Landscape Architecture Commons^™

Creating Healthy Urban Environments: Commercial Landscaping, Preference And Public Health, Mary Leibe

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Landscape development[1] can provide many benefits, including the reduction of stormwater runoff and the creation of habitats for wildlife. It can also provide health benefits. Researchers, such as Roger Ulrich and Rita Berto have demonstrated that views of trees and other vegetation are associated with lower blood pressure and reduced recovery times in hospitals and that environments with more natural elements may lessen mental fatigue (R. Ulrich 1984) and (Berto 2005).

As rebuilding in New Orleans continues 11 years after Hurricane Katrina, landscape development has been limited or lacking, especially in the redevelopment of commercial properties. Two prominent reasons …

Aftermarket Supermarket | A Speculative Retrospective, Alexander Kim

Architecture Senior Theses

In the preface to Delusive Spaces: Essays on Culture, Media and Technology, media theorist Eric Kluitenberg writes that “the delusion of the new”1 pollutes our theorizations of new media. This sort of technocratic fetishization of emergent technologies can only amount to a surfatial investigation of its effects or capabilities. Architectural investigations of virtual reality and other new media systems suffer from this tendency as well. Content-based experimentation and criticism obsess over the simultaneously exciting and daunting prospects of what we can now do or make with recent digital developments. There’s definite value in such endeavors, but frankly, in the grand …

Kentucky Rural Development, Patrick J. Hooks

Scholars Week

The main objective of this study is to examine the development of rural areas to more urbanized ones within Kentucky. Landsat images were used to show the urban land cover change over a 10 year span, from 2001 to 2011. The study shows specifically how the city of Louisville has expanded because it was one of the most changed cities in Kentucky during the period of the study. Maps were created from these Landsat images. Studying these developments can help to predict the amount of change that might happen in certain areas in the future. Using geographic information systems (GIS) …

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 …

Dark Site Observatory, Aaron W. Uhe

ASA Multidisciplinary Research Symposium

This project for our Architecture Studio was completed in collaboration with the Physics Department to create possible concepts for an observatory for the Solar Eclipses in 2017 and 2024.

Architectural Intervention: The Resilient Community Center, Matthew A. Baumgartner

ASA Multidisciplinary Research Symposium

In the city of Centralia, Illinois, several issues govern the city’s future, all stemming from the same major problem: the economy. To intervene, this community center proposal aims to encourage economic development and growth in the city, assisting small businesses with starting and expanding in the region.

Revitalizing Downtown Springfield Illinois, Adam R. Tregoning Mr.

ASA Multidisciplinary Research Symposium

Looking to revitalize the downtown Springfield area, this abstract outlines the benefits of an urban park as a catalyst for housing and commercial development. In order to combat the issues presented in the capitol city, Springfield hopes bringing people back to its core will restore the area.

Networks Of Opportunity: Public Engagement Survey Results, Sammi S. Gay, Derek J. Krevat, Stephanie Carlisle, Justin Gilmore, Gianpaula Hulten, Alexandra 'Ola' Smialek

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

The Project for Public Spaces notes, “People who use a public space are the ones who know, from experience, which areas are dangerous and why, which spaces are comfortable, where traffic moves too quickly and how certain aspects of a space could be improved” (2011, p. 13). Therefore, public engagement was a core part of our project. As previously stated, one major objective of this project is to propose safer paths to school for students. This objective stems from the fact that no bus services are provided to children who live within 1 mile of an elementary school, 1.5 miles …

Networks Of Opportunity: A Citywide Vision For Pedestrian And Bicycle Pathways In Chicopee, Massachusetts, Stephanie Carlisle, Ambica Chadha, Daniel Fontaine, Sammi Gay, Justin Gilmore, Gianpaula Hulten, Derek Krevat, Shuo Li, Alexandra ‘Ola’ Smialek, Melody Tapia

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

The goal of the Master of Regional Planning Studio is to develop a student’s techniques for collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing spatial and non-spatial data and then presenting that collective data in a manner (i.e., report, video, presentation, and charettes) that is understandable to academics, professionals, and the public. Planning Studio allows students to integrate knowledge from coursework and research, and apply such knowledge to resolving representative planning problems. At UMASS Amherst, these problems are found in neighborhood, rural, urban, and/or regional settings.

