Architecture Commons^™

Planning, Preserving, And Increasing Accessibility: A Reflection On Going “Car-Free”, Abigail J. Weizer

City and Regional Planning

This paper studies the accessibility of car-free areas to those with mobility impairments by examining three car-free and car-lite experiments in California. Whether slowly converted to car-free with long-term, careful planning, or expeditiously changed to car-free during the COVID-19 pandemic, these three car-free experiments show the shortcomings of planning for accessibility in car-free spaces, and how instead of improving accessibility, current planning practice often hinders it. This paper offers a deep-dive into the drawbacks and benefits of going car-free and the ethical and legal reasons why urban planners, designers, and policymakers must consider the accessibility of a space before planning …

The Impacts Of Former Military Bases On The Urban Geographies: Uncovering The Social Meaning Of Urban Space Beyond The Brownfield Surface, Tina Anne Nailor

Global Honors Theses

Abstract

U.S. military bases are widely present in Germany and dominate territorial urban spaces in the metropolitan regions since WWI. The cultural interaction and the city's formation have imprinted on the lived experiences creating identities through people’s daily interactions with the built environment, both directly and indirectly In combination, the U.S. military dominating presence left behind voids that have caused a rupture in the lived environment and social production of spaces throughout communities and neighborhoods in Germany, particularly in Mannheim, the focus of this study. The U.S. military sites are as interruptive as their counterpart the military brownfields and require …

Our Streets: Increasing Equity In Active Transportation Planning Through Community Outreach, Jordan Hoy

Master's Projects and Capstones

ABSTRACT Significant research has demonstrated that active transportation infrastructure is essential for the growth and livability of San Francisco: it increases access to economic opportunities, promotes overall improved public health, encourages mobility without contributing to roadway congestion, prevents traffic injuries and fatalities, and supports the sustainability goals of the city. Despite the fact that communities of color will benefit the most from active transportation infrastructure development, historical disenfranchisement in tandem with a lack of diverse representation within public participation contributes to an inequitable distribution of walking and biking investments throughout the city of San Francisco. While research shows that Black …

Reaching A Young Audience In City And Regional Planning, Kristie P. Woo, Vinnie P. Chen

City and Regional Planning

Currently, urban planning is a rare discussion topic in schools. The youth are often excluded in the planning process as most adults question their intellectual capacity and they hold little to no political power. However, this does not have to be the case - planning has the potential to change young minds when expressed in a medium children can understand.

Integrative Sonic Urbanism: Artist-Led Strategies For Urban Sound Design In The Contemporary City, Sven Anderson

Doctoral

This doctoral research advances the fields of urban sound design and acoustic planning, presenting new ways of exploring the interrelationship between individual and collective sonic experience, the dynamic potential of the urban sound environment and the complex evolution of the contemporary cityscape. It links urban sound art practices with larger urban design processes, revealing how sound contributes to the production of urban space. The research progresses by crafting a dynamic, integrative methodology that activates contrasting sonic perspectives to critically reassess the role of sound in the public realm. As it discloses this methodology, the research navigates the tension between new …

Innovation In A Housing Crisis: Addressing Moderate Income Housing, Paul Wladyslaw Chytla-Hinze

City and Regional Planning

Innovation in a Housing Crisis: Addressing Moderate Income Housing surveys city-level, as well as regional innovations, that aim to address the shortage of moderate income housing throughout the Bay Area region. This project will explore how these innovations can serve to address the moderate income housing shortage into the future, and will use Redwood City, and the Bay Area, as the local and regional models of the affordable housing crisis.

Rethinking Livability In Megacities: Applications Of Jane Jacobs’ Theories On Tokyo And Los Angeles, Kirara Tsutsui

Pomona Senior Theses

This senior thesis in Environmental Analysis compares critical infrastructure pieces in Tokyo and Los Angeles, on three discrete levels, with a particular focus on the pedestrian experience. As global population grows, with more people projected to live in urban cities more than ever, it is critical that we re-evaluate how we think about and “do” city-planning. Following Jane Jacobs’ theoretical framework, this thesis dissects what urban greenspaces, city neighborhoods, and sidewalks look like in LA and Tokyo. It analyzes, for each proxy, how two of the world’s most “developed” and largest cities have developed into the current landscape. Historical, cultural, …

Environmentally Responsible Land Use, Spring/Summer 2010, Issue 22

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Sustainable Communities, Fall/Winter 2010, Issue 21

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Sustainable Building, Spring/Summer 2009, Issue 20

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Green Cities, Spring/Summer 2005, Issue 12

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Urban Design For Environmental Protection, Spring/Summer 2001, Issue 4

Sustain Magazine

No abstract provided.

Evolution Of A Type : Street Vending As Urban Strategy In Guangzhou, China, Yuying Shen

Masters Theses

As China continues its program of building new cities and encouraging urban resettlement from smaller towns and the countryside, informal activities that were once typical of urban areas – such as street vending – are being evicted by the government in the name of cleanliness and beautification. In reality, the motivation of eviction has to do with land values and the desire to replace the low-end population: street markets in the downtown areas could be developed into programs that bring large-scale money-making, like shopping malls; street vendors are viewed as undisciplined, messy and outmoded.

