425 research outputs found
Blue-Green Infrastructure: The experience of aesthetics. A qualitative study of perceptual and aesthetic landscape at NMBU, Ã…s.
As a result of climate change, the world is currently facing global challenges. The Intergovernmental panel on climate change mentioned that extreme weather events such as flooding, will become more frequent under climate change. Due to the nature of these global challenges, Blue-Green Infrastructure is becoming an increasingly crucial element of urban water systems. Blue-Green Infrastructure is a growing research topic for academia as well for landscape architects worldwide due to the recognition of the valuable contribution to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
The implementation of Blue-Green Infrastructure at NMBU campus provides an opportunity to create knowledge about the performance of the infrastructure. The main objective of this thesis is to investigate how the experience of aesthetics work through and on users who frequently visit areas with Blue-green Infrastructures. A qualitative study was conducted, fieldwork and semi-structured interviews were carried out during the months of October 2022 through February 2023 on NMBU campus park, Ã…s Norway. To conduct this research, this study answers the following questions research questions:
Research Question: How does the experience of aesthetics of blue green infrastructure on campus alter, work through and on users who frequently visit the area?
Subresearch questions: What is the aesthetic appreciation and perception of Blue-Green Infrastructure in users who frequently visit the campus?
How does the specific climate conditions, seasons affect the perception and aesthetic appreciation of users who frequently visit campus?
The different experiences of aesthetics are presented in the findings, which are discussed through the work of Nohl (2001) and his theory of aesthetic perception; Meyer (2008) The performance of appearance, and Tudor (2014) and the wheel of perceptual and aesthetic landscape.
This research identifies the aesthetic appreciation and perception of Blue-Green Infrastructure as a multi-layered experience that can contribute to the discourse of sustainable design.
Key words: Blue-Green Infrastructure, perception, aesthetic landscape, experience of aesthetic
A Fragile Inheritance
In A Fragile Inheritance Saloni Mathur investigates the work of two seminal figures from the global South: the New Delhi-based critic and curator Geeta Kapur and contemporary multimedia artist Vivan Sundaram. Examining their written and visual works over the past fifty years, Mathur illuminates how her protagonists’ political and aesthetic commitments intersect and foreground uncertainty, difficulty, conflict, and contradiction. This book presents new understandings of the culture and politics of decolonization and the role of non-Western aesthetic avant-gardes within the discourses of contemporary art. Through skillful interpretation of Sundaram's and Kapur’s practices, Mathur demonstrates how received notions of mainstream art history may be investigated and subjected to creative redefinition. Her scholarly methodology offers an impassioned model of critical aesthetics and advances a radical understanding of art and politics in our time
A Critical Analysis of Dissonant Heritage and Dark Tourism in India: The Case of the ‘Wall of Truth’ Memorial
For more than two decades, the concept of dark tourism has increasingly attracted the attention of both academia and the popular media. At the same time, there is evidence that there has also been continuing growth in the supply of dark tourism attractions and experiences, whether sites of or associated with mass death and suffering related to genocide, warfare or natural disasters, sites of individual death, or more educative or even playful places associated with death, dying and suffering. Consequently, not only does there appear to be greater interest on the part of tourists, for whatever reason, in dark tourism experiences, but also the diverse issues surrounding the understanding of dark tourism have been explored in a burgeoning literature on the subject within tourism studies and also in related disciplines. Nevertheless, a number of significant gaps in knowledge remain, not least with regards to research into the phenomenon in general and its related sub-themes such as dissonant heritage in particular, in non-Western contexts. Hence, the overall purpose of this thesis is to address this gap in knowledge.
More specifically, the phenomenon of dark tourism is a concept that, in the specific context of India, has been largely neglected by academics. That is, the majority of the research into dark tourism has been undertaken through a predominantly ‘Western-centric’ analytical lens; the phenomenon is typically explored within a Western conceptual framework particularly with regards to culturally defined perspectives on death and dying. As a consequence, there remains limited knowledge and understanding with regards to the issues surrounding the establishment, management and interpretation of dark sites in India. Hence, though the case study of the Wall of Truth, a memorial established in recent years to commemorate the victims of the 1984 Sikh massacre, it seeks to make an original contribution to the dark tourism literature through both developing an alternative conceptualisation of the concept relevant to the Indian context in general, and to explore issues surrounding the management and interpretation of a dark site through the lens of dissonance in particular.
