3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Makeshift: an experimental stage for spatial exchange(2015-04-30) Marsden, ElliotUnderpinning this architectural design and discourse is the exchange of digital and physical space. An exchange that can be multi-directional, rapidly shifting embodiments of space between modes of digital and physical models. The parameters for translation are defined by a digital culture in flux, perpetually evolving new mediums for building real and virtual space. A new direct link has been established between design and construction, where digital methods of conceptualisation, modification and fabrication are questioning the historic relationship between architecture and its production systems. Sited at the University of the Witwatersrand, this thesis explores architecture’s role as a mediator for digital and physical translation. By proposing an experimental stage for spatial exchange, the building facilitates the collaborative and interdisciplinary integration of students, academics, industry partners and public around the archiving, projecting, conceptualising and fabricating of digital model space. As a hybrid, the building reimagines the factory, studio, library and archive typologies, subsequently speculating a new contextual role for university architecture that is educational, industrial, cultural and public. As a by-product of an evolving digital culture, digitals models can be conceptualised, manipulated and embedded with intelligence. Advancing applications of virtual reality, however, free these digital models from conventional two-dimensional modes through immersive simulations that enable users to engage and interact with digital models of all scales. Furthermore, virtual projection mediums have the potential to transform how designers conceive, perceive and modify digital model space through the advent of intelligent sensor and tracking devices that allow human gestures to shape digital form. While digital models have traditionally been generated from nothing, new three-dimensional scanning technologies enable the capturing of small to large-scale physical space digitally. Finally, digital and robotic fabrication tools facilitate the shift from digital to real space by constructing physical objects with a greater complexity, speed, scale, affordability and material composition than previously possible. Comprised of a sequence of interconnected ‘fields’ – namely scanning, projection, studio and fabrication fields – the building facilitates the local and global exchange of digital and physical model space. As a platform for integrating all the constituents of spatial exchange, this design and discourse challenges traditional modes of praxis by speculating an alternative future for architecture, technology, education and greater society.Item Crossing the boundaries: Stelarc's artworks and the reclaiming of the obsolete body(2010-04-08T08:48:11Z) Van Zyl, Susanne HildegardAbstract Stelarc, the performance artist, has since the middle of the twentieth century, harnessed technology to enable an ongoing challenge to the physical body. Embracing ever evolving technology, Stelarc provokes the art world with a series of works that he claims demonstrate the body as limited and obsolete. The body positioned as limited enables Stelarc to seek the transcendence of the same body through the use of the body/technology symbiosis in the form of medical instruments, prosthetics, robotics, virtual reality systems and the Internet. Acknowledging that this body/technology symbiosis has brought with it changes in embodied and disembodied experiences, this study reclaims the “obsolete” body as the lived experiential body by exploring Stelarc’s contradictions both in his rhetoric and his performance. The established contradictions substantiate the body as corporeal and embodied and as necessary to exist in and make sense of our surrounding world.Item Layout, design and new technology: a documentation and analysis of the impact of new technologies on the design and layout of The Star.(2009-01-12T11:55:19Z) Chalmers, Nina BarbaraABSTRACT A documentation and analysis of the impact of new technologies on the design and layout of The Star, particularly desktop publishing hardware and software, digital photography and the Internet. A broad outline of the production and editorial technology employed prior to the introduction of fourth wave in 1995 is provided to contextualise the research. A systematic visual analysis of selected pages from the 1920s to present as well as interviews with key members of staff from The Star, who have experienced the evolution of the paper first-hand, provide the primary source of information for the study. To prevent the paper from becoming too anecdotal, the organisational approach to the study of the media and theory of visual culture provide the theoretical framework. The research concludes that new technology itself has not drastically affected the design and layout of The Star over the past decade, but rather stimulated change within the organisational environment, which gradually did affected the visual appearance of the paper.Item Appropriate technology options for managing drainage flows from low cost peri urban settlements in South Africa.(2006-03-13) Kisembo, CarolineInadequate drainage in dense peri-urban settlements in South Africa is a significant problem endangering the public and environmental health and of particular concern are the downstream watercourses, which are a source of drinking water supply, a scarce resource. The objective of this research was to identify appropriate solutions within the limited scope of technical and financial feasibility with reference to Alexandra west bank as a case study area. The findings show that three physical site conditions hamper the application of onsite drainage approaches in Alexandra west bank Township, the case study area. They are: Congestion, due to haphazard development patterns, High drainage flow generation resulting from high population densities and the predominantly impermeable surface area due to intensive site development, and Poorly draining soils Congestion, high densities and intensive site development are characteristics common to low-income settlements in South Africa, and they result in lack of space availability for storage facilities, and interference with nature’s ability to retard, retain and infiltrate significant quantities of the storm runoff flows. Poor soil drainage capabilities, which is more specific to study area would result in a slow rate of exfiltration of drainage flows that would in turn cause ponding and the associated health hazards. Estimates of drainage flows generated from the study area as determined from field observations, flow measurements and computer simulation techniques indicate that if the minimum rate of production of just the wastewater component of the drainage flows is taken, which is approximately 37m3/ha/day, it exceeds the rate recommended for safe onsite management of drainage flows by almost four times. Three off-site drainage system arrangements were compared on the basis of the cost of outfall pipe drains sized according to conservative design procedures, and it was found that the combined sullage and storm water drains with separate sewage (black water) drainage system arrangement is more economical than the commonly practiced approach of separate storm and combined sewage and sullage drainage system arrangement.Item The impact technological and organisational dimensions on operational performance of manufacturing companies(2006-03-02) Jumelet, Peter HermanDespite the adoption of Advanced Manufacturing Technologies (AMT) by manufacturing firms, the literature reports disappointing performance of manufacturing, attributed to an imbalance between the dimensions of technology (i.e. AMT) and organisation. The central research problem of this study was: To analyse the effect of development along organisational and technological dimensions on operational performance of manufacturing firms in South Africa. The investigation into the central research problem was guided by a primary research question: Does a balanced development of organisational and technological dimensions result in optimum levels of operational performance of manufacturing? Structural Equation Modelling was employed to assess the central research problem and the primary research question by evaluating the relationship between three latent variables: Technology, Organisation and Operational Performance. Data was collected by means of a self-administered online web questionnaire. A total of 104 responses were received from a target sample of 604 Managing Directors of manufacturing firms. The sample was not representative of the population of manufacturing firms in South Africa. It was shown that the correlation between Technology and Organisation was fairly strongly positive. The direct impact of Technology on Operational Performance was unexpectedly non-significant, whereas Organisation’s direct impact on Operational Performance was strongly positive. These results did not support the primary research question. In fact, organisational dimensions were more important than technological dimensions in obtaining optimum levels of operational performance of manufacturing. The implication was that firms should strongly emphasise the development of its organisation as part of a technology strategy.Item Generation X: technology, identity and apocalypse in three novels by Douglas Coupland.(2006-02-09) Candy, Geoffrey James RichardThis paper takes as its base premise the idea that Douglas Coupland has both shaped generation X thought fundamentally while at the same time is continuously shaped by generation X cultural production. Through a postmodern lens, the paper goes on to look at the ways in which notions of identity, and apocalypse have come to play a central role in the thinking of generation X and then looks at the ways in which these themes and generation X as a whole have been affected by technology. The paper looks at three of Coupland’s novels: Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture; Microserfs and Girlfriend in a Coma.