Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

En El Límite De La Vida: La Violencia Fronteriza, Fernando Carrión Mena Arq.

Fernando Carrión Mena

En el Ecuador existe la percepción generalizada de que la frontera norte es una zona altamente violenta, producto de la contaminación del conflicto militar y de la alta delincuencia que se vive en Colombia. Es decir, que la violencia viene de afuera y que no es ecuatoriana. Dicha noción es más notoria cuando aparecen olas delincuenciales en Quito o Guayaquil, que disparan inmediatamente la atención de los medios de comunicación y de los voceros gubernamentales para explicar el hecho a través de la violencia existente en el país vecino y de la frontera como puerta de entrada. De allí, la …

El Centro Histórico Como Objeto De Deseo, Fernando Carrión Mena Arq.

Fernando Carrión Mena

El centro histórico -como un todo- es el espacio público por excelencia de la ciudad y, por tanto, el elemento fundamental de la integración fundamental de la integración social y de la estructuración de la ciudad. Como eso no ocurre en la actualidad -dado que existe una agorafobia- el centro histórico aparece como objeto del deseo y como un proyecto de escala variable, según su significado patrimonial. De esta conclusión matriz devienen otras de no menor valor como son: - Con el nuevo patrón de urbanización en América Latina -de introspección cosmopolita- la ciudad construida adquiere una nueva función y …

‘Capital’ City: Creating An Approach To Urban Development In A Monumental City, Lindsay H. Davis

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Washington DC is the political capital of the country, nestled within a working city. It is under international scrutiny everyday, acting as the face we show the world. A recent development in the center city showed the world our view on future

urban development, as the historic Chinatown was completely demolished to make way for new condos and a convention center, leaving a single street for nostalgia. Is this how we should think about our cities futures? As architects, we often become obsessed with the details of our designs, forgetting the larger forces that impact these projects, or that they …

Urban Fabrication: The Architectural Heightening Of The Urban Tactile Sensibility A Fiber Arts Fabrication & Exhibition Center In Dublin, Ireland, Elizabeth Fallon

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The discipline of fiber arts has been in existence since the beginning of civilization to produce both functional equipment as well as aesthetically driven art pieces. The craft, at times highly specialized, often produces elements at the scale of the human body, due to the personal level by which fiber artifacts are produced. The making of artifacts and implementation of fiber art strategies have simultaneous cultural, environmental, formal, and gender-related relationships and implications. The design, construction and experience of buildings and inhabitable space at all scales can benefit from these relationships.

It is the contention of this thesis to merge …

Activating Infrastructure, Joanna T. Myers

Honors Capstone Projects - All

“The City Implant is an urban design project that can be used to strengthen an existing center or create a new one. It is a spatial and programmatic upgrade that gives an area the status of a center or increases the density of an existing center. Rather than intervening in undeveloped land, a City Implant should be a transformer of empty land and even under-exploited traffic junctions. A City Implant should describe the quality of centrality itself.” Alex Wall “Boomtown v. Regiocity: Thinking and designing or the Networked City Region.” (Almy, 286)

Transportation infrastructures across the United States create issues …

Architecture For Disparate Communities In Transitional China: Urban Housing Stitch For Chinese Migrant Workers And City Dwellers In Rapidly Urbanizing Cities, Jennifer Hoi Ling Ha

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Problem:

Two housing types in China’s urban cities serve two specific demographics, the city dweller and the migrant worker. The high-rise and the urban village reside on the same block of land but cannot coexist. In order to save the urban villages from being demolished and to keep the migrant worker population within the city, there needs to be a more appropriate and aggressive housing concept to address China’s “changing contemporary social reality” between the two demographic.

Methodology:

The first step is to understand the two typologies of housing. Through the study of migrant housing typologies in different major …

Conspicuous Space: Parking Lot Suburbanism, Ian Nicholson

Honors Capstone Projects - All

What can be accomplished without a car? In a city: everything. In a suburb: nothing. Without a car, one cannot escape the city. Without a city, one cannot escape the car. Neither city nor suburb is an ideal habitat. The city has no nature. The suburb has no culture. What’s good about the suburbs over the city? According to economics: houses.

