Designing for adaptability in architecture

The research is framed on the premise that designing buildings that can adapt by accommodating change easier and more cost-effectively provides an effective means to a desired end a more sustainable built environment. In this context, adaptability can be viewed as a means to decrease the amount of new construction (reduce), (re)activate underused or vacant building stock (reuse) and enhance disassembly/ deconstruction of components (reuse, recycle) - prolonging the useful life of buildings (reduce, reuse, recycle). The aim of the research is to gain a holistic overview of the concept of adaptability in the construction industry and provide an improved framework to design for, deploy and implement adaptability. An over-arching research question was posited to guide the inquiry: how can architects understand, communicate, design for and test the concept of adaptability in the context of the design process? The research followed Dubois and Gadde s (2002) systematic combining as an over-arching approach that continuously moves between the empirical world and theoretical models allowing the co-evolution of data collection and theory from the beginning as part of a non-linear process with the objective of matching theory with reality. An initial framework was abducted from a preliminary collection of data from which a set of mixed research methods was deployed to explore adaptability (interviews, building case studies, dependency structural matrices, practitioner surveys and workshop). Emergent from the data is an expanded and revised theory on designing for adaptability consisting of concepts, models and propositions. The models illustrate many of the casual links between the physical design structure of the building (e.g. plan depth, storey height) and the soft contingencies of a messy design/construction/occupation process (e.g. procurement route, funding methods, stakeholder mindsets). In an effort to enhance building adaptability, the abducted propositions suggest a shift in the way the industry values buildings and conducts aspects of the design process and how designer s approach designing for adaptability

Popular Geopolitics, Empathy, and Cultural-Media Geographies in \u3ci\u3eDoctor Who\u3c/i\u3e Fandom

The popular British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) show Doctor Who has been airing since 1963, boasting more longevity than any other televised science fiction program. The main character of Doctor Who is simply known as the Doctor, a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey who uses a TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension/s in Space) to travel anywhere in space and time, frequently with a human, female companion. Within the show, time is nonlinear and instead of dying, the Doctor regenerates into a new physical form, remaining a Time Lord but appearing phenotypically different from their previous form. For thousands of fans (known as Whovians within the fandom), the show has provided comedic entertainment, emotional support, and intellectual curiosity. Its plotlines are steeped within science fiction/space opera themes of time travel, alien invasion, good vs. bad, justice, love, and robotic innovation. Within these nodes of science fiction exist rich commentary on social themes including, but not limited to, racism, classism, colonialism, animal exploitation, teenage pregnancy, politics and hierarchy, mental illness, and anthropomorphic effects of natural disaster. From a cultural geography standpoint, the show possesses a multitude of points of analysis. This dissertation builds upon a growing scholarship within science fiction geographies, an intellectual branch of geography rooted in cultural and political landscapes, engaging with topics such as alternative histories, technological innovation on the landscape, and invader politics. Thus far, however, little published geographic research has explored the fan geographies of science fiction, which is expressed as the ability of science fiction fans to see the world through a lens of their fandom, dynamically altering their personal geographies. Regardless of the writers’ original intentions, many episodes follow a story arc that may influence viewers’ opinions towards certain social, cultural, and political landscapes, creating a fan geography where Whovians perceive their daily landscapes through a lens of their fandom. Can fan geographies of Doctor Who allow viewers to reimagine their daily geographies through the show’s influence? This dissertation engages with this question to understand how (if at all) Doctor Who fans experience their daily geographies through a lens of the show

The Translocal Event and the Polyrhythmic Diagram

This thesis identifies and analyses the key creative protocols in translocal performance practice, and ends with suggestions for new forms of transversal live and mediated performance practice, informed by theory. It argues that ontologies of emergence in dynamic systems nourish contemporary practice in the digital arts. Feedback in self-organised, recursive systems and organisms elicit change, and change transforms. The arguments trace concepts from chaos and complexity theory to virtual multiplicity, relationality, intuition and individuation (in the work of Bergson, Deleuze, Guattari, Simondon, Massumi, and other process theorists). It then examines the intersection of methodologies in philosophy, science and art and the radical contingencies implicit in the technicity of real-time, collaborative composition. Simultaneous forces or tendencies such as perception/memory, content/ expression and instinct/intellect produce composites (experience, meaning, and intuition- respectively) that affect the sensation of interplay. The translocal event is itself a diagram - an interstice between the forces of the local and the global, between the tendencies of the individual and the collective. The translocal is a point of reference for exploring the distribution of affect, parameters of control and emergent aesthetics. Translocal interplay, enabled by digital technologies and network protocols, is ontogenetic and autopoietic; diagrammatic and synaesthetic; intuitive and transductive. KeyWorx is a software application developed for realtime, distributed, multimodal media processing. As a technological tool created by artists, KeyWorx supports this intuitive type of creative experience: a real-time, translocal “jamming” that transduces the lived experience of a “biogram,” a synaesthetic hinge-dimension. The emerging aesthetics are processual – intuitive, diagrammatic and transversal

"Caterpillars and Butterfly" The Process of Self-Realization and Unity in Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp A Butterfly

