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Contemporary cities have emerged as a result of diverse urban and architectural transformations, new interventions and redevelopment, as well as through a cycle of abandonment and regeneration. New categories of resulting spaces are generated through these processes. Simultaneously, generic spaces are becoming new urban centralities, arguably to the detriment of local identity. City centre malls, for instance, are flattening the uniqueness of the cities by re-proposing similar characters across various locations and contexts. Non-places, empty spaces and urban voids are cases in point that deserve and require further investigation. Nowadays, in a period of economic recession, developments based on demolitions and reconstructions are not always suitable. Against this context, areas of abandonment appear to offer potential for development that is at once both creative and sensitive to local contexts. This research explored the urban and architectural phenomenon of abandonment, and investigated the discrepancy between academic expected qualitative design of re-use and real solutions often adopted during projects of regeneration. The study took Aberdeen city as its concrete focus, exploring methods to connect more strongly the environment of cultural challenges (the academy), and the environment of the urban and social priorities (the local government), in an effort to define a network of reciprocal collaborations. Typo-morphology and rhythmic urban analysis, together with sites observation utilising mental maps, were the main methods used to investigate specific abandoned spaces in Aberdeen. Furthermore, through three urban workshops delivered in collaboration with Aberdeen City Council, Robert Gordon University, International College RGU and the University of South of Florida, the research explored collaborative ways to transform knowledge of urban and architectural re-use into actual practice. This work represents an original contribution to knowledge through the presentation of a conceptual system of mutual collaboration between the main authorities and institutions within the city of Aberdeen, and proposes a framework for delivering workshops in partnership. On the one hand, the academy may significantly influence the urban evolution through cultural and creative input. On the other, the city council may consider the cognitive process of academic analysis of the city, developing strategies to improve the quality of the city spaces in terms of liveability and valuable social environment.

Many urban areas have become economic engines of society, consistently shaping the lives of their makers and inhabitants. They are manufactured as “machines” relying on “machines”, functioning for our purpose. However, their makers are not machines, and their inhabitants are not machines. Humans, on the contrary, are organisms relying on organisms. This contrast has led to a large disconnect between the “machines” that humans have produced to support their lives versus the “life” that humans desire. As part of the natural world, humans innately desire a connection with nature. This innate desire, defined as biophilia, is jeopardized in the inanimate hardscapes of our built environment. While we have created identities as makers and dwellers of the built environment, we are also products of the natural environment and long to exist in harmony with nature. This thesis identifies biophilic design as the missing link to improving the quality of existing urban conditions by reimagining the design perspectives of historic preservation and sustainability through the lens of biophilic design to satisfy and rejuvenate the urban experience for humans on an instinctive level. The unison of the three perspectives demonstrates that cities do not have to rely on new construction for improvement. Instead, biophilia and sustainability can be used to not just renovate existing buildings but regenerate them through reconnecting their inhabitants to the environment. Biophilic design shows that a connection to the environment is not only beneficial for sustainability, but also for our own health and happiness. What’s better for the environment can also be better for us. Viewing historic preservation and sustainability methods through the lens of biophilic design presents a cohesive, responsible, and respectful improvement of the built environment by reconnecting to the natural world while maintaining historical character. Urban areas do not need new buildings to have better environments.

Central Parkway is an underutilized thoroughfare in the urban core of Cincinnati that has the potential to transform into a spine of development through urban design interventions. Recent urban development in Cincinnati has focused primarily on reestablishing amenities and pedestrian connectivity within the three core downtown districts, but it has not adequately sustained connectivity between these disparate districts. Urban theorists and practitioners have long analyzed the overall benefits of connecting fragmented urban conditions. By analyzing extensive adaptive infrastructural precedents and drawing upon theories from scholarship in the fields of architecture, urban design, and economics, this project identifies effective design strategies for reconnecting downtown Cincinnati. These strategies will form the basis for a project whose objective is to catalyze environmental, economic, and mobility benefits for the City of Cincinnati.

