was suggested to provide a wind pressure coefficient database on the facade, including the influence of weather conditions and the urban context. Results would be used as boundary conditions for the indoor natural ventilation calculation. For the indoor calculation, a simplified calculation method was proposed as the solution to complete a quick natural ventilation evaluation during the early design stage. To achieve the simplified calculation method, similarity analysis was conducted, and then CFD simulation was employed to perform numerical experiments. Simplified calculation equations were built by regression of the numerical experiment results and were validated. The equations provided similar results to CFD simulation, but with much less time. Cross-ventilation was used to illustrate development of the simplified calculation method. In the end, a practical way to evaluate the Design-Based Natural Ventilation Potential was found using the automatic outdoor wind environment simulation and the simplified indoor natural ventilation calculation.

Lastly, a case study was employed to illustrate the possibility of this decision-making support system for natural ventilation evaluation in the early design stage. The design decision-making support system was embedded in the architectural modeling software to provide quick feedback on the design. Scripts were developed to carry out the natural ventilation evaluation calculations in Grasshopper. A building form optimization study was conducted based on the potential for natural ventilation evaluation in the early design stage, showing the advantages of this support system for designers.

In conclusion, a comprehensive and practical natural ventilation evaluation to help with decision-making in the early phase of design was developed in this research. This innovation enables better informed design decisions early in the design process.

Abstract

This dissertation interrogates the idea of the block and its manifestations in the socio-spatial development of the modern Chinese city—particularly from the 1950s onward. It delineates the existing discourse of the block and renews its idea against the continuity and transition of modern China. The underlying argument this dissertation puts forward is that, as opposed to conceiving the block as a modernist development directly imported from the West, the architectural and urban operations, together with its socio-political processes in modern China, constitute a rather internal yet continuous logic in understanding the Chinese city. By introducing the dialectical logic of tongbian that encompasses continuity through change, this dissertation examines one of the most canonical Chinese cities—Xi’an—as a case study by focusing on its planning practices in the transitional periods of the 1950s, 1980s, and 1990s, alongside the urban and architectural developments of the Xi’an Textile City project. It maps out the trajectory of Xi’an’s urban form and the role of block in the modern era while foregrounding its transitional episodes through major urban and architectural projects, policies, and socio-cultural practices. In doing so, the idea of the block and the modern Chinese city is theorized through three key propositions: First, it interrogates the concept of the block against its realities—the developments and nuances manifested in specific architectural, urban, and social configurations in China. In doing so, it defines the concept of the block in modern Chinese cities as two specific models: the perimeter-block and the parallel-block, and reconsiders such concept as a modern iteration of a long-existing and continuous socio-spatial construct in the Chinese city. Second, it concerns the block in modern China as an essential planning apparatus in cultivating a common socio-spatial framework, one that is informed by both the continuity of its internal cultural logic and the transitions of specific socio-political conditions, strategies, and practices at moments in time. Third, it postulates the idea of the modern Chinese city as one that spatializes the social collective and encompasses the ‘largeness’, ‘multiplicity’, and ‘bounded figure’ in constituting the architecture for the collective, which remains consistent with the idea of the Chinese city as a continuous cultural project at large and has the possibility to be charted towards a renewed model of urban and architectural production for the future.

Abstract

This dissertation used multidimensional assessment methods for transit development areas associated with accessibility, land use, building density and diversity, population, socio-economic, and transit connections. The research applied a combined analysis framework using spatial network analysis for subway services, pedestrian flows, statistical approaches, and visual studies. The regional subway accessibility assessment investigated the pattern of supply for citywide subway service. The pedestrian accessibility assessment revealed the pattern of pedestrian behaviors for potential trips between a subway station and other places on foot in transit development areas. Measuring walkability helped understand how diversity, density, and design factors of station areas influence the subway user’s choices. Statistical analyses revealed the causal relationship between urban factors and transit demand in station development areas, helping planners and policymakers objectively examine the urban formation and transit users’ needs. Visualization analyses of urban forms and architectural typologies in transit development areas were also conducted as a critical component of the design research to conclude the relationship between urban form and pedestrian accessibility around station areas.

