Architecture

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/9902

This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's School of Architecture.

Research outputs are organized by type (eg. Master Thesis, Article, Conference Paper).

Waterloo faculty, students, and staff can contact us or visit the UWSpace guide to learn more about depositing their research.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 824

Transforming Suburbia : The Networked Pedestrian Village of Bayview Hills
(University of Waterloo, 2004) Cheung, Esther
The ubiquitous North American suburban model has created devastating challenges for successful community life in the twenty-first century. This thesis addresses those challenges through the transformation of the existing suburban model into networked pedestrian villages. The urban and architectural design strategies of the networked village reintegrate community programs, workplaces, and residences to create self-sustaining, socially integrated community life for the twenty first century. The specific suburban town of Richmond Hill was chosen to study how greater densification and mixed-use zoning are necessary at the regional scale. Within Richmond Hill, the neighbourhood of Bayview Hills is adapted through changes in building types, setbacks, street definition, and a central public space. The creation of the new village hall and community telecentre are necessary to define the central public space and to generate the successful urban transformation from suburban neighbourhood to networked village.
On Reading, Anxiety and Water: A Sanatorium on the Toronto Portlands
(University of Waterloo, 2004) Foo, Shelton
The thesis is comprised of three essays and a design project of a fictional sanatorium and attached public park for the Toronto Portlands. The project basically pursues a sense of architectural place that is most clearly expressed in Literary Realism which seeks to convey a moment of clarity and understanding through a direct focus on arbitrary details. The site itself is located and balanced between two views alternately looking outwards, over the lake, towards an horizon of otium or reflecting back, across the harbour, to the skyline of Toronto and a complimentary horizon of negotium thereby defining a basic focus for the project. The fictional sanatorium accommodates the vast and subtle range of anxieties and stresses today, providing reading as a central means to recovery. The particular impulses and conflicts addressed therein are not solely self-referential conditions of illness but provide powerful amplifications of conditions that are not only common, but also intimate to almost every life in the placeless modern city. Each of the essays in this thesis focuses the world through a distinct relationship to reading ranging from contemporary fascination to an archaic anxiety to a clear release from reading. This thesis aims,overall, to identify a contemporary type of place that responds to modern life with all its contradiction and complexity and change, but finally both the focus and programme of the thesis are most simply condensed as a nice place for people to read.
Architecture that Binds: A Place for Weddings and Funerals for a New Society
(University of Waterloo, 2005) Lam, Yvonne Y.S.
Weddings and funerals are some of the most universally profound events of our lives. Both acts, however disparate, ultimately celebrate life. This thesis draws on themes of life and regeneration in its reading of a neglected yet historically significant site in the port lands of Toronto. The changes that have occurred at the mouth of the Don mirror the changes that have occurred in Toronto from settlement to post-modernity. It is here that the thesis proposes a place that simultaneously reclaims its roots and creates a new identity for the port lands. As a means of reinhabiting this site, the design uses the power of weddings and funerals to generate a collective point of gathering that reflects the multicultural nature of Toronto today.
Suburban Rites of Passage: Building, Landscape, and the Mediation of Adolescent Aggression
(University of Waterloo, 2005) Koutsoulias, Michael
This thesis questions contemporary society?s understanding and ability to deal with the universal instinct known as aggression. The investigation identifies the driving forces behind adolescent aggression and the myth based rituals and cultural devices used to mediate it. The primary case in this study is a suburban community called Malvern, known for its high rate of teen violence and aggressive acts. Malvern is evaluated based on its current rites of passage rituals and institutions used for the socialisation and individuation of the young members of its community. This is followed by a proposed intervention introducing the use of building and landscape as devices to mediate adolescent aggression through the emergence of redefined myth based rituals and rites of passage within Malvern?s unique context.
The Causeway, the Landfill, and the River: shaping Moncton's Environs
(University of Waterloo, 2005) Macleod, Michaela
The decommissioned Riverside Landfill, located on the Petitcodiac River in Moncton, New Brunswick, has been closed for over ten years. Lack of proper dumping and closure procedures has left the ground and the water surrounding the site contaminated. The waterfront, shaped by the processes of industry and hydrology remains a neglected space within the city.

The river's edge was once the main focal point of activity and interest of the city, facilitating more than 250 meters of public wharves along its riverbank. The exploratory design is for a new park that will restore ecological integrity of the river and introduce the individual scale to the landscape, while revitalizing its spirit within the city. Initially in the study, the site is mapped in relation to the region, the province, the city, the urban fabric, and the landscape. Considering the river's hydrology and the landfill's toxicity, the project aims to weave the degraded site back into the natural and cultural patterns that exist in the larger scale of the region.

