Analysis and Solution Exploration of Design Issues of Group-Form Megastructure

With the evolution of Megastructures, these ideas remain as utopias that have not taken research to applied practice. They continue to be explored as mere futuristic designs for backdrops in movies, comic books or magazines. These ideals of the mega have progressed toward becoming a reality that exploration of these design issues towards practice is necessary. As non-traditional structures, spatial composition and form symbolizes the creative base for the classic case studies and analyzes the possibilities of establishing various urban space systems Chapter 1 provides the research background, objectives and methodology. Chapter 2 outlines the history and development of the Megastructure from the Chicago School, the Alger‘s Plan of Le Corbusier (1930‘s) to the systematic discussion of Megastructure by Fumihiko Maki (1960‘s) originated. Chapter 3 defines the Megastructure, its types, Integral-Form and Group Form. Chapter 4 discusses related cases influenced by the Group Form and Megastructures from two possible configurations. By the abstract and transforming of traditional horizontal cities, Chapters 5 and 6 address building the urban space model of the Group-Form Megastructure and lists the design guidelines. Finally, Chapter 7 summarizes the findings that the challenge for current architecture is the adaptive changes of the community‘s organizational system that is being applied to an aggressive urbanization society

Walking, Transit Use, and Urban Morphology in Walkable Urban Neighborhoods: An Examination of Behaviors and Attitudes in Seattle

Creating walkable and transit oriented cities is an important planning objective. Cities are actively promoting walkability and are investing billions of dollars in public transit in an effort to reduce automobile dependence. This dissertation investigates the relationship between transit use and walking in walkable urban neighborhoods – neighborhoods that are dense; have mixed land uses; connected street networks; numerous destinations; and high transit accessibility. This research examines the different purposes that walking and transit serve in different parts of the city. I focus on walkable urban neighborhoods to push walkability research beyond its current emphasis on identifying the characteristics of walkable environments compared to less walkable neighborhoods. I instead examine how walkability varies in highly walkable places that are outwardly more similar than not. I use a nested case study research design with mixed methods. Seattle and its urban core neighborhoods serve as my cases. Neighborhood mapping, pedestrian observations, a travel behavior survey, and interviews provide both quantitative and qualitative data to answer my research questions. The project emphasizes the role that different types of infrastructure play in facilitating walking and transit use: pedestrian-oriented infrastructure, transit infrastructure, and automobile infrastructure. The emphasis on infrastructure helps to bridge the gap between urban planning and urban design research and more accurately reflects the way that urban residents experience and talk about the urban environment. The urban core of Seattle is a predominantly pedestrian environment, and there is significant variation in the levels of walking between the seven neighborhoods studied. Neighborhoods with more pedestrian infrastructure and less automobile infrastructure have higher levels of walking. Similar patterns are evident at the block scale, where pedestrian infrastructure positively influences walking and more automobile infrastructure correlates to less walking. The availability of transit positively correlates with higher walking activity. Higher quality transit, such as light rail (rather than bus), encourages people to walk greater distances to use transit. Additionally, even though there is frequent and abundant transit in the urban core, a majority of people walk to destinations within the urban core because walking is often the most efficient mode of transportation available. Next to walking, driving is the second most common mode of transportation among residents in the urban core. These findings contradict mainstream planning conceptions of transportation and urban form. We would expect transit to be a heavily utilized mode of transportation in the urban core, but walking and driving are the most common. Outside the urban core, driving is most common, despite frequent transit service throughout Seattle. This is because the transit that exists primarily serves commuting to Downtown. The findings of this dissertation suggest that planners need a new approach to transportation planning that prioritizes walking and transit at different geographic scales throughout the city based on where they are the most efficient. The urban core neighborhoods need to prioritize walking. Instead, the city over-emphasizes transit and continues to accommodate the automobile in the urban core. Planners over-emphasize transit in both the urban core and in suburban and rural areas and not in the places where transit is most effective – in the area up to 12.5 miles away from the urban center. Planners can create sustainable and livable cities by rebuilding a vibrant pedestrian realm and by connecting neighborhoods with efficient and reliable transit, which meets the needs of all people.PHDUrban and Regional PlanningUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/144077/1/dmcaslan_1.pd

Architecture that affords play

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1981.Includes bibliographical references (p. 190-194).Play is a form of behavior common to all people. A person's propensity to play depends not only on his physiological and emotional state, but also on his surroundings. This thesis investigates environmental qualities condusive to play, and poses some ideas about how designers can provide opportunities for both active and fantasy play in places that we use on a regular basis. The thesis addresses the issue of 'what is play?' by establishing a working definition of play in terms of an individual player and his surroundings. This definition then serves as the basis for evaluating how a number of quite different environments afford play for their users. These observations provide the framework for developing some design parameters which an architect might use in designing places that afford play. The parameters are then applied to a short design exploration of how the main corridor at MIT might be redesigned to better afford play.by Paul Eric Fallon.M.Arch

