Environmental Design Commons^™

Insites, 2014, Utah State University

inSites

Magazine of the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning

University Square Development Proposal, Tom Gregory Van Pelt

Master's Theses

The University Square Development Proposal (USDP) explores the redevelopment of the underutilized University Square site (the Site) in the City of San Luis Obispo (the City.) The Sites proximity to California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), a university with significant student housing needs, makes it an ideal location for student housing. The City has also expressed interest in the Site, having identified it in the General Plan Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE) update as a “Special Planning Area”. The LUCE proposes a new mixed-use typology on the Site that may include a mixture of multi-family housing, …

City Of Los Angeles Arts District Form-Based Code, Ryan Jupiter Banuelos

Master's Theses

Los Angeles is experiencing a loss of inventory with Industrial land due to adaptive reuse and property conversion. The primary factors behind the conversions are

inconsistent land use regulations and a strong market

demand for residential property. In an effort to streamline land use regulation,

the city will create a new zoning code. In conjunction with the zoning update,

the purpose of this project will be to develop a form-based code for the Los

Angeles Arts District. The new land use regulation will explore methods to

preserve job producing industrial space and accommodate the growing

residential market in the area. …

Deep Energy Retrofits Using The Integrative Design Process: Are They Worth The Cost, Daniel S. Bertoldi

Master's Projects and Capstones

The McKinsey Global Initiative identified existing building retrofits as an integral component to achieve a 75% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in the United Sates by 2050 (Fluhrer, Maurer, & Deshmukh 2010). However, this will require energy efficiency retrofits for existing buildings to be deployed more frequently and achieve higher energy savings on average. Deep Energy Retrofits using the Integrative Design Process can result in 30-60%+ energy savings in office buildings. Because Deep Energy Retrofits require higher upfront capital costs, in an economy still recovering from the economic downturn, financial decision makers may not be inclined to invest more capital …

Volunteered Geographical Information: An Alternative Solution For Overcoming The Chasm Between Stormwater Management And Community Participation, Yanfu Zhou

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

It is a dramatic challenge to promote public engagement in stormwater management and green infrastructure initiatives. When traditional outreach approaches made important influence on public engagement, their limitations are also obvious. With the development of Web 2.0 technology, Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) has been emerging as one of the most important user-generated geographic contents. The crowdsourcing data that generated by volunteers through geo-web, smartphones, and other geo-devices provides invaluable mass data for decision-making. VGI can provide a better understanding of planning issues and other challenges. The research aims to develop a mobile information platform to allow citizens to report the …

No Parking But Parks: Sustainable Urban Planning Of Open Space In New York City, Jenny Kun

2014 Student Theses

Parks are keys to create a sustainable urban living environment. They are particularly important today as they ameliorate of one of the most urgent problem—global climate change. Parks has been New Yorkers’ most cherished public infrastructure. This thesis takes a close look on New York City and examines how open space planning affect the development of a metropolis. To investigate the topic, I applied three disciplines in environmental policy: environmental planning and design, history, and politics. These disciplines are intertwined. This thesis first digs in to the history of how the city’s iconic Central Park is created and evaluates how …

Water Water Everywhere: Analyzing Long Island's Water Issues And Finding Solutions For A Sustainable Future, Anthony T. Becker

2014 Student Theses

Over three million people call Long Island their home. With access to beautiful landscapes, world-renowned beaches, and proximity to New York City, it is no wonder that so many proudly call this geographic stretch of glacial till their home. However, throughout the years our actions do not necessarily reflect this affection we have to our home. Years of sprawl and human infestation across the island have resulted in widespread environmental degradation. Specifically, the water we drink and the beaches we enjoy have become endangered. I plan on studying the urban ecology of how intensified population growth led to the eutrophication …

Recovering The Moca River: An Exploration Through Sustainable Strategies For Developing Countries, Marleny Santana Diaz

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Natural watercourses are being negatively affected by growing urbanization in different cities of the world. Within these circumstances the concept of river restoration has gained relevance, becoming a worldwide priority in water management. In developing countries, river restoration plans, conditioned by social and economic limitations, are mainly focused on a single approach, typically relying on short-term, low technology strategies.

In the long term, these strategies tend to fail because they usually avoid integral solutions that address the interconnected factors contributing to river degradation. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to develop a framework of river restoration planning for developing …

Collective Counter Cartography From Prinzessinnengarten, Berlin, Gabriel Wulff

disClosure: A Journal of Social Theory

No abstract provided.

Issue Brief: Asset Management For Stormwater, New England Environmental Finance Center, Sustainable Communities Learning Network

Sustainable Communities Capacity Building

Asset management is a strategic approach to maintaining and sustaining infrastructure in order to meet the needs of the community at the lowest overall life cycle cost. This approach helps communities know how and where to prioritize limited funds in order to achieve the greatest benefit. Often applied to drinking water and wastewater infrastructure, this method is well suited to managing any assets, including stormwater systems.

This issue brief is intended to introduce local governments to the asset management process and to show how it can be applied in managing stormwater assets. It was adapted from an appendix written by …

Quantifying And Modeling Stream–Aquifer Interactions In The Elkhorn River Basin, Nebraska, Can Liu

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This study combined statistical analyses, field investigations and numerical groundwater flow modeling to quantify the connectivity between the Elkhorn River and its adjacent aquifers in Nebraska. The Mann-Kendall trend tests were conducted to detect increasing or decreasing tendencies on the time series data of streamflow, which were collected from eighteen gauging stations in the Elkhorn River and its tributaries. Decreasing trends were not found in the annual streamflow data.