Public spaces can no longer derive their form solely from economic or aesthetic doctrines. They must be developed with an understanding of natural process and used to regenerate the cityscape. The formal order shaping the park will be founded on the process of bioremediation. Additive and subtractive, cultural and biological processes are implemented over time to transform the terrain. Artificial and natural become inseparable, and develop a new relationship between urban systems, natural process, and public space.

Ongoing monitoring and management of the site will allow evolving adaptations of the project and support complexity and change.
Assembly: A Revaluation of Public Space in Toronto
(University of Waterloo, 2005) Kenniff, Thomas-Bernard
This thesis focuses on the problem of defining and designing public space in contemporary mass society. "Assembly" revaluates a cultural understanding of public space as the space of regulation, consumption and leisure, and works to find spaces of freedom, agency and action. Three iconic sites located in Toronto from three successive generations are examined: Nathan Phillips Square, the Eaton Centre and the new Dundas Square. These three sites form the primary division of the work and are respectively paired with extended critiques from three thinkers: Hannah Arendt, Jean Baudrillard, and Guy Debord. The pairings centre on Arendt's account of the "rise of the social", on Baudrillard's analysis of consumption and on Debord's dissection of the spectacle. The argument is presented in the form of an assemblage. Although the nature of this method invites each reader to construct their own meaning, this thesis grounds itself on a defined polemic. It considers public space to be marked by 1) the erosion of a clear distinction between our public and private realms, and their subsequent dissolution into the realm of the social, 2) the ideology of consumption overtaking the realm of the social, and 3) the world of the commodity replacing reality with the world of the spectacle. "Assembly" first consists of three main sections corresponding to the three sites. Each of these parts is assembled from three distinct strands: factual, theoretical and visual. The factual strand forms the main "field" of each section and is made up of selected quotations from mass media ? newspapers, public documents and websites. The theoretical strand, consisting of pointed quotations from the relevant social theorist, is threaded through the field of mass media. The visual strand comprises two elements: a postcard that marks the beginning of the section and a series of authored photographs that follows and complements the text-based assemblage.

Inevitably, the relationship between general social values and those of individuals is fraught. Consequently, and perhaps also inevitably, architectural design tends to reduce the manifoldness of the public realm into a homogenous and singular public space: the "whole". This thesis pursues the question of how to conciliate individual agency with collective public experience. The process and form of "Assembly" deliberately celebrates this uncertainty of design, and takes "heterogeneity" as a necessary condition of public space. That it cannot offer a comprehensive solution is, perhaps, inherent to the question.
Architecture in Search of Sensory Balance
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Chang, Clementine
This thesis addresses the urgent need to awaken our numbed senses by means of haptic architecture. As today's technologies continue to hyper-stimulate and under-differentiate, it is architecture's obligation to resist the resultant de-sensitizing of daily experiences. A return of a multi-sensory and corporeal element to architecture can reveal new possibilities for restoring sensory balance, and for connecting our bodies to our surroundings. Through the authority of all the senses, we may re-discover our human identity within the larger context of the world.

The proposed design is a spa health club in downtown Toronto. Throughout history, public baths have been important spaces in cities. Bathers are able to be social or solitary as they choose, while cleansing body and senses. Today, such spaces are lost in the race where thousands upon thousands of advertisements compete for one's imagination. Combining the ancient bath culture with the contemporary fitness culture, the design of the spa health club aims to heighten awareness by engaging the body and all of its senses. Central to the design is an urban public park offering transitory moments of tranquility and sensual pleasure. The spa, with its public park, offers a space that resumes the dialogue between body and space, creating haptic memories and, above all, raising human consciousness.
Subterranean Inscriptions
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Keung, Olivia
This thesis considers the condition of homelessness through its marginal position against society. Exteriority is often perceived as an abnormal state to be resolved through assimilation. To investigate it in its relationship with the inside, as opposites in a field of interaction, implies a constant state of reaction and change, instead of one that rests in a resolution. The thesis takes this form of continuous shifting between perspectives, media, scale of interaction, and locations, both physical and psychological. Its journey constitutes a search for a middle ground between absolute power and absolute freedom, interiority and exteriority, and an exploration into the possibilities for interaction in this strange and uncertain place.