If we recognize the conflict between …

Landscape As Framework : Downtown Revival Through Rebuilding Spatial Identity, Dawei Tang

Masters Theses

In developing revitalization strategies for depopulating, shrinking districts, the economic and psychological disciplines remain the key focus. In contrast, landscape architecture has long been underestimated as a guiding framework in city revitalization. This thesis book presents how landscape architecture could function as a framework to revive a city through spatial comfort and spatial identity. Using downtown Fall River as an example, this book speculates how landscape transforms a city physically and mentally. By rebuilding Fall River’s spatial comfort and spatial identity, landscape architecture could drive social engagement, revitalize local economy, recall lost history, and ultimately, allow the city to revive …

Game / Landscape / Us, Dongqi Zhang

Masters Theses

Assumption: Today’s game companies often try to hire landscape architects to do virtual environment design. With the prompt expansion of technology, gaming has already become a unique and huge industry worth billions of dollars. More and more people have become immersed in video and computer games. If we acknowledge this is true, what are the reasons?

Rationale: People lose focus on the physical landscape when they participate in it. In contrast, “A game, of course, is a constructed world with a narrative already baked in.” (King, 2015) Some people love virtual games because the real world lacks what they long …

The Social Life Of Working Waterfronts : Strategies For Renewing The Social Value Of Productive Harbors, Evan Davenport

Masters Theses

The Social Life of Working Waterfronts is an independent thesis project that envisions the expanded role of an urban waterfront as a landscape for both industry and everyday life. The project calls for new synergies between public and private stakeholders to challenge the cultural perception of industrial landscapes and renew social and ecological value of productive harbors. By integrating industrial processes with civic life, working waterfronts can begin to operate mutually for industrial and societal needs. This proposal aims to establish spatial and systemic commons between a declining city and its thriving commercial fishing port by engaging and celebrating the …

When The Wind Blows, Yiying Wang

Masters Theses

Climate change is causing extreme weather to become more frequent and intense. However, at present, existing landscape-based strategies to deal with such disruptive natural events are not systematic or effective. Additionally, most projects in landscape and urban design focus on flooding but pay little attention to the effects of high wind. My graduate thesis focuses on the Island of Hainan, in the South China Sea, and explores how to use resilient planning and design to promote passive cooling and reduce high wind damage caused by typhoons and other tropical storms. Based on the solid analysis of hydrologic and meteorological processes, …

City In / Above Water, Jin Yan

Masters Theses

Sea level rise is a serious situation facing coastal cities in the world. In the United States, Miami is one of the most vulnerable cities as far as sea level rise is concerned. Floods in Miami not only come from high seawater but also from inland rivers and frequent storm surges. With Miami as a target city, this paper was prepared after taking care of its current political, economic, and cultural status, aiming to explore the way in which Miami responds to rising sea levels and proposes future urban visions. The new solution may also be applied partially or completely …

Future Street, Wushuang Xing

Masters Theses

This book seeks to identify future street typology in the City of Miami for better adaptation to sea-level rise, hurricanes and flooding. Based on the current transportation system, streets in Miami could be improved and be more resilient during natural disasters and be more navigable after disasters have passed. Currently, urban streets in Miami always confront failure during and after hurricanes and flooding. Because of rising sea levels, these problems are going to increase in severity, which could have an even greater impact on people’s daily lives and recovery after disaster. Consequently, improving urban street typology in Miami could have …

Above The Urban Surface, Xirui Zhang

Masters Theses

This thesis aims to solve inland urban flooding in residential communities of southwestern Washington D.C. by refining the current urban surface there.

By learning from the natural mountainous surface of the area, this study proposes a plan to add a new layer of urban surface above the original highly developed ground, in order to collect, recycle clean rainwater, and reduce the stress on the urban sewer system. The conclusion of the design strategies rebuilds a sustainable urban infrastructure system for the decaying urban residential area, with influence from the disciplines of both landscape and architecture.

Hybrid Spaces In The City, Zhihao Li

Masters Theses

This investigation is about the edge, hybrid space, and public engagement in the urban environment in Washington, DC. There are three phases of this research. In Phase 1, the investigation focuses on clarifying the definitions of terms such as edge, transition, vegetated, and constructed spaces. In Phase 2, the study explores methods of understanding urban fabric based on the experiential and physical analysis. In Phase 3, the investigation generates critiques of the site conditions between Union Station and Union Square in Washington, DC.

The film The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces by William Whyte, which shows people’s different behaviors …

The Joondalup Story : A City And A University Campus In The Making, John Renner, Sybe Jongeling

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

'The Joondalup Story' is a record of creative planning and urban development of the City of Joondalup and within it Edith Cowan University's northern campus at Joondalup. It's a remarkable story of urban planning initiated by Professor Gordon Stephenson and the evolution of a planned urban community in its first decade, 1987 to 1996. Finally, in the last two chapters, 'Joondalup Story' profiles the challenges and impressive achievements of the Joondalup community, city and campus, two decades later in 2015.

