Sabrina Keichinger
Of the thesis entitled: Activating Play-Based Escape, Awakening Creativity
Abstract:
Everyone participates in escape. The drive to escape is something we are born with. It is a force that has ties to our curiosity, as well as our profound psychological restlessness, and can even be seen in our displeasure with boredom.
This thesis introduces three forms of escape: pure diversions, games, and play. Focusing on a play-based escape, this thesis argues that this is the most important form of escape, because, through play, we promote our cognitive health and creativity.
This thesis develops three lines of investigation: first an understanding of what play is; second, through understanding the conditions, context, and disposition necessary in order to engage in a play-based escape; and third, a study of play through the review of architectural case studies.
It is through these investigations that this thesis will identify ten key strategies that accompany play. These are: nature, complexity, dynamic, loose-parts theory, scale, the primitive, along a path, mystery, risk, and unmonitored feel. In order to develop a method of design which engenders an architectural atmosphere of play-based escape these characteristics are organized into three interconnected themes: a desire to explore the world around us, a desire for a dynamic stimulating environment, and the desire to be active and move our bodies. Finally, an architectural application of the design method concludes this thesis, with hopes to activate a play-based escape capable of awakening our creative power.
The examining committee is as follows:
Supervisor:
Committee members:
Andrew Levitt
Jeff
Lederer,
University
of
Waterloo
Colin
Ellard,
University
of
Waterloo
External reader:
Christie Pearson
The committee has been approved as authorized by the Graduate Studies Committee.
The Defence Examination will take place:
11:30 am on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 (ARC 2026)
A copy of the thesis is available for perusal in ARC 2106A.
Gordon James Graff
Of the thesis entitled: Skyfarming
Abstract:
This thesis presents the argument that the concept of vertical farming can help resolve the long-standing paradox of humanity's inclination toward exponential demographic and economic growth within a planet of limited material means. The document is comprised of two parts. The first establishes the intellectual framework necessary to assess agriculture's effect on human and ecological systems, and explores the philosophies central to rationalizing high-density indoor agriculture with the objectives of human sustainability. The second part focuses exclusively on exploring the technologies and design strategies of the vertical farming concept. This aim is facilitated through the illustration of three design projects, each of which represents a distinct variant of the vertical farming concept. In order to ground this conceptual work within a real-world context the thesis includes a thorough cost-analysis of a simple, hypothetical vertical farm. The thesis concludes by addressing the vertical farm's potential to transform urban resource metabolism from its existing linear dependence on the external environment to a more self-contained, cyclical resource flow reminiscent of that exhibited by natural ecosystems.
The examining committee is as follows:
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Val Rynnimeri
John
McMinn,
University
of
Waterloo
Mike
Dixon