Architecture Commons^™

The Nebraska Sandhills Food Desert: Causes, Identification, And Actions Towards A Resolution, Andrew Thierolf

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses and Student Projects

Declining populations over the past several decades have created issues for residents in many rural areas. A serious concern is the emergence of “food deserts,” areas where people do not have sufficient access to nutritious foods. The Sandhills region in west-central Nebraska is a prime example of an area that is subject to the food desert phenomenon. It features a low-density rural population that creates a difficult economic environment for grocery retailers.

This paper looks at multiple aspects of the food desert issue in the region. It begins by reviewing literature to determine the definition of the term “food desert” …

Roger Williams Park Edible Forest Garden, Mark S. Scialla

Senior Honors Projects

An edible forest garden is a low-maintenance system that uses edible native and regionally-adapted plants arranged in beneficial relationships to meet human, wildlife and ecosystem needs. The forest garden in Roger Williams Park will transform underutilized urban land into a highly productive parcel producing market-viable fruits, nuts, vegetables, medicine and fiber. Forest gardens mimic natural forest systems in architecture and complexity. The design follows ecological principles to create a system that promotes biodiversity and enhances the surrounding ecosystem. This project also demonstrates the potential to grow food and create land-based livelihoods in the city.

Located on the edge of a …

Assessing The Level Of Bicycle Planning In Local Planning Efforts: A Case Study, Christopher Michael Hussey

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses and Student Projects

The transportation system in the United States has long been dominated by motor vehicles. The US Department of Transportation has encouraged cities to increase bicycle transportation as a means to improve health and activity, reduce fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, reduce congestion, improve air quality, and reduce vehicle miles traveled. Bicycle transportation is improved in a city when thorough planning documents have been created to help guide and improve bicycling facilities

This research creates a framework to evaluate a city’s planning documents for the purpose of bicycle planning. The framework is derived from a thorough literature review and from …

Review Of Federal Transit Administration New Starts Project Funding Process, Azadeh Rahmani

Planning Masters Professional Reports

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is an agency within the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) that provides financial and technical assistance to local public transit systems. The FTA is one of the ten modal administrations within the DOT. Headed by an administrator who is appointed by the President, the FTA functions through a Washington DC headquarters office and ten regional offices which assist transit agencies in all states, the District of Columbia, and the territories. Until 1991, it was know as the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA). The Federal Transit Administration's (FTA) discretionary New Starts program is the federal …

North Bottoms: A Participatory Redevelopment & Sustainable Community Engagement Process, Andrea C. Koerner

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

This project addressed the economic, social, and environmental ill effects occurring in the North Bottoms in Lincoln, Nebraska. This neighborhood requires the use of innovative community engagement to counteract minimal resources, civic engagement, and social capital in order to accomplish sustainable redevelopment when traditional methods have been unsuccessful. The initial goal of the project was to involve citizens in the design process to create an effective and development strategy and design project for the neighborhood.

Although traditional methods were sufficient to develop a comprehensive approach to sustainable development, it became obvious through engagement with citizens and civic officials that a …

Assessment Of New Energy Use Policy In Land Use Planning, Xun Liu

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses and Student Projects

In modern society, energy has long been a part of human life. However, traditional energy resources will be used up eventually, and they also cause environmental pollution. In contrast with traditional energy resources, new energy has three major advantages: it has high efficiency, renewable and environmentally friendly. Considering new energy’s efficiency, local government should adopt appropriate policies. New energy policies are the most effective and direct method to enable governments to achieve their goals.