Unreal Urbanisms, Temitope Olujobi

Architecture Thesis Prep

As virtual cities are made in the transnational image of physical cities the same claims about legibility, public image and the five elements of a city’s can be asserted to virtual environment, however; the bottom up approach to building these virtual cities means the appearance, use and interplay of these elements will operate differently. The research of the virtual cities featured on Unreal Urbanisms will be executed in methods similar to the experiments conducted by Kevin Lynch. The first method will be field research in which we navigate the city and map out my own ways of movement and legibility …

The Impact Of Cargo Bikes On Travel Patterns: Survey Report Spring/ Summer 2014, William Riggs, Jana E. Schwartz, Crp 425 Bicycle And Pedestrian Planning

City and Regional Planning Studios and Projects

Cargo bikes are becoming increasingly available in the United States with vendors such as Yuba, Trek, XtraCycle, and Marin all offering platforms. While a large body of research has continued to investigate traditional bike transportation, cargo bikes offer the potential to capture trips for those that might otherwise be made by car. To investigate this, a survey was conducted querying how use and travel characteristics changed upon cargo bike ownership (N = 299; 95% Confidence Interval +/-6%).

The Impact Of Cargo Bikes On Travel Patterns: Survey Report, William W. Riggs, Jana E. Schwartz

William W. Riggs

Cargo bikes are becoming increasingly available in the United States with vendors such as Yuba, Trek, XtraCycle, and Marin all offering platforms. While a large body of research has continued to investigate traditional bike transportation, cargo bikes offer the potential to capture trips for those that might otherwise be made by car. To investigate this, a survey was conducted querying how use and travel characteristics changed upon cargo bike ownership (N = 299; 95% Confidence Interval +/-6%).

New Songdo City: A Case Study In Complexity Thinking And Ubiquitous Urban Design, Glen Kuecker

History Faculty publications

A new urban form has emerged amid the perfect storm of global crises: climate change, energy transition, demographic shifts (growth, aging, and urbanization), food and water insecurity, pandemics, economic stress, and ecological degradation. Known as “smart cities” or “ubiquitous cities,” this urban form is characterized by deployments of computer technologies and analytics that promise enhanced efficiencies within the urban metabolism. This paper presents South Korea’s New Songdo City as a case study in ubiquitous urban design by asking if it constitutes an opportunity within the perfect storm for an emergent, resilient urbanism. A key player in building New Songdo City …

Creativity In Urban Placemaking: Horizontal Networks And Social Equity In Three Cultural Districts, Tom Borrup

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

Many authors point to expanding disparities related to wealth and social benefits brought by globalization and the creative city movement while culture and creativity emerge as growing forces in urban placemaking and economic development. The phenomenon of cultural district formation in cities around the globe presents challenges and opportunities for leaders, planners, and managers. Emerging theory related to cultural districts suggests culture can serve to build horizontal relationships that bridge people and networks from different sectors and professions as well as across ethnicities, class, and interests. Research for this dissertation examined the formation of three urban cultural districts social and …

Response To Comments: The Informal Housing Debate Remains Open, Jonathan P. Bell

Jonathan P. Bell

UrbDeZine, November 12, 2014. In this follow up article on informal housing in Los Angeles, I respond to comments and take on critics who devalue housing code enforcement. I argue that unpermitted housing is inherently unsafe, and unsafe housing is not a viable housing option. I call for all sides of the informal housing debate to come together to look for solutions. URL: http://losangeles.urbdezine.com/2014/11/12/response-to-comments-the-informal-housing-debate-remains-open/

Cayucos Community Health Plan, Jennifer Joyce Franich

Master's Theses

Recent, mounting research shows that chronic disease, the leading causes of death and primary driver of health care costs, cannot be effectively addressed through education or preventative health alone. A physical environment that promotes health—through access to healthy food, opportunities for physical activity, quality housing, transportation options, and safe schools—is an integral part of making our communities healthier. This research and accompanying Healthy Community Plans will serve as a way for the County to begin looking in-depth at the ways the built environment (our streets, parks, and neighborhoods) contribute or detract from the health of the community. Though the creation …

The Use Of Mobile Technology In Professional Planning And Local Government Practice, Kayla Gordon

Master's Theses

As advances in web and mobile technologies have rapidly changed the world of businesses, they have also begun to fundamentally change the way local governments understand and interact with their communities. In an effort to evaluate the use of online and mobile technology for government work, this thesis examines the use of mobile technology as a vehicle for local government practice, specifically looking at the field of urban planning. These opportunities have been broadened with the introduction of Internet-enabled mobile devices, as location-based information is used to increase awareness of user activity, movements and behaviors in real-time conditions and specific …