Architecture Commons^™

Restorative Streetscapes: Promoting Positive Mental Health Outcomes Through Urban Landscape Design In Winooski, Vermont, Sean R. Fitzsimmons

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

The global health burden of mental health disorders is immense. The World Health Organization ranks depression as the single largest contributor to global disability; anxiety disorders alone rank sixth. One in four people will have a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetime and mental health conditions are increasing worldwide, rising 13% in the last decade. The economic implications are also immense, costing the global economy US $1 trillion each year. Mental health is more than the absence of disorders or disabilities, however. It is defined by the WHO as “a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or …

Memorial Parking Trees: Resilient Modular Design With Nature-Based Solutions In Vulnerable Urban Areas, Haroon Stephen, Fortino Acosta

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Nature-based solutions (NbS) include all the landscape’s ecological components that have a function in the natural or urban ecosystem. Memorial Parking Trees (MPTs) are a new variant of a nature-based solution composed of a bioswale and a street tree allocated in the road, occupying a space that is sub-utilised by parked cars. This infill green practice can maximise the use of street trees in secondary streets and have multiple benefits in our communities. Using GIS mapping and methodology can support implementation in vulnerable neighbourhoods. In this research, we based vulnerability assessments for London, Rio de Janeiro, and Los Angeles on …

Wayfinding In Warrenton, Logan Ashby

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

This research helps to inform and establish a wayfinding signage system throughout the Town of Warrenton. A wayfinding system can help connect people to places using the built environment and serves as an easily understandable visual guide. Establishing a wayfinding system will help the Town create a cohesive branding, achieve cohesive gateways, while also helping to establish the five character districts that were introduced in the most recent comprehensive plan. This study included a wayfinding audit, which helped to establish the existing conditions and recommend the following the goals: Establish an advisory board to advise the Town on wayfinding decisions …

Rethinking Participatory Design: Tools For Modelling Community Potentials, Adam Liu, Stephen Marinelli

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis aims to provide an alternative method of community engagement through the process of participatory model-making. Rather than only seeking out community voices for surveys and data collection, this project’s goal is to empower a community’s sense of ownership through collective design.

The methods of this project will be tested and examined in collaboration with students from Dr. King Elementary School in Syracuse, New York. By designing a participatory method for model-making, the project will involve students in the early stages of urban design and make it more educationally and socially accessible.

The State Of Affordable Housing In Pierce County, Ali Modarres, Hannah Miner, Anthony Hoffmann

Professional Reports

Affordable housing is a complex issue, requiring significant regional and metropolitan level attention. There are very few cities that can claim to have succeeded in solving this problem. However, the policy toolkit to engage with this particular challenge has grown over the last few decades. Given the diminishing role of the federal government in building and financing affordable/social housing, it has fallen to tribes, states, counties, and cities to tackle this challenge on their own or through collaboration. The State of Washington and Pierce County governments are no exception. Meanwhile, as the number of cost-burdened households has increased over time, …

Reimagining Future Sustainable, Climate-Resilient Urban Design For Apia, Samoa: Developing Plans For A Developing Nation, Alyssa Kaewwilai

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Small island developing states are arguably the most vulnerable, exposed nations on a global scale to the harmful effects of climate change. Particularly in Samoa, an abundance of environmental, economic, and social impacts have severe impacts on both the country as a whole as well as on an individual level. This study analyzes future mitigation strategies of land use and urban design to recreate Samoa’s capital of Apia as a more climate-resilient city to encourage economic growth and to ensure the well-being of all inhabitants. This planning is based upon current challenges of Samoa driven by climate change such as …

Growing Portland: Not Whether, But How, Richard Barringer Phd, Joseph Mcdonnell Phd

Faculty Publications

In the 400 years since European settlement, Portland has survived the ravages of war, invasion, pestilence, conflagration, and economic depression and recession. Once a renowned manufacturing, trade, and shipping center, it now enjoys what might be called a post-industrial renaissance as a vibrant center for the arts, education, entertainment, and banking, legal, and medical services; and is frequently cited as one of America’s best small cities. As a result, Portland is growing today and is positioned for more growth.

The question, then, is not whether Portland will grow, but how well it will grow; or, how best to manage the …

Creating A Successful Wayfinding System: Lessons Learned From Springfield, Massachusetts, Yanhua Lu

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Masters Projects

The masters project presents findings from recent work the author completed related to wayfinding, and wayfinding systems. This work began as part of a graduate urban design studio, followed by work as a research assistant at the UMass Design Center in Springfield, on a new “demonstration” wayfinding system installed in Springfield, Massachusetts. The wayfinding project was done in association with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and the Springfield Office of Planning and Community Development, was implemented with the main goals of improving public health by encouraging more people to walk.

