bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Achieving Urban Sustainability: The consideration of sustainable transport in strategic spatial planning
Authors:   , Reid Pattern
Published: July 2022

In recent decades there has been growing recognition of the adverse effects that dispersed urban form has on the environment and wellbeing of urban residents. In response to growing urban populations and a global call for urban sustainability, spatial planning has shifted away from the case by case method of regulating urban development which facilitated sprawl, toward a long term strategic approach to planning future land use. Under this approach, a more sustainable vision of a city’s future layout is developed by local councils and implemented through a strategic spatial plan. However if strategic planning is to increase urban sustainability, it must address the most significant issue of sprawling cities; vehicle dependant urban transport systems, which result in high CO2 emissions among other impacts. Integrating transport and urban form elements is argued to be a key approach to address these issues. Planning urban form to increase density, destination accessibility, and diversity, reduce distance to public transport, and design (coined as the 5Ds of sustainable urban form by R Ewing, Bartholomew, Winkelman, Walters, and Chen (2007) all function to reduce travel demand and induce a shift to alternative modes of transport. This reduces vehicle kilometres travelled by people in urban areas and its associated impacts. If strategic spatial planning aims to increase urban sustainability then, it needs to integrate transport and urban form through incorporating and considering these five urban form elements.

In 2014, Porirua City Council, carried out a strategic spatial planning exercise to envision a future housing development scenario in its northern periphery over the next 30 years. The plan aimed to ensure sustainable, integrated, and coordinated urban and rural development. This thesis took the form of a case study to assess the extent to which the process integrated urban form and transport in its quest to achieve urban sustainability, using the incorporation of the 5Ds as a benchmark. While opportunities to support more sustainable transport modes were identified early on in the process, the planning process did not integrate transport into decisions about urban form in a way that maximised these. This was due to a range of factors including: the lack of transport related objectives; perceptions of increased density; funding issues; and resource capacity issues within the local council.
Designed for Delight: Exploring surprising applications of 3D printing in lighting design
Authors:   , Voerman Sebastien
Published: July 2022

How can the unique qualities that 3D printing offers generate surprise through visual-tactile incongruities in lighting design?

Designs that surprise us challenge our expectations and impact the experience and perception of our surroundings. Surprise is a useful tool for designers and can elevate a product from mundane to memorable; drawing attention and inviting engagement. Existing strategies have explored surprise in product design through the exploration of sensory incongruities, most notably visual-tactile incongruities (Ludden, 2008; Ludden, Schifferstein, & Hekkert, 2008). 3D printing is an evolving technology that has capabilities traditional manufacturing is unable to achieve, including: building internal and complex structures, building with multiple materials simultaneously, and creating material gradients. Lighting design has been explored with 3D printing, attaining previously unachievable patterns, moving structures and light permeation control. Lighting design has also investigated surprise and sensory incongruities. However, research has not yet been done to investigate how visually-tactually incongruous 3D printing can offer new strategies for eliciting surprise in lighting design.

This research addresses this identified gap by assessing the applicability of Ludden’s (2008) strategies to 3D printing. This was done through the design of a series of experimental objects and lights that sought to surprise through the use of visual-tactile incongruities. Developing and testing these experiments aided the development of new approaches to designing that addressed the unique opportunities of 3D printing. The potential of the proposed approaches are expressed through the final designs of the interactive lamps; objects designed to inspire delight and enjoyment through their unique interactions and surprising qualities.
Investigation of LPIN1 and its Substrate, Phosphatidic Acid, as Modifiers of Niemann-Pick Type C disease
Authors:   , Sargison Liam
Published: July 2022

Niemann-Pick type C (NP-C) disease is a neurodegenerative disease with a typically paediatric onset, for which no satisfactory cure is available. Inheritance of two dysfunctional copies of either cholesterol transport gene NPC1 or NPC2 perpetrates substantial accumulation of sterols and secondary lipids within the lysosome, eventuating in devastating and progressive visceral and neurological symptoms. Although the disease is ostensibly monogenic, there is an impressive diversity among sufferers of the disease in regards to onset of disease, specific symptoms imposed and prognosis. Recently, genetic modifiers of the NP-C disease have been reported in several models, which have improved understanding of the disease and identified new targets for treatment. Accordingly, the relevance of the LPIN1 gene and the phosphatidic acid phosphatase activity of its enzyme, were investigated for their ability to modify the NP-C phenotype in a fibroblast and mouse model. Treatment of NP-C fibroblasts with inhibition of phosphatidic acid-generating enzymes DGK and PLD was ineffective in reducing the lysosomal accumulation of cholesterol. Likewise, Npc1-/-Lpin1-/- mice were largely indistinguishable from Npc1-/-, Lpin1-/- and wild-type mice at P0 for brain and liver lipid profiles, cerebellar histology and liver autophagy.
The analysis of the propagation of energy in long-form structures and the development of texture in selected works by God Speed You! Black Emperor!, and Explosions in the Sky
Authors:   , Paton Steffan
Published: July 2022