Abstract

Green space, as an important component of urban system, deliver multiple benefits to urban residents. From an ecosystem service perspective, these benefits include: provisioning services, regulating services, supporting services, and cultural services. Unfortunately, studies have confirmed that green spaces are not equally accessible among different socio-economic groups in urban areas. Such unequal socio-spatial pattern of accessing green spaces lead to many other undesirable outcomes including social segregation, dislocation, and gentrification, and finally causes exclusive urban development benefiting a smaller portion of population. It is in this context that my dissertation explores how urban green spaces and their varying benefits accessible for different social groups intertwining with geo-morphological, historical, socio-economic, and political factors in complex urban circumstances by using Beijing as a case. Relying on multiple open source data sets and spatial statistical analyses, this dissertation addresses three major questions: 1) How are urban green spaces distributed among socio-economic groups (a cross sectional study in 2017)? 2) Are urban green spaces more often provided to advantaged socio-economic groups (a longitudinal study 2000-2010)? And 3) Does adding new green space gentrify the neighboring communities in Beijing, thus resulting in the dislocation of marginalized groups? In the cross-sectional study, the results indicate the public green spaces tend to serve marginalized groups more, while advantaged socio-economic groups are better served by internal vegetations in the gated communities in which they live. The results of longitudinal study did not identify significant associations between the changes of green spaces and the socio-economic statuses in Township (census tract unit), indicating afforestation process exerts little discrimination against marginalized groups. Finally, adding new green spaces can trigger gentrification by increasing the housing prices in the neighboring communities, although the capitalization scale of green spaces depends based on a variety of features. Distance to a property, area, vegetation quality, presence of water features, and types of green space all play different roles in affecting the housing price thus having divergent capacities of triggering gentrification.

Abstract

Between the Past and Future: The Transformation of the Pearl River Delta examines the Pearl River Delta (PRD) and its spatial transformation from 1370 to present. It unravels the complex evolution of the Pearl River Delta in five distinct stages and probes the proposition of the region as a changing urban concept through a methodology that is the aggregation of the important maps, plans and critical mappings. Through the objective interpretations and spatial analysis on the urban reality of the Pearl River Delta, the dissertation challenges whether or not the most recent blueprint of the central government of making it into the Greater Bay Area as a consolidated singularity is in fact viable or achievable. It brings the scholarship on the Pearl River Delta a new dimension, which contains different and special meaning compared with the previous studies on the Pearl River Delta from the geographical and social-economic standpoints.
The dissertation offers certain abstract models and conclusive remarks generated from different stages of the PRD’s development, puts forward the vital implications of these observations, and conclude with six different spatial models of the Pearl River Delta across the history. The main body of the dissertation is structured in six chapters: a geography with three distinct cities (1370s-1900s), developing into territorial regions (1900s-1980s), constructing a territorial chain of twin-cities (1980s – 2000s), experimenting with new districts (2000s-2010s), the new infrastructure of the Pearl River Delta (2010s-present), and towards a polycentric megalopolis.

The central finding of the reading on the Pearl River Delta is the presence of its sheer diversity issue regardless of infrastructure and other attempts to consolidate connectivity. It consists of a diverse set of parts, principally centered at Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Macau, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Foshan, Dongguan, and Zhongshan. The dissertation concludes with a critical review of the current scheme of the Greater Bay Area through six lenses including built-up area, population, economic pattern, accessibility, administrative complexity and cultural multitude to scan the “conditions” of the urban reality of the Pearl River Delta. The outcome indicates the importance of vive-la-différence that the Pearl River Delta as a polycentric megalopolitan aggregation should respect, nurture and when necessary even amplify the differences of the eight PRD cities in order to reach a long-term regional prosperity.