Wayfinding systems are increasingly seen as an important part of …

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 …

No Space Left Behind - Graduate Urban Design Studio - Landarch 606, Christopher H. Counihan, Matthew R. Hisle, Yanhua Lu, Maozhu Mao, Emilie Marques Jordao, James S. Prendergast, Michalagh C. Stoddard, Ruoying Tang, Jing Wang, Nelle Katharine Ward, Yuqing Yang, Yi Yang, Yu Yu, Kellie Fenton, Yue Li, Yuquing Wu

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

The following report documents the work of the 2015 Spring Graduate Urban Design Studio course in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning. This fourteen week studio focused on using tactical urbanism to engage Springfield’s Metro Center neighborhood with visions to revitalize the downtown core of this legacy city.

In addition to completing the components of a traditional urban design studio (site analyses, schematic plans, spatial designs, and programming), the student teams also developed conceptual projects to immediately engage the public. These efforts culminated in a free afternoon walking tour throughout the Metro Center that presented several tactical interventions. …

Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination And Segregation Through Physical Design Of The Built Environment, Sarah Schindler

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The built environment is characterized by man-made physical features that make it difficult for certain individuals—often poor people and people of color—to access certain places. Bridges were designed to be so low that buses could not pass under them in order to prevent people of color from accessing a public beach. Walls, fences, and highways separate historically white neighborhoods from historically black ones. Wealthy communities have declined to be served by public transit so as to make it difficult for individuals from poorer areas to access their neighborhoods.

Although the law has addressed the exclusionary impacts of racially restrictive covenants …

Discussion Of The Contradictions Of The Contemporary Urban Landscape: The Case Of Caracas, Fabio Capra-Ribeiro

Faculty Publications

In the ongoing debate between seemingly conflicting conditions, the author contrasts several features of urban landscape to dig deeper into the understanding of the current Caracas. An interpretative process allows viewing the city from a daily perspective of joy and suffering. The process takes into account different scales of approach, the relationship between buildings and emptiness, and the role of green in the city. Gradually the carelessness of Caracas’s urban landscape becomes evident, fed by little attention to the small scale, the clustering of individualistic interventions and the neglect of the natural component. Final considerations will show the urban landscape …

Broadway Corridor Study Public Outreach Report, Winter 2013, Crp 410/ 411 Community Planning Lab

City and Regional Planning Studios and Projects

The Broadway Corridor Study Public Outreach Report summarizes the public outreach efforts conducted as part of the process to develop alternative concepts for future development and circulation along the Broadway Corridor in Redwood City, California. These efforts were conducted as a class project by fourth year students in the City and Regional Planning Department at California Polytechnic State University from September of 2013 to March of 2014.

Connecting Cayucos: Visions And Actions For Public Space, Spring 2014, Crp 553 Project Planning Lab

City and Regional Planning Studios and Projects

This document expands upon the principles set forth in the County of San Luis Obispo’s Estero Plan (2009) in the context of public space and develops site-specific recommendations to support future implementation of public space plans for Cayucos, California. This plan includes an existing conditions analysis, general goals and principles, site-specific visions and actions, as well as supporting conceptual diagrams. The main purpose of this plan is to reflect the community’s desire to preserve, protect, and enhance the public spaces of Cayucos.

Urban Design Visions For Milpitas, Fall 2013, Crp 341 Urban Design Studio

City and Regional Planning Studios and Projects

An undergraduate class from the City and Regional Planning Department at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo was charged by the City of Milpitas Planning and Neighborhood Services Department to develop pre-planning insights, vision and urban design concepts for two strategically ocated sites in Milpitas, California Circle, and, the area around Main Street at the Serra Way intersection. This report represents a compilation of the work completed by the students in CRP 341 Urban Design Studio III during the 10-week period of Fall Quarter September-December, 2013. Instructors Vicente del Rio and Hemalata Dandekar, supported by Teaching Assistant Evan Evangelopoulos, guided the …

Westport Affordable Housing Design, Kyle Baron, Joe Cardella, Eric Figueredo, April Gaddis, Heather Gillock, Jack Hamm, Ben Horst, Colby Karambelas, Jacob Levine, Evan Mozzer, Tim Pranaitis, Chris Rossi, Jacob Wheeler, Ulker Copur, Arnold Robinson

Architecture and Urban Design

Currently, there are not any fire stations within an appropriate range for development on the Drift Road site. This will make it essential for a proposed development to contain a pond and pump onsite for immediate fire control until further assistance arrives. Should municipal water not be available for residents on this site, private well systems will need to be built on each property, a minimum of 100 feet away from any septic system.

