Architecture Commons^™

Water Wise Landscape Practices: A Case Study For The City Of Gering, Christina E. Land

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

This professional project is founded on my education, experiences, and networks. I have had the opportunity to use what I have learned thus far and be challenged to look at public planning from a different perspective. In partnership with the City of Gering I was able to get knee deep in the facility planning of the city owned property which is home to the Community Ever Green House. The project reviews how the property is integrated into the community and the impact it has. Then, identifies opportunities to improve overall functionality with a closer look at addressing hazard mitigation using …

Multisensory Experiences In Archaeological Landscapes—Sound, Vision, And Movement In Gis And Virtual Reality, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Kristy Primeau,, David E. E. Witt, Graham Goodwin

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archaeologists are employing a variety of digital tools to develop new methodological frameworks that combine computational and experiential approaches which is leading to new multisensory research. In this article, we explore vision, sound, and movement at the ancient Maya city of Copan from a multisensory and multiscalar perspective bridging concepts and approaches from different archaeological paradigms. Our methods and interpretations employ theory-inspired variables from proxemics and semiotics to develop a methodological framework that combines computation with sensory perception. Using GIS, 3D, and acoustic tools we create multisensory experiences in VR with spatial sound using an immersive headset (Oculus Rift) and …

Understanding Spaces Of Abandonment Through Virtual Frameworks In Landscape Architecture, Aus Perez

Honors Theses

In recent years, design professionals have implemented many contemporary landscape architecture projects across the United States. With a primary goal of returning nature to urban environments, contemporary landscape architects and other transdisciplinary partners work diligently to sculpt physical spaces that reflect the human-living experience. However, a leap into the world of video game design could allow landscape architects and urban planners to more freely create virtual social environments to address rising issues of abandonment in today’s urban and rural spaces. Video game mechanics and methodologies can be used extensively in the disciplines of design that value participatory processes, like landscape …

A 3d Point Cloud Deep Learning Approach Using Lidar To Identify Ancient Maya Archaeological Sites, Heather Richards-Rissetto, David Newton, Aziza Al Zadjali

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Airborne light detection and ranging (LIDAR) systems allow archaeologists to capture 3D data of anthropogenic landscapes with a level of precision that permits the identification of archaeological sites in difficult to reach and inaccessible regions. These benefits have come with a deluge of LIDAR data that requires significant and costly manual labor to interpret and analyze. In order to address this challenge, researchers have explored the use of state-of-the-art automated object recognition algorithms from the field of deep learning with success. This previous research, however, has been limited to the exploration of deep learning processes that work with only 2D …

Analyzation Of Sandpit Lakes In Grand Island, Nebraska, Olena Yarmolyuk, Morgan Davis

Student Creative Activity, Architecture Program

The oxford dictionary defines “dichotomy” as, “noun: a division or contrast between two things that are or are represented as being opposed or entirely different.” In the context of Grand Island, Nebraska, a dichotomy exists in the development of housing. In the 1900s, sand quarrying began along the railroad in Grand Island. When the sand was dredged up from these quarries, the floodplain began to fill in holes over 5 feet deep, creating man-made lakes. As these lakes grew the sand could no longer be quarried, recreation and housing began to develop on their shores. The housing developments, in particular, …

A Design Framework For Rural Community Prosperity, Austin Arens

Honors Theses

In rural America, particularly the rural Midwest, the salad days of the distant past seem to be turning from realities into memories. Shrinking populations, ailing infrastructure, and a general decline in quality of life over the past 50 years have left many small communities thinking critically about their future. These social and economic pressures have acted as a call to arms for a few rural communities across the Midwest, especially in the state of Nebraska. The community of Valentine, Nebraska, situated at the crossroads of two highways that span the continent, a regional hub for every household within a 2 …

Digital Cultural Heritage And Rural Landscapes: Preserving The Histories Of Landscape Conservation In The United States, Sarah Karle, Richard Carman

Landscape Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

ultural landscape in the United States. Due to the size and scope of rural landscapes, large-scale documentation methods are critical to advancing landscape conservation and preservation initiatives. Using an in-progress online project to document a 1935 US federally sponsored program, the Prairie States Forestry Project (PSFP), the authors show how diverse visual and textual data can be spatialised to construct a map reading of landscape change over time. To date, the PSFP is one of the largest afforestation projects in the history of the United States; the United States Forest Service and thousands of landowners undertook a series of cooperative …

Digitally-Mediated Practices Of Geospatial Archaeological Data: Transformation, Integration, & Interpretation, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Kristin Landau