This exegesis examines the propagation of energy in long-form structures and the development of texture in selected works by God Speed You! Black Emperor, and Explosions in the Sky and develops a methodology to cope with the stylistic traits of post-rock music. Music technology will be a key component in the conception, evolution, production and consumption of this project. The work done towards this Masters of Musical Arts will comprise an extended portfolio of technology-assisted compositions, as well as an accompanying analytical exegesis of the works that inspire them.
0 to 90: Designing private and public space for growing old and growing up
Authors:   , Contessa Julia
Published: July 2022

In New Zealand the mortality age is rising and the fertility rate is dropping. This is creating a generational disconnect, resulting in a lack of social connection between the young and old, leaving the elderly with little physical support. Inevitably many seniors are left with little option but to leave their homes and enter a retirement village or care facility. Through this body of research and creative work I question how residential and public architecture can prompt cross generational exchange to allow people to age in place contentedly. In order to understand how architecture may achieve this, the research is divided into three sections. The first establishes accurate conditions of context and program through a process of preparatory analysis, resulting in several design objectives. The analysis defines a site in Picton, a town that presently connects land transport between the north and south islands of New Zealand. Its location and function provide the research with a unique opportunity to create a cross program consisting of a residential space within a public place.

The second defines an engaging atmospheric response through physical drawing and making explorations. Through this process, architectural preconception of what is inside and outside is reversed in order to fragment the existing notion of aging.

The third section reconfigures all previous findings into a developed design on site. Residential, communal and public spaces begin to blur and overlap, challenging existing stereotypes of generation segregation.
Using the thioglycollate-elicited murine peritonitis model for investigation of macrophage behaviour and its relationship with Irg1 expression
Authors:   , Li Yanyan
Published: July 2022

Macrophages play a crucial role in both innate and adaptive immunity. With a wide tissue distribution, macrophages are found in almost all tissues throughout the body. Upon activation, macrophages orchestrate the initiation and resolution of inflammation, promote wound repair and maintain homeostasis in a tissue-specific manner. This study investigates the behaviour of macrophages during sterile inflammation in the peritoneal cavity.

By using a thioglycollate-induced murine model of peritonitis inflammation, the phenotypic and functional alterations of peritoneal immune cells was investigated and analysed over time. A particular emphasis was set on the dynamics of the macrophage lineage cells. In addition, the expression of Irg1 as a marker for macrophage activation during inflammation was investigated. Finally, the effectiveness of the sterile inflammation model in the context of drug discovery was tested by using the atypical antipsychotic drug clozapine.

Phenotypic analysis showed that the number of resident macrophages was decreased after thioglycollate treatment. This effect was accompanied by a strong increase in monocyte-derived macrophages over time. Furthermore, macrophage colony-stimulating factor (CSF-1) appeared to be one of the key factors in recruiting circulating monocytes and promoting the differentiation of recruited monocytes to macrophages in this inflammation model. In addition, the analysis at different timepoints showed that a population of monocytes (Ly6C-) was present in the peritoneal cavity two days after thioglycollate treatment. For the activation signal of macrophages, the production of the two cytokines IL-10 and TNFα was assessed at two time points by intracellular cytokine staining. Although all investigated cell types produced both cytokines, there was little difference between different treatments. Furthermore, Irg1 expression was found decreased in macrophages stimulated with thioglycollate compared to unstimulated macrophages. Finally, the results from this study suggest that circulating monocytes are likely to be the key cell type responding to clozapine treatment based on the cell population dynamics and cytokine production.

