Architecture Commons^™

A Deep Dive Into Natural Swimming Pool Filtration: Living Walls As Technical Wetland Filters, Anna Farb

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Vertical gardens such as living walls can filter air and water, in addition to cooling buildings, reducing noise, increasing urban biodiversity, providing food, and enhancing well-being. Natural swimming pools (NSPs) are an ecologically sound alternative to chemically treated pools, but they have not reached their potential in the U.S. We investigated whether a living wall could be integrated into an NSP system for water filtration purposes, given that the vertical filter would have to produce excellent water quality for human swimmers. This could be a novel landscape design, particularly in the cases of steep contours, urbanized sites with limited space, …

Knitting Together Communities - Designing The Heart Of Six Corners And Old Hill, Samantha Bowman, Ankur Choudhary, Alexandria Connell, Megan Davey, Katina Decoulos, Richard Duhamel, Brooklyn Feng, Ian Finn, Doreen Guan, Sophia Liquori, Connor Moloney, Claudia Namaroff, Emily Noonan, Hunter Proulx, Stephen Rezendes, Maura Robitaille, Vincent Shu, Jaques Skriletz, Frank Sleegers

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

Knitting together Communities -Designing the Heart of Six Corners and Old Hill

Knitting Together Communities – Designing the Heart of Six Corners and Old Hill provides a framework to knit together assets and opportunities for creating a strong identity and sense of coherence for a transformative urban district in Springfield, MA. The Senior Urban Design Studio 2019 created six proposals that were searching for design opportunities that enhance the aesthetic quality of the neighborhood and increase services for the wellbeing of the residents. The two neighborhoods are characterized by strong neighborhood leadership through committed residents, community centers and active religious …

A Proposal For The Implementation Of Stormwater Art At Gvsu, Christa Fernando

Honors Projects

Although there are increasing efforts to improve stormwater management on the campuses of Grand Valley State University as an inhabitant of the Great Lakes region, there remains limited visibility and efforts for public awareness and cooperation with ecological restoration initiatives generally. The goal of this project is to describe the opportunity to implement functional art that promotes public awareness of sustainable water management practices. Methods included research into the public art of GVSU and the necessary methodology for future project execution. Various local contacts are also provided as resources for advice, connections, and funding opportunities. In this report, plans and …

From Garden City To Sponge City: Urban Green Infrastructure Policy Development, Hongmei Lu

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

With rapid urbanization, environmental problems like green space shortage and urban flooding become prevalent. Identifying effective policymaking and implementation is critical in order to solve these problems. This dissertation addresses four theoretical topics in the context of urban green infrastructure: policy entrepreneur, institutional response to club goods, quasi-public-private partnership, and policy goal ambiguity. Each is exemplified by a causal case study. Data were collected through participant observation, field trips, semi-structured interviews, and crowdsourcing.

Chapter 1 takes a longitudinal perspective and examines the dual role of policy entrepreneur and policy implementer in reaching the final policy goal of mandating vertical greening …