Field investigation of streambed hydraulic properties was performed in the Elkhorn River near Winslow and Norfolk. Vertical hydraulic conductivities (K_v) of the shallow streambed sediments were obtained by …

Architecture, Education And Experience, Sarah Sheridan

Conference papers

In the early twentieth century, informed by an educational theory that meaningful experience is deeply embedded in sensory learning, open air school reformers set about creating deep learning experiences for children. They suggested that children should be exposed to nature, in order to contribute to their health, well-being and learning processes. Bad air remained a pervasive indicator of poor health, and to support the healthy benefits of fresh air, reformers openly called on parents and teachers to become ‘open-air crusaders.’ The public pressure to give children access to fresh air was on. The debate that ensued focused on the specification …

Method And System For Optimal Coordination Control And Soft Repair Of Multiple Rooftop Heating And Cooling Units, Haorong Li

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Faculty Publications

Techniques are described that may be implemented in an adaptive control device to regulate multiple zone environmental units based upon multiple temperature values and multiple airflow values, where each temperature value and each airflow value is related to the temperature and the airflow in a specific zone. In an implementation, the input interface of the adaptive control device is configured to receive multiple temperature values and multiple air flow values from multiple zone sensors. The adaptive control device may calculate multiple operational values based on the multiple temperature values and the multiple air flow values. An operational value indicates a …

The Steel Yard, Architecture Department, Sculpture Department, Bruner Foundation

Rudy Bruner Award | 30 Years of Urban Excellence

The Steel Yard redeveloped a historic steel fabrication facility into a campus for arts education, job training, and small-scale manufacturing in Providence, Rhode Island. The 3.5-acre property in the city’s Industrial Valley required extensive environmental remediation to meet regulatory requirements while retaining the industrial urban character of the site. The Steel Yard offers classes, workforce training, and fabrication space for local artists, creating an industrial arts incubator where they can share ideas, materials, and space. It has become a center for creative activity, bridging the gap between the traditional arts community on the affluent east side of Providence with manufacturing …

Ua12/13 2014 Sustainability Report [Western Kentucky University], Wku Office Of Sustainability, Christian Ryan-Downing

Sustainability Publications and Resources

No abstract provided.

Solar Decathlon 2014: Techstyle Haus Project Manual, Jonathan Knowles

Competition

Solar Decathlon 2014 Techstyle Haus Project Manual. The Solar Decathlon competition challenges twenty collegiate teams to design and build sustainable homes that are powered exclusively by solar energy and incorporate sustainable architecture and design. Techstyle Haus is an international Brown University, RISD and University of Applied Sciences Erfurt,Germany collaboration designing a solar passivehaus out of high performance textiles.

The History Of The Department Of Landscape Architecture And Environmental Planning 1939-2014, Utah State University, Laep Department

Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning 75th Anniversary

As the Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning at Utah State University celebrates its first 75 years of existence, it is appropriate to reflect back on the individuals who have laid the foundation for what the department has become, and to trace its evolution from the first two graduates in 1940 to over 1,500 today. Given the amount of time covered, the plethora of actors involved, and the many stories to be told, it is inevitable that events have been missed. It is hoped, however, that enough is presented to provide a substantial overview of the program’s growth and …

Edra 45: Bibliography Of Books On Display, Kathleen Demsky

Bibliographies

edra 45 | BUILDING WITH CHANGE | New Orleans, Lousiana

The Kasunean River Revisited:Some Notions On The Role Of Cultural Landscape Elements In Cirebon City, West Java, Indonesia, Dini Rosmalia, Widjaja Martokusumo

NAKHARA (Journal of Environmental Design and Planning)

Waterbodies are the most important landscape elements in the history of settlement formation. Since the 15th century, rivers have played a critical role in distributing logistics and have served as signifi cant infrastructure. In relation to the revitalization of heritage structures in Cirebon, the role of the river, symbolizing the source of life and fertility, has been revisited and has raised the notion of ecological concerns. The reconstruction of Lawang Sanga at the River Kasunean has unveiled the challenge of maintaining cultural landscape elements in regards to resilient landscapes. This paper argues the relation between revitalization efforts and the expanding …

The Impact Of Historical Geography And Agricultural Land Development Processes On Wetland Restorationmethods Used To Create Ecological Networks:A Comparison Of Japan And The Netherlands, Yuji Hara, Fransje Hooimeijer, Steffen Nijhuis, Maki Ryu, Arjan Van Timmeren

NAKHARA (Journal of Environmental Design and Planning)

In the Osaka area in the 1880s, rice was grown mostly in dry fi elds in upland areas, and a few paddy fi elds were situated on the natural wet landforms along the major rivers and streams on the Osaka Plain. As the area developed, dry fi elds became irrigated, and the lowland fi elds were fi lled and converted to urban land uses. For the Osaka city region, developed in this historical context, an ecological network has been proposed by the national government in 2006. The proposal was partially infl uenced by ecological network planning in the Netherlands, and …