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, …

Cultural Ecosystem Services Of Agroecosystems Along The Wasatch Front, Utah, Tiffany K. Woods

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Agroecosystems, including peri-urban systems, are important providers of a range of services. However, management of these systems has generally been based on the market value of crops, neglecting to capture the broader public goods that ecosystem services provide to stakeholders. While the ecosystem service framework (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [MEA], 2005) has been adopted to measure the market and non-market values associated with these services, knowledge gaps persist, particularly with respect to the quantification and valuation of cultural ecosystem services (CES). In this paper, the determination of CES values assigned to agroecosystems by residents of two communities along the Wasatch Front, …

Exploring Park Quality In Urban Setting With Environmental Justice, Alternative Measurements, And Social Interaction, Shuolei Chen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

With rapid urbanization, urban green resources, such as parks have become important assets for quality of life in urban settings. Parks provide urban residents with both physical and psychological health benefits through various mechanisms such as physical activity and social interaction. Quality is an important non-spatial dimension of urban parks and has started to gain attention among researchers. To better understand park quality in an urban setting, additional knowledge should be explored. This dissertation studies the quality of urban parks from three different perspectives: 1) the equal distribution of park quality resources and its relationship to environmental justice issues, 2) …

Rural Sustainability In The Intermountain West, Mary L. Oliver

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Assessing the sustainability of communities is important for planners and citizens alike. Sustainability plays a central role in forming healthy, successful communities and in planning for responsible growth and development. Most current sustainability evaluations favor urban environments due to their high densities and resulting efficiencies, leaving rural areas labeled “unsustainable” because of their decentralized growth patterns. Characterized as “not urban,” they fall short of urban sustainability benchmarks (Isserman, 2005). The importance of rural sustainability to both small communities and regions leads to the question: how can rural sustainability be characterized and assessed?

This study applies a comparative assessment model to …

Dramatic Play Affordances Of Outdoor Settings For First And Second Grade Children With And Without Disabilities, Nicholas R. Leschofs

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Unstructured play is crucial for children’s development. Dramatic play is play involving a transformation of objects, actions, or self-identity. During dramatic play, children may operate at more advanced cognitive levels than they do in non-dramatic play, thereby furthering their cognitive, social, and emotional skills. Interactions among children with and without disabilities are valuable opportunities to further a children’s development.

This study compared dramatic play behaviors among first and second grade children with and without disabilities to determine which play settings encouraged children to engage in quality dramatic play. Eighty-nine six-to-eight-year-olds were observed during lunch recess daily on an inclusive playground. …