Architecture Commons^™

To Whom Does Philadelphia Belong? Exploring And Defining "Institutional Investment" In Single Family Rentals In Philadelphia, Cade Warner Underwood

Theses (City and Regional Planning)

Since the global financial crisis of 2007-2009, single-family rentals have dramatically risen to prominence as a uniquely profitable asset class for institutional investors, especially in the United States. Made possible by a combination of three primary factors – the post-crisis inexpensive Real Estate Owned (REO) homes surplus, the decline in working-class wealth and ability to purchase homes, and the emergence of new property management technology – institutional investors are, for the first time, rapidly acquiring hundreds of thousands of single-family homes. The resulting single-family rental portfolios have also inspired novel investment profiteering strategies, which researchers increasingly argue profit at the …

How Does The Built Environment Influence Car And Motorcycle Ownership And Use In Metro Manila?, Weslene Uy

Theses (City and Regional Planning)

Metro Manila is the Philippines’ political and economic capital. With 20 million inhabitants and a land area of only 550 sq. miles, it is Southeast Asia’s most densely populated megacity. In many ways, Metro Manila’s urban development mirrors the challenges faced by rapidly urbanizing cities: economic opportunities are disproportionately concentrated in the capital, rising land values in the urban core have pushed residents towards the fringes, weak planning and enforcement have resulted in unchecked development, and unreliable public transportation coupled with a growing middle class have increased motorization rates.

To address these challenges, cities have turned to land use strategies, …

“Citizens With A Special Training”: Henry Stern Churchill And Democratic Ideals In Planning And Urban Renewal, Maxwell Johnson

Theses (City and Regional Planning)

The story of American urban renewal is frequently reduced to a struggle between autocratic supporters of mass urban clearance and the admirable individuals and communities who resisted. Henry Stern Churchill (1893-1962), the focus of this thesis, was an early advocate and practitioner of urban renewal, who, by the end of his career, became a staunch critic of the practice. Churchill, therefore, upsets the dominant narrative of renewal, showing that it is not purely a story of good vs. evil, but rather one with dynamic figures who evolved over their careers.

Churchill demonstrated a lifelong commitment to planning as a democratic …

Mapping Urban Infrastructure: Temporal Metropolitan Geographies Of Nonprofit Human Service Organizations, Sarah Nicole Massey

Theses (City and Regional Planning)

Across the United States, planning for human services relies largely upon public-private partnerships with nonprofit organizations as the result of decades of federal retrenchment. The locational patterns of nonprofit human services organizations (NHSOs) have been studied in the nonprofit literature, but there is little scholarship on this topic in the realm of city planning. This research connects these two disciplines while answering two questions: 1) Where do NHSOs cluster over time within metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs)? 2) Are NHSOs locating in response to community needs, resources, or conditions? In order to establish generalizable results across space and time, this study …

It’S Art About Water Treatment! An Interview With Mallory Chaput, The Artist Inspiring Future Water Leaders-One Artwork At A Time, Swati Hegde

wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water

This article throws a spotlight on Mallory Chaput, an artist inspiring future water leaders to take up water careers. Through her coloring pages, paintings, and comics about the water treatment, Mallory is helping children re-imagine the water sector. Originally a landscaper, Mallory developed a profound interest in water and wastewater treatment and learned about it by visiting plants, talking to professionals, and studying engineering books. This article is a transcript of an interview with Mallory, featuring her background, her imaginative creations and her future goals.

Where There Are No Sewers: The Toilet Cleaners Of Lucknow, Sharada Prasad, Isha Ray

wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water

Enormous progress has been made in the global effort to provide safe and affordable toilets for the world’s poorest citizens since World Toilet Day was first declared in 2001. Significant strides have been made in “reinventing” toilet designs for low-income, water-short, un-sewered urban zones; celebrities such as Bill Gates and Matt Damon have brought this once-taboo topic into the open; and the Prime Minister of India – the country with the highest number of people still practicing open defecation – has publicly declared that his country needs toilets over temples.

