Dr. Abraham AKKERMAN Dr. Abraham AKKERMANGEOG
340.3
The European Heritage of Our Built Environment (Spring
Intersession, 1999 - ongoing)
A field study and seminar on urban design and architecture in Central
Europe. The topics cover the observation and analysis of architectonic
styles preserved at Prague, or elsewhere in Bohemia. Emphasis is on the
inspection of the late Gothic and Baroque styles, particularly as they
relate to streets and squares, and to their integration within
streetscapes and architecture of the 20th century. The field study is
over a period of ten working days with 3-4 hours per day of class
contact.
GEOG 342.3 Community Planning in Canada
(1990 - ongoing)
Detailed investigation of community planning methodology and
applications, with emphasis on population and housing analysis. The
causes, impacts and proposed planning solutions for major community
planning problems in Canadian urban or rural areas are discussed.
Computer applications and the use of statistical information in
addressing problems of inner- city neighborhoods in Saskatoon are
stressed.
GEOG
346.3
Introduction to Urban Design (1990 -
ongoing)
A lecture/seminar on the history, context and elements of the built
urban environmant. Function and form, and aspects of urban aesthetics
are discussed in relation to streetscapes, open spaces and heritage
conservation. The relationship of urban design with trends in social
thought and with cultural patterns is addressed. The studio consists of
design exercises including graphic presentations and elementary
applications in computer-aided drafting.
GEOG 350.3 Geography of Transportation
(2002
- ongoing)
An introduction to the geographical aspects of transportation theory
and planning. Major topical areas emphasized are, travel behaviour,
transportation planning and policy, and pedestrian network design.
Analytic methods in travel behaviour, and design of pedestrian and
other
transportation networks are examined. Issues in sustainable
transportation, and pedestrian traffic in urban space in particular,
are
emphasized. Spatial syntax of artificial environments is introduced,
with a discussion on configuration of, and access to, objects in winter
city streetscapes.
GEOG 392.3
History
of Geographic Thought (2003 -
ongoing)
A lecture/seminar on
the origins of geographic thought, and overview of ideas on the
environment from early Antiquity to the onset of the
Renaissance. Relationship between early environmental myths and the
manufacture of tools and shelter is reviewed, leading to discussion on
notions of
structure of the Earth and the universe from Mesopotamia to classical
Greece. Origins
of geography and planning as scientific disciplines are further
examined in the
outlook of classical
GEOG 840.3 Problems in
Transportation (2009 - ongoing)
This graduate class reviews major topics and problems that face
contemporary transportation, and urban transportation in particular.
The emphasis is on humanistic and social aspects of urban
transportation, but students are encouraged to venture into urban
design aspects of transportation as well. The major thrust of the
class
is to place urban transportation within the context of western
civilization and the city at the onset of the twenty first century.
Students will develop, under the supervision of the instructor, a
scholarly paper that could preferably fit into their thesis work, or be
later submitted to a scholarly journal. The class will address the
following topics: 1. Transportation and the history of urban
transportation; 2. City-form and urban transportation; 3.
Transportation and urban development; 4. Housing and urban
transportation; 5. Demographic aspects of urban transportation; 6.
Economic aspects of urban transportation; 7. Social aspects of urban
transportation; 8. Approaches to assessment of demand vs. need in
transportation; 9. Land use planning and urban transportation; 10.
Urban design and urban transportation.
Urban design and city-form
2012. Philosophical urbanism and the predilections of urban design, Chap. 1 in: Jaroslav Burian (ed.), Advances in Spatial Planning. InTech: Rijeka, Croatia. In press.
2010, with Ariela Cornfeld. Greening
as
an
urban
design
metaphor:
Looking
for
the
city's
soul
in
leftover
spaces, The Structurist
49/50: 30-35.
2009. Urban
void
and
the
deconstruction
of
Neo-Platonic
city-form, Ethics, Place
and
Environment 12(2): 205-218.
2008. The
city as humanity's evolutionary link: Walking and thinking
in urban design, The Structurist
47/48: 28-33.
2006. Urban superconscious and the return of the Garden Myth, The Structurist 45/46: 62-68.
2006. Femininity and masculinity in city-form: Philosophical urbanism as a history of consciousness, Human Studies 29(2): 229-256.
