The outdoor environment at Children's hospital, the University Hospital, Uppsala, is used by sick children at the Children's hospital, their families and the hospital staff. The staff at the Children's hospital wanted to render the site more attractive and available. This graduation thesis is a proposal about how the outdoor environment at the Children's hospital can be improved. The aim is to design an environment for the sick children, their families and the hospital staff that will serve as a place for relaxation and privacy, as well as for play and movement. In order to find support for the redesign of this site I read literature about theories concerning healing environments, healing gardens, children's play and designs for children.

The purpose of my study is to describe how educators think about the play environment, the nature and its importance for the children's development and learning in preschool. The study is based on qualitative interviews with four active educators. The results of the study show that the teachers regarded the children's interests to a great extent when the different play environments were structured. They are also based on different themes that they have seen that the children were interested in, such as the fire station, hair salon or shop and café. Educators designing not only these play areas for different types of play for the children, but the different environments also have a learning purpose. The outdoor environment however attracts greater interest from children, to where they have more space to move freely in and outdoors, there are no limits to the children.

With climate change, the temperature and relative humidity in Sweden are increasing. The majority of historical environments lack protection against this increase, which also increases the risk of mold infestation in these environments. One of these environments is N??s Slott, in which several rooms have recurring mold growth on objects and furniture. By examining one of the rooms in the castle that is in the risk zone or has mold growth, factors behind the mold growth can be investigated in order to create a basis for future actions against mold.

The research of today shows that natural environments are importantfor children's physical and mental development. It alsoshows that children often opt out of the traditional equipmentplaygrounds have to offer. By breaking the boundary betweenthe playground and park, is it possible to create a new spacethat will encourage rather than demand play? Through gatheringinformation and talking to landscape architects, designers,and children, I realized that today's parks already have environmentsand objects that could be used for playing. But whatthey need is something that makes the environment even moreinviting for children to play.

The aim of this study is to try to explain the process using both an actor driven perspective as well as a structural perspective examining the reasons why the County Council of Värmland wants to merge with Region Västra Götaland. The answers to the following research questions are sought to shed light on the problem: What constrained the discretion of  the political actors in the choice of region to merge with? Which role did  different political actors play? Does the study provide Game Theory, from Rational Choice theory,  and Path Dependency, from Historic Institutionalism, a new perspective and strength especially  when bringing them together? The study is limited to two policy areas, health care and regional development policy. The structural background is drawn upon the Annual Report 2008 of the County Council Värmland, the Regional Development Program and Regional Transport Infrastructure Plan 2010-2021 by Region Värmland. The chronological order of decisions and events is drawn upon protocols from various regional political organs all linked to the municipal of Värmland and the correspondence between the officials of Värmland?s municipal and the Legal, Financial and Administrative Services Agency of the State.

The main purpose of this thesis has been to address the problem connected with conservation ofspecific objects in historic buildings that have a protected building status. The immaterial demandsand environmental concerns of a place of cultural significance are discussed as opposed to the welladaptedsetting of a museum, with regard to long-term preservation. In an authentic interior of acertain era, large-scale individual treatments of the objects that define it and regulations forconservation-related reasons, may not be considered a worth-while effort, as it is often the integrityof the environment as a whole that has been declared as significant. To investigate the relationshipbetween object and its context, a case study has been conducted by examination of the propertycalled ?Curmans villor?, located in the seaside community called Lysekil.

Animal art is one of the more mystical aspects of Scandinavian Iron Age culture. It has foremost been regarded in the light of art and style history. Interpretation has also ? mainly from the 1990s and onwards ? been made through iconographic analysis. But the problem here is that iconography requires textual analogy, something that the Scandinavian Iron Age lacks.The purpose of this paper is to lift some of the ?mystical fog? that engulfs the scandinavian animal art, by developing a method for interpretation of pre-historic images that evades the flaws in the iconographic method.

This thesis explores different ways of navigation in virtual environments. It also investigates how virtual environments can support human memory. Tests are done using a self made virtual model of Orkanen Library, Malmö högskolas school library. Among the different navigation tests that were done, a visual guidance in form of a line on the ground leading to the goal is showed superior when navigating a virtual environment but that people prefer legible landmarks instead. Tests were also done which show that a 3D-model of a real location supports context based memory.

According to old european tradition the ideal national state has a unified people, but in reality practically all states has one of several minorities that to a smaller or greater degree differs from the majority. One such minority that have been present in many countries and managed to avoid becoming completly assimilated are the jewish people. Their dream of a state of their own eventually lead to the founding of the state of Israel where they themselves are now in majority. The purpose of this report is to study how the jews historic experiances has affected the political parties in Israel, how they choose to meet the ?challenge? of their own minorities och whatever they treat different minorites differently.

This paper deals whit the problems concerning social organisation in the county of Dalarna in middle Sweden during the Middle Ages 1050- 1528. This paper also deals whit the every day ife in Dalarna during the same period. In the paper archaeology, ethnology, history and osteology is used in order to create a so accurate as possibly picture of every day life at the farm, the villa and the keep. Each environment is compared to each other in order to try to see the social structure of the county. The geographic frame for the paper is the part of Sweden above the border zone of Limes Norrlandicus, or lower Norrland.The results presented in the paper shows that Dalarna most probably had a flat social organisation in the meaning that the every day life and its artefacts was much the same in all the environments.

The purpose with this final thesis has been to study the aesthetics and design of roundabouts and to ascertain important factors that influence the experience of them. The investigation was carried out through literature-, field studies and interviews with persons that in different ways have participated in the formation of roundabouts. Furthermore, six roundabouts have been explored in more depth so that the survey would get a more practical link. These six roundabouts all occur in the rim of a city and do thereby have an important role as a gateway. The environments in such contexts are often complex which adds additional difficulty in achieving a visually appealing design, especially when taking into account the usually high traffic intensity.

The city?s public environments are meant to be perceived as safe and inviting areas to visit any time of the day. In recent decades the number of vandalism complaints has doubled and graffiti has become so common that it received a separate category in the crime statistics. With this type of impacts in the public environments the experience are precarious and a boring sight. It?s difficult to put a price tag on these types of crimes, the number of unreported cases suspected to be large.

The city?s public environments are meant to be perceived as safe and inviting areas to visit any time of the day. In recent decades the number of vandalism complaints has doubled and graffiti has become so common that it received a separate category in the crime statistics. With this type of impacts in the public environments the experience are precarious and a boring sight. It?s difficult to put a price tag on these types of crimes, the number of unreported cases suspected to be large.

What causes people to move within and between certain places and not within and between others? How do physical outdoor environments affect the way people act and move? Do different environments generate different body language and mimics in the bodies that inhabit them? In my pursuit for answers to these questions I studied literature and initiated and took part in dialogues in the form of workshops, all of which has resulted into this thesis. My questions have initially arisen from reflections of my own environment and how it not only affects my mental condition, but also my actions. Drawing upon the hermeneutic term ?preconception? I trust that what we label ?truth? is constructed by our lived experience and the society we grow up in.

Abstract In order to work with historical sites, there must be an understanding of the complexity around the preservation of parks, gardens and landscapes and the approach to be used in the rebuilding and renewal. These issues are an important starting point of this essay. Historical environments give us as individuals an insight in who we are and from where we come, which is an important part of our need of identity as human beings. Without them, our roots in the past will be non-existent. The importance of this support base lies not only in the garden conservation, but also in the picture of developments, which we have through of as time mirrors of our living environment.