Through this strategy, the thesis removes the issue of homelessness from the conventional framework of an economical problem, to understand it instead as an existential reality. Homelessness becomes an experience that involves real people and unseen identities; the shifts in the form of this work reflect the subtle idiosyncracies that arise from this subjective reading. In its exteriority, homelessness is related to the psychoanalytical notion of otherness: a quality that is emotional and uncontrolled, and exists outside of social laws. As a threat to public order, this quality is undesireable within society. Thus, the Other is an identity that becomes subjugated and hidden through the exercize of power. The thesis relies on established ideas, including Michel Foucault's exposure of this social repression, R. D. Laing's empathetic perception of ontological insecurity, and Julia Kristeva's essay on abjection, to give context to its ambiguous subject. Set against the tentative narration and notation of lived experiences, they seek to uncover the subjective identity of the Other, and to grasp the significance of his expulsion from the interior. The intention of this work is not to judge, or to implement solutions. Rather, it is passive and receptive, and exists largely in the mere confrontation of this estranged condition.

Out of this confrontation, the voices that were buried begin to emerge and assert themselves. Narrative, criticism, design, and visual essay become the vehicles that convey these voices and the multiplicity of their existential experiences, forming a reality from that which was previously invisible to the objective city. This mapping is a construction of displaced identities. The synthesis of these elements exposes the grounds for the possibility of new connections between individuals.
São Paulo: An Ecological View Of A Theatre For Modernity
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Gomes, Fausto
Future challenges for human civilization, especially in the developing world, will increasingly be characterized by both an urban and global condition. What will be the response by design in the face of the implications of this unprecedented scale of development? The thesis is a speculative analysis of the essential nature of the phenomenon of the global mega-city, and is a necessary first step in creating a framework to answer this question. The Brazilian city of São Paulo is chosen as this thesis case study because it is a 'matured' version of this Modern urban phenomenon. Underlying and guiding the creation of this picture of the mega-city is the assertion that the fundamantal nature of the phenomenon of São Paulo is essentially an ecological one. Like any other ecological analysis, the first stage of the inquiry is to identify the motivating force that orders the system and propels the change of the urban ecology. In the case of São Paulo, the thesis develope a picture of an urban agglomeration that has been driven by the unrestrained forces of the aspirations of global Modernism and the exploitation of growing urban multitudes by the personal avarice of capitalism. São Paulo is seen as an urban experiment that rests in the tacit gamble that the economic aspirations underlying São Paulo are limitless in the face of the obvious limits of the city' and globe's biosphere. This relationship between urban organism and host ecology is characterized as parasitic and like the economic and social propelling forces of Modernity, forms the fundamental underlying relationships of the ecology of São Paulo. These relationships in juxtaposition with the propellant force of Modernism, form the sketch of a framework that the thesis proposes for a responsible position for design in the mega-city. In light of this ecological sketch of São Paulo, the underlying perpective for design in the mega-city seeks to strike a balance between economy, ecology and should be founded on a view of the city as an investment that can be evaluated for its performance in providing the context for human flourishing in relations to its use of natural resources.
Transforming the Gardiner Expressway: A Vision for Personal Rapid Transit in 2015
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Li, Chloe
Urban infrastructure has long been regarded as the lifeblood to any city, essential to urban communities. A successful city cannot exist without a successful infrastructure, and as a city matures, its system must adapt.

Modern urban development and, in particular, the proliferation of urban expressways over the past half a century, has led to a greater fragmentation, and even segregation, of certain parts of the city, as well as unprecedented traffic growth that has strained the capacity of urban transportation systems. Cities around the world now confronted by the consequences of urban expressways must begin to rectify their situations.

In Downtown Toronto stands the Gardiner Expressway. Envisioned in the 1950s as part of a larger highway network, resistance to highway planning and growing interest in public transit a decade later left the Gardiner a liability in the urban infrastructure ? well traveled but disjointed, isolated from the waterfront, which is its immediate context, and congested with automobiles. On many levels, it continues to be a detriment to the city as a whole.

