Environmental Design Commons^™

Sustainability In Industrial Architecture, Katerina Shuble

Honors Projects

The goal of this project is to complete an in-depth study and analysis of sustainable industrial architecture. Currently, sustainable industrial architecture is an emerging topic amongst architects and industry leaders. Topics involve battling with ideologies and company policies to better the sustainability of industrial architecture. This project will help fill the gap between industrial design and sustainability by creating research and project-based examples of how sustainable industrial design can be completed. The project will be a result of a thorough research study of current sustainable industrial design, and a proposal for new efforts that can be implemented. The goal of …

Architecture In Anime: Miyazaki's Motifs, Jack Collins

Honors Projects

Internationally known, celebrated, and respected, director Hayao Miyazaki has become a household name by transforming an industry through his films. This research focuses on Miyazaki’s process and the similarities he shares with architects, both in and out of his works. By initially examining his background, the three motifs of architecture, inspiration, and sustainability are explored through works like Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and more. The results of this research are to inform fans of both architecture and anime about the connection between someone who designs and builds the world, and one who designs and builds …

Safety Evaluation Of Amusement Rides Using Accumulated Accident Data: Accident Data Framework, Kathryn Woodcock

Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies

Amusement rides and devices are a popular form of recreation and important component of the tourism industry. Injury-producing accidents are rare, and the viability of the industry relies on perceived safety of the activity. Some existing metrics use accumulated accident reports. Several metrics tabulate the number of injuries, but none collect enough information about the context of accidents to analyse the accumulated data to deduce patterns. This paper describes an Accident Data Framework for a minimal set of variables from reports of amusement device accident, and the structure for a useful narrative to aid reporters and recorders to avoid introducing …

When The Magic Closes: Examining How Disney Fans Coped With Theme Park And Resort Closures Amid The Covid-19 Pandemic, Cody Havard, Carissa A. Baker, Daniel L. Wann, Rick Grieve

Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies

This essay discusses a qualitative investigation we conducted with fans of the Disney parks and resorts during the summer of 2020 regarding the company’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, 22 people responded to open-ended questions from an online survey to discuss their views of the closures and planned reopenings of the Disney parks and resorts amid the early days of the pandemic. Using social identity theory (Tajfel, 1978) and the theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991), we discuss how fans react to and cope with the temporary loss of a favorite activity and how companies in the themed entertainment …

Covid-19 And Immersion: Physical, Virtual, And Home Spaces, Scott Lukas

Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies

This article considers the dramatic adaptations that have occurred in themed immersive spaces as they have dealt with the challenging dynamics of COVID-19. As COVID-19 has been a respiratory disease, it has impacted the operations of theme parks, casinos, cruise ships, and other immersive spaces, especially as such spaces have relied, traditionally, on physical forms of entertainment and immersion. The writing begins with a consideration of the COVID-19 challenges noted in the theme park and cruise ship industries. OceanMedallionTM and MyMagic+ technologies are considered for their possible positive role in addressing the operational dynamics during the pandemic. Issues of guest …

Brighter But Not Clearer: Entertainment-Dependent Destinations Dealing With Long Covid, Louis-Etienne Dubois, Frederic Dimanche

Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we explored a range of very different possible outcomes for destinations that rely heavily on their entertainment sector (Dubois & Dimanche, 2021). Several months later, this article seeks to revisit those outcomes, while also highlighting the ongoing recovery efforts and evolving strategies of entertainment-dependent destinations (EDDs). To do so, we reconnected with the panel of respondents from various destinations (i.e., Las Vegas, Nashville, New Orleans etc.) to take stock of both new challenges and opportunities, as well as emerging factors impacting their respective markets. Our results show that while EDDs are facing a …

Theme Parks, Staycation Practices, And Covid-19: Opportunities And Uncertainties, Salvador Anton Clavé

Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies

The effects of COVID-19 on the market transformation of the theme park industry has been significant in the short term because of travel restrictions. Challenges, impacts, responses, and strategies might vary from one region to another and even from one theme park to another. However, it can be assumed that domestic travel will continue to have an effect on the theme park industry during the months to come and likely beyond the pandemic. In this context, the “staycation” is becoming a booming trend in the leisure, entertainment, and tourism industry, creating new, current, and future unexpected economic winners and losers. …