Well over 2 billion people today lack access to basic …

El Agua Es Oro: A Human Centered Solution For The City Of Cochabamba, Bolivia, Natalia Mendoza, Camilia Olmedo

wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water

The purpose of El Agua Es Oro (The Water is Gold) is to satisfy social needs, specifically for women living in peri-urban areas, with a more advanced efficiency. El Agua Es Oro creates an added value for people’s well-being by maximizing socio-environmental context and not just focusing on for-profit economics. Nevertheless, it is noteworthy to generate economic resources to sustain the impact that the organization seeks to achieve. El Agua Es Oro is a social enterprise based on the application of social innovation with the methodology and tools of a people-centered design, focusing on teenage girls and women. The foundations …

Climate Change, Differential Impacts On Women And Gender Mainstreaming: A Case Study Of East Rapti Watershed, Nepal, Anupama Ray

wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water

Women and water share a great deal of nexus in several ways. However, women have still minimal control over the management of water resources, making them more vulnerable to climate change. This paper assesses how climate change impacts differently across different women groups using an intersectionality lens, thereby exploring the situation of gender mainstreaming in water sector in three communities, namely, Karaiya, Basauli, and Dadagaun in Khairahani Municipality located in the East Rapti watershed, Nepal. In this perception- based study, we conducted three key informant interviews and household interviews with 45 women of different castes, ages, communities, education levels, and …

Gender In The Water Industry One Man Of Transgender Experience’S Story, Ari Copeland

wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water

is a complex topic Most people often confuse gender and sex; Most folks don’t realize that there are at least 57 genders and gender is a spectrum Some people within our workplace and the water industry don’t identify as a man or a woman, and/or their gender is more fluid (gender-expansive. In our day-to-day interactions with others, we often assume someone’s gender based on their appearance, mannerisms, and other social cues that vary depending on the culture Additionally, assuming everyone fits into the gender binary (just men and women is often-times a barrier to being inclusive and making people feel …

Exploring Sustainable Degrowth-Based Adaptation To Climate Change-Aggravated Water Insecurity In Parts Of Rural India: A Gender Relations Approach, Nairita Roy Chaudhuri

wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water

This article reviews the theoretical concept of ‘sustainable adaptation’ to climate change and water scarcity using a gender-relations approach by answering the following questions: i) What is a sustainable adaptation to climate change? ii) Based on a literature review, how does gender interact with climate change adaptation to water scarcity and droughts in rural India? (iii) How do the concepts of sustainable adaptation, degrowth, and gender relations interact on the ground, pertaining to water justice?

The paper argues that climate change adaptation and development goals can harmonize only if they rectify root causes of vulnerabilities. For adaptation actions to yield …

Women And Water: Lessons Learned From A Humanitarian Intervention At Igusi Clinic, Matabeleland, Zimbabwe, Rachel C. Svetanoff, Ifeoma Ilobodo

wH2O: The Journal of Gender and Water

This article highlights the disproportionate impact of water scarcity on women and girls in Matabeleland, Zimbabwe. We emphasize one Zimbabwean woman's efforts to implement a sustainable water solution for a community of 20,000 citizens. Lumbie Mlambo, Founder and President of the nonprofit JB Dondolo, Inc., took action following reports that people in the community her father was aiding were falling ill, mothers could not carry their pregnancy to full terms, and infant mortality rates were rising. Before Lumbie's intervention, the only water available was contaminated by polluted soil. Moreover, the climate change-induced droughts and floods made the potable water hard …

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 …

Demolition And Reconstruction As Urban Preservation In China: The Case Of Liaocheng City, Chuxuan Zhang

Theses (Historic Preservation)

