Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

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 …

Prelude To A Master Plan: Ware, Massachusetts, Belen Alfaro, Bruno Carneiro, Margaret Engesser, Kathryn E. Fox, Evadne R. Friedman, Timothy Inacio, Anita Lockesmith, Christina Mills, Stephanie Molden, Meagen Mulherin, Russell Pandres, Vinicius Pereira, Brian Reid, Pedro Soto, Jennifer Stromsten

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

Prelude to a Master Plan offers ideas, recommendations, and a toolkit to help the town chart its own path towards that future. While the teams and individual students worked to ‘drill down’ into specific topic areas, the Studio defined three basic areas in order to think about how the various assets, challenges and ideas undermine or reinforce one another. The report is loosely organized in those terms: addressing the outlying rural areas and issues specific to these places, considering one of the key growth areas that has extended from town and the conflicts that arise from the many uses occurring …

South Hadley Falls: Report On The Public Process, Elizabeth Brabec, Mark Hamin

Elizabeth Brabec

The goals of this design and visioning process were:

• to identify a common vision for the future of South Hadley Falls;

• to identify opportunities for future growth, change and development that are appropriate to the vision; and

• to consider creative visions to identify alternative outcomes.

Spread over a period of months from September 2011 through February 2012, the process was composed of four activities:

1. an initial information gathering phase of documentary research into the history, background and demographics of the community;

2. a visit to and discussions with residents;

3. a community design charrette to discuss …

Using Locative Media In Heritage Landscapes: A Review Of Current Practice, Elizabeth Brabec, Gordon Mclennan

Elizabeth Brabec

Locative media projects are beginning to be recognized in various arts and humanities disciplines as a portal through which interpretive information can be connected to location. Projects can be accessed from two different perspectives: in front of a computer screen or on the ground with the aid of a GPS enabled smart phone. In either format, content in the form of narrative, video, images, historic documents, etc., can be connected with a specific GPS point location on a map or on a real site. However, while locative media holds the potential to create a visitor experience without negatively impacting the …

Revitalization Of An Urban Riverfront To Revitalize The Socio-Economic Conditions Of Springfield, Ma, Sneha Rasal

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Masters Projects

The City of Springfield, Massachusetts is one of the largest cities in western Massachusetts, and was established on the Connecticut River for trading and as a fur-collecting post. In 18th and early 19th century, it experienced an industrial boom and became a regional financial center. Springfield became a major railroad center and grew to become the regional center for banking, finance, and courts. However, in mid-19th century Springfield suffered due to the flooding of the Connecticut River and the disinvestment in industry. These resulted in an urban sprawl as people started moving away from heart of the city.

Now, once …

The Use Of Spatial And Mixed Methods In Analyzing Cultural Landscapes, Elizabeth Brabec, Chingwen Cheng, Kristina Molnarova

Elizabeth Brabec

The cultural landscape is a complex phenomenon resulting from both natural-geographical and social-cultural processes. Defining the normative patterns produced by each culture and/or historical period is essential to understanding the patterns and features of the anthropogenic landscape and the inherent meaning. Currently, an understanding of both historical and contemporary patterns is developed from the qualitative analysis of a single or small number of cases. Results obtained from a single or small number of cases are inherently limited in their ability to clearly identify the pattern in a complex system, particularly when a chosen case may present an anomaly rather than …

Transformation Of Urban Public Space, Ruthanne Harrison

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The concept of my thesis is to employ architectural intervention in residual urban space as a catalyst for transformation. The goal is design of a building and environment that could be used for any combination of purposes, be used freely by all members of the community, be designed so that the art and architecture is interactive, and could be transformed by the users of the space. The project makes use of a residual urban space that would otherwise remain largely inaccessible. The project explores how the space could be designed to give a sense of ownership of it to the …

Children's Cancer And Transplant Hospital: A Micro Town Within A Bubble, Kimia Samimi

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

As the greatest considerations in health-care design have traditionally been functional —hygiene, efficiency, and flexibility for changing technology— hospitals have evolved to become dehumanizing spaces. In this thesis two specific groups of chronically ill children who have among the longest inpatient stays are studied: cancer and organ transplant patients. Being under immunosuppressive drugs, these children are physically vulnerable thus are kept completely isolated. These long stays and isolation can be very depressing for them.