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Digitally-mediated practices of archaeological data require reflexive thinking about where archaeology stands as a discipline in regard to the ‘digital,’ and where we want to go. To move toward this goal, we advocate a historical approach that emphasizes contextual source-side criticism and data intimacy—scrutinizing maps and 3D data as we do artifacts by analyzing position, form, material and context of analog and digital sources. Applying this approach, we reflect on what we have learned from processes of digitally-mediated data. We ask: What can we learn as we convert analog data to digital data? And, how does digital data transformation impact …

Web-Based Archaeology And Collaborative Research, Fabrizio Galeazzi, Heather Richards-Rissetto

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

While digital technologies have been part of archaeology for more than fifty years, archaeologists still look for more efficient methodologies to integrate digital practices of fieldwork recording with data management, analysis, and ultimately interpretation.This Special Issue of the Journal of Field Archaeology gathers international scholars affiliated with universities, organizations, and commercial enterprises working in the field of Digital Archaeology. Our goal is to offer a discussion to the international academic community and practitioners. While the approach is interdisciplinary, our primary audience remains readers interested in web technology and collaborative platforms in archaeology

Rural Sense: Value, Heritage, And Sensory Landscapes: Developing A Design-Oriented Approach To Mapping For Healthier Landscapes, Judith Van Der Elst, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Lily Díaz-Kommonen

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Landscape design needs a novel value system centred on human experience of the landscape rather than simply on economic value. Design-oriented research allows us to shift the focus from mechanistic paradigms towards new sensemaking approaches that value both the sensual and the cognitive in human experience. To move in this direction, we investigate cultural and natural aspects of sensory experience in rural landscapes, arguing that: (1) rural (non-urban) regions offer diverse sensory experiences for optimising human health; and (2) spatial interconnectedness between rural and urban areas means that healthy rural regions are critical for urban development. Our key argument is …

Measuring Landscape Performance: Case Study Investigation, Hannah Michelle Lopresto, Brandon Zambrano, Catherine De Almeida

UCARE Research Products

Participating in the Landscape Architecture Foundation’s 2018 Case Study Investigation has been an incredibly informative experience for our research team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. We are eager to shine a spotlight on the landscape performance of two Great Plains projects: P Street Corridor, a revitalized downtown streetscape in Lincoln, Nebraska, and Tom Hanafan River’s Edge Park, a waterfront redevelopment in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Working on the post-occupancy study of both projects has been extremely beneficial in understanding how reclaiming underutilized sites can create high-performing landscapes. Both are public projects in urban settings with primary goals of transforming formerly unpleasant, …

Recycled Substrates: Plant Biomass And Plant Cover Correlation, Richard K. Sutton

Landscape Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

Green roofs extend roof membrane life and reduce waste to landfills. However, green roof costs must be reduced if their benefits are to accrue more widely. Use of recycled materials may reduce costs and also keep those materials out of landfills. Some work has been done on use of local recycled materials for green roof substrates, but none describe the characteristics, proportions and results of using an entire suite of blended recycled materials in admixtures (i.e., mixtures of very different materials) such as crumb rubber (CR), crushed used brick (CB) and compost (CPT) in concert with greens grade sand (#10), …

Geological Principles Illustrated In The Art Along The Antelope Valley Hiker/Biker Trail – The Big X (Salt Creek Roadway/Antelope Valley Parkway) South To Q Street, Robert Diffendal, Jr.

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

When the weather is good (and even sometimes when it isn’t) I occasionally walk around the periphery of the UNL city campus, often over the lunch hour, now that the trails and the sidewalks allow one to walk a complete circuit. The walk along Antelope Creek from the Big X to Q Street is beautiful. The designers of the project made nice art works on the floor of the creek and on the retaining walls on the valley sides that add to the beauty of nature.

I am a geologist and wondered about some of the art and its meaning …

An Iterative 3d Gis Analysis Of The Role Of Visibility In Ancient Maya Landscapes: A Case Study From Copan, Honduras, Heather Richards-Rissetto

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

For several decades, Geographic Information Systems (GISs) have held center stage in archaeological studies of ancient landscapes. Recently, three-dimensional (3D) technologies such as airborne LiDAR and aerial photogrammetry are allowing us to acquire inordinate amounts of georeferenced 3D data to locate, map, and visualize archaeological sites within their surrounding landscapes. GIS offers locational precision, data overlay, and complex spatial analysis. Three-dimensionality adds a ground-based perspective lacking in two-dimensional GIS maps to provide archaeologists a sense of mass and space more closely attuned with human perception. This article uses comparative and iterative approaches ‘tacking back and forth’ between GIS and 3D …

Airborne Lidar Acquisition, Post-Processing And Accuracy-Checking For A 3d Webgis Of Copan, Honduras, Jennifer Von Schwerin, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Fabio Remondino, Maria Grazia Spera, Michael Auer, Nicolas Billen, Lukas Loos, Laura Stelson, Markus Reindel

