Landscape Architecture Commons^™

The Future Of The High Plains Aquifer: Addressing Potential Desertification In The Great Plains, Hongfei Zuo

Masters Theses

The past century of extractive pumping of underground water coupled with climate change and extreme weather since the 1950s led to great unpredictability and uncertainty about the future of the landscapes of the high plains. The High Plains, or Ogallala Aquifer, has significantly declined as water continues to be pumped to irrigate crops. Reports and scientists estimate that the aquifer will dry in 30 years. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s is an example of a man-made catastrophe that resulted from the mismanagement of the agricultural landscape. The Shelterbelt Project, proposed as part of the New Deal in 1935, did …

Bee Stations: Refueling Bees And Creating Opportunities For Education, Jinghan Zhou

Masters Theses

Commercial honey bees are transported between pollinated crops and play an essential role in our agricultural system. This thesis proposes a network of bee stations and corridors that could improve the health of transported bee populations, increase local beekeeping, and help educate the public about the importance of bees and pollinators. The bee stations have at least 100 acres of diversified high-quality wildflower species where trucks that transport bees can stop to “refuel” their hives. The bee stations also have an education center where the public can walk through the wildflower fields, observe bees, make beehives, and learn how to …

City Of Intelligent Soil: Systematic Approach Towards Urban Soil Mutualism, Yuting Chen

Masters Theses

Starting with identifying ‘Urban Soil Blindness’, which refers to the fact that people in cities tend to lose their awareness and connection with soil, this thesis focuses on developing a nexus of mycorrhizal, urban soil, plant system and urbanites. Soil is not just a simple substance for plants to root in. As a main responsive medium and the breeding bed for microorganisms and their transmission, soil brings the resilient yet vulnerable world of mankind and the vibrant and vigorous microbial world to each other in an infinite intimacy. As a lens, soil allows us to unfold the world of microbiome …

X-Era: Adaptation To The Future Uncertainty With Sustainable Indigenous Wisdom, Ruoyuan Chen

Masters Theses

Due to human impacts on earth’s geology and ecosystem, the future of this planet and our society is uncertain. To navigate this uncertainty, it is urgent that we understand and explore new strategies to adapt to this unknown future. Over the millennia, indigenous communities around the world have developed advanced and nuanced ways to adapt to living in harsh environments. X is commonly used in science to refer to a variable that can change or be changed. Therefore, the thesis project – X-Era, aims to learn from the sustainability of traditional ecological knowledge to help inform how we may adapt …

We Walk, We Live: Reclaiming The Rights Of Female And Other Gender Minorities To The Urban Commons, Wenxi (Hillary) Huang

Masters Theses

Urban street environments are often described as not being beneficial for persons who identify as female and other gender minorities. This thesis responds to the urgent call for further transformation of the public realm through a reimagination of walking environments in the city. It examines gender biases prevalent in realities within the female’s experience in urban settings, and more specifically on the streets, and explores intersectionality as a form of reclamation of the female and other gender minorities’ rights to the urban commons.

The inquiry is divided into two parts - research inquiry and design implementation. The study investigates and …

Aquatic Assemblages: Improving Dragonfly Habitat And Water Quality In An Urban Park, Yan Liu

Masters Theses

Many scientists have claimed that we are entering into the sixth mass extinction. According to IUCN, about 16% of the 6,016 species of dragonflies and damselflies are at risk of extinction. Dragonfly occupies an essential link in the food chain. Fluctuations in dragonfly numbers can affect the numbers of other species, such as mosquitoes and birds. Dragonflies are also closely related to the health of the water environment. Healthy water bodies can attract more and different species of dragonflies and other aquatic animals. Dragonflies’ decline is a symptom of widespread loss of the marshes, swamps, and free-flowing rivers they breed …

Trash Matters: Material Strategies For Prolonging The Life Of Single-Use Plastic, Zixin Li

Masters Theses

Plastic pollution has become one of the most pressing environmental issues. Communities worldwide have addressed the importance of facing the problem of plastic pollution control and issues relevant policies to effectively reduce the use of plastic products. The sudden outbreak of Covid-19 has made the urgency of the problem less significant. Nevertheless, the use of disposable plastics to comply with public health protocols has hugely increased making plastic pollution all the more severe.