This thesis studies the large-scale “oxymoron” projects/policies (demolition and reconstruction activities) that occurred in China, especially in LiaoCheng City to understand the design of the policies/projects, the factors at play, and their effects on preservation efforts in historic Chinese cities. This study shows that large-scale “oxymoron” projects/policies are mainly affected by four aspects. Firstly, how to maintain the authenticity of historical heritage during the preservation process is still controversial due to China's unique cultural background. Secondly, the land finance, the rapid economic development, and the continuous expansion of the cities have made the land value of the historical centers rise …

Soot In The Mortar: Climate Crisis Interpretation At The Elms, Aislinn Eyre Pentecost-Farren

Theses (Historic Preservation)

As climate change effects increase, historic sites with connections to the fossil fuel industry assume new meaning. These sites offer opportunities to grow public recognition of climate change history and the ways our cultural values and economic systems feed the climate crisis. This thesis investigates The Elms, coal magnate Edward Berwind’s 1901 mansion in Newport, Rhode Island, as an especially apt case study for interpreting the history of the climate crisis at historic sites and industrialist house museums. The thesis begins with an overview of recent literature on the interpretation of “hidden” and “difficult” histories at historic sites, climate change …

Geometry And Topology: Building Machine Learning Surrogate Models With Graphic Statics Method, Hao Zheng

Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations

This dissertation aims at developing a machine learning workflow in solving design-related problems, taking a data-driven structural design method with topological data using graphic statics as an example. It shows the advantages of building machine learning surrogate models for learning the design topology -- the relationship of design elements. It reveals a future tendency of the coexistence of the human designer and the machine, in which the machine learns the appearance and correlation between design data, while the human supervises the learning process.

Theoretically, with the commencement of the age of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, the usage of machine …

Vaults Speak: A History And Material Analysis Of Guastavino Akoustolith Tile, Jose Carlos Hernandez Cruz

Theses (Historic Preservation)

Since antiquity, reverberation has been linked to monumental interiors. Roman temples and medieval Gothic cathedrals produced a recognizable soundscape that was considered as natural as gravity. Vaults, domes, pendentives, and other large concave surfaces produced reverberant spaces that enriched the medieval latin chant but was detrimental to the clarity of the modern Protestant sermon. At the turn of the twentieth-century, Wallace Clement Sabine and Rafael Guastavino Jr. responded to a demand to quiet Protestant cathedrals. Together, they patented two acoustical products, a clay-based tile named “Rumford” and an artificial stone named “Akoustolith.” These were structural, imitated traditional masonry, and absorbed …

Classifying Opportunity Zones- A Model-Based Clustering Approach, Jamaal Green, Wei Shi

Departmental Papers (City and Regional Planning)

Objective: Opportunity Zones (OZs) are the first major place-based economic development policy from the federal government in nearly two decades. To date, confusion persists among planners and policymakers in some places as to what features of OZ tracts matter for their inclusion, and, secondly, what features of OZ tracts make them attractive targets for potential investment. The authors developed a typology of OZ tracts in order to offer planners and policymakers alternative ways of organizing a highly variable set of tracts.

Methods: This study employs model-based clustering, also known as latent class analysis, to develop a typology OZ tracts from …

Tactical Preservation For Climate Emergency: Adaptive Reuse Of 20th C. Public Schools In Puerto Rico, Hillary Morales Robles

Theses (Historic Preservation)

Puerto Rico has experienced three major disasters in the last five years, the hurricanes María and Irma in 2017 and earthquake swarms in the winter of 2020. Post-disaster vulnerabilities studies have concluded that municipalities in rural Puerto Rico present high exposure and risk in future disasters. Parallel to this context, thousands of 20th-century public schools were closed in the last decade due to damage and disinvestment in public infrastructure on the island. Not only has this reduced educational resources but also available emergency shelters. This thesis has studied vacant 20th-century public schools in Puerto Rico as an opportunity to reclaim …

Activating Our Tools: A Qualitative Analysis Of Statewide Historic Preservation Plans, Anne Greening

Theses (Historic Preservation)