Abstract

Green walls are a component of urban green infrastructure and if designed properly, require only moderate human intervention and maintenance during their lifespans (Cameron, Taylor, & Emmett, 2014). The benefits of green walls are numerous for both building and urban scales. Green walls reduce building heat gain by providing shade (Ip, Lam, & Miller, 2010) and increasing surface albedo (Holm, 1989). They offer thermal insulation for buildings by acting as wind screens and cavity walls (Susorova, Azimi, & Stephens, 2014) and improve indoor air quality by trapping airborne pollutants (Ottelé, van Bohemen, & Fraaij, 2010). Furthermore, they negate the urban heat island effect through solar radiation interception and transpiration (McPherson, Nowak, & Rowntree, 1994). Green walls are also an effective solution for storm water management, provide ecosystem services, and improve the quality of human life (Meier, 1990). A literature review from this field highlighted three major problems: (a) lack of an effective method for making research findings useful to practitioners, (b) limited understanding of the morphological and biophysical characteristics of vines, and (c) lack of a standardized research methodology across the field. The objective of this research is to provide practitioners with a series of matrices to easily and quickly evaluate the cooling efficacy of indirect green walls during the early phase of a project. These matrices account for the biophysical traits of the plants used, canopy geometry, and environmental variables for six climatic scenarios. The climate scenarios are based on summer conditions (e.g., ambient temperatures, precipitation, and relative humidity) and are broken down into the following climates: cool and humid, cool and dry, warm and humid, warm and dry, hot and humid, and hot and dry. Special attention is given to plant biophysics and performance evaluation methods used in fields such as biophysical ecology and agronomy. The cooling effect of green walls is broken down into two major components: transpiration (W/m^2) and solar radiation interception, or shading (W/m^2). A modified version of the FAO 56 method was used to evaluate the cooling power produced. FAO 56 is a method developed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to estimate the transpiration rate of crop fields. Additionally, a library of stomatal resistances for 97 vine species expanding through 13 countries was created from measurements from existing field studies. Variables impacting the transpiration rate were reviewed and possible green wall designs corresponding with the maximum cooling power for each climate condition were investigated. The results show that canopies with a resistance of lower than 100 s/m, a height of 3 to 6 m, and Leaf Area Index (LAI) of 3 or larger produce the maximum possible cooling power. Taking into account the aforementioned design considerations (LAI and height), and average stomatal resistance, it is estimated that the largest cooling power (300 W/m^2) corresponds with the hot and dry climate. The smallest cooling power (50 W/m^2) corresponds with the cool and dry climate. Similarly, variables impacting the shading effect of indirect green walls are reviewed. A technique for estimating the extinction coefficient of a canopy by combing empirical and statistical methods is introduced. The predicted solar interception calculations show good agreement with field study measurements, with only ±10% margins of error. Three sets of matrices for designers are introduced. The first two sets provide designers with the cooling power values (W/m^2) of various green wall designs in six climatic scenarios through transpiration and solar radiation reduction. These values show good agreement with the findings of other studies. The results show an average summer cooling power of 42 W/m^2 for the cool and dry climate and 176 W/m^2 for the hot and dry climate. These two sets of matrices are intended to provide designers with back-of-the-envelope estimations of the cooling power of green walls during the early design phase of a project. The last set of matrices provides designers with the cooling effects of green walls through transpiration and solar radiation interception as a percentage of total incident solar radiation received by the canopy in each climatic scenario. The cooling power from transpiration accounts for 20% to 30% of the cooling effect of green walls for cool and dry, cool and humid, and warm and humid climates. The contribution from transpiration increases to 48% for warm and dry climates, and 52% for hot and humid climates. The largest contribution from transpiration occurs in hot and dry climates (99%) due to the oasis effect. For almost all climates, the cooling effect of solar radiation interception was approximately 70%, 80%, and 90% for Leaf Area Indices of 3, 4, and 5, respectively. The results show that the total cooling power of green walls exceeds 100% for all climates. The canopy not only provides shading, but also acts as a heat sink by storing solar radiation energy in water and releasing it to the environment as vapor via latent heat transfer. The largest cooling power values correspond with the hot climate, followed by the warm and cool climates. The percentage of cooling power from transpiration in dry climates is larger than that in humid climates. The exception is the cool and dry climate. This exception is due to the high canopy resistance associated with the cool and dry climate.