Taken together these results indicate that there is a dynamic change during the thioglycollate-elicited peritonitis involving a massive influx of infiltrating circulating leukocytes and proliferation of peritoneal macrophages. Moreover, application of this system for drug discovery may uncover the effects of a test drug in the context of sterile inflammation thus facilitating the development of effective treatments in the future.
AniSketch: Alternative Aesthetics For Computer Animation Tools
Authors:   , Loh Ian Jun Yeen
Published: July 2022

The aesthetics of computer animation inherently draw from old modes of traditional animation production. AniSketch is an animation system that uses visual composition and sketching to produce animations, built in reaction to these established aesthetics of computer animation. Provocation through alternative tools is needed in order to incite the creation new aesthetics, tools and processes. The relationship between animation and technology is often marked by conflict that ultimately leads to the catalyst creative change. As digital media and digital tools become increasingly part of the lingua franca of the animation process, it is our empathetic understanding for the computer, its affordances and its relationship to the artist that will allow us to not only fully utilise, but also help us to continually provoke the status quo of the medium.
Chi Phat: An exemplar of a successful community based tourism destination in Cambodia
Authors:   , Tieng Sophea
Published: July 2022

Community based tourism (CBT) has been one the driving forces of the growth of tourism in Cambodia. Even though tourism scholars recognise the importance of the subject, community success in Cambodia remains a relatively under researched topic in the field. One of the exemplars of success, is Chi Phat, the community based tourism destination in the southwestern part of Cambodia. But why?

This thesis sets out to explore the factors of Chi Phat’s success through the voices of stakeholders in order to determine if the success could be replicated by other tourism communities. By understanding how different stakeholder groups construct an understanding of success, a contribution is made in how we manage stakeholders through understanding that success.

The study deployed a qualitative research methodology based upon the following objectives. First, to review the literature on CBT in order to evaluate factors of success. Second, to determine how different stakeholders perceive intrinsic or extrinsic factors of success for the Chi Phat CBT destination. Third, to develop a conceptual framework of community based tourism important factors of success. Twenty members of stakeholders including those from the community, local and national authority, NGOs and the private sector involved in Chi Phat had been contacted for an interview by using the semi-structured interview approach.

The contribution of the thesis is to be able to make recommendations for future community based tourism projects by using Chi Phat as an exemplar and that the success of Chi Phat can be replicated by other emerging CBT projects.

The findings suggested that both intrinsic and extrinsic factors are extremely important to the development of the CBT. Even though stakeholders agreed on most of the factors, for instance, the collaboration and partnership, some factors were also perceived differently. However, those perceived factors contribute immensely on the success of Chi Phat.
Co-Constructed Goal Setting: An Intervention to Raise Writing Achievement
Authors:   , Russell Essie
Published: July 2022

International and New Zealand research continues to identify student underachievement in writing. The present study examines whether co-constructed goal setting can improve primary-aged students’ writing achievement. An intervention was implemented at a low-decile, urban contributing primary school, mid-way through the 30-week study. The intervention was delivered in the form of a professional development session, and was evaluated by comparing progress after the implementation with progress made in an equal period prior to it. The intervention sought to improve the teacher participants’ (=4) understanding of how to effectively implement the practice of co-constructed learning goals. A quasi-experimental research design was used to identify the effect of co-constructed goals on the 86 year 4, 5, and 6 students’ writing achievement.

A quantitative approach was first taken to monitor students’ writing achievement; data were collected using the e-asTTle revised 2012) online learning and assessment tool. A questionnaire administered at the beginning and end of the study was used to gain insight into teachers’ perspectives on their own practice, and to monitor any changes resulting from the intervention.

The data suggested that the co-constructed goal-setting intervention was successful in raising the writing achievement of low-achieving students, although there was no significant effect on the achievement of the remaining participants. This is possibly because three out of the four participating teachers were found to have been employing co-constructed learning goals prior to the commencement of the study, which contributed to their students making consistently good progress over the 30-weeks duration of the study, including the period prior to the intervention.

The findings of the present study indicate that if implemented correctly, co-constructed learning goals can assist in raising the writing achievement of lower-achieving students.
Green Thoughts: The Forms, Affordances, and Politics of Garden Poetry
Authors:   , Arthur Jake
Published: July 2022

The garden is a rich site for framing the flows and contestations of culture because it is, on the one hand, a social practice with its own extensive history, methods, and concerns, and, on the other, a rich literary image. This interwoven history makes it a worthwhile object of study, but it has also resulted in studies that are either decidedly broad, very specific, or that focus exclusively on one kind of garden at the expense of the other. This thesis seeks to address these obstacles by challenging the line between real gardens and their images. Applying a novel working definition of “form”, I argue that the constituent forms of real gardens can be conceptualised as a set of meaning-bearing resources which enable, when represented, kinds of figurative meanings. This thesis considers the real garden as reducible to three forms essential to all gardens: enclosure, internal arrangement, and cultivation by a gardener. Such a distillation allows us to interrogate persistent meanings of the garden image across literatures by fixing it as an object of inquiry. These three forms, I argue, enable political meanings, figuring the relationship of individuals to greater systems or wholes, their arrangement of elements, and dramatising the operation and limits of power. However, those forms have been emphasised, represented, and ultimately signified differently in images of various provenance and in various writers’ hands.