Downtown Providence Farmers Market Design, Lindsay Dansereau, Matthew Eckel, Kate Ford, Joanna Grocott, Tyler Harriott, Zachary Nelson, Amanda O'Malley, Jessica Palmer, David Sanchez, Eric Schall, Sarah Thompson, Anthony Piermarini, Lindsay Guastafeste, Arnold Robinson

Architecture and Urban Design

This market essentially combines a marketplace with an existing or new industrial building. The hybrid created results in space that has daily retail sales and hours, as well as other goods available at other times. The industrial aspect typically acts as the anchor, as the market’s activities help attract a different group of consumers at other business times. An example of this would be a seafood supply warehouse that also provides dining and entertainment as a nightlife destination.

Espacios Sucre: Interdisciplinary Program To Develop A System Of Small- And Medium-Scale Interventions In Public Spaces, Daniel Belandria, Fabio Capra-Ribeiro

Faculty Publications

With the accelerated growth of most Venezuelan cities, many of them show precarious settlements where residents seek to resolve their housing needs while services, facilities, and public spaces in particular hove been neglected. This is the case in Caracas and within the Municipality of Sucre, the second largest in size and population of the whole country. In this context. the Espacios Sucre Program, an interdisciplinary initiative with the main purpose of building networks of public space in both small and medium scales, not only works to confront the deficit but also to relate the contrasting areas of the Municipality and …

Visions For Old Town Goleta, Spring 2013, Crp 553 Project Planning Lab

City and Regional Planning Studios and Projects

In the 2013 spring quarter, the City and Regional Planning Department at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo partnered with the City of Goleta to develop a vision plan for the Old Town area. The collaboration between the University and the City included two (2) community meetings and four (4) weekend engagement activities. This vision plan was created and written specifically for the residents of Old Town Goleta. The primary reason for its existence is to produce development and planning ideas for the City of Goleta.

Sioux Falls Downtown Design Guidelines: Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Colin Punt

Community and Regional Planning Program: Professional Projects

In the late 1980s, Sioux Falls, South Dakota recommitted to its downtown, removed a dead pedestrian mall, and joined the National Main Street program. The city‘s downtown revival efforts have been largely successful in the past twenty-some years, but this success has rendered the current downtown design guidelines from the early 1990s both function-ally and aesthetically outdated. The original city ordinance written in conjunction with the design guidelines has given both the City Planning Department and the Downtown Design Review Committee, which is appointed by the Director of Planning and administered by Downtown Sioux Falls, Inc., very little power to …

From Fail-Safe To Safe-To-Fail: Sustainability And Resilience In The New Urban World, Jack F. Ahern

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

Abstract: The extent to which the 21st Century world will be "sustainable" depends in large part on the sustainability of cities. Early ideas on implementing sustainability focused on concepts of achieving stability, practicing effective management and the control of change and growth-- a "fail-safe" mentality. More recent thinking about change, disturbance, uncertainty, and adaptability is fundamental to the emerging science of resilience, the capacity of systems to reorganize and recover from change and disturbance without changing to other states-- in other words, systems that are "safe to fail." While the concept of resilience is intellectually intriguing, it remains largely unpracticed …

Formerly Urban: Projecting Rust Belt Futures, Mark Robbins, Stephanie Miner, Nancy Cantor, Julia Czerniak, Darren Petrucci, Jane Wolff, Mclain Clutter, Hunter Morrison, Damon Rich, Toni L. Griffin, Don Mitchell

School of Architecture - All Scholarship

A two-day conference on the benefits of creating urbanity in weak-market cities gathers twenty-one international experts in architecture, landscape architecture, and urban design, as well as planning, policy, finance, economics, and real estate development. Participants share strategies for cities whose urban character has devolved radically due to economic, demographic, and physical change - cities that are now considered "formerly urban."

Architecture+Design 600, Joseph Krupczynski

MIRA/LOOK: New Visions for Architecture in Holyoke (2008)

This studio promotes creative research and conceptually rigorous design methodologies that aim to illuminate, situate, and contest the complex circumstances within which a truly “sustainable” architecture can emerge — an architecture capable of escaping a narrow technological focus, while addressing the broader social and theoretical implications of sustainability. The interplay between site, culture and program is a key focus of the studio. Through critical assessments of a broad range of specific site conditions students develop investigative strategies for responsive architectural interventions that bridge the gap between theory and practice. This semester we will be working on a series of projects …

International Student Design Competition Of Two Community Elementary Schoolyards, Roger Hart, Cindi Katz, Selim Iltus, Maria Rosario Mora

Publications and Research

As part of the project for the Participatory Design of Two Community Elementary Schoolyards in Harlem, P.S. 185 and P.S. 208 (The Schoolyards Project), the Children's Environments Research Group of the City University of New York held an International Student Design Competition for the design of these schoolyards. The competition drew sixty entries from various countries. The jury met on October 10, 1990 and awarded one First Prize and five Honorable Mentions. A landscape architect was then hired to utilize the best ideas, together with the architectural program which had been produced with the school and the surrounding community.