Abstract

This dissertation describes the institutional history of Princeton Architectural Laboratory from 1949 to 1954. While recent scholarship in architectural history and building science clarified the Laboratory’s enduring contribution to environmentally informed design strategies, the circumstances of its establishment remain underreported. This work argues that a closer look at this early history is warranted. It reveals the administrative mechanics and challenges involved in establishing an organizational capacity for experimental design research.

Using maintenance as the governing theme, this account describes the relationship between the Laboratory’s intellectual project, its material expression, and institutional support. Based on archival research, it contends that Labatut’s project and its ultimate failure were necessary preconditions for the Olgyay’s arrival at Princeton and the Laboratory’s subsequent success.

This dissertation elucidates the continuity between the two iterations of the Laboratory. It offers a historical account of how Princeton University’s architecture program established an organizational capacity for experimental research. This work seeks a new audience interested in developing a design laboratory or a research center within an academic institution.

Abstract

This study proposes a new method to evaluate natural ventilation performance in the early design phase by introducing dynamic performance metrics of natural ventilation and developing an interactive tool that applies the metrics. The tool will help understand how a given design utilizes natural ventilation and which spatial variances could improve the effectiveness of natural ventilation. It also looks into important design aspects, including materials, thermal mass, aperture configurations, occupancy etc. These factors influence whether or not natural ventilation might be effective for the given design. There are four sub-topics: natural ventilation metrics, thermal mass and window controls, validation, and tool implementation. These sub-topics, in this order, structure the thesis. First, it introduces dynamic metrics that gauge the degree of cooling power that is achieved through natural ventilation. The metrics will be first developed under steady-state conditions, and be demonstrated in a feasibility study using an interactive design platform. Second, once metrics for steady-state are established, the effect of thermal mass and window controls are considered. Thermal mass interacts with its environment through time in a dynamic way which must be explored to refine the natural ventilation metrics. Therefore, this part will analyze the temperature change through time, examine the impact of different window operations, and further suggest efficient ventilation routines. Third, the process of calculating the dynamic metrics is validated with experiments. This ensures that the proposed method works as intended. Lastly, an interactive design procedure that utilizes the dynamic performance metrics is demonstrated in the 3D modeling environment. This study contributes to early-staged building design in three ways. First, quick simulation time and interactivity will provide users with rapid feedback on different design possibilities. Second, natural ventilation performance is estimated for a customized building design, albeit with some limitations, as opposed to a general box model. The tool may yield different results for buildings with different sizes, features, and construction conditions. By yielding metrics for a specific design, it will help users to alter the design to enhance performance. Third, the tool helps designers understand that the thermal environment is influenced by important factors including window operation, thermal mass, and internal heat gains. Users will be able to learn the sensitivity of the thermal environment to various construction materials and thermal masses, which is pedagogically important.