My chapters trace the garden’s persistent forms across time and place. Two of my chapters address Civil War England. The first considers how gardens respond to a specific discursive context to imagine a dystopian state in Andrew Marvell’s “The Mower against Gardens” and the potential for utopian change in “The Garden”. In my second chapter, I turn to Lucy Hutchinson’s “Elegies”, considering how her poetic garden operates within the elegy and country house genres and responds to literary precedents like Marvell’s “Upon Appleton House” to characterise a grief that is intractably personal and political. My final two chapters shift in time and place to consider twentieth- and twenty-first-century New Zealand poetry, analysing in the third chapter the turn away from colonial settler verse in Ursula Bethell’s poetry towards the domestic garden as a site of home and belonging. Finally, my last chapter considers Jenny Bornholdt’s contemporary New Zealand verse, in which the garden image dramatises the power imbalance and artifice intrinsic to poetry itself. This thesis therefore seeks to produce general knowledge about how the garden, through its forms, can mean, while also producing specific knowledge about how garden images have meant in particular texts across different contexts. I argue that these are not contrary aims: a new approach to the garden as a set of forms proves an incisive tool with which to understand this important and variegated image.
Scalability and Performance Considerations for Traffic Classification in Software-Defined Networks
Authors:   , Hayes Matthew
Published: July 2022

Scalable network-wide traffic classification, combined with knowledge of endpoint identities, will enable the next wave of innovation in networking, by exposing a valuable layer of network metadata for applications to consume. We leverage the promising new paradigm of Software-Defined Networking (SDN) to create architecture for scalable traffic classification (TC). In this paper, we demonstrate scalability issues inherent with running full TC services over a traditional SDN architecture through test results. We then propose an architectural modification for scalable TC built atop of widely-available OpenFlow SDN switches, implementing higher-complexity classification functions on commodity hardware. We validate this approach through a prototype implementation, with experimental results that demonstrate the scalability of our approach.
Regional Singularity
Authors:   , Cochrane Hamish
Published: July 2022

Contemporary landscape architectural design has been defined by the recent focus on large-scale design, ‘landscape urbanism’, and the development of mapping techniques. Mapping methods aim to consolidate environmental, topographical, and public life aspects of a landscape. However, on a large scale it is very difficult to represent the human scale (public life aspect of the landscape) within large scale mapping. While current literature attempts to reconcile the tension between large scale and human scale mapping, there are arguments that these are too abstract and removed from life on the ground, prioritising the large scale over human scale.

The aims of this study were to develop a mapping method that used the human scale and public life to inform the large scale design of a site. To accomplish this an undeveloped site in Paraparaumu, New Zealand was used to test and refine a mapping method that prioritised the human scale. The Paraparaumu site presented unique landscape attributes; the conservation of these topographic features also informed the developed mapping method. Suburban development within such a unique landscape will need to use the existing topography to enhance rather than hinder the new development. This research assessed neighbouring settlements and assessed landscape attributes of importance to locals which had an enhanced public life presence. The proposed site was then assessed for similar landscape attributes that may be able to replicate similar affects on public life.

Research, combined with field work, confirmed that particular methods of mapping can represent social topography on a large scale. In order to test the practicality of the new mapping methods, the suburban density of the respective design was compared to surrounding areas. The developed, ‘ground-up’, mapping method was also tested against several public life assemblages, comparable to surrounding neighbourhoods, to ensure an appropriate output. Being able to represent the social topography on a large scale allows the designer to easily navigate plan on the human scale. The human scale becomes a priority in the large scale design; paramount in suburban design. The mapping method outlined in this thesis satisfies the research goals by allowing large scale design maps to represent the human scale and maintaining unique landscape attributes. The thesis also discovers that the conventional method of suburban development can be altered to respond to and conserve a unique landscape. Prioritising the human scale on a large scale design allows an entire region to have a sense of cohesion on social, environmental and physical topographies, achieving a regional singularity.
The ‘Varsity Player’: The Interplay of Culture, Control and Resistance around the Consumption of Alcohol at a New Zealand University Sports Club
Authors:   , Bryant Todd
Published: July 2022