Disney During Covid-19: The Tourist And The Actor’S Nightmare, Jennifer A. Kokai, Tom Robson

Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies

In this essay, we argue that the experience of being at Disney theme parks in COVID times was a waking version of what is sometimes called “The Actor’s Nightmare.” Due to safety regulations, theme parks either dropped live entertainment that structures the day as a show with a clear beginning and end (e.g. park-opening rope drop performances, and the fireworks), attempted to include references to COVID in live entertainment (like in

the Frozen Ever After singalong, which added some COVID jokes), or to ignore it (like the Festival of the Lion King). In any case, due to these measures the …

The “Politics Of Inclusion/Exclusion” In Times Of The Pandemic, Florian Freitag

Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies

As commercial enterprises that depend on attracting a maximum number of visitors in order to be economically successful, theme parks have generally been careful to avoid unpleasant, sensitive, or controversial themes (or aspects of a theme) that might offend or alienate potential customers. Due to official regulations concerning e.g. the wearing of masks in waiting lines and during rides, however, the pandemic cannot simply be “excluded” from the parks and remains constantly visually present, thus seriously undermining the companies’ efforts to keep the park grounds rigidly separated from the rest of the world. Particular operational decisions by some theme park …

“It Takes People To Make The Dream A Reality”: Disney’S Hr Strategy In Response To Covid-19, Jaime L. Williams, Allison A. Toth

Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies

From January 2020 to the beginning of fall 2021, theme parks around the world have been required to engage in abnormal, abrupt, and major shifts in operations caused by the ongoing global pandemic (COVID-19). Through the process of sensemaking, this paper will focus on the human resources related decisions made by The Walt Disney Company in an effort to better understand the organization’s responses to changes in the external environment and the resulting outcomes during the pandemic. The overall management of Cast Members in the United States during this time period with specific focuses on the layoff and re-hiring of …

Are European Theme Parks Likely To Suffer From Long Covid?, Pieter Cornelis

Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies

COVID-19 has had a major impact on the theme park industry. Visits to European parks were significantly lower in 2020 than the year before. This article discusses the short-term and long-term economic consequences of the pandemic for the theme park industry. Attitudinal loyalty, inertia effects of guest satisfaction on repeat visits, (deferred) reinvestments, and the difference between theme and amusement parks will be considered. To compensate for losses in 2020, many parks increased their visitor numbers in the 2021 season to the maximum permitted capacity, especially in the summer months. As a result, analysis of waiting times at 22 investigated …

Introduction: Theme Parks And Covid-19, Salvador Anton Clavé, Florian Freitag

Journal of Themed Experience and Attractions Studies

In the tourism industry, “crises” have been conceptualized as local and temporary phenomena, interval states that may require imminent action, but that can eventually be overcome, with business simply resuming. At the moment of writing, however, it is not at all clear when or if the theme park sector can simply return to a pre-pandemic state of affairs. Even if tourism may once again attain pre-COVID numbers, it may well be through entirely new and different forms. The essays collected here provide scholarly and professional snapshots of the current (winter 2021/2022) state of the theme park industry, with special attention …

Landscapes Are Cornerstones Of Sustainability Programs, Don Spence

Sustainability Conference

Typical American landscapes are not sustainable in an economic or biological framework. The essence of the idea of sustainable growth and development are centered on the idea that those activities are not degrading natural resources or that they are outstrip budgets. A significant piece of any sustainable management plan is tied to how we manage our landscapes, how we use plants; specifically, how much grass there is, and how many native plants there are. Sustainable landscapes should require less chemical and financial inputs, which in the end, saves money and increases the biological value of the land and creates a …

Main Streets And Green Spaces: Creating A Community Vision In Indian Orchard, Rebecca Bagdigian-Boone, Li-Ting Hsu, Remington Pointes, Muskaan Handa, Abby Derrick, Jake Harlow, Suzanne Warner

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity

Main Street and Green Spaces takes a focused look at the neighborhood of Indian Orchard and provides strategies for urban design and landscape architecture to support residents’ visions for the future. With the Studio’s partnership between the Indian Orchard Citizen’s Council, Grow IO (Wellspring Harvest), and the Springfield Office of Planning and Economic Development, the overarching goal for each design team was to create a cohesive, phased plan for redeveloping Main Street around the Oak and Main intersection and Parker and the Ludlow Bridge. Special attention was requested for exploring traffic calming measures and ways to support the local businesses …

