Assimilation of the Lost Site: Establishing Architectural Identity on Sites Defined by Conflicting Grids and Conflicting Programmatic Typologies

<p>The contemporary urban dilemma of the ‘lost site’ has arisen due to the ever-increasing density of our urban environments, where boundaries of contrasting urban contextual grid conditions overlap, forming pocket sites that ultimately must respond to multiple grids yet belong to none. These lost sites are the sites trapped by opposing contextual constraints, needing to respond to multiple and often conflicting conditions and as such ameliorating the architect’s ability to provide them with a single unique sense of holistic identity. This research investigates approaches for the design of these lost sites, particularly when they must not only respond to multiple grid conditions, but are also required to engage multiple diverse programs and reflect conflicting programmatic typologies. The vehicle for this design research investigation will be the actual site and program for the proposed new New Zealand School of Music on Jack Ilott Green in the northeast corner of Wellington’s Civic Square. As an example of a ‘lost site’, this site must establish a public identity that responds to its principal frontage Jervois Quay and the Harbour, while simultaneously resolving and responding to a civic identity required by Civic Square and a more local identity required by Harris Street. The program must establish an academic identity as a music school, while simultaneously establishing civic identity as a public concert hall on Civic Square in conjunction with Capital E, Michael Fowler Centre, Town Hall, City Council, Public Library, and City Gallery. The thesis argues that architecture on ‘lost sites’ can be conceived as a metaphorical ‘joint’ as a means of responding to opposing site and program conditions. The thesis argues that architecture's potential to be manifested as a joint can be strategically used as a viable means of addressing lost sites. This approach further suggests that a building on a lost site can be conceived as having multiple ‘front’ façades – each expressing identity in response to a different set of contextual and programmatic conditions. The thesis tests how this approach might enable architecture to establish a holistic identity upon an urban ‘lost site’, even with each of its façades needing to engage a different identity.Recent demographic shifts which involve more families living in New Zealand’s urban centres have led to an ever-increasing density of our urban environments. The denser the urban environment becomes, the greater the number of ‘lost sites’ begin to emerge. Most buildings address this dilemma by either considering only one dominant set of conditions, or by being conceived as an ‘object in a field’ which actively denies the contextual conditions. These complex sites are an urban and architectural issue in need of active critical resolution. This thesis explores how such diverse opposing requirements can be resolved holistically while establishing unique identities for each set of unique site conditions.</p>

Assimilation of the Lost Site: Establishing Architectural Identity on Sites Defined by Conflicting Grids and Conflicting Programmatic Typologies

<p>The contemporary urban dilemma of the ‘lost site’ has arisen due to the ever-increasing density of our urban environments, where boundaries of contrasting urban contextual grid conditions overlap, forming pocket sites that ultimately must respond to multiple grids yet belong to none. These lost sites are the sites trapped by opposing contextual constraints, needing to respond to multiple and often conflicting conditions and as such ameliorating the architect’s ability to provide them with a single unique sense of holistic identity. This research investigates approaches for the design of these lost sites, particularly when they must not only respond to multiple grid conditions, but are also required to engage multiple diverse programs and reflect conflicting programmatic typologies. The vehicle for this design research investigation will be the actual site and program for the proposed new New Zealand School of Music on Jack Ilott Green in the northeast corner of Wellington’s Civic Square. As an example of a ‘lost site’, this site must establish a public identity that responds to its principal frontage Jervois Quay and the Harbour, while simultaneously resolving and responding to a civic identity required by Civic Square and a more local identity required by Harris Street. The program must establish an academic identity as a music school, while simultaneously establishing civic identity as a public concert hall on Civic Square in conjunction with Capital E, Michael Fowler Centre, Town Hall, City Council, Public Library, and City Gallery. The thesis argues that architecture on ‘lost sites’ can be conceived as a metaphorical ‘joint’ as a means of responding to opposing site and program conditions. The thesis argues that architecture's potential to be manifested as a joint can be strategically used as a viable means of addressing lost sites. This approach further suggests that a building on a lost site can be conceived as having multiple ‘front’ façades – each expressing identity in response to a different set of contextual and programmatic conditions. The thesis tests how this approach might enable architecture to establish a holistic identity upon an urban ‘lost site’, even with each of its façades needing to engage a different identity.Recent demographic shifts which involve more families living in New Zealand’s urban centres have led to an ever-increasing density of our urban environments. The denser the urban environment becomes, the greater the number of ‘lost sites’ begin to emerge. Most buildings address this dilemma by either considering only one dominant set of conditions, or by being conceived as an ‘object in a field’ which actively denies the contextual conditions. These complex sites are an urban and architectural issue in need of active critical resolution. This thesis explores how such diverse opposing requirements can be resolved holistically while establishing unique identities for each set of unique site conditions.</p>