This study mainly focuses on how energy policies can improve the efficiency of new energy use. More specifically, this research addresses three major questions: 1) To …

Along The Chicopee River From The Mills To The Ludlow Bridge - Creating A Vision For Indian Orchard, Ying Cao, Elizabeth Englebretson, Scott Fulford, Jing Huang, Yiwei Huang, Rocky Liu, Tracy Murphy, Sparky Von Plinsky, Albert Wang, Jinglin Wang, Yan Yan, Shanshan Yu

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

The report documents design investigations for Springfield’s Indian Orchard neighborhood. The Graduate Urban Design Studio focused on the exciting area along the Chicopee River from the Indian Orchard Mills to the spectacular outlook at Indian Leap and the neighborhood gateway at the Ludlow Bridge. The primary goal of the project was to unveil the unique assets and character of the area, make these assets more accessible and legible and thus strengthen the identity of Indian Orchard as a vibrant place for its residents and visitors. Crucial keys to attaining this goal are: acknowledging the strong industrial heritage; improving connectivity to …

Assessing Impermeable Surface Area Impacts On Modeling: Implications For The Combined Sewer Overflow Long Term Control Plan In Omaha, Nebraska, Andrew D. Szatko

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

The report looks at assessing the accuracy of estimating impervious surface areas (ISAs) by zoning code, the method utilized by the City of Omaha, Nebraska. A 101 acre subcatchment had all ISAs manually digitized and compared the actual with the estimated value. The subcatchment was then modeled with 10 percent decreases of ISAs to establish the relationship with peak flow rates and total volume in the combined sewer service area. The results show a significant relationship between the two that may provide insights into a new approach to manage CSO events with the integration of green infrastructure.

Traversing The Urban Landscape: Connecting The Pedestrian Grid, Carly Augustine

Architecture Senior Theses

"I contend that the advent of the super highway, reliance on the automobile and large scale infrastructure has further disconnected the shrinking city of Baltimore, Maryland by creating borders, barriers and vacancies within the pedestrian grid directly affecting the vitality of cultural street life, cohesion of communities and future densification."

The Overgrown Grid: An Alternative Zoning Proposal For The Island Of Manhattan, Thomas Day

Architecture Senior Theses

"This thesis proposes to restructure the primary agenda of the collective monument from a homogenizing force at the local scale, to an object celebrating diversity and multiculturalism. By establishing a continuous mass connecting and collecting the city's currently isolated collective monuments, the new monument will be adjusted to regain formal and cultural contrast to the urban fabric."

Technocarpet: Supporting A Culture Of Congestion, William Andrew Weigand

Architecture Senior Theses

"The TechnoCarpet is a public space sited in a future of resource scarcity, climate disruption, and urbanization. It provides support facilities and cultural amenities necessary to sustain super dense urban populations. I establishes an internal frontier for the city as a means to provoke density, by creating an escape from it. The TechnoCarpet is a model for parks in the 21st century."

Informal, Scott Reynolds

Architecture Senior Theses

"I contend that architecture can offer agency in new forms of urban relationships to engage the edge condition between formal and informal, critical to the success of today's in-situ slum up gradation and integration to the formal city. Dismantling the spatial segregation will socially, economically, and politically integrate the two cities for sustainable growth of the metropolis."

Intensity Without Density, Nicole Blasetti

Architecture Senior Theses

"Within the field of residual space, a reactive public infrastructure is the setting for intense public intervention."

Illegal Linkage: Transition Of Beijing Informal Economy, Wanjing Xiao

Architecture Senior Theses

"This project contends that the transitional urban fringes are places where the informal economy grows in the most spontaneous and efficient form. By investigating the transitional urban fringe, one can study its informal urban behavior at local and long-term effects, enabling the social awareness and political force to manifest in an informal linkage leading illegal economy towards legalization, while encouraging a new form of 'formal'"...