This thesis recognizes transportation infrastructure as vital to Toronto's overall development and looks to enhance that development by transforming the Gardiner Expressway into a viable and responsive transit interface, stimulating new, integrated systems of mobility. Conceived within the parameters of Toronto's Official Plan, the project uses a ten-year phasing strategy that involves policy planning, urban transit coordination, and includes the implementation of Personal Rapid Transportation [PRT] technology and a 7. 5 km elevated bicycle path. Seamless movement is achieved by inter-modal transit nodes and direct waterfront access. Bridging the city and the waterfront, the proposed transit initiatives specifically respond at various urban scales to increasing waterfront density, commuting patterns, land uses, and new developments. It is anticipated that the success of this revitalized system will lead other cities to reassess the capabilities of their own urban infrastructures.
Interstitial Urbanity: Fragments of Place Within the Post-Modern City
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Tsui, Matthew
This thesis introduces Interstitial Urbanity as a strategy for addressing issues of urbanity and place within New York's peripheral developments. Driven primarily by market forces, these developer led office and condominium complexes are currently being constructed along the post-industrial shorelines of New York's outer boroughs. Interstitial urbanity proposes an urban centre: a fragment of place within a non-place settlement. The theory is manifested in the design of an interstice that sits within the Queens West development on the Long Island City waterfront. Taking the form of a multi-layered public space, the interstice is comprised of a waterfront market square flanked by a commuter train terminal and an arts centre housed in a turn of the century power plant.
Triton: outpost in the ocean
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Button, Keith, Alfred
The ocean, especially the deep ocean, dominates this world; it is the largest single habitat on the planet, a habitat whose inhabitants constitute the most common forms of life on this planet. By its immense influence on the global climate systems, this vast realm continually shapes life on the land. It is the least understood realm on the planet, home to a system of life that we did not know existed ? nor was it one we could even have imagined - only found by accident in the late twentieth century. We are tampering blindly with this vast realm, destroying segments of the intricate and complex systems of life within it. We plunder its riches and only return our waste. We need to know the ocean; it just may control our fate.

Presently, there is a gap in our ability to study this realm: we can no longer only sit on the surface, peering in from time to time; we need to look beneath the ocean's obscuring surface, at any point, for extended periods. Small research submersibles and self-contained diving gear only become available in the later half of the twentieth century, allowing us to venture beneath the ocean's surface. However, these have severe limitations, in their endurance (usually measured in hours) and operational conditions. The heyday for underwater research was the late nineteen-sixties; at that time there were, around the world, over fifty fixed undersea habitats operated by half a dozen countries. Their complexity, and their large on- and off- shore support requirements, eventually lead their sponsors to abandon of most of these habitats. There are only two left operating today, both of which are just off the coast of Florida, with one converted to a dive-access hotel in a coastal lagoon and the other anchored well offshore, the last remaining active undersea research habitat in the world.

