Saudi Cultural Missions Theses & Dissertations
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Item Restricted Pixels to Pavements(University College London, 2024) Hababi, Abdullah; Selby, EllyThe convergence of machine learning (ML) and the built environment is redefining traditional design decision-making processes. This report explores the integration of ML within architecture, urban design, and urban planning, emphasizing its transformative potential as a design decision making tool. The report delves into the historical context of digital tools in architecture and examines how ML is currently utilized in the built environment. Through a detailed methodology, the report analyzes ML’s role as a computational design aid, as a design facilitator or augmenter, and as a co-designer. This report aims to connect the idea of machine learning’s use in design decision-making processes in the built Environment to my design project. The impact of a literature review and case studies has helped extract and implement different key methods of machine learning in various stages of my design project, such as the data manipulation stage, form finding stage, design intervention placement stage, and simulation analysis of and for design decisions stage. Critical analyses focus on the role of data quality, human agency, and the limitations of ML, such as algorithmic bias and the potential erosion of human creativity. This report contends that ML can profoundly influence and effectively dictate design decision making in both an architectural and urban design context, through its aid as a computational design tool, design facilitator, and co-designer. The discussion emphasizes the necessity of human expertise in interpreting ML outputs and proposes a collaborative approach between human intuition and ML capabilities. The report concludes by advocating for a continuous dialogue between technology and human creativity to ensure ML serves as a valuable tool in shaping the built environment rather than a replacement for human ingenuity.6 0Item Restricted Bodies, Walls, and Power: Tracking Shifts in Power on Ushaiger Women Through the Spatial Dimension(SOAS University of London, 2022-09-08) Alfuraih, Rawan; Salih, RubaGiven that bodies are restricted to power of a certain time, power shifts have been tracked through societies’ movement in the temporal dimension (history). Yet, power on bodies is also bound to space and power transformations can be anthropologically traced in spatial changes (urbanization). Bodies and spaces are deeply intertwined and change in one reconfigures power on the other. The ethnography conveys this entanglement in spatial relations (factors), such as class, geographic kinship and gender, that shaped power on women and granted their freedom of mobility in Ushaiger, a village in Najd central region of Saudi Arabia. Ushaigeri urbanized women in Riyadh experienced new spatial relations- beyond ideological discourses- that reconfigured power on their mobility and reconstructed bodies' modesty and spaces' privacy from symbolized concepts in villages during the early twentieth century to thorough physical manifestation of modesty and privacy in Riyadh during the late twentieth century.18 0Item Restricted Analysing the Feasibility of Employing Cloud Computing Technology in Construction Industry & Providing A Guideline for Successful Implementation Within the Context of Birmingham, UK(Saudi Digital Library, 2023) Asiri, Khalid; Ugwude, UcheIt is no secret that the construction sector is considered one of the most important sectors around the world and a fundamental driver of countries' economies. Unfortunately, the sector is suffering globally in general and in the United Kingdom in particular as a result of several factors. One of the most important of these factors is the very significant delay compared to other sectors in adopting and using various advanced technologies and innovations, which many practitioners and experts see as the most important solutions to address many of the current negatives and advance the sector to high and unprecedented levels of efficiency and performance. Cloud computing technology is considered one of those important and indispensable technologies towards the transition to the digital world, as it is considered a major enabler for most modern building technologies. The study intends to prove or disprove the feasibility and importance of cloud computing for the construction industry in the United Kingdom, especially in the city of Birmingham, considering understanding and the analysis of all promoters and obstacles to achieving this, whether internal or from the surrounding external environment. Accordingly, a firm methodology can be proposed through which companies can overcome all difficulties throughout the journey of adopting and utilising cloud computing successfully.12 0Item Restricted Cities and socio-technical transitions: An evaluation of the use of the multi-level perspective for examining the green economy transition in Makkah City, Saudi Arabia(2023-07-06) Alameer, Ali; Farrelly, Lorraine; Dixon, TimThe green economy has been widely advocated by global policy frameworks as a promising concept for accelerating urban sustainability. Its applications and practices have been spatially connected to cities due to their roles and functions as hubs of people, resources, knowledge, and economic activity. This distinction for cities emphasises the importance of examining how cities can accelerate the transition to the green economy by clarifying what influences and inhibits change toward this goal, and what the interrelationship between the city contextual setting and the green economy applications might look and feel like. Thus, the quest to implement this change also needs to analyse and understand the city's physical and functional features as well as its broader socio-technical networks. However, in practice there is a huge gap between real-world practises and contemporary transition research analytical frameworks, which are dominated by ‘acontextual’ approaches and thus fail to represent cities' real-world spatial, functional, and physical challenges. Whilst the multi-level perspective (MLP) provides a useful framework for understanding socio-technical transitions, it falls far short as a means of providing a contextual approach for urban transitions. To address this, in this thesis a modified analytical framework that placed spatial dimensions that shape and influence cities at the heart of MLP was developed for better understanding real-world challenges. Based on an analysis of twenty-six (26) interviews, three (3) focus groups, and secondary sources, this framework is tested using Makkah city as a case study for empirical examination of the nature and characteristics of the national KSA green economy transition, thereby generating valuable insights and evidence that reflect the complexity and fragmented nature of urban transitions. Four overarching dimensions have been identified that affect and shape the city's spatial context and strengths its role in the MLP and socio-technical transitions: (i) city functions and activities, (ii) city spatial and physical features, (iii) local government arrangements, and (iv) local economic structures. This novel MLP spatial technique combined top-down and bottom-up spatial analysis approaches that helped find spatial variability in transition pathways and provided better understanding of how new networks, fluxes, and activities drive developing niches. Additionally, the MLP's analytical framework moves from a descriptive study of the transition to pragmatic, practice-led spatial analysis that better explains city progress, disparities, successes and failures in urban systems reconfiguration as well as change in the built environment. This spatial MLP framework empirically shows that the original three MLP lenses, though useful, cannot provide a complete, detailed, and clear picture of social and technical urban transitions in the real city context and that explicitly including spatial dimensions analysis was a crucial step to understanding and interpreting functional and physical spatial forces and their impact on the city's socio-technical transition to sustainability. However, the findings suggest that unless the city’s existing multi-segmented regimes that drive urban action are re-configured in line with systematic and long-term characteristics of a green economic transition, then progress will be slow and may be limited. It further suggests that top-down ‘green innovation’ and bottom-up ‘project-based approach’ alone will not be enough to accelerate the green economic transition. Thus, future research and policies should focus intensively on destabilizing and unifying the city's existing fragmented regimes, including the integration, replication and expansion of successful experimental initiatives. Furthermore, consistency in both policy and practice is needed across scales and levels. To this end, there is a need for indicators or assessment tools, new business models, capacity buildings and better-integrated leadership at the city level.15 0