Are pedestrian path choices during exploration contingent on measures of shape complexity and visual content of the environment?

This thesis investigates pedestrians' path choices when confronted with a decision point in a novel environment. The two main research foci were how different testing setups of virtual environment (VE) affect pedestrian path choice behaviour, and how the visual characteristics of Shape Complexity (SC) and Visual Content (VC) affect pedestrian path choice behaviour. Two VE testing setups were tested: the type of VE environment and the sampling method. Both were found to have a medium effect on pedestrian path choices. Photorealistic Print VE and Quick Time Virtual Reality (QTVR) VE had an effect on the choices participants made. Testing in a group setting was also found to produce different results than in individual testing. SC and VC have a significant role on pedestrian path selection. Overall, we compared behaviours in a VC-rich environment to those in a VC-poor environment, which made evident that VC is an important in formulating our path choice behaviour. Bi-variate correlation and multiple regression analysis showed that a number of SC and VC factors affect path choice behaviour. The significant SC factors were occluded edges, legibility, and links; while significant VC factors were colour, cobblestones and signage, people. Increasing our sensitivity to these factors in the guidelines governing the development and the design of urban pedestrian spaces will increase the success of future pedestrian-oriented spaces

The long-term effect of increasing the albedo of urban areas

Solar reflective urban surfaces (white rooftops and light-colored pavements) can increase the albedo of an urban area by about 0.1. Increasing the albedo of urban and human settlement areas can in turn decrease atmospheric temperature and could potentially offset some of the anticipated temperature increase caused by global warming. We have simulated the long-term (decadal to centennial) effect of increasing urban surface albedos using a spatially explicit global climate model of intermediate complexity. We first carried out two sets of simulations in which we increased the albedo of all land areas between ±20° and ±45° latitude respectively. The results of these simulations indicate a long-term global cooling effect of 3 × 10−15 K for each 1 m2 of a surface with an albedo increase of 0.01. This temperature reduction corresponds to an equivalent CO2 emission reduction of about 7 kg, based on recent estimates of the amount of global warming per unit CO2 emission. In a series of additional simulations, we increased the albedo of urban locations only, on the basis of two independent estimates of the spatial extent of urban areas. In these simulations, global cooling ranged from 0.01 to 0.07 K, which corresponds to a CO2 equivalent emission reduction of 25–150 billion tonnes of CO2

National contributions to observed global warming

There is considerable interest in identifying national contributions to global warming as a way of allocating historical responsibility for observed climate change. This task is made difficult by uncertainty associated with national estimates of historical emissions, as well as by difficulty in estimating the climate response to emissions of gases with widely varying atmospheric lifetimes. Here, we present a new estimate of national contributions to observed climate warming, including CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and land-use change, as well as methane, nitrous oxide and sulfate aerosol emissions While some countries' warming contributions are reasonably well defined by fossil fuel CO2 emissions, many countries have dominant contributions from land-use CO2 and non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions, emphasizing the importance of both deforestation and agriculture as components of a country's contribution to climate warming. Furthermore, because of their short atmospheric lifetime, recent sulfate aerosol emissions have a large impact on a country's current climate contribution We show also that there are vast disparities in both total and per-capita climate contributions among countries, and that across most developed countries, per-capita contributions are not currently consistent with attempts to restrict global temperature change to less than 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures

Placemaking from Interstitial Spaces: Participatory planning and collaborative community design as strategies to revitalize a service alleyway in Montreal (Bishop/Mackay)

This project explores participatory planning and community design methodologies (i.e. pattern language design, placemaking, community planning charrettes, planning-in-situ, open planning and peer to peer urbanism) to revitalize a service alleyway in downtown Montreal. The objective of this project is to democratize planning and urban design practices and to engage ordinary citizens in the planning of their own spaces. After a series of visioning workshops, brainstorming sessions and a community planning charrette, this project incorporates inputs from stakeholders, students and ordinary citizens into a collaborative urban design project. The project proposes interventions such as a woonerf, a planning committee, a cubic/fractal scaffolding structure, art murals and wall projections (among others). With the objective of encouraging future adaptations and transformations, this project is published under a Creative Commons license. Adopt and adapt these ideas (but cite and acknowledge accordingly)

National contributions to observed global warming

There is considerable interest in identifying national contributions to global warming as a way of allocating historical responsibility for observed climate change. This task is made difficult by uncertainty associated with national estimates of historical emissions, as well as by difficulty in estimating the climate response to emissions of gases with widely varying atmospheric lifetimes. Here, we present a new estimate of national contributions to observed climate warming, including CO2 emissions from fossil fuels and land-use change, as well as methane, nitrous oxide and sulfate aerosol emissions While some countries' warming contributions are reasonably well defined by fossil fuel CO2 emissions, many countries have dominant contributions from land-use CO2 and non-CO2 greenhouse gas emissions, emphasizing the importance of both deforestation and agriculture as components of a country's contribution to climate warming. Furthermore, because of their short atmospheric lifetime, recent sulfate aerosol emissions have a large impact on a country's current climate contribution We show also that there are vast disparities in both total and per-capita climate contributions among countries, and that across most developed countries, per-capita contributions are not currently consistent with attempts to restrict global temperature change to less than 2 °C above pre-industrial temperatures