They’re Just Here for Ball: Proposing a Multi-Level Analysis on the Impact of Collegiate Athletics at Historically White Institutions on Black Male Collegiate Athlete Holistic Identity

As the overrepresentation of Black male collegiate athletes (BMCA) increases in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I (DI) revenue-generating sports, coaches and athletic staff continue to overemphasize sport performance, while graduation rates for BMCA remain persistently lower than their peers and research continues to document transition out of sport concerns for this population. Proposing a multi-level approach, we explore the collegiate athletic factors that influence the holistic identity development of DI revenue generating BMCA at historically White institutions (HWIs) leading to difficulty transitioning out of sport. At the macro-level, the NCAA and its policies on eligibility are analyzed. At the meso-level, HWIs collegiate athletic departments and the impact of organizational practices are examined in regards to their impact on BMCA’s identity development, overall experiences and transition out of sport. Lastly, at the micro-level, we explore research focused on BMCAs’ experiences, expectations, and issues at HWIs. By identifying salient factors influencing BMCAs’ identity development and experiences, collegiate athletic stakeholders can use this information to create more effective programming and improve campus cultures that foster BMCAs’ holistic development on a systematized basis creating an environment where BMCAs are prepared to move into the next stage of life after sport ends.

A Nonheroic Cancer Narrative: Body Deterioration, Grief, Disenfranchised Grief, and Growth

This longitudinal nonheroic narrative study allows familiarity with personal and societal transitions in the self-identity of individuals with life-threatening cancer. The theoretical anchor is Bion’s container–contained theory. Five interviews with a terminally ill hospitalized male in his 30s were conducted along intervals of between 6 and 8 weeks, up to 2 months before his death. Data were analyzed using the selection mechanisms method. Findings provide insights about the hospitalization experience, his grief, and disenfranchised grief. A rigid mode of container–contained relationships with clinicians created disenfranchised grief. Reflection and coherence among self-identities lead to inner strength and emotional growth despite the body’s deterioration. Clinicians have a role in holistic identity transitions of individuals with cancer. Findings illuminate practical recommendations that clinicians may adopt to improve the experience of individuals suffering from cancer at the chronic and terminal phase of illness.

Deontologization of culture and identity transformation in the context of a consumer society

The article substantiates the point that deontologization of culture as a process of collapse of principal value foundations resulted in the absence of stable worldview guidelines and in the establishment of principles of relativism and pluralism. Cultivation of an unlimited choice in the absence of a value-semantic hierarchy, which is characteristic of the Western European culture organized around mass consumption, has led to the inability to create stable identification models. As a result, one of the main problems of contemporary society has become the loss of a stable, holistic identity by a person. The instability of existence, the loss of value-semantic foundations assigned a task of constant self-construction of identity to a person. The principle of consumption as the dominant feature of modern times characterizes an individual lifestyle of a person. In the process of the historical transition to a consumer society, the source of identity formation shifted from the labour sphere to the sphere of consumption, leisure, entertainment. Self-identification of a person is closely related to consumerism. To a large extent, identity began to be determined by the consumer role rather than the class affiliation. As a result, consumption has become one of the main sources of self-identity. In consumer culture, identity is deprived of a fixed centre and appears as an infinitely transformed, mobile thing shifting into the sphere of individual needs and desires; conscious feeling of oneself as a holistic identity becomes unclaimed. The ideology of consumption determines the lifestyle, preferences and character of a person. The media, which are the main identification tools in modern popular culture, offer models and patterns of behaviour that contribute to the formation of a consumer engaged in the search for the quality of his/her individual life.

MORAL STATUS AND PERSONAL IDENTITY: CLONES, EMBRYOS, AND FUTURE GENERATIONS

In the first part of this article, I argue that even those entities that in their own right and for their own sake give us reason not to destroy them and to help them are sometimes substitutable for the good of other entities. In so arguing, I consider the idea of being valuable as an end in virtue of intrinsic and extrinsic properties. I also conclude that entities that have claims to things and against others are especially nonsubstitutable. In the second part, I argue that cloning poses no threat to the nonsubstitutability of these entities (and in this sense, to the dignity of persons). I also consider the relation between cloning and (what I called) holistic identity, and between the latter and genetic identity. In the concluding part of the article, I try to distinguish cases where identity over time and so-called person-affecting acts have and do not have greater moral significance than nonidentity over time and nonperson-affecting acts. I try to apply my results to cases involving embryos, future generations, and to the so-called Non-Identity Problem.