The American dream has long been “one’s own house with a private yard” (Nelesson xi); an acre and a mule for every free citizen. But this dream has created distance; a nightmare of endless commutes and oil addiction. What …

Urban Farming Mumbai, Ankur Patel

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Abstract not included.

Local Urban Interventions And Their Role In Economic Development. An Evaluation Of Key Policy Inputs Based Upon Irish And Polish Approaches Supported By European Union Initiatives 1992-2002, Izabela Litewska

Doctoral

The importance of local economies, based on a bottom-up approach, has been increasingly prioritised by urban policy makers as the vital factor that conditions economic development. Modern policy approaches, which are explored in this research, regard local economic development as a process deriving from both, market processes impacting upon local structures, functions and spatial planning, and non-market dimensions based on environmental and social measures. Since the 1990s, both Dublin in Ireland and Upper Silesia in Poland have represented urban regions where economic and social deprivation is being addressed by a range of area-based initiatives but from different perspectives. The research …

Farm To School Programs As A Tool For Food System Sustainability, Samantha Jackson

All Theses

Are Farm to School Programs being utilized by communities as a component of agricultural sustainability? This initial question led to a larger inquiry as to what agricultural sustainability tools communities are incorporating, with Farm to School Programs as a component, and what roles, or potential roles, planners are playing in program creation and implementation. A literature review of the current food system, sustainability threats imbedded within the system, and the potential for local food system planning, specifically Farm to School Programs, to overcome these threats provided a framework for research on the agricultural sustainability tools being planned for within communities …

Increasing Stimulation | Decreasing Progression: The Built Environment’S Impact On Alzheimer’S And Dementia, Tracy Chin

Honors Capstone Projects - All

With people living longer lives, the population of elderly is increasing at significant rates. Currently 5.3 million suffer from Alzheimer’s in America and 35 million people worldwide. The disease is one that deteriorates brain cells which in turn affects everyday thinking, behavioral problems, and results in a reduced mastery of one’s environment. The current typology is one that has been designed along the same premises of medical institutions and hospitals. The configuration results in narrow corridors and confined, unlit spaces that lead to disorientation and fear—exacerbating both physical and mental symptoms of the disease.

In addition to memory, sensory losses …

Collaboration And Road Safety On Indian Reservations, Leah Sirmin

All Theses

Native Americans, as a group, face many challenges including the highest motor-vehicle fatality rate of any racial or ethnic group in the United States. While national motor-vehicle fatality rates have declined, the fatality rates for Indian reservations have continued to rise. Because addressing road safety requires significant interdisciplinary work, collaboration is an important tool; however, collaborations between tribal entities and non-tribal partners face a number of unique challenges including tense historical relationships, tribal sovereignty, and cultural differences. A variety of strategies can be utilized to address these challenges including methods such as regular face-to-face meetings to build trust, establishing formal …

Evaluation Of Safety Impact Of Access Management In Urban Areas, Xuecai Xu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The access provided by streets and highways to adjacent lands are managed by controlling the spacings between the access points including signals, driveways, and media openings on mid-block segments, and setting the limit on the corner clearances around intersections. There have been studies on evaluating the impact of access management techniques on safety and mobility in urban areas. Samples of mid-block segments and intersections can be collected from selected arterials. Because the mid-block segments or intersections in the same arterials share the same missing information, safety and mobility on them show unique features that should be taken into account when …

The Integration Of Biomimicry Into A Built Environment Design Process Model: An Alternative Approach Towards Hydro-Infrastructure, Timothy Lee Albertson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Current methods and processes that support the planning, design and construction of a sustainable built environment include ambiguous principles (Roseland 2000), lack feedback loops (Van Bueren and Jong 2007) and lack a common language between disciplines (Brandon et al 1997). As a result of 3.8 billion years of "research and development" (evolution), nature provides a set of design blueprints that may be used to guide us to create elegant, sustainable, and innovative designs for human technologies (Benyus 1997). The field of biomimicry analyzes nature's best ideas and adapts them for human use (Benyus 1997). The built environment could benefit from …