Since the passage of the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, State Historic Preservation Offices have been required to create and implement Statewide Historic Preservation Plans on a recurring cycle. Despite this longstanding requirement, State Plans have been overlooked in academic research and there have been few comprehensive evaluations of the planning process, the written plans, and their implementation. This thesis begins to fill that gap in research and suggests further areas of study for future researchers. Through interviews with staff at the National Park Service, an online survey of SHPOs in U.S. states, territories, and Freely Associated States, and …

An Evaluation Of Shelter Coating As A Preventive Conservation Method For Earthen Sites, Alison Cavicchio

Theses (Historic Preservation)

Shelter coating is a global practice implemented as one form of protection at earthen sites to reduce surface erosion of adobe. At Fort Union National Monument, the largest adobe site in the United States, shelter coating has been used since the 1980s and of various formulations and application methods. Current shelter coat practices at Fort Union consist of a two-coat system of an unamended layer of similar composition to the original adobe walls, followed by a second amended mud layer modified with a stabilizing agent (Rhoplex™ E-330) to enhance the exterior layer’s water resistance and weatherability. Rhoplex™ E-330, an acrylic …

Strathglass Park: Strategies For The Revitalization Of A Rural Mill Town Community, Heather Megan Hendrickson

Theses (Historic Preservation)

Built in 1902 for Oxford Paper Company mill workers, Strathglass Park is one of the finest examples of twentieth century industrial worker housing still extant today. The rural town of Rumford Falls, Maine experienced a radical population boom during the last decade of the nineteenth century when the small agrarian village was transformed into a thriving industrial pulp-and-paper company town, resulting in a major housing shortage. Brainchild of Hugh J. Chisholm (1847-1912), founder of the Oxford Paper Company, Strathglass Park consisted of 51 red-brick architect-designed duplexes organized in a professionally planned park-like setting surrounded by a granite wall. The well-constructed, …

Developing A Methodology For The Conservation Of A Tserkva: Examining The Structural And Decorative Composite Of The Church Of The Exaltation Of The Holy Cross, Drohobych, Ukraine, Blair Horton

Theses (Historic Preservation)

In January 2020, a multi-year project was initiated to preserve the Church of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross (CEHC), a historic wooden church in Western Ukraine. Building upon preliminary documentation, this thesis responds to the conservation challenge presented by the polychrome wall-paintings where the icons and motifs used in the religious liturgy were painted directly onto the structural timbers. This thesis proposes a methodology for their joint conservation informed by examination of the church’s heritage values, regional agents of deterioration, and conservation discourse around the larger typology. Through developed preservation principles and a phased timeline, the site-specific needs of …

Revisiting The Past Treatments And Condition Assessment Of The Painted Sanctuary At Tumacacori, Yifei Yang

Theses (Historic Preservation)

This thesis focuses on the painted walls in the Sanctuary of the Mission Church of San Jose de Tumacacori, which has been managed by the National Park Service since 1918 and has been treated several times in the past years. The treatments from different periods overlaid on the surface of the Sanctuary offer interesting evidence of different types of conservation treatments conducted on in situ murals and decorative paintings over the past century. However, these treatments have never been closely examined nor distinguished as individual campaigns of treatment. This thesis intends to differentiate and analyze the treatments and materials applied …

Formulation And Evaluation Of A Biophilic Protective Surface Treatment For Stone Substrates, Caitlin Siobhan Livesey

Theses (Historic Preservation)

This thesis develops and preliminarily tests a biophilic adhesive filler for the fossilized tree stumps at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument (FLFO), which are rapidly deteriorating due to the impacts of precipitation and freeze-thaw cycling. At the crown of Stump P47, lichens have been observed to have a consolidating effect, preventing further fragmentation. Recent conservation research confirms that in certain environments, with specific substrates and organisms, microflora and macroflora can act as protective and consolidating agents for stone substrates. This thesis explores these benefits by considering potential materials for the formulation of a biophilic adhesive filler, which could be used …

The Reconstruction Crusade: Rebuilding France's Catholic Churches After World War I, 1914-1939, Leo M. Gearin