The consumption of alcohol has a strong association with sport. Its’ appeal is based on a belief that consuming alcohol can prove the commitment of an individual to their team, bring about team cohesion, and provide a rite of passage through which an individual can be accepted. However, sports’ relationship with alcohol is problematic, with research identifying a number of detrimental physiological, psychological, and sociological effects this relationship can have on both individuals and society. This thesis explores these dynamics through a case study analysis of a university sports club. It draws on Barker’s (1993) concept of normative control to examine the connections between the use of alcohol and the development and control of the club’s culture. Using data collected from semi structured interviews with club members, findings are presented that illustrate how alcohol consumption is used as a cultural practice to educate, reinforce, and discipline club members to conform to a desired identity, known as the ‘varsity player’. The application of normative control is a novel contribution to the sport and alcohol literature. The thesis also seeks to contribute to the literature on normative control by examining the way in which club members resisted aspects of the club’s cultural practices around alcohol and facilitated change.
Space Port City: Assembling Resilience for Bluff, Southland
Authors:   , Gorton William Scott
Published: July 2022

Bluff, a small industrial fishing township, situated at the spit of the southernmost point of New Zealand stands isolated and desolate. A place that is static in time, with an uncertainty of the township’s future in relation to industries being threatened with closure. This project speculates the unknown outcomes of the inevitable closure of Tiwai Smelter and the impact it will have on the town’s future. It investigates this proposition to develop a methodology to represent site through drawing and how architecture can play a vital role for the people to reconnect to their environment.

Site is employed as an active agent across scales to construct three different architectural perspectives, each increasing in scale and complexity. These three experiments are an installation, observatory dwelling and finally a reimagined Bluff township as, Space Port City. Through the Installation, based off site, specific objects transform and create new possibilities that are tested through to the domestic scale. From the experimental research tests the proposed outcomes of the final design activate the site becoming New Zealand’s first Space Port, reinvigorating the isolated landscape. The three design tests recognise the process of site thinking, communicating and enabling the public to fully engage with their peripheral context.
Verboten Island: Contingent Means Toward Indeterminate Architecture
Authors:   , O'Connell Nicholas
Published: July 2022

This design research project explores the generative possibilities of composite drawing techniques. By engaging with the act of drawing, through interdisciplinary media, creative morphs and shifts are activated that destabilise otherwise known conditions. This work explores the restraints, transformative embodiment and latent opportunities promoted by designing across different media platforms. The intention is to use drawing as a resource of design uncertainty. As a beginning point, the project looks at Nat Chard and Perry Kulper’s design methods as catalogued in Fathoming the Unfathomable (2014). Their analytical techniques are tested through the author’s own speculative drawings, in a series of explorations into key themes and ideas around perception, politics and bicultural division. Through the use of analogue and hybrid digital technologies, these drawings attempt to parallel their work yet deflect it, as a way to speculate, also in parallel, on this emergent and speculative architectural mode of thinking. This research is through three scales of project: a one to one installation, a small house and a network of public retreat lodges. The projects are designed to lead on from one another and to use various shifts in representation, scale and a progressively complex programme, as productive research vehicles. Uncertainties discovered in the installation - through a mix of agency between intra-related techniques - were extended in the following projects, sited on Nga Mokopuna and Matiu/Somes Islands in Wellington harbour, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, New Zealand. The drawing out of intangible characteristics is meshed with the inevitable authorship of the drawer and the feedback of the drawing medium, be it analogue, digital, or robotic. Through an iterative process of making and drawing, in a range of techniques, indeterminate conditions in a fraught subject are extrapolated. This provides a way of understanding such complexities and allowing them to fuse with the act of drawing, resulting in uniquely charged spatial outcomes.
[re]presentation: A critique on architectural representation through the agency of the body and image
Authors:   , Caballes Claire
Published: July 2022

Architecture is more than just an object, and we are more than just a subject. This commonly perceived relationship between body and architecture is the result of representation. Over time, this model has reduced common understanding of architecture to an image, and we, as eyes which view it. This attitude is more prevalent than ever as our society is dominated by screens exploiting images which we consume at face value.

The intention of this is thesis to critique the distanced and sterile relationship between body and image through the affective lens. This thesis approaches research in two ways; ‘research for design’ and ‘research through design’. The former begins by understanding the role of the body and image in affective discourse and examines a few case studies which employ these positions. Juhani Palasmaa argues for the acknowledgement of the body as one which is active, visceral and experiential and as such, architecture must be designed accordingly. The case study on Diller and Scofidio’s ‘projectories’ highlights how the image can offer affective qualities when used correctly. These are key arguments identified in the research for design phase and is referred to a source material throughout the duration of the research.