"This thesis proposes a statistic informality that is able to resist the clearance from urbanization. The new paradigm will be extracted form existing informality models acting as a field condition to bridge the formality and …

Corporeal Meeting Place, Brandon Maldonado

Architecture Senior Theses

"The modernist movement was able, through the industrial revolution, to eliminate the role of facade as load bearing member, fetishizing transparency. However, this new preeminence of visuality was not applicable to the suburban home, with its predisposition toward the creation and control of privacy. What separate the suburban condition from the urban, in addition to the role of the single-family home as purchasable symbol representing an ideal, is the front yard. Instead of a simple A-B division across a singular surface, the yard creates a "deep" facade, a series of layered spaces serving as filtration' sidewalks, fences, plantings, yards, and …

A Sacred And Secular Landscape: Empowering Social Agency, Shreya Shah

Architecture Senior Theses

"I contend that landscape can provoke an idea for a productive, public space using the people of the city as social agents to create a sensitive rather than oppressive water remediation system. By inventing a program that uses landscape as a water remediation space as well as landscape as a religious and social space, the project will exhibit the idea that social agents can inform a change in the water pollution crisis."

The Consistency Doctrine As Applied To Comprehensive Plans And Zoning In Nebraska Counties: An Argument For Periodic Plan Updates, Jeffrey Lee Murman

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses and Student Projects

A citizen’s participation in the process of formulating goals for a particular locality is essential to the idealistic development of a comprehensive plan. Adopting a comprehensive plan is a manifestation of goals and ideals expressed by those participating in formulating the comprehensive plan. Consistency doctrine requires zoning regulations have a certain level of conformance to an adopted comprehensive plan. An adopted comprehensive plan should be reviewed at a certain level of regularity to ensure that citizens have a voice in the constantly shifting developmental alterations. Nebraska county zoning enabling statutes require zoning regulations be consistent with an adopted comprehensive plan …

Industry Targeting Final Report. City Of Benbrook Economic Development Corporation., Institute Of Urban Studies

Institute of Urban Studies Publications

No abstract provided.

Full Report- Re-Thinking The Future Of Cleveland's Neighborhood Developers: Interim Report, Norman Krumholz, Kathryn Hexter

All Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs Publications

No abstract provided.

Integration Of Bicycling And Walking Facilities Into The Infrastructure Of Urban Communities, Cornelius Nuworsoo, Erin Cooper, Katherine Cushing, Eugene Jud

City and Regional Planning

Several manuals, handbooks and web resources exist to provide varied guidance on planning for and designing bicycle and pedestrian facilities, yet there are no specific indications about which of the varied treatments in these guides work well for users. This project highlights best practices and identifies program characteristics associated with high levels of non-motorized travel, with an emphasis on bicyclists and pedestrians. It highlights practices in the California communities of Davis, Palo Alto and San Luis Obispo. The case studies are used to illustrate how urban communities have integrated non-motorized transportation modes into the physical infrastructure and worked to educate …

A Cpted Bibliography: Publications Related To Urban Space, Planning, Architecture, And Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design, 1975-2010, Sean E. Michael, Gregory Saville, Joel W. Warren

Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Faculty Publications

This compendium is the result of two different bibliographies. The first was completed by Sean Michael, Professor and Department Head of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planing at Utah State University. The second was completed by Gregory Saville, urban planner and Principal of AlterNation Consulting, started during graduate work at the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University. Consolidation and expansion of the two works was overseen by Joel Warren, during his Masters of Landscape Architecture at Utah State University.

Our thanks go to the many students, colleagues, and friends who contributed to this work over the years. …

Umass Amherst Campus Master Plan Executive Summary 2012, Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, Dennis Swinford

Campus Planning Master Plans

The UMass Amherst Campus Master Plan Executive Summary 2012 summarizes the principles and goals of the University of Massachusetts Amherst Campus Master Plan 2012 and presents a map of the future campus with a list of proposed building site development options, as described in the main document.

