Architecture Commons^™

Using Remote Sensing Technologies In Relocating Lubrak Village And Visualizing Flood Damages, Ronan Wallace

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As weather patterns change across the world, there are communities impacted by climate change that are left unnoticed. In the Himalayan mountain range, communities have suffered, experiencing an increase in flash flooding and droughts. For Lubrak Village in Lower Mustang, the community faces the threats of flash flooding. Over the last ten years, the amount of flash flooding has increased, occurring more than once each monsoon season. After every flood, concrete-like sediment is left behind, hardening across the riverbed and increasing its elevation. As the riverbed elevation increases, this sediment encroaches on Lu-brak Village’s agricultural fields and ancient mud buildings, …

Architecture Now: A History Of Sustainable Architecture, Meg Vickery

Sustainability Education Resources

As we move further into the 21st century, architects, planners, landscape architects and the general public are increasingly concerned with climate change, environmental degradation, energy and water consumption and the role the built environment plays in contributing to or addressing these issues. Buildings consume almost 40% of the energy used in this country. The way we access buildings, the materials used to construct them, the demands of users within the building all require the earth’s increasingly precious resources. So how did we get here? How did our built environment evolve to require so much energy, water and so many resources? …

Solar & Rain Catching Canopy "Urban Oasis 2", Afolabi Ibitoye, Cheriyah Wilmot, Alexander Aptekar, Grzegorz Kosieradzki, Kaiyrgul Sultanova, Jude Vallon

Publications and Research

The accumulation of water runoff during rain storms is a major problem in New York City’s combination water systems, forcing water treatment plants to release untreated excess water. To avoid overfilling of the sewer system by this grey water, pocket parks and gardens will be used to absorb the excess rainfall. We will be harnessing nature’s resources with current technologies such as: solar panels combined with rain catching canopies, to beautify the environment, educate the public about sustainability, stimulate growth to local businesses through increased foot traffic and bringing social awareness on environmental issues.

The canopies are designed to collect …

Absorbency In Tidal Resiliency | The Thickened Pier, Shauna Strubinger

Architecture Senior Theses

The inevitable truth of climate change has placed coastal cities at great risk. Past natural disasters in the United States such as Hurricane Sandy and Katrina, displaced many people because these communities’ only protection was their failed infrastructure.1 Although hard and soft infrastructure strategies have addressed the rising sea level, architecture at the building scale creates static surfaces and divisions that are slow to adapt to flooding and leave little to no room for the ambiguity of tidal flooding and storm surge. Though numerous areas are at risk of sea level rise across the globe, the Chesapeake Bay area is …

Absorbency In Tidal Resiliency, Shauna Strubinger

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis responds to the current threat of the impact of sea level rise on coastal population cities and proposes to create a blurred, absorbent condition, similar to the relationship between water and land.

Syllabus: Public Space Design Plus: Integrating Sustainable Design Through Exploration And Research, Carolina Aragon

Sustainability Education Resources

This studio focuses on the integration of sustainable technologies into the design of a public space on campus. We will explore this integration at various scales: the human scale, the site scale, and the campus scale ––while covering subjects like materiality, people’s behavior, and innovative sustainable solutions for landscape applications. The work of the studio will be a combination of creative exploration and research supporting this exploration. The methodology will include experiential learning ––learning by doing, research through direct observation, and research using library resources. Through research and use of library databases, students will gain a broader perspective of the …

Climate Change Adaptation Chapter: Marshfield, Massachusetts, Joshua H. Chase, Jonathan G. Cooper, Rory Elizabeth Fitzgerald, Filipe Antunes Lima, Sally R. Miller, Toni Marie Pignatelli

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

Climate change, understood as a statistically significant variation in the mean state of the climate or its variability, is the greatest environmental challenge of this generation (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2001). Marshfield is already being affected by changes in the climate that will have a profound effect on the town’s economy, public health, coastal resources, natural features, water systems, and public and private infrastructure. Adaptation strategies have been widely recognized as playing an important role in improving a community’s ability to respond to climate stressors by resisting damage and recovering quickly.

Based on review of climate projections for the …

Sustainable Portland: Implementation Series 3, New England Environmental Finance Center

Climate Change

This report is the third in a series of efforts by students at the Muskie School of Public Service, Community Planning and Development Master’s program, in a core class called “Sustainable Communities.” In this course students seek to understand principles of sustainability and how efforts to implement Sustainability programs can become more successful. The report assembles term papers students completed on particular efforts by municipalities, universities, and other groups to achieve sustainability goals. Students worked on each project in a service learning format with real world clients. They were asked to fashion their papers around lessons learned by other organizations …

Sustainable Portland: Implementation Series 2, New England Environmental Finance Center

Climate Change

The Portland Municipal Climate Change Working Group prepared a report in March 2008 that outlined several recommendations as a commitment by the City to address greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) produced during daily municipal operations. The Municipal Climate Action Plan was written in partnership with Clean Air – Cool Planet and Portland officials, and acknowledges under Recommendation #2 that an employee energy efficiency program would provide significant positive impact on the City’s reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Best practices from three cities show that focus on the greening of City Hall is critical in developing a program that promotes partnerships, community …

Preserving Assets In At-Risk Municipalities: Financial Strategies For Climate Change Adaptation, New England Environmental Finance Center

Climate Change

A large share of America's population, businesses and economic activity now occurs in coastal areas. At the same time, during this century many coastal communities are likely to be severely impacted by sea level rise and increased storm surge and tidal flooding.

“What to do” about this vulnerability is the subject of this brief. It is intended to help municipalities identify courses of action and steps they might take toward increasing their resilience, especially regarding financial resources that will need to be allocated toward the various strategies identified.

Sustainable Portland: Implementation Series 1, New England Environmental Finance Center

Climate Change

When the Sustainable Portland Task Force Report was released in November 2007, under the leadership of Mayor Jim Cohen, Portland Councilor Kevin Donoghue had the idea that students at the Muskie School of Public Service might be able to help implement recommendations from the report. It may have helped that Kevin was himself a graduate of the Community Planning and Development Master’s program at the Muskie School, but it was a good idea nevertheless. He approached Professor Sam Merrill in the CPD program, who spoke with the new Mayor Ed Suslovic about a possible partnership between the City and the …