‘Research through design’ extends these positions towards the body and image through three design tests. Each of these tests increase in scale which is the methodology used throughout this thesis. The increase of each scale poses the need for more architectural complexity. The installation focuses on how a sense of embodiment can be intensified through design while the domestic scale explores how images can be re-appraised to offer an affective charge. In the public scale test, both these ideas are developed through a train station design which offers an experience that engages the body through re-appraised images. This thesis results in a speculative design which offers a relationship between body and image that departs from the static representational model. It aims to “re-present representation”.
An Icon of Least Resistance
Authors:   , Tran Chi
Published: July 2022

The purpose of the research is to explore the notion of iconic architecture and it’s contextual responsiveness within a waterfront environment.

The underlying demand for iconic architecture can be witnessed throughout the world. These works are typically generated for the purpose of stimulating economic activity while responding to a need to exhibit an identity within a world dominated by global commercialisation.

The typical premise of such architecture is the creation of a distinct feature within the cityscape, which will draw attention to that location. The very word ‘icon’ typically carries negative connotations of ‘Starchitecture’, ‘exhibitionism’, and ‘pop culture’. Many individuals consider architectural icons as a disruptive element that removes itself from context. However, these unique structures are frequently being sought, regardless of the risk of failing to become ‘iconic’ and the potential to alienate itself within an urban setting.

The research will propose the intersection of iconicity and contextualism, to determine if the architectural icon can still retain it’s ‘spectacular’ calibre while being responsive to the local context. A set of design strategies will be established and distilled from the fundamental principles of iconicity and contextualism. These principles are considered to be ‘supportive’, which will increase the feasibly and success of the icon and it’s integration into our most prominent urban space - our waterfront sites.

A design case study will be subjected to the design strategies to determine their effectiveness. A variety of locations will be investigated due to their inherent differences in regards to context. These differences will foster alternative design approaches to both iconicity and contextualism.

The overall research suggests it may be possible to generate a contextually based icon within a particular waterfront context, using a relatively rudimentary building typology as a starting point.
Staging Tourism: Performing Place
Authors:   , Boyd Giuseppina
Published: July 2022

This thesis examines the relationship between architecture and the tourist experience. In architecture, an understanding of the active tourist body is underdeveloped as visuality is often positioned as the dominant mode of analysing tourism. This thesis mobilizes the tourist by recognising a paradigmatic shift from the ‘gaze’ towards the ‘performance turn’ which privileges the multisensuous experiences of the tourist engaged with architecture. The thesis investigates how architecture can stage and amplify the performances of tourists in order to produce place, en route. To test this enquiry, a ‘design through research’ methodology is employed where the design proposition is developed through iterative design experiments. Within each experiment, drawing, physical modelling, collage and digital modelling are utilised to explore the dynamic relationship between architecture and tourists. Carried out alongside the design process, a comparative literature review and case study analysis provide a theoretical framework to support ‘design through research’. The design proposition is explored across three increasing scales, progressing the research through stages of development and refinement. In these three investigations the site of experimentation shifts from an installation to the domestic scale, through to the public scale. The first experiment engages with the human scale to mobilise a conceptual understanding of place through a 1:1 installation. The next experiment amplifies the domestic and exotic aspects of performing tourism through the design of a hotel. In the final experiment, the design of an artificial island stages the public performances of tourists of tourists, who produce place en route. This thesis concludes that while tourists performances are staged by architecture, tourists produce place through their individual and collective performances, indicating that neither tourism nor place are merely products, but part of a process.
Perceptive Being
Authors:   , Kellett Danielle
Published: July 2022

The Human Body has been expressed in the field of spatial design as an insight into a consideration of space through understanding the occupant as a key driver for architectural space making. Past practice in this field have been heavily focussed on the production of art installations, exhibitions and interior focussed outcomes, much less so at an architectural scale. The intuition of the human body through reaction and response to interaction, along with a sensual understanding of space creates the possibilities to design for the user. Understanding the body and its impact on space as a form of testing parameters and limitations is an intimacy too often neglected in the architectural scale.