Development of a Dynamical Egress Behavioural Model under Building Fire Emergency

Building fire accidents, as a continuing menace to the society, not only incur enormous property damage but also pose significant threats to human lives. More recently, driven by the rapid population growth, an increasing number of large-capacity buildings are being built to meet the growing residence demands in many major cities globally, such as Sydney, Hong Kong, London, etc. These modern buildings usually have complex architectural layouts, high-density occupancy settings, which are often filled with a variety of flammable materials and items (i.e., electrical devices, flammable cladding panels etc.). For such reasons, in case of fire accidents, occupants of these buildings are likely to suffer from an extended evacuation time. Moreover, in some extreme cases, occupants may have to escape through a smoke-filled environment. Thus, having well-planned evacuation strategies and fire safety systems in place is critical for upholding life safety. Over the last few decades, due to the rapid development in computing power and modelling techniques, various numerical simulation models have been developed and applied to investigate the building evacuation dynamics under fire emergencies. Most of these numerical models can provide a series of estimations regarding building evacuation performance, such as predicting building evacuation time, visualising evacuation dynamics, identifying high-density areas within the building etc. Nevertheless, the behavioural variations of evacuees are usually overlooked in a significant proportion of such simulations. Noticeably, evacuees frequently adjust their egress behaviours based on their internal psychological state (i.e., the variation of stress) and external stimulus from their surrounding environments (i.e., dynamical fire effluents, such as high-temperature smoke). Evidence suggests that evacuees are likely to shift from a low-stress state to a high-stress state and increase their moving speed when escaping from a high-temperature and smoke-filled environment. Besides, competitive behaviours can even be triggered under certain extremely stressful conditions, which can cause clogging at exits or even stampede accidents. Without considering such behavioural aspects of evacuees, the predicted evacuation performance might be misinterpreted based on unreliable results; thereby, misleading building fire safety designs and emergency precautions. Therefore, to achieve a more realistic simulation of building fire evacuation processes, this research aims to advance in modelling of human dynamical behaviour responses of each evacuee and integrating it into building fire evacuation analysis. A dynamical egress behaviour-based evacuation model that considering the evacuee’s competitive/cooperative egress movements and their psychological stress variation is developed. Furthermore, a fire hazard-integrated evacuation simulation framework is established by coupling with the fire dynamics simulator (i.e., FDS). By means of tracking dynamical interactions between evacuees and the evolutionary fire dynamics within the building space, evacuees’ local fire risks and stress levels under the impacts of locally encountered fire hazards (i.e., radiation, temperature, toxic gas, and visibility) can be effectively quantified. In this study, the developed simulation tool can provide a further in-depth building fire safety assessment. Thus, it contributes to performance-based fire safety engineering in designs and real applications, including reducing budgets and risks of participating in evacuation drills, supporting emergency evacuation strategy planning, mitigating fire risks by identifying risk-prone areas associated with building fire circumstances (e.g., putting preventative measures in place beforehand to intervene or mitigate safety risks, such as mass panic, stampede, stress evoked behaviours)

Urban Design Guidelines as Design Control Instrument with a case study of the Silver Triangle Superblock, Jakarta

Urban Design Guidelines have been used in Jakarta for controlling the form of the built environment. This planning instrument has been implemented in several central city redevelopment projects particularly in superblock areas. The instrument has gained popularity and implemented in new development and conservation areas as well. Despite its popularity, there is no formal literature on the Indonesian Urban Design Guideline that systematically explain its contents, structure and the formulation process. This dissertation attempts to explain the substantive of urban design guideline and the way to control its implementation. Various streams of urban design theories are presented and evaluated in term of their suitability for attaining a high urbanistic quality in major Indonesian cities. The explanation on the form and the practical application of this planning instrument is elaborated in a comparative investigation of similar instrument in other countries; namely the USA, Britain and Germany. A case study of a superblock development in Jakarta demonstrates the application of the urban design theories and guideline. Currently, the role of computer in the process of formulating the urban design guideline in Indonesia is merely as a replacement of the manual method, particularly in areas of worksheet calculation and design presentation. Further support of computer for urban planning and design tasks has been researched in developed countries, which shows its potential in supporting decision-making process, enabling public participation, team collaboration, documentation and publication of urban design decisions and so on. It is hoped that the computer usage in Indonesian urban design process can catch up with the global trend of multimedia, networking (Internet/Intranet) and interactive functions that is presented with examples from developed countries.Urban Design Guidelines as Design Control Instrument with a case study of the Silver Triangle Superblock, Jakart

Enhancing the pedestrian experience in Singapore : a closer look at MRT transfers and CBD walkability