In the fall of 2016, the City of Chicopee gave the Regional Planning Studio four directives that aim …

Powering Forward: A Vision For The Turners Falls Canal District, Desiree Demski-Hamelin, Kellie Fenton, Brett Gallagher, Kenneth Kirkland, Jeremy Price

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

The goal of the Master of Regional Planning Studio is to develop a student’s techniques for collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing spatial and non-spatial data and then presenting that collective data in a manner (i.e., report, video, presentation, and charettes) that is understandable to academics, professionals, and the public. Planning Studio allows students to integrate knowledge from coursework and research, and apply such knowledge to resolving representative planning problems. At UMASS Amherst, these problems are found in neighborhood, rural, urban, and/or regional settings.

In the fall of 2016, the Town of Montague’s Department of Planning and Conservation gave the Regional Planning …

New Kansas Roots For Students: Building Cultural Competency Through The Nicodemus Project, La Barbara James Wigfall Assoc Prof, Katie Kingery-Page Assoc Prof, Jonathan E. Knight Gta, Lauren Garrott Partnership Coord, Johnella Holmes Phd

Institute for Student Learning Assessment

Five-member panel (two faculty members representing two supporting professional disciplines; Nicodemus resident and on campus resource; a MLA graduate student; and a graduate planner) recapping how the Parks for the People/Nicodemus project transformed students and community members. Short segments of video demonstrating student learning outcomes associated with diversity and collaboration will be introduced. This project won the CECD Engagement Award from Kansas State University in 2013. (270-word abstract uploaded)

Through These Gates: Buffalo's First African American Architect, John Edmonston Brent - 1889-1962, Christine A. Parker

Museum Studies Projects

ABSTRACT

THROUGH THESE GATES: Buffalo’s First African American Architect

John Edmonston Brent

The purpose of this research is to reintroduce the architectural and historic cultural contributions that John Edmonston Brent (1889-1962) made to the city of Buffalo, Western New York and beyond. A significant number of renderings, artifacts and photos from Mr. Brent’s forty-seven year architectural career were unearthed. This cache of rediscovered forgotten contributions made by John Brent would align him with other African American architectural pioneers during the mid-20^th century.

John Brent was educated by the first class of professionally educated and trained African American architects of …

Urban Infrastructure Reconnection: Recuperating The Riverfront Of Cincinnati., Ethan William Keller

Masters Theses

Transportation infrastructure has created divides within cities, but as cities continue to grow again, these spaces can be recuperated, utilized, and integrated into the urban fabric to reconnect neighborhoods, engage people in urban culture, and insure long-term viability of cities. Cincinnati is a city that has been divided by convergent highways cutting the riverfront from the downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. These large voids of space must be activated to develop a reconnection that once existed between the city and its riverfront. Connectivity will create an abundance of pedestrian flow which will increase growth and economic opportunities for the city. Infrastructure …

Culinary Biologique And Cartographic Anxiety, Adam Lamar Buchanan

Masters Theses

The 21st century’s most dominant characteristic, and greatest challenge, is the explosive growth of the world’s population. Swelling at an exponential rate, the increasing physical distance between the acts of growth and consumption yields an agrarian system that is highly unsustainable… a crisis looms in the future!

This crisis is most easily detected in images of the Earth taken from satellites. These recently recorded pixels of reflected light taken from the cherished Icarian vantage point have been acquired and perfected over the past five decades. Ultimately, these lightning speed revelations show patterns that emerge as broken relationships that can be …

The Spatiality In Storytelling, Xiang Yu

Masters Theses

Theatre has always been played a irreplaceable role in people’s lives, even nowadays where people have multiple choices for entertainment. Some theater architecture has also become the symbol of the city, such as Paris Opéra and Sydney Opera House. By taking a close look at various case studies, one will understand how the theatre architecture corresponds with their city representing its history, culture and visions for the future.