Primarily this thesis explores the ways in which the human body and its movement in space can challenge the way we think about the built form at an architectural scale. It will produce a strategy formed by an interpretation of the body and movement and its relationship to architecture as a primary focus. With this new way of generating a design outcome, this thesis explores strengths and weaknesses of this strategy through an application into the field of theatre and performance design.

 The theatre as an application will set out an interpretation as to how the strategy can be applied to a specific region within architecture. Outlining the importance of methodology in conveying the Architect’s mind through representation, this thesis explores the art of hand drawing as a means of direct embodied response from the architect to the occupants for space.

To determine the validity of this strategy this thesis defines how this way of designing can be interpreted to other fields within architecture, to move forward in offering a body centred design strategy.
Architecture for You, Me, and the Bees
Authors:   , Lam Sharon
Published: July 2022

Bees are dying. All over the world, dwindling bee populations are a cause for concern. Not only is another species at risk of being lost, but bees are a vital part of the earth’s ecosystem, pollinating 1/3 of the food humans eat alone. This triggered thoughts of how living intimately with bees could be a response to this ecological problem. Upon further reading, it was clear that we already live intimately with many other things that are nonhuman, and that these nonhuman things have their own inherent agency and vitality. As a result, this thesis explores how architecture can acknowledge and celebrate nonhuman agency. In particular, this proposition is explored by speculating upon a world where beekind and humankind live on par with one another. By imagining what architecture means to another species, humancentric norms in design and society are brought into question. The chosen methodological approach was design as research. This methodology focuses on non-linear iterative processes and the reflection upon these iterations, with the entire body of work contributing as research rather than only a single defined end point. However, for ease of reading, the thesis document follows a linear structure that runs counter to the process of design as research. Thus this thesis begins with a literary context chapter and then moves into three design stages. Each stage plays out at a different scale – installation, domestic and public. Each design result responds to nonhuman agency in architecture in its own way, and raises different questions each time. To thread ideas together, a narrative with the Queen Bee(s) is introduced. The concluding body of work presents a series of designs that responds to the nonhuman by working with the bee across client, programme and representation. To contemplate nonhuman agency through design reveals how anthropocentric roots underlie assumed architectural conventions, and the importance of becoming-with others for a habitable, flourishing world.
Reductive Rich - Negotiating an Architectural Language for Waikanae
Authors:   , Wild Sarah
Published: July 2022

I am interested in the architectural language and built fabric of cities and regions. On an exchange to Munich, I was confronted by two approaches to the city - the rich quality of work by Sergison Bates and Caruso St John; and the autonomous approach of Diener and Diener. These architects have made simple geometries convincing through rich detailing, ornament, and materiality. They create compelling buildings but the materials and construction techniques they use would be too expensive for most New Zealand housing projects. This experience caused me to critically consider the condition of New Zealand’s built fabric.

 The Waikanae township in the Kapiti Region, has a deficit of rich architectural language and a bland sprawling suburbia. Its population is expected to grow 35-45 percent over the next twenty years, placing increased pressure on housing and suburban margins. Both the New Zealand Modernist and Postmodern traditions responded to the issue of housing density in suburbia, but both the austerity of Modernity and fragmentation of Postmodern formalism have been criticised. Considering the approaches of the European, Modernist and Postmodernist traditions, and with the benefit of new technologies, how might an architectural language be negotiated to contribute a rich alternative and more urban fabric for Waikanae?

This alternative was explored through design-led research. I carried out three major sets of experiments, which build in scale. Section one, Rich, experiments with details through a set of carefully crafted models and drawings. These explore layering and composing irregularities in abundant New Zealand materials. In section two, Local, the details are built upon in aesthetic, spatial and tectonic systems to develop a housing scheme. The scheme is reflected against the European, Modernist and Postmodernist architectural traditions and reveals issues of developing for ‘the house’ and for ‘the region’. Section three, Negotiations, attempts to reconcile the façades language to face the region. The final design proposal, 'reductive structures, richly clad', is presented as a negotiation of architectural traditions across the scales of the detail, house and urban.
East Meets West: Designing an Institute of World Religions in Istanbul
Authors:   , Browne Rosemary
Published: July 2022

Globally, over 65 million people have become involuntary displaced from their homes, their families and their livelihoods, victims of socio-political and cultural conflicts, manmade and environmental disasters. A global crisis is unfolding on an unprecedented scale.

Refugee camps are today’s architecture of displacement, monuments of human suffering. The architectural language of the refugee crisis is one of grids of tents, tarpaulins and containers; a language of lightness and vulnerability. This failed architecture of displacement may be seen as an opportunity to re-evaluate how architecture may respond global crises.