Through material experimentation, this thesis reappraises different types of single-use plastic waste and attempts to transform them into longer-lasting reused solutions. It focuses on finding alternative materials …

Offshore Speculation: Generative Ethics For Submerged Lands, Leigh Miller

Masters Theses

Where is the line between land and sea? As the United States begins to extend renewable energy infrastructures offshore, it will fundamentally blur the boundary between submerged and visible lands. In communities unfamiliar with landscapes of extraction and generation, the realities of this emerging industry will challenge notions of ownership, aesthetic values, and environmental ethics.

Offshore Speculation opens a dialogue between the discipline of landscape architecture and the spatial politics that support the nation’s transition away from fossil fuels. Reimagining the sea as a new urban territory on submerged land allows honest interrogation of the land-sea binary. Because landscape architects …

Emotional Experience: An Exploration Of Reestablishing The Connection With Nature Through Novel Street Tree Planning In Providence, Ri, Xiuyan Qin

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the causes of the unprecedented disconnection of humans from nature experienced in modern society. To improve this disconnect, this proposal seeks to place the street tree at the intersection of nature and culture through urban installations that intensify urban sensory experiences. By strengthening human sensory perception, promoting stewardship through diverse participatory planting plans, enabling urban ‘foraging,’ creating community-led and household maintenance regimes, the street tree installations will increase public health outcomes and create environmental agency within the public realm. I sincerely believe that the ultimate mission of landscape architecture lies in encouraging a healthy, poetic, and joyful …

Zoopolis: Repurpose Urban Infrastructure To Welcome Invisible Neighbors, Yu Xiao

Masters Theses

Humans take a dominant role in shaping the world to fit what is best for us, while claiming vast cities and our territories. However, shrinking natural habitats together with availability of resources and shelter have attracted abundant wildlife to cities. These animal species have adjusted their habits to adapt to the urban environments and to avoid direct contact with humans, becoming invisible inhabitants in the city. Despite their initial harmonious coexistence, in recent decades, increasing wildlife sightings – often causing conflict or panic – bring those liminal animals to public attention. This situation encourages us to reframe how cities could …

Slow Down: Investigating How Pop-Up Installations Transform Multi-Use Space, Yuanrui Wang

Masters Theses

According to a study from the 1990s by Richard Wiseman, pedestrians’ walking speeds in a city provide a reliable measure of the pace of life in that city. If people’s walking speeds in a city are fast, their life rhythm will be relatively fast. People in fast-moving cities have more pressure and have higher rates of coronary heart disease.

Because cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the leading cause of death globally, to get a more healthy life, we all need to slow down and lower the risk of stress. Pop-up spaces are a commonly used method by designers to create a …

Agricultural Landscape As Cultural Practice : Through The Lens Of Rice Farming, Yumeng Yan

Masters Theses

The thesis departs from the understanding of landscape as a cultural practice – an idea that has been thoroughly discussed over the last three decades, namely by Gary Snyder in the influential book of essays, “Tawny Grammar” – to research rice farming landscapes in the geographical contexts of Africa, Asia, and America. By studying the methods and infrastructural systems involved in rice production that developed independently in Asia and Africa – where they were less affected by capitalist frameworks and dualistic ideas that exclude farming from landscape architecture – the thesis seeks a more nuanced intersection of different models of …

The Urban Fabric: Upcycling Textile Waste Into Raw Material For Urban Ground Surface Design, Wenlin Yang

Masters Theses

Landscape surface materials have the opportunity to ground us in our experience and use of materials in the built environment. Surface materials describe the physical textures of the urban areas and include soft and hard landscape solutions, streetscapes, and roads. In modern landscape design, turf, concrete, asphalt, brick or rubber are the most common materials for urban parks or playgrounds. However, the unlimited use of, and lack of awareness about urban landscape surface materials has become a common trend. This “take-make-discard” culture has negatively impacted our environment ecologically, economically, and socially.