Though reviewing dark tourism literature, relating to the significance of experiences within cultural understandings of death and dying of religious traditions and practices in India, the thesis first proposes an ‘Indian Thanatological Model’ to illustrate death and the consumption of dark tourism in India. In contrast to established models, this demonstrates that death in India is ‘ever-present’ and, hence, dark tourism offers a platform for Indians to consume death for either curiosity or education, to encounter the actual event, or to witness or engage in collective mourning. Building on this conceptual foundation, the thesis then goes on, though the case of the Wall of Truth and framed within a preceding critical review of memorials and memorialisation in India, to examine the concept of dissonance from the perspectives of identified stakeholder groups. This research is based on the application of qualitative methods within a case study approach employing in-depth semi-structured interviews as a means of generating rich primary data. Specifically, the research involves eliciting the views of key stakeholders with potentially different opinions on the WoT memorial. Thematic analysis is utilised to analyse the interview data. In so doing, a Dissonant Heritage Cycle model is proposed to demonstrate the cycle of dissonance, not only of the Wall of Truth but also potentially at any other heritage site associated with a contested heritage. Thus, the thesis adds an empirical dimension to the discussion surrounding the understanding of the cycle of dissonance at sites of contested heritage / dark tourism.
In particular, the empirical research suggests that for memorials or sites of commemoration to be effective and to act as a catalyst of reconciliation, it is important that dissonance is minimised. This, in turn, suggests that it is important to understand the role of stakeholders within the development and interpretation of any site. In other words, the understanding of dissonance and means of addressing it is of vital importance to the legitimacy of a memorial site, thus contributing to the validity of any memorial
as a place of reconciliation. Yet the research reveals that, in India, this legitimacy may be challenged by what emerges in the thesis to be the pervasive politicisation of memorialisation.
In sum, this thesis contributes to knowledge and understanding of dissonant heritage both generally and within the context of India, whilst also offering an additional and original perspective on dark tourism and memorialisation
Measuring visual attributes for assessing visual conflicts in urban environments
The visual relationships between a proposed development, such as a new high rise building or telecommunication tower, and its existing urban setting have become increasingly controversial for local residents, urban planners and landscape architects. Visual amenity and character are one of the most contentious issues in conflicts that go to court. This research provides a review of Planning and Environment court cases from 2000 to 2012 in Brisbane to identify different types of conflicts within the city. Taking four case studies from this database, visual amenity conflicts are analysed and three quantifiable methods for comparative analysis are proposed to assess conflict cases with greater reliability in the courtroom
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Unsettled Landscapes: The Narrative and Material Capacities of Landscape in the Post-War Croatian Hinterlands
Historically, conflicts concerned with ethno-national identity, culture and borders have tended to take place in urban situations. Cities are thus distinct targets for group-based hostilities, and this has been the focus of a growing body of literature. Within the discourses on the legacy of conflict and violence suffered during the 1990’s war in the Former Yugoslav Republic, Mostar, Vukovar, Sarajevo, and other cities have understandably been the focus of much research on the dynamics of conflict and memory within the built environment. This dissertation proposes an expansion beyond this attention to urban, social and cultural memory-scapes, a shift in the frame toward landscape, focussing on the historical violence in Croatia and its legacy for the cultural value of landscapes of conflict, and on memory making within those landscapes.
With architectural targets of destruction, the destruction itself often endows buildings with historical significance, but violence that takes place in the landscape affects cultural practice differently. Indeed, what is communicated in the destruction within and of a landscape is bound to its capability to efface, to weather, and deteriorate as well as to renew and regenerate. Landscape is perceived to be linked to the special temporal condition of the cyclical nature of growth and adaptation: it is afforded a perceived primordial status, a characterisation that can be seen as a kind of violence itself as these natural processes can physically conceal, alter, and suppress evidence of conflict and trauma. The manifestations of these perceptions of landscape shape the histories and biographies of place and mark the land as ‘unsettled’ in the ongoing processes of both place and memory making.