Abstract

Rooftop housing is a living urban legacy, encapsulating the history of the city as well as the evolving needs of its people. This study explores rooftop housing in Seoul, Hong Kong, and Taipei. In all three cities, the rooftop houses are ubiquitous, interwoven throughout the city’s skyline. Although each city’s rooftop community has its own context, rooftop housing in these cities shares common qualities and attributes, having been formed through comparable development processes. In the past century, East Asian cities have undergone a period of spectacular development driven by economic progress, industrialization, and urbanization. Amidst a sea of skyscrapers and high-rises, informal settlements have sprung up to fill the void left by these buildings. These informal settlements have provided alternative housing options for low-income residents and migrant workers, though the living conditions in many of these informal settlements have been inadequate. Rooftop housing is a type of informal settlement built through a haphazard process in order to meet the needs of these emergent urban dwellers. Much have been written about the informal settlements, but the existing literature has not focused specifically on rooftop housing; this lack of attention led to a general oversight of the important issues pertaining to this specific community. This dissertation expands on the existing framework of informal settlements to comprehensively study rooftop housing as an independent urban phenomenon. Studying rooftop housing communities presents a unique set of challenges, including the physical location of such communities, complex legal issues, lack of existing research, and a general lack of information. To overcome these challenges, this research is a holistic study of academic literature, news articles, popular and social media, and a collection of first-hand accounts of tenants and landlords through questionnaires and interviews conducted on site, as well as physical assessments carried out as part of the fieldwork. The key finding of this dissertation is that rooftop housing has distinct characteristics compared to other types of informal settlements. Its legal status is ambiguous: These informal residences sit on top of formal housing, putting them in a gray area between formal and informal. Public perception and awareness of the subject issues is low, partly due to their simplistic treatment in the media. Some media platforms romanticize the positive aspects of rooftop housing while ignoring the harsher realities, while others focus solely on the inadequate living conditions. All of these elements contribute to a set of narratives that are often contradictory and ambiguous, sending mixed messages to the general public. The study also produces rooftop housing typologies by studying the location, neighborhood environment, building types, and housing configuration of various settlements. An assessment of the building materials and the state of maintenance evaluated the condition of the housing and the level of deterioration. Despite the unconventional shapes of the units and haphazard development processes, this study found that there was a certain order in these structures—a set of organic developments that produced certain recurring patterns. The physical typologies of rooftop housing are shaped by the residents and their evolving needs. Moreover, rooftop houses are occupied by generations of tenants and undergo a process of iterative development to meet the tenants’ changing needs. Ironically, the flimsy materials that contribute to the inadequacies of these shelters also make them versatile, spaces that can be modified to suit the evolving needs of their tenants. In this way, the rooftop housing typologies reveal the evolution of the needs of these emergent urban settlers. When viewed from the perspective of the tenants, the rooftop housing represents a temporary space, one that often persists largely due to convenient location, affordability, and a lack of viable alternatives. Although there is a wide range, the sizes and conditions of rooftop houses are quite livable and preferable to other types of informal settlements. Some of the issues and complaints concern insulation and accessibility, and in the case of Hong Kong, the size of the units, but overall, close to half of the surveyed tenants found their living conditions to be adequate. Compared to the other forms of inner-city informal housing—semi-basement housing or cage homes—rooftop housing is privileged, an extension of formal housing, entailing privacy, views, and convenient location. Ultimately, this dissertation is an attempt to formalize the discourse on rooftop housing by examining the subject matter through various perspectives. By establishing rooftop housing typologies that are shaped by changing demographics and social needs, this study contributes to building a framework for future studies on this subject. Finally, a side-by-side comparison of the three East Asian cities—Seoul, Hong Kong, and Taipei, and their unique history and relationship with rooftop housing—is an effort to capture an important part of the urban fabric.

Abstract

Color, light, and their interaction within the built environment have always been pertinent spatial and aesthetic factors that architects consider in their work; however, their study has been limited to a primarily perceptual perspective. This thesis studies the relationship between color, light, and design from a physiological perspective, and, in particular, through the lens of newly discovered findings in human neuroscience and photobiology. Those findings pertain to the discovery of light as a promoter of alertness -or sleep- depending on its spectrum, as introduced through the discovery of a non-visual, photosensitive system in the human retina. That system consists of a network of intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs) and is responsible for synchronizing human circadian rhythms and a series of associated bodily functions such as sleep/wake cycles and hormone production. The key photopigment that activates that system is melanopsin, a blue-light sensitive photopigment that, depending on the spectra and the illuminance of the light, triggers a biochemical cascade that signals the brain on the synchronization of the body’s daily rhythms. Specifically, melanopsin photoreceptors have a peak light absorption at wavelengths of approximately 480 nanometers.

To date, research in lighting and photobiology has examined alertness and sleep effects mainly in relation to light spectra, overlooking the role of architectural surfaces and materials in the shaping of an environment’s photobiological behavior. Moreover, research has not yet addressed photobiological behavior in an adaptive context where interiors are designed to affect both daytime- and nighttime-appropriate spectral content. To address this problem, the thesis proposes Photobiological Material Systems as a design framework for spectrally selective surfaces that, in combination with adaptive lighting infrastructures, can promote alertness effects during the day and sleep-promoting effects during nighttime. The proposed framework is developed through a series of physical and simulation studies of increasing complexity, as well as a contextualization of the studies’ results within contemporary theories of color and areas of architectural discourse.