This thesis study focuses on upcycling textile waste into …

Sensory Resilience In Urban Walkingscapes: Space Making Strategies For Streetside Public Systems In Neuro- Inclusive City Visions, Yingying Wang

Masters Theses

The thesis asks spatial designers of the public realm to pay attention to sensory profiles and related issues in contemporary urban contexts: sensory overstimulation, lack of safety, security, accessibility in public, absence of clarity, and legibility in the navigating system. These features have characterized rigid and homogeneous representations of and solutions for existing public spaces, mostly developed with a lack of knowledge of humans’ diverse sensory needs in different environments. They fail to offer users – especially neuro-minority groups – alternative ways to interact with the public sphere.

The study researches the reasons for such approaches while investigating the relationships …

Caed Hasslein Student Competition, Greta R. Stout

Construction Management

This paper outlines the development of the first CAED Hasslein Student Competition at Cal Poly, SLO. The College of Architecture and Environmental Design at Cal Poly, SLO has not yet been successful in creating a platform to engage students of all five majors to collaborate in an educational atmosphere. This project aims to challenge students to work in teams made up of all five disciplines in a Request for Proposal-style competition. This paper focuses on how the idea of this competition came to be and the steps that were taken to successfully write the competition problem statement. These steps included …

Designing Neighborhood-Scale Green Infrastructure (Gi) To Improve The Health And Well-Being Of Industry-Adjacent Communities Through Air Pollution Mitigation In Joppa, Texas, Lauren Wardwell

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

Ambient outdoor air pollution kills roughly 4.2 million people every year worldwide and is linked as a contributing factor to diseases such as asthma, cancer, infertility, and neurological disorders. In the United States, minority communities are more likely to live near sources of air pollution, such as highways and industrial sites, and therefore face higher risks of developing the associated health difficulties. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), people of color (POC) are exposed to disproportionately higher levels of ambient fine particulate matter (PM) air pollution, regardless of income levels or region. While the EPA monitors and enforces outdoor …

The Role Of Temporary Installations Towards Permanency In The Built Environment, Paul D. Spittle

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

Heralding a new wave against “business-as-usual” planning, design and development practice that had in part brought about the Global Crash of 2008 (Marcinkoski, 2016), the rise in rapid and temporary design typologies, like Park(ing) Day or Better Block (CNU Next Gen, 2010), suggested a new direction that recognized that if you wanted to make a positive change in the built environment, it was easier to act first and apologize afterwards (Lydon et al, 2012). Taking the responsibility of living in the city into their own hands, a new guard of designers looked to the unfinished skeletons of civic construction to …

Chattahoochee River Front: Creating A Public Space For The City Of Atlanta, Samantha Manders

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The city of Atlanta lacks public spaces. Atlanta is characterized by many high-rise buildings, and a bare urban fabric that is accessed by automobile-oriented roads rather than pedestrian streets. Dense city centers such as Buckhead, Midtown, and Downtown, lacks proper public places that support social cohesion. While the city is renowned for its green spaces and the tree canopy, much of the public space is dedicated as green parks rather than plazas as extension of the street network. When the development of Atlanta began, it was designed as a railroad city. This took the focus off its natural course of …

On The Restorative Power Of Nature, Or Why Every Neighborhood Needs A Public Japanese Garden, Mira Locher, Keith Bartholomew

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

In celebration of Professor Arthur C. “Chris” Nelson’s illustrious career and our shared ambles in academia and in gardens in Japan, we offer this essay on public health and public gardens, namely gardens in the traditional Japanese style and how they could play an important role in addressing pressing public health issues in urban areas in the U.S. (and elsewhere).

Envisioning Health, Safety, And Welfare For All: Retrospect And Prospect, Frederick Steiner

Journal of Comparative Urban Law and Policy

This essay is a reflection on my academic career in community and regional planning as well as landscape architecture. That look back over five decades provides the basis about speculation for the future of planning and design. It addresses the major challenges of our time, including social justice and climate change, through the lens of design, ecology, and landscape.