We need a new type of ocean-going research vessel that will operate as an observation post on the deep ocean. Scientists need to collect a variety of data, over scales ranging from millimetres to kilometres and time spans ranging from seconds to days, years, and even decades; do this through a continuous, comprehensive, long-term, manned presence on and in the ocean, down to the seafloor, instead of trying to piece together processes by taking intermittent snapshots of a relatively few places and events; and keep this whole endeavour open and accessible to the entire world. A vessel that bridges the surface that isolates the two separate but intricately linked worlds, above and below, would enable researchers to be in both places at once. What such a vessel would be like, how it would function, and what challenges it would deal with; such a vessel is the focus of this thesis.
Architecture in a Northern Flood Plain
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Gibson, Nancy
The thesis is an exploration of strategies that could be utilised in creating sustainable urbanism, one in which the inhabitants retain a relationship with the environmental and geographic conditions of their place. Promoting awareness of the natural context of urban activities is necessary in an increasingly complex world that is more able to disregard the natural systems that we depend on. Sustainability is seen as crucial in terms of the economic viability of cities as well as the sustainability of the environment in which dense urban centres are situated. In the case of a city located on a flood plain, the viability of the physical and social condition of the urban centre as well as its impact on that of the surrounding region comes to the forefront each time there is a flood. The city of Winnipeg on the Red River flood plain in the central lowlands of the eastern prairie of Canada is chosen as the site for this exploration where the difficulties of freezing temperatures make the problem of building on a flood plain a greater challenge. Several methods are explored in this urban design, demonstrating that urban sustainability and environmental sustainability are not exclusive of one another. The technique of densifying and unifying elements of the urban fabric, including parks and landscaping, residential inhabitation, as well as industrial and commercial activities, can be effective for both environmental and urban sustainability. Techniques explore the incorporation of vertically integrated multi-use buildings, the movement of public areas above street level, and construction on engineered hills, stilts or with the use of floatation devices, resulting in a site specific response to urban inhabitation. The trend toward a generic non-location specific urban lifestyle is superceded in this proposal for a mode of urban dwelling reconnected with surrounding context, marked by experience of seasonal and cyclical conditions of environment inscribed by an awareness of place.
Super GTA: Urban Implications of Ontario's Greenbelt
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Martin, Edward Johnson
In early 2005, increasing social and infrastructural costs associated with the rapidly expanding Greater Toronto Area [GTA] pressed the Province of Ontario to initiate a growth management strategy for the region. The Provincial Growth Plan, coupled with its Greenbelt Plan, effectively legislates a minimum of 40 per cent infill development by 2015 and limits land supply until 2031. This book explores the extents and implications of this legislation, with a particular focus on the Town of Milton, a key community west of downtown Toronto, where city and Greenbelt meet.
The structure of suburban communities can and should be modified to improve their sense of identity, and reduce their environmental impact and dependency on automobiles. The thesis aims to reflect the policies inherent in the Provincial Growth Plan, which advocates placing walkable infill development in close proximity to public transit. A design proposal links natural corridors and recreational spaces with a public thoroughfare along the existing railway line in Milton, Ontario. A dense new community flanks this public armature which connects the public realm network of this rapidly developing town to the larger network of the Metropolitan Greenbelt.
The Town of Milton becomes a test case for scenarios which are common within the GTA, and examines the human impact on environmental systems moving towards symbiosis. The context of this city-building predicts a fundamental conceptual shift in the priorities of urban living, where residents understand the value of the natural environment and their relationship to it. That is to say, its context is one in which nature matters.
an architecture of daily life: the continuing evolution of Toronto's residential fabric
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Vermeulen, Stephanie
This thesis envisions a new way of living in the city of Toronto. It is a vision that evolves not from the ideologies on which Toronto was founded, set out over 100 years ago when all multi-family dwellings were called tenements and tenements were considered, among other things, immoral. Instead, it is a vision founded on a city that has seen immense change over the last century, and faces an even greater rate of change over the next. Our city prides itself on its cultural and social diversity, yet, architecturally, we still struggle to adapt within a fabric of single-family homes. The Dutch provide an edifying example of an architecture of daily life, embodied by their attitude toward issues of privacy, toward traffic, toward work and play. Based on a case study of housing in the Netherlands, a country that has successfully and creatively adapted to the demands of housing in a climate of rapid immigration and a diversifying population, this thesis proposes new, high density urban housing typologies for the city of Toronto. This new vision for the city serves not only to add the necessary density to our existing neighbourhoods, but to foster a strong community life and to provoke new ideas about urban living.
Dwelling In Motion: Reinterpreting Flinders Street Station as Urban Public Landscape
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Ante, Kristi
Flinders Street Station in Melbourne, Australia currently serves a dual purpose, providing both a transient space that links the city to its suburban roots and creating a physical barrier between the city and its watercourse. Ultimately, the existing station denies Melbourne the fulfillment of its need for centrality. Historically, the Yarra River was a source of life and sacred feature of the Australian Aboriginal landscape. A renewed interest in the riverfront as the new focus for Melbourne, an emerging global city, has turned the area into an urban destination following years of neglect. Flinders Station stands at the new centre of Melbourne on the North Banks of the Yarra River. The geographical isolation and entrenched suburban nature of Melbourne has led to the celebration of train travel as a cultural phenomenon. Twice daily Flinders Station filters Melbourne's commuters en route between the city and suburbia. The integration of a new public space as a commuter thoroughfare into the existing rail station introduces a transitory space between the disconnected urban/suburban landscapes of the commuter experience. The train station is seen as a fascinating place of cultural significance where the world of fast movement is intermittently juxtaposed with that of dwelling and leisure. This thesis redesigns Flinders Street Station, filtering travelers through a new public landscape to activate the connection between city, river, and suburbia while heightening the sense of urban arrival and departure.
Vertical Vernacular
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Tang, Fan-ju Susan
The rapid modernization and densification of Taipei has resulted in a culturally and socially unsustainable society. The North American paradigm of high-rise condominiums disrupts the social pattern of the vernacular family, cultural activities and communities, isolating the city dwellers within their own homes. The physical city no longer reflects or supports its social and cultural condition, thus has led to the disintegration of traditional customs and lifestyle without a sustainable replacement. The hypothesis of this thesis is that high-density residential architecture can be reinvented through the reinterpretation of vernacular dwelling to accommodate cultural sustainable activities and a sociable, identifiable community.