Through the introduction of this new framework, the thesis contributes to the areas of Architectural Design, Lighting Design, and Photobiology in various aspects: at a fundamental level, the thesis produces new knowledge on how spatial elements such as color, light, and surface geometry contribute to an interior environment’s alertness and sleep effects on its occupants; from a standards perspective, it explores the limits of photobiological efficiency of commercially available color swatches when combined with light sources of different spectra; at an application level, the thesis introduces a new, science-grounded and biology-driven framework for using color in design and architecture.

Abstract

This research quantitatively studies how mixed land-use planning impacts the housing prices in Shanghai. To answer the question, I collected data and constructed a database on housing price and land use to measure the impacts of urban amenities and mixed land-use on housing prices in Shanghai. This work makes an important empirical contribution to existing studies in the field of consumer city, mixed land-use, valuation and housing prices, and the on-going debate on land market reform in China. This study provides a key quantitative analysis of the efficiency of current land use structure in Shanghai and the level of willingness-to-pay for mixed land-use. This can shed light on a major policy debate about land efficiency in China, including Shanghai, and the land market reform which has been a key policy under the current administration. Based on the analysis, an oversupply of industrial lands intended to attract foreign investors and an inefficient public land market is found to have attributed to the distortion of land structure in China. This research quantifies the impact of land use pattern on housing prices and proposes improvements in land use planning. In terms of methodology, this research applies multiple regression models in addition to the traditional hedonic models, in the estimation of willingness-to-pay for mixed land-use or amenities. Based on the analysis of first-hand collected land use and housing price data of Shanghai, this study provides estimates for the land use’s impact on housing value and offers policy considerations on efficient land use. The 2013 China’s Third Plenum of the 18th Congressional Conference has highlighted optimizing land use structure and city’s physical structure as a major reform objective; however, so far there has been limited quantitative studies that assess the relationship between land use patterns and housing prices in China, which reflects the lack of and the difficult access to related data. Using a novel dataset, the analysis produces a variety of quantitative results. One estimate is that one percent more land use in greenspace in a 500 by 500 meters grid attributes to an increase of RMB6,600 in property value. Similarly, having one percent more land use in shophouse and shopping center in such a grid also elevates property values, by RMB5,900 and RMB7,900 respectively. The results drawn from Shanghai can serve as a good starting point to understand other cities in Yangtze River Delta economic zone – China’s most vibrant economic agglomeration. The empirical and methodological framework developed in this study can be generalized in future research and applied to other cities.

Abstract

20th-century Chinese history has been widely interpreted as part of a perennial search for modernity. While city-making has undoubtedly played a significant part in China’s path to modernization, there were also key moments when reformers—such as Zhang Jian, Sun Yat-sen, Zhou Zuoren, Zhang Yongnian, Liu Shaoqi, and Mao Zedong—repeatedly turned their commitments to rural alternatives. Instead of following the dominant city-centered paradigm, a range of reformist projects demonstrated a shared belief that an agrarian modernity could be realized through mobilized localities and dedicated professionals. Although these rural reforms have left a notable imprint on China’s modern history and have been dealt with extensively across many disciplines, architecture and planning disciplines have remained largely disengaged from these agrarian topics, focusing instead on the more legible—and at times even ceremonious—results of urban development. This dissertation addresses this gap, focusing on the often-neglected rural reforms and the history of ideas that took shape well before the reforms themselves. It argues that a range of ideas, images, and models of the agrarian modern—though largely unfamiliar to most Chinese by the turn of the 20th century—were disseminated from the West and ultimately made available to relevant audiences in China. In doing so, this dissertation offers a more nuanced understanding of the often-overlooked notion of agrarian modernity in the design disciplines and, more importantly, situates modern rural schemes and practices in China within a global intellectual framework that transcends the conventional East-West divide.