Etter sitt kommersielle gjennombrudd med good kid, m.A.A.d. city i 2012, ble Kendrick Lamar regnet som den store frelseren av hip hop. Det var med andre ord store forventninger da han utga oppfølgeren To Pimp a Butterfly i 2015. Lamar levde opp til forventningene med et album som ble hyllet av både fans, kollegaer og kritikere. Resepsjonen var positiv både i lys av hans musikalske evner, men like mye for å lage musikk som gir introspektive skildringer av hvordan det er å være afro-amerikaner i nåtidens USA. Han har blitt studert i mange forskjellige fakultet i Akademia og konseptalbumet er komplekst nok til å engasjere mange forskjellige fagfelt. Til tross for at det er et konseptalbum, er det få som ser på albumet i sin helhet. Denne oppgaven tar denne retningen, og ser på hvordan To Pimp a Butterfly viser en mann i en selv-realiserende prosess. Etter å ha introdusert min problemstilling, albumet og dets resepsjon, ser jeg i andre kapittel på hvordan denne prosessen blir presentert i to dikt som Lamar leser høyt i slutten av albumet. Jeg viser hvordan det ene diktet, som jeg har kalt «spoken-word poem», strukturerer albumet ved å gradvis tilføye nye linjer som skildrer Lamar sin personlige utvikling. Det andre diktet, «Poem of the Caterpillar and the Butterfly”, skildrer det han har lært om samfunnet han vokste opp i. Dette diktet beskriver allegorisk den selv-realiserende prosessen. Videre utforsker jeg sjangrene ‘konseptalbum’ og ‘sang syklus’ og hvordan albumet svarer på disse. Jeg sammenligner også Lamar sin fortelling med den tradisjonelle sjangeren for personlig utvikling, bildungsromanen. Videre viser jeg hvordan de to diktene konkluderer med temaet ‘samhold’. Sangen «Alright» er kjent for sine forenende egenskaper. Derfor velger jeg å analysere musikkvideoen til denne sangen gjennom multimodal teori i kapittel tre. Her viser jeg hvordan musikkvideoen gjenskaper metaforene fra diktene gjennom det visuelle. Ved å se på samspillet mellom lyd, tekst og bilde utforsker jeg hvordan videoen skaper ny mening og dybde. Samspillet gjør at videoen både oppsummerer og bygger videre på Lamar sin store suksess, To Pimp a Butterfly.Engelsk mastergradsoppgaveMAHF-LÆFRMAHF-ENGENG35

Vulnerability of Adolescents to HIV/AIDS in Malawi

This thesis aims at examining vulnerability to HIV/AIDS among adolescents in Malawi. The study uses mixed methods that combine quantitative and qualitative techniques in order to better understand whether there are significant variations in the pattern of sexual behaviour between adolescent orphans and non-orphans. Results of a quantitative analysis (n=1214) revealed that orphans are less likely to undertake voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) for HIV/AIDS, that they tend to experience their first sexual intercourse earlier in life, and that they are generally more likely to engage in high risk sexual behavior than non-orphans. In addition, female orphans in particularly are less likely to abstain from sex or to use a condom. The qualitative analysis (n=82) revealed that female orphans’ high risk sexual behaviour is closely linked to a well-established inter-household casual labour relation locally known as ganyu. While providing an escape from extreme poverty, ganyu is increasingly associated with a practice of sexual exchange between those who offer it and those who perform it. This study makes important contributions to theory, methodology and policy. Theoretically, the study shows that orphans’ heightened vulnerability to HIV/AIDS in Malawi is in part rooted in their socioeconomic disadvantage and the lack of social support, but in ways that markedly differ between male and female orphans. Building on survey findings in order to examine the role played by the social and spatial environment in shaping vulnerability to HIV/AIDS also demonstrates the value of combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The presence of a large and highly vulnerable orphan population in a country already overburdened with one of the worst HIV/AIDS prevalence rates in the world raises searching questions regarding new fault lines of the epidemic, and unravels complex policy challenges

Design for human connectivity - an exploration through contemporary work Situations

This thesis presents a body of work that begins the formalisation and growth of Design for Human Connectivity (DfHC) as a distinct field of design research and practice. The research is contextualised within contemporary work situations – characterised by unfamiliarity of people and context – where the importance of a person’s connections to others is matched by the challenges faced in establishing those connections. A central proposition of this work is that a shift in research is required, away from the current predominant focus on HC outcomes (i.e., the value people derive from their connections in the form of opportunities and benefits), to better supporting people in successfully navigating the HC process. Design research and practice can play a critical role in bringing about this shift. Doing so, however, requires creating a consistent structure for DfHC to aid the scoping of HC challenges and the evaluation of HC outputs, and to support more creative and collaborative HC research, design, and practice. It requires supporting designers and practitioners with the requisite tools to guide both generative and evaluative DfHC activities. Addressing these needs is achieved by first developing a new HC process framework – the Connector’s Journey – comprising five distinct phases that specify a person’s objectives and requirements throughout the process. The introduction and interrogation of the generally overlooked first phase – Finding – grounds the journey, introduces unique tactics that may be adopted for achieving this phase, and highlights the critical links between phases. Thereafter a series of studies help deepen our understanding of the individual, social, and contextual factors that can influence the HC process. Together, this work grounds and aids the development and application of a new tool – a set of 19 design prompts – that support DfHC. Successful application and evaluation of the tool in three real-world cases confirms its usefulness and usability and provides confidence regarding its generalisability. The foundation is laid for an exciting programme of DfHC research and practice to follow.Open Acces

Food Safety, Security, Sustainability and Nutrition as Priority Objectives of the Food Sector

The future food systems will have to provide food and nutrition security while facing unprecedented sustainability challenges: this underlines the need for a transition to more sustainable food systems. Taking into account these premises and considering the complexity of food systems, this book aims to present original research articles, reviews, and commentaries concerning the following:Advancements in food and beverage;Dietary supplements, nutraceuticals, and functional food;Food allergy and public health;Food and nutritional toxicology;Food biotechnology and food processing;Food microbiology and food safety;Food packaging;Food safety and food inspection;Food security and environmental impacts;Food waste management;Nutrition and metabolism;Sustainable food systems and agro-ecological food production