The first three chapters record and examine three branches of research: vernacular Taiwanese culture and architecture, high-density vernacular architecture, and the current condition of Taipei, Taiwan. The research deals with various disciplines, most importantly family and social structure, to provide a foundation for further discussion of dwelling condition versus culture. Chapter iv compares and analyzes the relationship between residential architecture and lifestyle of the vernacular and current dwelling. It argues for the importance of communities at different scales, bound together by a hierarchy of communal spaces. The condominium building is carefully reexamined under the categories of the unit, the floor, the building as a village, and the neighbourhood.

The design project, Vertical Vernacular [chapter v], presents a new typology of high-density residential architecture. It demonstrates the implantation of the theories and prototypes developed in the previous chapter, by consideration of current culture and family structure, including both traditional customs and modern lifestyle. A full range of unit plans are developed based on demographics, family structure, traditional custom, and adoption of tradition to modern imperatives. The co-operative living environment inspired by the vernacular dwelling creates friendly, strong and safe communities within the condominium. Furthermore, the project aims for the feasibility of the concept within the densest district of Taipei City from a developer's point-of-view.
Making the Child's World: Fostering Permanence
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Cichy, Natalie A.R. Soranno
Making the Child's World: Fostering Permanence, is a redefining, reordering and recalibration of the planning of a centre for children in transition within the child welfare system that would operate alongside foster homes. It is not a prescription for the ideal building design. Instead it is a proposition for a set of standards and qualities necessary of a child-centered environment; one where the child can be comfortable and secure, in the face of his or her family circumstances.

This thesis discusses the period between infancy and school age as crucial in the physical and emotional development of children; a time when they first establish concepts of space, relationships, and feelings. Each environment and social interaction experienced plays a large role in a child's development, both socially and physically. The dynamics, scale and intimacy of Play Therapy need to infiltrate the architectural strategy of this type of centre so that the centre itself adopts the values of Play Therapy, enabling the physical environment to act as a rehabilitative tool in the Play Therapy Programme.
An Exploration into Biomimicry and its Application in Digital & Parametric [Architectural] Design
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Panchuk, Neal
Biomimicry is an applied science that derives inspiration for solutions to human problems through the study of natural designs, systems and processes. This thesis represents an investigation into biomimicry and includes the development of a design method based on biomimetic principles that is applied to the design of curved building surfaces whose derived integral structure lends itself to ease of manufacture and construction.

Three design concepts are produced that utilize a selection of natural principles of design outlined in the initial biomimetic investigation. The first design visualizes the human genome as a template on which the process of architectural design and construction can be paralleled. This approach utilizes an organizational structure for design instructions, the adherence to an economy of means, and a holistic linking of all aspects of a design characteristic of the genetic parallel. The advancement of the first design concept is illustrated through the use of a particular form of parametric design software known as GenerativeComponents. The second design concept applies the biomimetic design approach outlined in concept one to the development of ruled surfaces with an integral structure in the form of developable flat sheets. The final concept documents the creation of arbitrary curved surfaces consisting of an integral reinforcing structure in the form of folded sheet chevrons.
Firmitas re-visited: Permanence in Contemporary Architecture
(University of Waterloo, 2006) Touw, Katrina
This thesis proposes that the concept 'permanence' is relevant at the beginning of the twenty first century. It examines why the term, while perhaps pertinent in addressing the disposability of architecture in Western society, seems anachronistic. The study reviews the seeming inaccessibility of the term in its contested and plural interpretations, and reviews problems in its definition and relevance.

A close examination of definitions, interpretations and contemporary approaches is provided in order to create a conceptual framework that reveals complex implications of the term. Four strategies for understanding the concept are offered: 'realms versus modes', definitions, a distillation of four positions relating to permanence, and an inquiry into contemporary issues relating to the concept. 'Absolute' and 'relative' realms illuminate a scope for permanence, and 'static' and 'dynamic' modes are discussed. A series of definitions are reviewed that reveal nuance in implications. An analysis of four essays on permanence is included, one from the beginning of the twentieth century and three from the end. This section reveals a series of conflicts relating to the way contemporary Western society uses and understands the term.

Permanence within architecture is widely associated with the Vitruvian definition of firmitas: mass and solidity crafted to endure eternally. Vitruvius' employment of 'permanence' is used as a grounding definition and a fundamental reference for the term's evolution into contemporary usage. In observing the endurance of the original Vitruvian term today, a disconnect becomes evident: absolutism in a society defined by relativity. This thesis argues for the critical significance of the term at a pivotal point in history in addressing the problem of disposable architecture on both a cultural and ecological level. Final open-ended questions are raised that consider staggering construction and demolition waste statistics, implying that permanence could play a significant role in effective responses to a global environmental crisis.

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