This thesis therefore aims to construct an innovative, adaptable infrastructure that responds to the global migration crisis. Slavoj Žižek’s idiosyncratic text ‘Against the Double Blackmail’ is taken as an intellectual provocateur for the research process. Žižek offers a highly speculative and radical response to global mass migration, affirming a utopian reconstruction of society as our only option to resolve this global crisis. Therefore, the architectural construction of ‘utopia’ as a highly poetic and symbolic response to the global migration crisis is examined and developed.

The research is set in Istanbul, a geographical and cultural meeting point between Eastern and Western civilisations, and an international hub for refugees. The site itself is located in the ruins of St. Polyeuktos, an ancient, abandoned and dilapidated church in the centre of the cityBoth analogue and digital drawing are embraced as design methodologies to examine the architectural representation of Žižek’s utopia. The thesis culminates with a dynamic, sculptural formal expression of Žižek’s utopia, through the construct of an Institute of World Religions.
Steep Inclines
Authors:   , Jeffery Toby
Published: July 2022

A curious apprehensiveness towards the future of a town that I consider to be my second home, Queenstown, was the motivation for this research. An interest in how people dwell within this steep inclined context was piqued by a noticeable increase in dwellings that sit detached from the steep inclined hills around Queenstown. The resulting investigation looked into the architectural meaning of ‘site’ and its application to Queenstown. It was this curiosity as to how people dwell alongside a steep inclined landscape that led me to the development of an architectural framework in which the built form actively amplifies the Queenstown ‘site’.

Queenstown is a lakeside paradise, renowned around the world for its picturesque scenery. The desirability of immersing oneself in these beautiful landscapes is contributing to Queenstown’s position as the second fastest growing population in New Zealand. However, the influx of people attracted to the region’s beauty has put immense pressures on the local landscape to meet the immediate and significant infrastructure demands of this transient population. This has disrupted the connection between the town and the surrounding steep inclined landscapes, muting the valuable agency of this landscape and site in the current built environment.

In response, this research explores the proposition that allowing landscape to have an authoring role within a steep inclined context can produce an amplification of site, generating a stronger connection between person and place. A design-led research approach was implemented to support this proposition; this overarching methodology informed the process of developing and articulating site through architectural forms. The proposition was explored through three different scales of architectural complexity. The first scale was an installation that acted as an abstraction and investigation into how the ephemeral qualities of Queenstown might be merged together to amplify site. Through multiple iterations of model making and investigations, physical characteristics of Queenstown were used to inform a design tectonic. The second scale used a series of iterative analogue models to best encapsulate how the agency of a steep inclined site could author a small hillside dwelling. Finally, the third design scale critically utilised the findings from the previous scales, in order to produce a convention centre that resonates with and amplifies the site. The resulting explorative design supports the conclusion that, by allowing the agency of site to author a design, a stronger connection to site within a steep inclined context will be created.
Cyborg Landscapes: Using Rising Sea Levels as the Catalyst for Integrating Clean Technologies into Public Recreation Spaces
Authors:   , Palmer Madeleine
Published: July 2022

As the world progresses towards a precarious future, humanity has the option to adapt or perish in our changing climate. Certain scenarios are definite such as increasing technological advances, rising seas and a growing urban population, however the time frame around these changes are uncertain.

Designing for a new normal, this research is testing how public recreation spaces within an urban environment can be integrated with clean technologies to create a resource producing space. Adopting the framework of a cyborg landscape, which uses technology to enhance existing natural processes, this new type of landscape is designed to coevolve with the changing needs of the city and a new future amidst climate change.

Defining essential resources for a city as energy, food and clean water, ideas have been explored through perspective and section on Auckland’s Wynyard Quarter. With the added implications of sea level rise, various scenarios have been tested to portray how different technologies may coexist within a public recreation space, not only hidden by the design interventions but fully emerged into the landscape. As the sea level rises, the opportunity is created to form a new reality focused around clean technologies and public recreation space.

With Auckland Waterfront posing its own problems regarding recreation, especially water based and inaccessibility to the water’s edge, a rising sea could provide the opportunity for this to begin to improve. An approach has been taken which explores the blurring of landscape and building. Instead of the building infrastructure requiring protection, the landscapes have now become the commodity, due to the production of resources. As the sea rises the landscape creates the buildings, producing new potentials for spaces. By implementing clean technologies into these recreation spaces, food, energy, and water security can be achieved in an uncertain future.