Architecture Commons^™

Small Islands Commons: Retrieving Territory, Identity And Rights In The Bahamas, Fangzhou Zhao

Masters Theses

The Earth’s surface area comprises 71% ocean and 29% land. This vast disparity has led to the conceptualization of the Earth as a collection of interconnected islands, a perspective that challenges traditional views which often portray islands as isolated, marginal, or primitive. These narratives have been further complicated by the effects of climate change, which positions islands as vulnerable and in need of attention.

This research seeks to explore new socio-cultural contracts with territories to achieve bio-socio-spatial justice. It aims to maintain sustainable and equitable relationships between governments and local communities, focusing on addressing historical inequalities. By examining landscape-based strategies …

Designing Resilient Communities: Landscape Architecture Strategies To Counteract The Urban Heat Island Effect And Enhance Thermal Comfort In Vulnerable Neighborhoods In Dallas, Texas, Angelica E. Villalobos

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses

As cities continue to expand and temperatures rise, extreme weather conditions become more frequent (Tan et al., 2009). This urban heat phenomenon significantly impacts the environment and the health and well-being of living organisms, including humans (Bullard, 2011). Unfortunately, those who live in poverty are particularly vulnerable to the harmful effects of urban heat island-induced heat (Balbus & Malina, 2009). To address this issue, this research evaluates landscape architecture design strategies that mitigate the urban heat island and enhance thermal comfort in vulnerable suburban neighborhoods in Dallas, Texas. Recommendations are provided for enhancing resident thermal comfort in single-family residential neighborhoods, …

Prioritizing Climate Equity: A Qualitative Analysis Of The Massachusetts Mvp Program, Noah H. Gordon

Masters Theses

The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program (MVP Program) has funded Community Resilience Building workshops in hundreds of communities over the past 6 years. The Planning Reports produced by these workshops offer valuable insight into the climate adaptation and climate justice priorities of Massachusetts municipalities. Climate justice literature holds that the impacts of climate change will be disproportionately felt by marginalized communities, and those addressing climate change should address the risks faced by those communities, referred to as Environmental Justice (EJ) Communities in Massachusetts. Using an inductive qualitative coding approach, this study analyzes 30 Planning Reports from towns with High, Medium …

Community Space Planning And Design Guide For Enhanced Wildfire Resilience In Heber, Utah, Devin Macfarlane

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The wildland urban interface (WUI) is the fastest growing land type in the conterminous United States. These areas are prone to catastrophic wildfire events. In response to rapid population growth, Heber City, Utah is planning a significant amount of development within the WUI. This thesis project is aimed at proactively addressing wildfire risk in the WUI of Heber through two main strategies: regional geospatial planning and public space design to create wildfire resilient communities. Researching principles of wildfire adaptive practice and planning for defensible space led to the development of a list of criteria. This list was developed in the …

Arctic Resilience: Adaptive Networks Of Self-Sufficiency, Jingjing Cui

Masters Theses

As the impacts of climate change reverberate across the globe, there is an increasing focus on communities already grappling with high environmental stress, limited resources, isolation, and economic challenges. Among these communities, the Arctic region stands out not for its population size, but for the threat posed to their traditional ways of life by the melting polar icecap, rising seas, changing ecology, and shifting migration patterns of vital wildlife. Many communities are living on shorelines being lost to the sea, having been moved there decades earlier by government and oil corporation dictates. Now facing impending relocation again, these communities have …

Investigating Consistency Of Landscape-Scale Green Infrastructure In Local Government Policy, Anna Wilson

All Theses

Planning for Climate Change is multifaceted and requires effort across all scales. Green Infrastructure networks of green spaces, natural lands, reserves, working lands, core habitat, riparian corridors, parks, open spaces, private conservations lands, and other complementary land uses work together to support life on earth and human existence through the ecosystem services provided. Clean air, clean water, carbon sequestration, food production, recreation, pollination, and spiritual and cultural benefits are only a few of the services that natural lands provide society. With climate change occurring due to human actions such as land use, development, and energy use, to name a few, …

U.S. Army Medical Command’S Medical Treatment Facilities’ Response To Sars-Cov-2 (Covid-19), Seyedmohammad Ahmadshahi

All Theses

Starting in December 2019 to the current time in May 2022, COVID-19 was a devastating pandemic with approximately 440 million cases and 6 million deaths worldwide (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2021). The United States (US) with roughly 90 million cases and 1 million deaths (CDC, 2021) was one of the epicenters of the outbreak since the beginning. The pandemic has significantly impacted the health systems across the US with unpredictable surges of highly infectious patients with uncertain symptomology and acuity levels, requiring isolation and critical level of care (Brambilla et al., 2021).

Based on the findings from …

H2opulent, Reese Zimmerman

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This project is an experiment on resilience, in an attempt to set forth guidelines for a new architecture that is designed with water, for water, and against water. The intent of this project is to create a self-sustaining architectural model that will exist entirely detached from dry land in order to mitigate the affects of flooding and water level rise.