The development of my thesis is based on the integration of the ‘space’ of storytelling and the space of design. Will the quality of space bring out the memories that have been …

The Role Of The Landscape In The Socialization Of Cohousing Communities: A Study In Western Massachusetts, Emilie Marques Jordao

Masters Theses

The cohousing movement started in the United States in the 1990’s and since then has spread to over 160 communities throughout the country. This type of community is characterized by small dwelling units, high housing density, shared facilities such as a common house, shared commons and grouped parking. These are pedestrian-oriented communities with car circulation restricted to the outskirts of the neighborhood. Cohousing settlements have the goal of promoting social interaction and sustainable living through design, programming, and shared ideals. Many design characteristics, such as house proximity, density, building height and size, the location of parking, the availability of common …

What Are The Physical Health Benefits Of Urban Tree Canopy In The Springfield, Massachusetts Neighborhoods?, Robert A. Hummel

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the relationship between urban tree canopy and physical health measures between different Springfield, Massachusetts neighborhoods. The study hypothesis was that there would be a correlation between urban tree canopy and human health. Statistical analysis was used to examine the correlation between available health data and urban trees. The existing neighborhood health data that was available comprised of asthma rate, infant mortality, and low birth weight. It also examined other data such as median household income, demographic percentages, home ownership, and green space. The research questions guiding this study were: Are there any correlations between urban trees canopy …

The Zoning Map And American City Form, Steven Thomas Moga

Landscape Studies: Faculty Publications

This paper investigates a common mode of visual communication in planning practice, the use of maps to regulate urban development. Holding equal legal status with the text, the zoning map was invented in the early twentieth century as a tool for implementing municipal policy and, although debated, modified, and sometimes repurposed over the past nine decades, it remains standard. Mundane and largely taken for granted, the zoning map itself has aroused little scholarly interest. However, as an image of the city and as a graphic intermediary used in administrative processes, it reveals how planning thought is embedded in planning tools.

The Chorro Valley Trail From Cal Poly To Cuesta College, Nichole M. Garner

City and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Collaborating With Catastrophe | A User's Guide To Post-Apocalyptic Farming, Patricia Cafferky

Architecture Senior Theses

“Collaborating with Catastrophe” contends that architecture has the capacity to visually manifest unseen forces through design’s reaction to them, allowing people to more fully comprehend and engage the intangible. Climate change, arguably the largest threat to modern day humanity, is not visible, existing only as a collection of data and patterns in a statistical construct. Taking stock of the present day failings of society in the face of crisis, this thesis then extrapolates a potential future dystopia precipitated by man-made pollutants in order to engage the problem at its most severe. Architecture is then able to make the toxic visible …

Other Wildernesses, Other Realities | A Framework For Shrinking Cities, Alyssa Goraieb

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis is an experiment to imagine the possible realities that emerge from a redefining of the "idea of wilderness".

Wilderness is an idea.

Its definition is slippery. It is neither a physical place nor a state of being (as the "-ness" suggests). Wilderness is a human construct defined by varying cultural and social attitude. This fluid meaning drove numerous paradigms throughout American history - from eighteenth century romanticism's sublime doctrine to today's environmentalism.

Inspired by past American paradigms, this thesis invents five other wilderness ides that exist as a parallel alternatives to our own. Each produces a …

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 …

A New Vision For An Old Institution: Addressing The Challenges For Urban And Peri-Urban Agriculture At The Waltham Experiment Station, Kevin C. Hartzell

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Masters Projects

Urban and peri-urban agriculture has a new place in (sub)urban landscapes because of the suite of ecosystem services it can provide including, but not limited to; increased local food production, waste recycling, stormwater infiltration, and reconnecting urban dwellers to their food source. The University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Waltham Experiment Station, located in Waltham, Massachusetts, is poised for redevelopment as a model for multi-use urban agriculture production, research, and education as well as a living laboratory to monitor and document the ecosystem services provided to the surrounding community. This project will focus on educational and research categories within the theme of …

Transitional Urban Voids In Austin, Texas, Courtney A. Tarver

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

A city’s urban fabric is constantly evolving through development and decay under the fluctuating rates of habitation. Cities are growing rapidly as populations climb higher, with new demands for the incoming waves of people seeking employment and a place to call home. Austin, Texas is the fastest growing American city today, with a population growth rate of three percent per year. With this growth and its demands for open space, open spaces in the form of urban voids and temporary use spaces become an interest to designers as spaces with flexibility. The approach of this thesis is to understand these …

Claiming Market Place, Michael J. Abate, Alex Hentnik, Cameron J. Roach, Christopher M. Rucinski, Taylor Shulda, Nicholas Mcmenamin, Andrew Woodward