The Eudaimonic Tree Pilot: A Study Of Public Engagement In Participatory Art At Three Sites, Olivia A. James

Masters Theses

In times of crisis, what tools do planners and designers have to inspire a sense of well-being? How can we heal community through dialogue, recognizing the ongoing need for connection with or without a crisis? Are there ways to uncover unknown concerns and values in a community? The engagement approaches many planners and designers rely on do not typically aim to access these deeper questions in society. Surveys, public meetings and focus groups seek tangible results that target specific issues. They are often conducted out of context, taking the public out of the environment at issue to answer questions on …

A Playworker’S Musings On The Perceptions And Importance Of ’Mess’ In A Play Space., Angus Ian Gorrie

International Journal of Playwork Practice

The aesthetics of any given play environment is often subject to immense scrutiny, often at the behest of adult agendas. This paper will, from a playwork practitioner’s perspective, discuss how aspects of perceptive mess in a play space positively affect play, the physical opportunities for children, their wellbeing, sense of belonging and their ability to create a sense of order as they see it. This will be juxtaposed against the situations in which children find themselves, by adult design, that paradoxically have the opposite effect. The author has drawn heavily from aspects of playwork theory and practice in the development …

Access To Clean Water For Women In Iraq: Accorded Rights, Bakir H. Amin

wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water

After the Iraqi government was established in 1921, it had a little problem receiving a sufficient quantity of high-quality water from the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers. However, the upstream countries of Turkey, Syria, and Iran soon built dams and canal on the shared rivers in the latter half of the 20th century. Furthermore, engaged in prolonged military conflicts such as the Iranian-Iraq War of the 1980s, the Gulf War of the 1990s, the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the ongoing ISIS occupation in the region, Iraq’s political, economic, and social infrastructures have been crippled in the wake of …

Ahp Based Multi Criteria Decision Analysis Of Success Factors To Enhance Decision Making In Infrastructure Construction Projects, Solomon Belay, James D. Goedert, Asregedew Woldesenbet, Saeed Rokooei

Faculty Publications in Architectural Engineering

The study presents analytical data-based multi-criteria approach of critical success factors of infrastructure construction projects analyzed in the Ethiopian construction industry. This multi-criteria technique helps to improve the decision capabilities and ultimate performance of construction processes in various low-income countries of the East African region. The aim of this paper is to establish a logical relationship and interdependencies of success-related factors for enhancing decision making for various project teams and identify priorities while taking into account all known construction organizational constraints. A structured hierarchical matrix was developed based on a pre-identified success-related factors, and initially evaluated by experienced professionals as …

"Green Enough Ain't Good Enough:" Public Perceptions And Emotions Related To Green Infrastructure In Environmental Justice Communities, Mahbubur Meenar, Megan Heckert, Deepti Adlakha

Geography & Planning Faculty Publications

The concept of biophilic urban planning has inspired neighborhood greening projects in many older urban communities in the USA and beyond. The strengths (e.g., environmental management, biodiversity, heat island mitigation) and challenges (e.g., greenwashing, green gentrification) of such projects are well-documented. Additional research on the relationship between these projects and various social factors (e.g., public perceptions, feelings, and mental health and well-being) is necessary to better understand how people adapt to said projects while struggling to navigate other more pressing socioeconomic issues, especially in communities facing environmental injustice and health inequity. In this article, we focus on one aspect of …

Strategic Energy Master Planning For Carbon Neutrality, Marie Patterson

CSU Journal of Sustainability and Climate Change

Universities across the United States are generating goals to be more sustainable and carbon neutral. The energy used in existing buildings on campuses amount to a large volume of greenhouse emissions and must be reduced to help achieve neutrality goals. Strategic Energy Master Plans are instrumental to support these goals through the development of recommendations to reduce energy. Calculating the energy use intensity for existing buildings, a main component of a Strategic Energy Master Plan, can help the campus understand where energy is being used the most. With this information the highest energy consuming buildings can be the focus of …