Proceedings Of The 2009 Nrc Federal Facilities Council/James Madison University Symposium On Protecting Large Facility Complexes;, George H. Baker, Cheryl E. Wilkins

George H Baker

Large, complex facilities pose unique protection challenges involving multidisciplinary expertise and collaboration among government, academia, and the private sector. The symposium served as a forum for sharing experiences in dealing with large facility catastrophic events and risk management. The symposium was organized based on the value of interaction among different people representing diverse disciplines. In many instances, such interactions lead to solutions that would not have been developed within disciplinary stovepipes. The venue was divided into three panels addressing physical security, cyber security, and real facility case studies. We were also privileged to have three keynote speakers including Dr. Charles …

Las Marchas Blancas, Fernando Carrión Mena

Fernando Carrión Mena

Los niveles de violencia y de victimización han crecido de manera considerable en América latina y las políticas implantadas muy poco han hecho para detener este crecimiento. Como resultado se ha posicionado con fuerza el concepto del “derecho de la víctima”, que se expresa en las siguientes formas: linchamientos, privatización de la seguridad, encuestas de opinión, sicariato y la formación de grupos temáticos, que reivindican la justicia penal o la violencia misma, como mecanismo de resolución de los conflictos. También tenemos la emergencia y aparición de las llamadas “marchas blancas”, como mecanismo movilizador de la sociedad para reclamar el derecho …

Impediments To And Opportunities For Fulfillment Of The Rational Comprehensive Intent Of The National Environmental Policy Act, Brian P. Mcmullen

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses and Student Projects

The National Environmental Policy Act of 1960 (NEPA) initiated the study and practice of environmental impact analysis. Upon passage, NEPA transformed the process in which the federal government plans, seeks input on, and documents major projects of environmental significance. While NEPA has surely affected project-level incremental actions, its rational comprehensive mandate as expressed in Title II of the statute has remained largely unfulfilled. Neglect of Title II has occurred as a result of broad language in NEPA that is difficult for federal judges to interpret and administrators to implement. Political interference with the President’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) has …

Finanzas Sub-Nacionales, Fernando Carrión Mena

Fernando Carrión Mena

El Banco del Estado (BEDE) acaba de publicar el libro “Las Finanzas subnacionales en el Ecuador, 1993-2008”, estudio muy interesante que debería servir de base para las discusiones y la redacción del Código de Ordenamiento Territorial, Autonomías y Descentralización (COTAD). Para analizar el documento partimos de los dos siguientes puntos: por un lado, que la descentralización implica un equilibro de poderes a nivel “horizontal” entre las funciones ejecutivas, legislativas, judiciales; a nivel “vertical” entre lo regional, provincial, municipal; y a nivel de “territorial” entre localidades grandes y pequeñas; y por otro, que las finanzas públicas son un buen indicador para …

El Desarrollo Territorial: Una Mirada Desde Las Finanzas Subnacionales, Fernando Carrión Mena

Fernando Carrión Mena

Presentación disertada en el marco del evento titulado “Las finanzas subnacionales en el Ecuador. 1993-2008”, desarrollado en Quito, el 20 de abril de 2010

Crevron: La Guerra Por La Opinión Pública, Fernando Carrión Mena

Fernando Carrión Mena

La empresa petrolera norteamericanas Chevron busca a toda costa anular el juicio planteado por miles de pobladores de la Amazonía ecuatoriana -inscritos en 80 comunidades-, que se han sentido afectados por los daños causados a los ecosistemas ambientales por la producción petrolera. Según afirman los afectados, los impactos fueron tan severos que condujeron y aún conducen al fallecimiento de una importante cantidad de seres humanos originarios de la zona (¿genocidio?). Se habla de 1.400 personas muertas, entre niños, mujeres y ancianos. Este proceso sistemático de extracción del crudo en condiciones ambientales negativas duró por más de 25 años; en los …