Honors Program in History (Senior Honors Theses)

Between 1918 and 1939, France rebuilt the nearly 4,000 Catholic churches of the Western Front that had been destroyed during the First World War. This thesis presents a cultural history of that process. While it examines technical and financial aspects of reconstruction, the thesis is primarily interested in how Catholics understood the cultural significance of church reconstruction through the shifting and porous contexts of war and peace during the interwar years. It considers how church reconstruction operated at multiple levels: material, conceptual, rhetorical, and ritual. In tracing the evolution of reconstruction efforts across the period—from wartime discourses about reconstruction to …

Human Dimensions Of Building Performance: Sensing, Modeling, And Predicting Indoor Environmental Quality, Nan Ma

Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations

The indoor environment critically affects occupant health and comfort, especially since humans spend most of the day indoors. Meanwhile, occupant activities, preferences, and behaviors may contribute to a significant amount of building energy consumption. The focus of environmental buildings shifted from automated systems to a paradigm of collective environmental design since the second half of the 20th century, emphasizing human dimensions in building performance, which allows occupants to participate as active/passive actuators and sensors. Concurrently, increased environmental awareness further spurred the green building movement intending to encourage more high-performance buildings. The question remains as to whether high-performance buildings are also …

Evaluating Accessibility Of Female Caregivers In Philadelphia From A Safety Perspective, Camille Boggan

Theses (City and Regional Planning)

Transportation networks in major U.S. cities are built and managed around a very narrow subset of transit riders: able-bodied, solo men traveling to and from a white-collar job in the city center. Despite the evidence of women as primary users of public transportation, the U.S. planning field has lagged in incorporating this knowledge into practice. This thesis attempts to address this gap in transportation accessibility planning by evaluating the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) public transportation network in Philadelphia in terms of personal safety. The study employs a geographic information systems (GIS) analysis to illustrate how safety metrics could be …

Data-Based Urban Heritage Policy Assessment: Evaluating Tel Aviv’S Preservation Plan, Ilil Feiglin

Theses (City and Regional Planning)

Urban heritage policies are rarely assessed on a regular or continuous basis. Formal indicator guidelines and scholarly work address some possible evaluation methods for urban heritage policies, but a gap exists between the generalized work and limited on-site implementation. Spatial and non-spatial datasets should contribute to our understanding and refinement of such policies. Yet, in practice, data and the proper assessment mechanisms are often lacking.

This research presents Tel Aviv’s 2650b preservation plan as a case study to explore possible assessment methods of policy effectiveness. Tel Aviv is the second-largest city in Israel. In 2003 UNESCO declared the White City …

University Expansion In The Post-World War Ii Era: A Case Study On The University Of Virginia, Adam Ghazzawi

Theses (City and Regional Planning)

This thesis explores the University of Virginia’s (UVa) rapid enrollment growth and physical expansion between 1945 and 1980. Despite the university’s contentious and increasing presence in Charlottesville, this time period at UVa remains largely unstudied by scholars. Expanding upon existing research on universities in the postwar era, this study uses a range of quantitative, qualitative, and spatial methods to examine university intent and impacts on the surrounding community. UVa’s post-World War II expansion emerged from a period where university leadership sought to maintain the insularity of Jefferson’s academical village through the exploitation of Black labor. To grow the university and …

Public Transportation In Ski Towns: An Analysis For The Ski Town Workforce And Visiting Populations, Perry Schaffner

Theses (City and Regional Planning)

Skiing has grown rapidly in popularity within the past six decades as resorts have recorded record numbers of visitors. Ski towns are now flooded with additional residents and visitors. Ski towns are now busy year-round as resorts have transitioned to four-season operations. Public transit in ski towns currently struggles to meet the needs of all population groups, but mainly the needs of service industry workers. Public transportation alternatives must be considered as a viable option to support the transportation needs of local year-round residents and transient populations. This study seeks to address the questions: What are the main transportation challenges …