The stand alone suburban dwelling is no longer suitable for our steadily growing population, changing urban demographics, lifestyle preferences and the rising economic and ecological cost of excessive commuting. The push toward the intensification of our cities presents an opportunity to increase current supply of affordable housing. Therefore, higher density, inner city living is set to become a common typology within main centres throughout New Zealand. Many people are looking toward the purchase of multi-unit properties – which have traditionally been reserved for renters – as an affordable housing option to compensate for rising home ownership costs of the stand alone dwelling. This project looks into the redevelopment of a brownfield site within the inner city suburb of Morningside in Auckland. The objective here is to produce a mixed-use, medium-density housing scheme in which affordability plays a key role. Through research it has become clear that housing affordability is measurable when striving toward the inclusion of sustainability features. By lowering construction costs through building re-use and recycling plus the incorporation of energy efficient strategies and water management solutions the occupants are ensured to benefit from a significantly reduced running cost of their home. Quality design, security, privacy, and closeness to amenities all impact on peoples’ willingness to accept dense living environments. Each of these issues directly influence people’s acceptance of such developments. If people are satisfied with their living environment then they will take pride in it and, consequently, it will meet the general criteria for social sustainability. From research it has become clear that questions of sustainability, both environmental and social, must be considered as not only equally important factors, but also mutually supporting when seeking solutions regarding the issues of housing affordability. This project has extensively explored and investigated synergies between affordability and sustainability in the medium of architectural design.

Compared to making a city solely out of one building, it is rather important for people to understand what roles a building can play in a city; especially within urban condition. How a building could actually react and respond to certain human perceptions and functions as an element of a city has become a significant issue. From place to place, the city mutates in several different phases, such as usage, terrain, orientation and material. Therefore, to embrace the urban situation and to optimize the space emerged as the main element of the whole thesis. The particular character of the site starts this program as a mix-usage building from the beginning. Whether it is the usage or orientation that mutates along the city, they should finally come to a concord of optimization and solution that represents the city either on the street or in the sky.

Throughout the process of trying to manage decisions and objects coming together in a designated area of the city, questions are faced that are generated by more than one set of circumstances, the many histories of a place, its geology and typology and topology, the balance of pragmatism and idealism — the issue of whether or not to even engage in these dialogues... In the end the project must be for and about the citizenry — in all their many shapes and sizes — here are more issues and less clarity! It seems to me now that such a project must be run through a succession of cycles of construction and destruction, and I say this having watched this project settle a bit more with each rewrite and rehearsal. It also became painstakingly clear that the architectural idea that is to undergo this many washings needs to be a solid one. The overarching question engaged in the project and the one that remains is, simply, what does it mean to build in this city? I look forward to be able to try to answer it again and again.

Contemporary society of the early twenty-first century is defined by the technologies which it is dependant upon for mobility, communication, information gathering, and entertainment. The media in particular has had a dramatic impact on the sociological identity of our cities by allowing for the population to live an informed lifestyle without dependence on location. The exchange of information has, in fact, become completely divorced of any spatial relationship due to the capabilities of media technology. This has allowed information exchange to take place on a much broader level than ever before, but has conversely taken the sociality, and in turn the meaning, of this exchange away. The technological culture of the media today is one based heavily on individualized experience. Developments in the field focus on creating a holistic media experience with as little public interaction as possible. As a result, the polarity between public and private life continues to expand at the expense of relevant social exchange. These privatized developments, by relying on the assumption that the individual experience is more rewarding than the collective, contribute to a breakdown of the social fabric which holds our cities together. The idea of the collective as unnecessary and unrewarding needs to be brought into question if the societies of our cities are to reap any real understanding of themselves. As environmental designers, we must not openly fight the trends of a contemporary media obsessed with the individual, but look to them for the impetus of our critique. We must embrace media technology and uncover the sociologically beneficial effects of it within the public realm of the city. Only through this, can we open up a truly constructive sociological dialogue about the relationship between the media and social interaction.

Urbanity ls the use of the in-between spaces; use of every available lot, every square inch of space.