University Of Massachusetts Amherst Campus Master Plan 2012, Dennis Swinford, Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, Niels Lacour, Simon Raine, Alexander Stepanov, Ayers Saint Gross, Wilson Architects, Vhb

Campus Planning Master Plans

This is an institutional master plan outlining capacity development for the University of Massachusetts going forward to 2020 and beyond to 2050. The plan establishes a shared vision for future development that features new open spaces; transportation and pedestrian safety; parking decks built on the edge of campus; new bike-ways; new circulation systems including pathways with striking views of the Pioneer Valley; improvements to utilities; and a strategy for reuse of historic buildings. The administration held more than 90 events in the past year with key stakeholders, including students, faculty, staff, host communities and regional representatives and that was complemented …

Planning For Student Union Functions Study, Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham

Campus Planning Reports and Plans

This is a report to the UMass Amherst Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs and Campus Life that identifies current and future co-curricula student activities on campus and develops creative solutions to help meet those needs. The report includes an inventory of existing activities, maps their campus distribution and proposes a preliminary campus-wide space program for those activities.

Reconnecting The City With The Riverfront, To Revitalize The Socio-Economic Conditions Of Springfield, Ma., Sneha Rasal

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The City of Springfield, Massachusetts is one of the largest cities in western Massachusetts, and was established on the Connecticut River for trading and as a fur-collecting post. In 18^th and early 19^th century, it experienced an industrial boom and became a regional financial center. Springfield became a major railroad center and grew to become the regional center for banking, finance, and courts. However, in mid-19^th century Springfield suffered due to the flooding of the Connecticut River and the disinvestment in industry. These resulted in an urban sprawl as people started moving away from heart of the …

Locating Environmental Justice Populations: A Method For Identifying Vulnerable Populations In Massachusetts, Zachary S. Silverman

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Environmental Justice is an issue that has been relevant in the mind of the federal government for the past 18 years. Within society, the goal of Environmental Justice looks to prevent the exploitation of vulnerable populations through the siting of environmentally hazardous sites. Instead of over burdening specific vulnerable populations, fair distribution of hazards throughout the population is desired.

Although there is a large body of research that study the location and impact of hazardous sites on the surrounding communities, there are few existing models which look to locate vulnerable populations through the use of quantitative data. Of the existing …

Transformation Of Urban Public Space, Ruthanne Harrison

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The concept of my thesis is to employ architectural intervention in residual urban space as a catalyst for transformation. The goal is design of a building and environment that could be used for any combination of purposes, be used freely by all members of the community, be designed so that the art and architecture is interactive, and could be transformed by the users of the space. The project makes use of a residual urban space that would otherwise remain largely inaccessible. The project explores how the space could be designed to give a sense of ownership of it to the …

Community Land Trusts And Rental Housing: Assessing Obstacles To And Opportunities For Increasing Access, Maxwell Ciardullo

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are an affordable housing model based in the principles of community control of land and housing, as well as the permanent affordability of home ownership. Because of their membership-based governance structure and limited-equity formula, they are uniquely positioned to target reinvestment in communities of color and low-income communities without perpetuating cycles of displacement. Though focused on home ownership, many CLTs have adapted the model to include rental housing. This addition has the potential to expand affordability and opportunities for community governance to lower-income renters; however, it also challenges CLTs as organizations with little experience developing or …

City Principles: The Application Of The Four Visual Characteristics On Helena, Mt, Cienna Cullen

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The larger architectural context of cities must be understood in order to effectively design buildings. If a building ignores its surroundings, it will not hold up to time and will adversely affect the city in which it stands. This can be seen in multiple of disarrayed cities and their commercial-driven building inventory. So, what makes a good city stand out, and how can this be applied to buildings? There are the four basic principles designers and planners seemed to have forgotten. The first is the layout of basic city components and their influence on current and future identity. The second …

Grow Pods: Flexible Design To Regenerate Urban Landscapes, Rachel K. Roberts

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Shifts in economics, demographics, and lifestyle in America have lead to changes in this country's urban landscape. Rural and urban populations have migrated toward the suburbs and concentrated metro areas, leaving holes in the urban fabric of small and midsized cities. Often these empty spaces become drivers of blight, crime, and discouragement in the community.

The goal of the Grow Pods Project is to transform the negative of vacant urban lots into an opportunity for improving health, building community, and encouraging positive growth.

As a tool for integrating the food system directly into the urban context, this project addresses the …