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Archaeological projects increasingly collect airborne LiDAR data to use as a remote sensing tool for survey and analysis. Publication possibilities for LiDAR datasets, however, are limited due to the large size and often proprietary nature of the data. Fortunately, web-based, geographic information systems (WebGIS) that can securely manage temporal and spatial data hold great promise as virtual research environments for working with and publishing LiDAR data. To test this and to obtain new data for archaeological research, in 2013, the MayaArch3D Project (www.mayaarch3d.org) collected LiDAR data for the archaeological site of Copan, Honduras. Results include: 1) more accurate archaeological maps, …

3d Tool Evaluation And Workflow For An Ecological Approach To Visualizing Ancient Socio-Environmental Landscapes: A Case Study From Copan, Honduras, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Shona Sanford-Long, Jack Kerby-Miller

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Architectural reconstructions are the centerpieces of ancient landscape visualization. When present, vegetation is relegated to the background, resulting in underutilized plant data—an integral data source for archaeological interpretation—thus limiting the capacity to take advantage of 3D visualization for studying ancient socio-environmental dynamics. Our long-term objective is to develop methods of 3D landscape visualization that have value for examining changes in land use and settlement patterns. To begin to work toward this objective, we have (1) identified 3D tools and techniques for vegetation modeling and landscape visualization, (2) evaluated the pros and cons of these tools, (3) investigated biological and ecological …

Springfield, Nebraska Urban Design Master Plan, Tonya K. Carlson

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

Sarpy County has been experiencing rapid growth over the past several decades. Seeing the effects of rapid growth in other communities in Sarpy County, Springfield, Nebraska chose to be proactive in shaping the growth and aesthetics of their community. The Urban Design Master Plan is a measure taken by the city to ensure Springfield is fully ready for further growth. The purpose of this professional project is to provide Springfield with a tool that will help guide and influence future development.

The project begins by researching the history of Springfield. The community has remained relatively small in population, compared to …

Procedural Modeling For Ancient Maya Cityscapes: Initial Methodological Challenges And Solutions, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Rachel Plessing

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Digital reconstruction of 3D cityscapes is expensive, time-consuming, and requires significant expertise. We need a 3D modeling approach that streamlines the integration of multiple data types in a time-efficient and low-cost manner. Procedural modeling—rapid proto-typing of 3D models from a set of rules— offers a potential solution to this problem because it allows scholars to create digital reconstructions that can be quickly updated and used to test and formulate alternative hypotheses that are derived from and linked to underlying archaeological data. While procedural modeling is being used to visualize ancient Roman, Etruscan, and Greek cities, in the Maya region the …

Evaluating The Vegetation Recovery In The Damage Area Of Wenchuan Earthquake Using Modis Data, Wei-Guo Jiang, Kai Jia, Jian-Jun Wu, Zhenghong Tang, Wen-Jie Wang, Xiao-Fu Liu

Community and Regional Planning Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

The catastrophic 8.0 Richter magnitude earthquake that occurred on 12 May 2008 in Wenchuan, China caused extensive damage to vegetation due to widespread landslides and debris flows. In the past five years, the Chinese government has implemented a series of measures to restore the vegetation in the severely afflicted area. How is the vegetation recovering? It is necessary and important to evaluate the vegetation recovery effect in earthquake-stricken areas. Based on MODIS NDVI data from 2005 to 2013, the vegetation damage area was extracted by the quantified threshold detection method. The vegetation recovery rate after five years following the earthquake …

An Interpretive Plan Guide For Wilderness Park In Lincoln, Nebraska, Rachel J. Ward

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

Wilderness Park, located in Lancaster County, Nebraska, is a public park of unique ecological and historical value to the city of Lincoln and to the surrounding region. The natural and historical features of the park present an opportunity to communicate environmental and historical topics that are relevant on local, national, and global levels, as well as inspire a lively sense of pride in the community. The problem is that many topics relevant to Wilderness Park are not currently being interpreted at the park, and that there are relatively few interpretive resources available to park visitors.

The purpose of this project …

Aesthetics For Green Roofs And Green Walls, Richard K. Sutton

Landscape Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

Do green roofs and green walls have aesthetic benefits? Most green roof proponents would say so. But what are they and how do they relate to green roof design in terms of species selection, planting arrangement, viewable context, access, maintenance and other factors? Aesthetics according to the Green Roof Design 101 Manual 2^nd Ed (GRHC 2006) provides “pleasure- and psycho-physiologically-oriented benefits” but, this narrow understanding suggests that the aesthetic potential of green roofs is limited to what one might experience looking upon any garden. We suggest other ways that need exploring to make aesthetics more relevant and understandable to …

Larc 331: Site Systems Iii: Landscape Implementation—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Inquiry Portfolio, Bret Betnar

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

LARC 331 Site Systems III: Landscape Implementation is a 3rd year undergraduate course that focuses on the implementation of landscape architectural designs. The course is the final in a 3-course Site Systems sequence. In LARC 331, students take the final design proposal from the previous semester’s Site Design studio, LARC 210 or 211, and develop a set of construction documents for that design.