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

CLAIMING MARKET PLACE UMass Amherst Design Center in Springfield

Department of Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning

The Senior Urban Design Studio developed a tangible vision for the revitalization of downtown Springfield through creating ideas for the underutilized Market Place block and reconnect it to the urban fabric. We carried out small-scale, temporary urban design installations as wayfinding interventions in the spirit of “tactical urbanism”. These interventions had a real target: the students’ work supported the opening of the Holiday Market in the Market Street block from Thanksgiving to Christmas. The interventions were taken one step further with the development of …

Urban Beach Venues: Vulnerability And Sustainability In The Face Of Climate Change, Michael Raybould, David Anning, Liz Fredline, Dan Ware

Michael Raybould

This paper investigates the threats to beach venues posed by climate change and attempts to identify strategies that might be adopted by coastal managers and event managers to ensure that beaches continue to be viable event and recreation venues into the future. Analysis of coastal management research, local council records and tender documents, maps and plans of coastal works identifies six specific strategies for minimising the impacts of climate change on beach venues. These strategies aim to protect existing beach venues, increase the supply of alternative venues, minimise the event tourism impacts of negative media coverage of beach erosion events, …

Identity And Urban Design: The Path To Meaningfulness In The City Of Concepción., Laura Yazmin Rodriguez

Focus

In her research leading to this article, Laura Rodriguez studied the urban design and place making qualities of the University of Concepción campus in Chile. Based on interviews with a select group of experts and field observations, the results indicate that the campus' strong meaning within the city image is partly due to its original conception as an overall consistent project and as part of the city grid and life.

Umass Amherst Green Building Guidelines V.2 And Leedv4, Kylie A. Landrey, Ted Mendoza, Ludmilla Pavlova-Gillham, Mohamad Farzinmoghadam, Somayeh Tabatabaee, Nariman Mostafavi, Ray Kinoshita Mann, Jeffrey Dalzell, Ajla Aksamija

Campus Planning Reports and Plans

Facilities & Campus Services supports sustainability and energy conservation initiatives by providing in-house resources to campus staff as well as designers, contractors and other consultants working with the University. The UMass Amherst Green Building Guidelines v2 and LEED v4 provide a framework for approaching new construction and major renovation projects at UMass Amherst that are undergoing LEED v4 certification by focusing the conversation on those green building aspects that are most important to the campus. They are intended to be the beginning of a dynamic conversation between designers, environmental consultants and constructors, university stakeholders, and users of new high performance …

Using Systematic Observations To Understand Conditions That Promote Interracial Experiences In Neighbourhood Parks, Amy Hillier, Bing Han, Theodore S. Eisenman, Kelly R. Evenson, Thomas L. Mckenzie, Deborah A. Cohen

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Faculty Publication Series

We analysed observations from 31 neighbourhood parks, with each park mapped into smaller target areas for study, across five US cities generated using the System for Observing Play and Recreation in the Community (SOPARC). In areas where at least two people were observed, less than one-third (31.6%) were populated with at least one white and one non-white person. Park areas that were supervised, had one or more people engaged in vigorous activity, had at least one male and one female present, and had one or more teens present were significantly more likely to involve interracial groups (p < 0.01 for each association). Observations in parks located in interracial neighbourhoods were also more likely to involve interracial groups (p < 0.05). Neighbourhood poverty rate had a significant and negative relationship with the presence of interracial groups, particularly in neighbourhoods that are predominantly non-white. Additional research is needed to confirm the impact of these interactions. Urban planning and public health practitioners should consider the health benefits of interracial contact in the design and programming of neighbourhood parks.

Publications From The Mastering Mills Symposium, Center For Economic Development

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

Through the Center for Economic Development's research, consulting and technical assistance efforts, it has become increasingly apparent that increased knowledge concerning the revitalization of old mills and mill communities is necessary. The problem is particularly acute in smaller communities and in areas of slow growth, where problems and solutions are addressed differently than larger towns near urban locations. The purpose of this symposium was to gain an understanding of the methods that can protect and enhance mill character and the economic viability in mill communities. It included several presentations, panel discussions, and opportunities for audience involvement. Presentations and any supplemental …