This thesis undertakes the challenge of designing a fully isolated space that doesn’t feel like one or in other words “a micro-town within a bubble”. The …

Community Land Trusts And Rental Housing: Assessing Obstacles To And Opportunities For Increasing Access, Maxwell Ciardullo

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are an affordable housing model based in the principles of community control of land and housing, as well as the permanent affordability of home ownership. Because of their membership-based governance structure and limited-equity formula, they are uniquely positioned to target reinvestment in communities of color and low-income communities without perpetuating cycles of displacement. Though focused on home ownership, many CLTs have adapted the model to include rental housing. This addition has the potential to expand affordability and opportunities for community governance to lower-income renters; however, it also challenges CLTs as organizations with little experience developing or …

City Principles: The Application Of The Four Visual Characteristics On Helena, Mt, Cienna Cullen

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The larger architectural context of cities must be understood in order to effectively design buildings. If a building ignores its surroundings, it will not hold up to time and will adversely affect the city in which it stands. This can be seen in multiple of disarrayed cities and their commercial-driven building inventory. So, what makes a good city stand out, and how can this be applied to buildings? There are the four basic principles designers and planners seemed to have forgotten. The first is the layout of basic city components and their influence on current and future identity. The second …

A Renovation To Develop Community, Build Connections And Support Student Needs In The Southwest Residential Towers At The University Of Massachusetts Amherst, Brittany L. Haughton

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

In a time of increased admissions at State Colleges and Universities students are at risk for various concerning factors including decreased academic performance, feelings of isolation and alienation from faculty, staff and their peers, and other issues of mental health. Intentional architectural programming, primarily the public spaces within residence halls, can help to alleviate these issues for students and ensure that they are connected to their residential community not only academically but personally.

This thesis will discuss how the increase in college admissions has affected residence hall communities and the personal development of students attending large academic institutions. It will …

The Springfield Medical District: An Analysis Of The Medical Industry And Its Workers, Henry C. Renski, Theresa Perrone

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Gross Vs. Net Migration Rates In A County-Level Component Model Of Population Change, Henry C. Renski, Susan Strate

Center for Economic Development Technical Reports

This paper evaluates the accuracy of county-level population estimates and forecasts under three different methods for estimating the domestic migration in a components-of-change framework. The first is a net-migration approach similar to that used by the U.S. Census Bureau and by many state data centers. While common, the net migration assumption has been widely criticized for not accurately reflecting the population ‘at risk’ of migrating into a county. The other two methods follow a gross migration approach whereby in- and out-migration are added separately into the population change equation. The simple gross migration approach estimates domestic in-migration to each county …

The University And Local Economic Development, John Mullin, Zeenat Kotval-K, Jonathan Cooper

John R. Mullin

Increasing pressures on universities and educational institutions to be more involved in the communities that house them have led to a wave of interactions that have been both creative and mutually supportive. These ‘town-gown’ relations have stemmed not only from pressures by government leaders, but also from the sense of civic responsibility and the drive for ‘service learning’ where students move beyond the academic walls to engage in real life situations as part of the learning process. The resultant merits are invaluable lessons and experiences that are mutually beneficial to the students and the communities. Similarly, the involvement of community …

Telling The Springfield Story: Project Report, Elizabeth Brabec

Elizabeth Brabec

This project applies locative media technology (video on website and mobile devices) to spur community engagement and economic development in downtown Springfield. Video performances (narrative stories, songs, dances, etc.) by local Springfield residents relate their experiences and perceptions of the city. The video performances are accessed through locative media, which enables smart phones and other Internet devices to download content in a downtown Springfield "performance walk."

Visual Preferences For Wind Turbines: Location, Numbers And Respondent Characteristics, Kristina Molnarova, Petr Sklenicka, Jiri Stiborek, Kamila Svobodova, Miroslav Salek, Elizabeth Brabec

Elizabeth Brabec

There is a dichotomy in the view of wind farms among members of the public: on one hand, there is a desire for renewable energy sources, and on the other hand, there is a major concern about the visual impact of wind turbines used for power production. This concern for visual impact is a major factor in the reaction of the public to the development of new wind farms. Our study aims to objectify this influence and to establish the factors that determine how people evaluate these structures. We tested the visual quality of landscapes in which these structures are …