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Urban Studies and Planning, 2008.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-99).In the small but highly developed city-state of Singapore, transportation interventions are primarily geared towards getting people to work efficiently, and finer aspects with regards to walkability had not received enough attention. In the area of work-related walking, two aspects have been identified for possible enhancement. First, with Singapore aggressively expanding her Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system, more MRT transfers will result in future. The stress of transfers has been widely researched to influence modal shifts and psychological behavior, which in turn affects work performance and family relations -- walking negativity in transfers is arguably as critical, if not more so than waiting. This thesis proposes using design enhancements to improve the walking experience when transferring between MRT lines that can be typically extended distances to walk. These include the use of landscaping, advertisements and colors to ameliorate the transfers that commuters have to do ad nauseum every day. Another issue of walking in work-related trips is the inadequacy of walkability in downtown CBD where there is a high concentration of office workers who demand short walking trips. An enhanced pedestrianization scheme with shelter and cooling is proposed to address the walkability needs with respect to Singapore's hot, humid and rainy tropical weather. Other issues of walkability that are important and slated for further study include the lack of pedestrian priority in residential estates and the dichotomy between planning for both leisure walking and walking as a means of traveling.by Yew Chin Leow.S.M

Aerial Ropeway Transit as a Catalyst for Sustainable Urban Growth in Honolulu

Oahu’s transportation infrastructure is one of the most vital components of its built environment, providing passage for social, cultural, and economic exchange. However, current patterns of urbanization have led to an auto-centric landscape, limiting the development of people-centered communities. And, as both population and road congestion have continued to swell, the existing transportation network has struggled to provide fluid and direct access to critical urban nodes, further leading Oʻahu towards unsustainable growth. Current mitigation strategies propose to strengthen Oahu’s transit network by transitioning people from their automobiles to a more transit-oriented lifestyle by way of a new rail transit system and transit oriented development policy. While the rail project does have the potential to positively redirect Oahu’s urban development, its existing route terminates at Ala Moana Shopping Center, leaving several critical urban locations disconnected from the project’s sustainable development strategies. It has been projected that the future Ala Moana Rail Station will have 22,610 people exiting and entering the station daily–a majority of whom are expected to travel eastward of Ala Moana. In addressing the disconnection, this research proposes to integrate aerial ropeway transit as a new mode of public transportation, supporting more livable, connected communities beyond the rail terminus. These advantages include lower operating costs, smaller construction footprints, greater route flexibility, and a more engaging rider experience. A literature review, based on O’ahu’s sustainable development and transportation strategies, is used to gain thorough understanding of the relationships between transportation and development, in addition to constructing a framework that proposes appropriate route alignments connecting Waikiki, UH Manoa, and Kaimuki to the Ala Moana Rail Terminal. Furthermore, a site analysis and various case studies are used to further support the system’s potential to catalyze sustainable growth by increasing mobility and access between urban destinations. Universally, ART is still a relatively new method for providing Oahu’s transportation infrastructure is one of the most vital components of its built environment, providing passage for social, cultural, and economic exchange. However, current patterns of urbanization have led to an auto-centric landscape, limiting the development of people-centered communities. And, as both population and road congestion have continued to swell, the existing transportation network has struggled to provide fluid and direct access to critical urban nodes, further leading Oʻahu towards unsustainable growth

Interactive Motion Planning for Multi-agent Systems with Physics-based and Behavior Constraints

Man-made entities and humans rely on movement as an essential form of interaction with the world. Whether it is an autonomous vehicle navigating crowded roadways or a simulated pedestrian traversing a virtual world, each entity must compute safe, effective paths to achieve their goals. In addition, these entities, termed agents, are subject to unique physical and behavioral limitations within their environment. For example, vehicles have a finite physical turning radius and must obey behavioral constraints such as traffic signals and rules of the road. Effective motion planning algorithms for diverse agents must account for these physics-based and behavior constraints. In this dissertation, we present novel motion planning algorithms that account for constraints which physically limit the agent and impose behavioral limitations on the virtual agents. We describe representational approaches to capture specific physical constraints on the various agents and propose abstractions to model behavior constraints affecting them. We then describe algorithms to plan motions for agents who are subject to the modeled constraints. First, we describe a biomechanically accurate elliptical representation for virtual pedestrians; we also describe human-like movement constraints corresponding to shoulder-turning and side-stepping in dense environments. We detail a novel motion planning algorithm extending velocity obstacles to generate collisionfree paths for hundreds of elliptical agents at interactive rates. Next, we describe an algorithm to encode dynamics and traffic-like behavior constraints for autonomous vehicles in urban and highway environments. We describe a motion planning algorithm to generate safe, high-speed avoidance maneuvers using a novel optimization function and modified control obstacle formulation, and we also present a simulation framework to evaluate driving strategies. Next, we present an approach to incorporate high-level reasoning to model the motions and behaviors of virtual agents in terms of verbal interactions with other agents or avatars. Our approach leverages natural-language interaction to reduce uncertainty and generate effective plans. Finally, we describe an application of our techniques to simulate pedestrian behaviors for gathering simulated data about loading, unloading, and evacuating an aircraft.Doctor of Philosoph