Occupying Maori Architectural Time: Reconstructing the architectural process through Maori interpretations of space

<p>This thesis investigates the occupation of an alternative Maori Architecture within Maori space/time constructions. The design research questions how to articulate a Maori architectural process in resisting lost identity within the colonised New Zealand landscape. The architectural programme addresses disconnections of Maori relationships to traditional landscape functions. A commercial paua farm, posed as a 'Maori gang business front', is designed as a testing ground for the Maori narrative framework. The programme adopts existing aquaculture methods within Maori space/time concepts to question possibilities of continual, cyclic architecture. The design research questions how Maori architectural typologies are governed by natural cyclic functions of continual change. The thesis is politicised through the narration of 'The Warrior', used as a framework for resisting colonised methodologies, consistently applied across writing, process and design.</p>

Occupying Maori Architectural Time: Reconstructing the architectural process through Maori interpretations of space

<p>This thesis investigates the occupation of an alternative Maori Architecture within Maori space/time constructions. The design research questions how to articulate a Maori architectural process in resisting lost identity within the colonised New Zealand landscape. The architectural programme addresses disconnections of Maori relationships to traditional landscape functions. A commercial paua farm, posed as a 'Maori gang business front', is designed as a testing ground for the Maori narrative framework. The programme adopts existing aquaculture methods within Maori space/time concepts to question possibilities of continual, cyclic architecture. The design research questions how Maori architectural typologies are governed by natural cyclic functions of continual change. The thesis is politicised through the narration of 'The Warrior', used as a framework for resisting colonised methodologies, consistently applied across writing, process and design.</p>

Exploring Spatial Variations in the Relationships between Landscape Functions and Human Activities in Suburban Rural Communities: A Case Study in Jiangning District, China

There is a complicated and contradictory relationship between landscape functions and human activities, especially in the suburban rural communities of metropolises. Previous studies focused on human interference to landscape function, ignoring the impact of landscape functions on human activities. Hence, the present study is focused on the impact of landscape function (based on ecosystem services) on human activities in suburban rural communities of China. The study evaluated the intensity of human activities based on big data; furthermore, the authors analyzed the spatial distribution characteristics through spatial autocorrelation, and probed into the spatial variations in the relationship between human activities and landscape functions using ordinary least squares (OLS) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) models. The result indicates that there are obvious spatial distribution differences in the intensity of human activities in suburban rural communities; that is, the intensity decreases from the inner to the outer suburban areas. Positive influencing factors of human activities are construction area, bus station, road network density, and leisure entertainment, among which, construction area is the principal driver; cultural heritage, hydrological regulation, and provision of aesthetics are negatively or positively correlated with human activities in various regions. The results offer insights for the sustainable development of rural environment in suburban areas and the big data-driven rural research.

Step-type stereo ecological seaborn construct and plant screening

For the problem of traditional ecological seawall structure, ecological landscape monotonous problems, the stepped stereo ecological seawall integrating defense, ecological and landscape functions is proposed. In order to screen low-conditioned, salt, and suitable plants planted in coastal areas, 6 plants were studied in the form of sewage (Sonneratia, Arundo, Canna, Bischofia, Myriophyllum, Dianella) in different salt concentrations of salt sewage Change Law of Biochemical Indicators. The test results show that the chlorophyll content of Hazang, Mountains and Rusais increased significantly, and the content of malondialdehyde has a significant reduction in trend, indicating that they can thrive in salty sewage, have a high degree of stress resistance, and can be used as the preferred plants for ecological coast.

Ireland and the Balkans Conflict in Edna O’Brien’s The Little Red Chairs

History has always been a major critical exploration point in Edna O’Brien’s works. Notable for its realistic Irish specificity, her fiction interrogates problems of history, memory, and society with an audacious awareness. In her 2015 novel, The Little Red Chairs, O’Brien goes beyond the familiar Irish cultural context and creates a propitious alternative life-story for Radovan Karadžić, a Serbian war criminal from the Balkans conflict of the 1990s. Attending closely to the novel’s factual-fictional narrative strategies and its visceral language, this essay explores how O’Brien combines stereotypical elements from the Irish contemporary reality with Eastern European sagas as well as history to then create a compelling humanitarian plotline. The novel has a particular rendering of natural elements that act as a mnemonic witness device. The essay also looks at how the landscape functions as a reflective tool, often acting as a separate “character” of the narrative.