For this project I am analyzing projects in three categories: land, water and hybrid. Land includes projects built along the coast on solid ground, water includes projects that either float on top of the water or are built on stilts …

Urban Resilience: Urban Design Strategies For Addressing Climate Change In Waterfront Cities, Kathryn Stapleton

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Many of the world’s historic and notable cities grew on waterfronts taking advantage of transportation, protection, and resources. While water is essential, it can also bring great destruction where flooding and erosion leave universal damage. In light of climate change predictions, by 2050, 90% of the major waterfront cities in the world will face the challenge of rising sea levels. Waterfront cities must quickly adapt and answer to this influx of water before its effects become irreversible. Urban design should address how to enhance the resilience of coastal cities to flooding through the reintegration of nature and water into the …

The Yamanote Loop: Unifying Rail Transportation And Disaster Resilience In Tokyo, Mackenzie Wade

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

As climate change and population growth persist, and as the world rapidly urbanizes, major cities across the globe will face unprecedented strains. The risk of devastating impact from natural disasters increases in areas with a growing concentration of people. Megacities in Asia are the most at-risk of natural disasters, given their geographic location and high population density. With the highest projected population growth in the world, Asian cities must quickly expand and adapt their existing infrastructure to accommodate the transforming global conditions.

A remarkable anomaly amongst Asian megacities, Tokyo, Japan is effectively adapting to its earthquake-prone environment. Within the last …

Resilient Architecture: Adaptive Community Living In Coastal Locations, Erica Shannon

Masters Theses

How can architects design for coastal inundation caused by climate change, what are the methods and strategies currently being implemented as a response to coastal inundation, and how can these strategies influence the design approach for a self-sustaining community that can survive and thrive in a low-lying coastal area?

Climate change is caused by an expenditure of planet-harming resources being improperly or inefficiently utilized and consumed. This can lead to a rise of global sea level and an increased severity of storm surges.

Resilience is defined as the ability to overcome challenges and difficulties. Coastal resilience is the ability for …

New York City 2050: Climate Change And Future Of New York | Design For Resilience, Abhinav Bhargava

Masters Theses

The escalating temperature, annual precipitation, sea level rise and carbon footprint will likely lead to an unimagined future which does not have a bright side. With the rise in carbon footprint particularly due to greenhouse gas emissions, burning of fossil fuels and change in land uses; carbon dioxide is 40% higher as compared to era before Industrial Revolution.

The constant increase in temperature is melting the glaciers and increasing the sea levels. The Hudson River is estimated to rise by 1.5-2ft by 2050, directly affecting the low-lying areas of Staten Island, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. Amongst the multiple coastal cities …

Re (Civic) Function The Cultural Value Of L’ Aquila, Ogechi Nwoko

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

I want to start by exploring with you the meaning of you these numbers. From 2000 to 2012 natural disasters have caused 1.7 trillion dollars in damage and affected 2.9 billion people. Nearly 50% of the fatalities caused by natural disasters were due to flooding or earthquakes events. If we also look at the regions affected, these are usually facing social, cultural and environmental difficulties; therefore, the process of recovery of the communities in most of the time is slowly effective or unsuccessful. In order to face better future calamities, this research aims to analyze the displacing effect of the …

Ecodistricts In San Francisco: The Implementation Of Neighborhood Regional Planning And Its Potential Effects On Environmental Resilience, Elizabeth M. Juvera

Master's Projects and Capstones

Ecodistricts, or neighborhood-scale, community-driven areas of sustainable development, have emerged internationally and within the U.S. to create models of adaptive environmental design and advanced urban infrastructure. Central SoMa is the first ecodistrict to be planned and implemented in San Francisco, with the intention of revitalizing and greening this urbanized region of the city. At this time, the Central SoMa area has very low biodiversity levels, inefficient infrastructure, and poor water management capabilities. Through the implementation of ecodistricts in San Francisco, the city can integrate physical and behavioral sustainability measures from existing ecodistricts such as permeable surfaces, green roofs, stormwater management, …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Quantifying The Greenhouse Gas Emissions Of Hazards: Incorporating Disaster Mitigation Strategies In Climate Action Plans, Michael Germeraad

Master's Theses

Reconstruction after natural disasters can represent large peaks in a community’s greenhouse gas emission inventory. Components of the built environment destroyed by natural hazards have their useful life shortened, requiring replacement before functionally necessary. Though the hazard itself does not release greenhouse gasses, the demolition and rebuilding process does, and these are the emissions we can quantify to better understand the climate impacts of disasters.

The proposed methodology draws data from existing emission and hazard resource literature and combines the information in a community scale life cycle assessment. Case studies of past disasters are used to refine the methodology and …

Greenspace Conservation Planning Framework For Urban Regions Based On A Forest Bird-Habitat Relationship Study And The Resilience Thinking, Sadahisa Kato

Open Access Dissertations

The research involves first conducting a "case study" of ecological data and applying the results, together with the resilience concept, to the development of a greenspace conservation planning framework for urban regions. The first part of the research investigates the relationship between forest bird abundance and the surrounding landscape characteristics, especially, forest area and its spatial configuration in urban regions at multiple scales. The results are similar for simple and multiple regression analyses across three scales. The percentage of forest cover in a landscape is positively correlated with bird abundance with some thresholds. Overall, the percentage of forest cover in …