The dissertation explores the tensions in the materiality, spatiality, and temporality of landscape that impact the commemoration practices following the historical and more recent conflicts within Croatia. Original empirical research on two memorials in borderland landscapes contributes to contemporary discussions on the cultural spaces of memory in post war Croatia and, by implication, more broadly, by demonstrating that landscape affords particular opportunities and sets particular conditions for local and official memory practices in response to traumatic events. The dissertation argues that the dynamic relations between landscapes and memorials are linked to the politically discursive status of landscapes, their material and affective qualities, and their temporal condition, rendering them significant in themselves for the formation of cultural memories of conflict. Finally, the research advocates for an expanded notion of landscape to acknowledge the distinctive, complex, and integral role it can be understood to play in memorial dynamics.Newnham College University of Cambridge, Department of Architecture University of Cambridg
The planning and urban design of liveable public open spaces in Oman : case study of Muscat
Public open space has performed a considerable role in society since the first human settlements. Since the 1960s the understanding of liveable public open space has grown dramatically as exhibiting good quality and being well-used by the public. There is evidence of the social, economic and environmental benefits of public open spaces in any city. Planning and urban design practice are the mechanisms behind providing liveable public open space which entices and encourages the public to choose to spend more of their spare time in them. This thesis is concerned with liveability in contemporary public open spaces in Middle Eastern cities, where historically public open spaces were developed based on Islamic religion and Sharī‘ah, which provided norms for the production of the built environment and social engagement with this. As a focus for the exploration of contemporary public open space in Middle Eastern cities, this study examines the design of squares and plazas in particular. Squares and plazas were introduced by colonisation and reinforced by modernity, being later emphasised by globalisation. Nevertheless, squares and plazas in the Middle East have not been as successful as the traditional local open spaces, nor as the Western versions. This research has attempted to evaluate the liveability in public open spaces in Muscat through detailed case studies of two squares and two plazas in three ways, including evaluating: the physical quality, users’ perception and professional perception. In order to achieve this, a mixed methods strategy was designed based on the theoretical perspective of social constructionism. These methods included: desk-top study of documents; three built environment assessment tools, applied by professionals; behavioural mapping and observation; a survey of open space users; and semi-structured interviews with professional involved in the provision of public open space and community representatives in Oman. The empirical work showed that though public open spaces are viewed as beautification elements of the city structure, there are major weaknesses in meeting users’ requirements, engaging users and in considering local climate in those spaces. Although the planning and urban design system in Oman has been adopted from the West, it is not established adequately in different plan sequences and strategies to govern the provision process and control the quality of
the spaces; in addition, there is lack of clarity and coordination in institutional responsibilities over the provision and management of public open space. It is concluded that providing more liveable public open space in Oman would require improvements to the planning and urban design systems, as well as learning from traditional practice in the production and management of open space in the Middle East
The Making of an American Sculptor: David Smith Criticism, 1938-1971
At the time of his death in 1965 at the age of 59, American sculptor David Smith was widely recognized as one of the greatest sculptors of his generation. By then, he had been honoured with a mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art, and had represented the United States at Documenta and major biennales at Venice (on two occasions) and São Paolo. Countless studies have analyzed Smith’s career and artistic development, but very little has been written on the published criticism of his work or its larger impact on our understanding of this artist. In this dissertation I examine the historiographic reception of his sculpture from 1938, the year of his first solo exhibition, until 1971 when Rosalind Krauss published Terminal Iron Works, the first monograph on Smith. I trace this reception from the early focus on Smith’s biography and working methods (the biographical paradigm), to the later interest in formal analysis (the formalist paradigm). I further analyze this criticism in the context of artistic developments in the 1940s and 1950s, namely Abstract Expressionist painting and sculpture. In the process, I draw out common themes, tropes and narratives that appear in the criticism on Smith and the Abstract Expressionists. To do so, I engage in a close textual analysis of the exhibition reviews, magazine and newspaper articles, and catalogue essays published during this period. I demonstrate that this reception is culturally, socially, and ideologically informed. References to Smith’s biography, working methods, materials, and exceptionalism all point to the aims, desires and interests of the writers, but also to the influence of social and cultural factors. Ultimately, I intend to provide a revisionist history of Smith’s work that draws out the mythology that this reception contributed to—a mythology that continues to shape our understanding of mid-twentieth-century American art
Servicescape Management at Heritage Tourism Sites: From Dark Tourism Sites to Socially-Symbolic Servicescapes
Authentic alignment : toward an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) informed model of the learning environment in health professions education
It is well established that the goals of education can only be achieved through the constructive alignment of instruction, learning and assessment. There is a gap in research interpreting the lived experiences of stakeholders within the UK learning environment toward understanding the real impact – authenticity – of curricular alignment. This investigation uses a critical realist framework to explore the emergent quality of authenticity as a function of alignment.This project deals broadly with alignment of anatomy pedagogy within UK undergraduate medical education. The thread of alignment is woven through four aims: 1) to understand the alignment of anatomy within the medical curriculum via the relationships of its stakeholders; 2) to explore the apparent complexity of the learning environment (LE); 3) to generate a critical evaluation of the methodology, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as an approach appropriate for realist research in the complex fields of medical and health professions education; 4) to propose a functional, authentic model of the learning environment.Findings indicate that the complexity and uncertainty inherent in the LE can be reflected in spatiotemporal models. Findings meet the thesis aims, suggesting: 1) the alignment of anatomy within the medical curriculum is complex and forms a multiplicity of perspectives; 2) this complexity is ripe for phenomenological exploration; 3) IPA is particularly suitable for realist research exploring complexity in HPE; 4) Authentic Alignment theory offers a spatiotemporal model of the complex HPE learning environment:the T-icosa
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