2005. Towers,
gates and open spaces in cities of the Old Testament, in: William
A. Dando, Caroline Z. Dando and Jonathan J. Lu (eds.), Geography of the Holy Land: Perspectives,
pp.
246-263.
Association
of
American
Geographers
(Bible
Geography
Specialty
Group):
Washington,
D.C.
2004. Philosophical
urbanism
and
deconstruction
in
city-form:
An
environmental
ethos for
the twenty-first century, The
Structurist 43/44: 48-53.
2002. Altruism and egoism: The Garden and the Citadel, The Structurist 41/42: 65-72.
2001. Urban planning in the founding of Cartesian thought, Philosophy and Geography 4(2): 143-169.
2000. Harmonies of urban design and discords of city form: Urban aesthetics in the rise of western civilization, Journal of Urban Design 5(3): 263-286.
2000. Deliberate ambiguity in a finite environment: The urban ecology of artificial items, Discrete Dynamics in Nature and Society 4(1): 87-93.
1998. Place and Thought: The Built Environment in Early European Philosophy, Woodridge: London. 228 pp. + vi.
Planning and development
2004. Age-specific
household
size
as
a
demographic
aspect
of
regional
disparity:
Czech
Republic,
1991, Canadian Studies
in Population 31(2): 237-260.
2004, with Yewon Hwang-Kurylyk. The
origin-destination
matrix
as
an
indicator
of
intrahousehold
travel
allocation, Transportation
Planning and Technology 27(4): 285-314.
2000. The diurnal cycle of regional commuter systems: North Wales, 1991, Geographical Analysis 32(3): 248-266.
1998, with Jiao Sheng He. Geographical patterns of fertility decline in Guangdong: China's population policy through the censuses of 1982 and 1990, The Canadian Geographer 42(2): 174-179.
1995. Diurnal population cycle and metropolitan commuter exchange: A formal investigation of an urban pattern, Canadian Journal of Urban Research 4(2): 249-270.
1995. The urban household pattern of daytime population change, The Annals of Regional Science 29(1): 1-16.
1993. Temporal referencing in a small-area information system: Monitoring land annexation in Edmonton, Canada, 1982-1989, Geography Research Forum 13: 116-128.
1992. The relational structure of human services planning: An input-output analysis, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 26(1): 15-26.
1992. Fuzzy targeting of population niches in urban planning and the fractal dimension of demographic change, Urban Studies 29(7): 1093-1114.
Demography and management
of growth
2005. Parameters
of
household
composition
as
demographic
measures, Social
Indicators Research 70(2):
151-183.
2003, with Jitka Rychtarikova. Trajectories of fertility and household composition in the demographic profile of the Czech Republic, Population and Environment 24(3): 225-254.
2000. On the Leontief structure of household populations, Canadian Studies in Population 27(1): 181-193.
1999, with Bill Barry. The population of Saskatchewan, in: The Atlas of Saskatchewan (Ka-Iu Fung and Lawrence Martz, eds.), p. 188. University of Saskatchewan: Saskatoon.
1999, with Jiao Sheng He. Economic reforms and family planning in China: The one-child policy in rural Guangdong, 1979-1990, Canadian Studies in Population 26(1): 39-65.
1997, with R.M. Bone and J.C. Saku. Qualitative indicators of multiregional demographic change: Potential for developing countries, in: A. Ahmad, D. Noin and H.N. Sharma (eds.), Demographic Transition: The Third World Scenario, pp. 345-363. Rawat Publications: New Delhi.
1996. A problem in household composition, Mathematical Population Studies 6(1): 3-18.
1994. Sameness
of
age
cohorts
in
the
mathematics
of
population
growth, The
British
Journal
for
the
Philosophy
of
Science 45(2): 679-691.
1985. The household composition matrix as a notion in multiregional forecasting of population and households, Environment and Planning A 17: 355-371.
1982. An index of household composition for the assessment and forecasting of housing needs, Journal of Mathematical Sociology 8: 283-304.
1980. On the relationship between household composition and population age distribution, Population Studies 34: 525-534.
1977. The household composition matrix and its application to migration analysis and population projection, General Systems 22: 105-109.