The research question asked through this inquiry is as follows: Can the inclusion of a drawing and building exercise improve students’ understanding of The Ten Fundamentals of drafting? It is believed that by including an additional drawing …

Seeding Green Roofs With Native Grasses, Richard K. Sutton

Landscape Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

During six years of native grass establishment and growth on four green roofs, we sought to understand appropriate seeding seasons and spacing, the amount of time to reach the industry 80% coverage threshold (FLL 2008), the seed yield projections for volunteer plant infill. We also produced and tested methods for successfully and inexpensively seeding and determined “as needed” irrigation protocols. The suite of techniques examined improves and enhances the use, establishment, and management of native grasses on green roofs and reduces green roof costs.

Rethinking Extensive Green Roofs To Lessen Emphasis On Above-Ground Biomass, Richard K. Sutton

Landscape Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

In the future, most green roof applications will not be highly visible, yet these roofs will still provide the benefits of heat island reduction, stormwater control and biodiversity for hard-surfaced cities. However, human bias in wanting more biomass and visible blooms leads green roof horticulturalists and their approach of maximizing those aspects down a slippery slope that, in turn, leads to increased hours of labor, over-watering and fertilizing and specifying too many cultivars

Ecology Of Scale In Visual Landscape Assessments, Richard K. Sutton

Landscape Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

Background readings on scale plus twenty-three visual landscape assessment studies from 1968 to 2006 were examined to understand the nature and use of scale and its relationship to the visual environment. The objectives of this study were to: 1) describe the concept of scale as applied to visual assessments, 2) review scale use in selected visual assessments, and 3) identify issues that need further research to better integrate scale into visual landscape assessments and landscape ecological theory.

Basic concepts and features relating observers with landscape and scale required defining scale, bounding visibility, perceiving scale, seeing hierarchically, and visualizing grain and …

Geospatial Virtual Heritage: A Gesture-Based 3d Gis To Engage The Public With Ancient Maya Archaeology, Heather Richards-Rissetto, Jim Robertsson, Jennifer Von Schwerin, Giorgio Agugario, Fabio Remondino, Gabrio Girardi

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

This paper presents our research to develop a gesture-based 3D GIS system to engage the public in cultural heritage. It compares two types of interaction—device-based vs. natural interaction— and summarizes the beta-testing results of a 3D GIS tool for archaeology, called QueryArch3D, in which participants used device-based interaction (i.e. mouse and keyboard). It follows with a description of the gesture-based system—that we developed in response to these beta-tests. The system uses QueryArch3D and Microsoft’s Kinect to enable people use body movements (in lieu of keyboard or mouse) to navigate a virtual reality landscape, query 3D objects, and call up photos, …

From Mounds To Maps To Models: Visualizing Ancient Architecture Across Landscapes, Heather Richards-Rissetto

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

Since the onset of settlement pattern studies in the 1950s, landscape mapping projects have become an archaeological mainstay. Remote sensing technologies such as lidar, photogrammetry, and SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) steadily reveal new archaeological sites. For landscape archaeology, the detection and mapping of small architectural complexes and households offers important data to contextualize larger (often already known) sites and perform regional analyses. However, because the majority of sites remain unexcavated, analysis is limited, and yet Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and 3D Visualization are expanding the possible uses for older and newly-acquired data on unexcavated mounds. This paper describes a GIS …

Larc 331: Site Systems Iii (Landscape Implementation)—A Peer Review Of Teaching Project Benchmark Portfolio, Bret Betnar

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio investigates LARC 331 Site Systems III: Landscape Implementation, a 3rd year undergraduate course that focuses on the implementation of landscape architectural designs, in which students take a previous Site Design studio project and develop this project into a landscape architectural construction package.

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.

Social Interaction At The Maya Site Of Copan, Honduras: A Least Cost Approach To Configurational Analysis, Heather Richards-Rissetto

Department of Anthropology: Faculty Publications

In this article, I employ least cost paths using GIS to measure the relationship between site configuration and social connectivity at the ancient Maya site of Copan, Honduras. I investigate two questions. First, did people of different social classes experience varying degrees of social connectivity? Second, did people living in different parts of the city experience difference degrees of social connectivity? Ultimately, the goal is modify traditional configurational analysis using least cost analysis (LCA) to identify how social hierarchy was embedded in landscapes and how ancient people may have strategically manipulated landscapes to structure social interaction and community organization.