Digital Commons Network^™

Optimal Allocation Of Flexible Servers In Healthcare Systems, Tong Zhang

All Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the optimization of worker allocation in healthcare systems, focusing on flexible staffing models and the strategic prioritization of healthcare tasks. This research explores the dynamics among pre-operative, operative, and post-operative care units under various cost and service-rate constraints, using a series of models that represent realistic healthcare scenarios within a comprehensive framework for improving patient flow and reducing waiting costs.

In Chapter 2, we model and analyze cross-trained nurse allocation policies within an inpatient surgical system. We model the surgical system as a tandem clearing queueing system and formulate Markov decision processes under different business rules governing …

Integrating Incentive Design And Spatial Prioritization For Climate-Smart Forestry Adoption In South Carolina, United States, Miah Maye Pormon

All Dissertations

Forests provide essential ecosystem services, including carbon sequestration, water regulation, timber production, and habitat provision. However, increasing development pressures and land-use changes threaten forest persistence and long-run ecosystem service provision. Climate-smart forestry (CSF) practices, such as improved forest management and extended rotation, offer opportunities to enhance carbon storage, forest resilience, and economic livelihoods. The effectiveness of these practices depends on forest owners’ participation and the strategic allocation of financial resources or incentives. This dissertation develops an integrated framework that combines behavioral economic analysis and mapping to improve the design of current incentive programs. The first chapter employs the Contingent Valuation …

Progressive Digital Health Engagement And Genetic Testing Intention: Evidence From The Genetic And Rare Disease Evaluation (Garde) Health System Trial And The Health Information National Trends Survey (Hints7), Emma Coen

All Dissertations

Background Digital health technologies including patient portals, internet based health information seeking, and electronic communication platforms are central mechanisms for genomic risk communication and recruitment into genetic testing. Engagement with these tools occurs progressively rather than uniformly, and structural inequities may contribute to staged disengagement along digital health pathways. Identifying where disengagement occurs and whether it differs by demographic and contextual characteristics is critical for advancing equitable genomic implementation.

Objectives This dissertation evaluates progressive digital engagement and genetic testing intention across two complementary data sources. Aim 1 examines sequential engagement within a health system genomic outreach trial. Aim 2 evaluates …

Right Up Your Alley: Integrating Affordable Housing And Walkable Infrastructure To Revitalize Denver's Neighborhoods, Mason Anchondo

Architecture Theses

This thesis examines how existing single-family neighborhoods in Denver, Colorado can be transformed into more walkable, socially connected, and affordable communities by reactivating the city’s underutilized mid-block alleyways. Through policy analysis, GIS-based spatial research, and on-site neighborhood observation, the study identifies opportunities to introduce accessory dwelling units (ADUs) and pedestrian-oriented design strategies that improve connectivity and housing diversity without displacing existing residents. A multi-scalar site selection process ultimately focuses on the Barnum and West Barnum neighborhoods, where intact alley networks and demographic conditions support a replicable framework for gentle density. Informed by case studies and interdisciplinary research on walkability, human-scale …

Beyond Home And Child Care Centers: Reimagining Affordable Child Care Through Pod Design In East Grand Forks, Minnesota, Kassidy Allard

Architecture Theses

Due to rising operational costs, increasing regulatory pressures, and a steady decline in home-based providers, Minnesota is facing a child care shortage. In turn, the state has adopted community-based family child care, or pod model. A majority of the existing facilities are retrofitted spaces that neglect essential design considerations affecting the daily experiences of children and the well-being of the child care provider. This project explores how architectural design can strengthen and reimagine the emerging pod model by creating an affordable facility designed to prioritize daylight, spatial flexibility, comfort, and safety. This research aims to create a shared environment where …

Fields Of Home: Dignified Housing Design For Migrant Farmworkers In Rural North Dakota And Rural Minnesota, Kenady Slominski

Architecture Theses

Migrant agricultural workers are often faced with challenges regarding their housing. These housing conditions lack privacy, permanence, and a connection to the community. Existing solutions tend to prioritize efficiency and cost over the emotional, social, and cultural needs of residents. Therefore, the existing solutions are unable to create a sense of dignity. Additionally, there is limited regional research addressing migrant worker housing conditions in Minnesota and North Dakota specifically.

This project explores how architectural design can improve living conditions through a focus on dignity and community integration. The proposed development consists of duplex homes in one- and two-bedroom units with …

Bridging The Urban Moat In Downtown Fargo: Downtown Riverfront Reconnection, Haitham Al Nemri

Architecture Theses

Downtown Fargo is the city's cultural and economic hub, but it is currently constrained by a lack of riverfront activation and an outdated limited variety of building typologies and uses along the eastern downtown edge. The main issue is the lack of a clear physical connection bridging the infrastructure that cuts the civic core off from the Red River. This thesis tackles this problem by proposing a "Reconnection Framework" that combines reusing existing infrastructure, adapting to the harsh "Winter City" climate, and adding mid-scale residential housing, to expand housing options in Fargo downtown. The design proposal transforms the downtown riverfront, …

Cold Climate Urban Riverfront Development: Using People-First Design To Connect Fargo's Downtown To The River, Jade Biewer

Architecture Theses

This thesis examines the intersection of urban design, riverfront development, and cold climate design to establish a framework for a mixed-use riverfront project in Fargo’s Downtown. By synthesizing theories on public space revitalization, key considerations in waterfront development and research on climatic responses for cold weather cities, this research identifies key principles to support year-round urban life along the riverfront. By using downtown Fargo and the Red River as a reference this research synthesizes knowledge on these subjects in order to work towards creating a design proposal for an urban riverfront development prioritizing outdoor space, year-round use, resiliency, and a …

Life Beyond Architecture, Mauro Benvenutto

Architecture Theses

This thesis argues that the loss of public life in many contemporary American cities cannot be explained by architecture alone. While placeless, standardized, and emotionally thin architecture remains an important symptom of the problem, the deeper condition is urban: cities and neighborhoods have been reorganized around the private automobile, separated land uses, oversized parking fields, high-speed commercial corridors, and development models that prioritize convenience and efficiency over human scale. The result is an environment where people technically have access to buildings, sidewalks, shops, and roads, but often lack meaningful freedom of choice. Walking, biking, transit, lingering, and informal social life …

Farming The Future: Urbanizing The Naturhus For Small Scale Food Cultivation, Madysen Brooke Rath

Architecture Theses

Modern urban centers face the pressures of rapidly rising populations and food insecurity, leaving a landscape of “urban voids”-underutilized lots that remain dormant and unproductive. While the Naturhus typology offers a potential solution for symbiotic, glass-encased green living and food production in rural settings, it has yet to be adapted as a viable infill solution for the American urban grid. This thesis investigates the potential for urbanizing the Naturhus concept by reinterpreting a row-house typology as an infill strategy to create “greenhouse villages,” where residents actively participate in their own food production. It focuses on the cold-climate urban fabric of …

Wellness Through Architecture: Connecting Nordic Wellness Traditions With Architecture To Promote Human Well-Being, Morgan Mae Klimpel

Architecture Theses

In society, the need for spaces that promote wellbeing has become increasingly pressing. Modern lifestyles are often defined by constant stimulation and high stress, leaving us with limited opportunities to truly recharge. Since architecture is the framework for how we experience the built environment, it plays a critical role in shaping our mental, physical, and emotional health. The historic Lutsen Lodge site currently sits undeveloped after being destroyed by a fire in February 2024. Representing a key extension of the Lutsen Resort, this location embodies a long-standing tradition of hospitality and the unique cultural heritage of the North Shore. This …

Re-Barn: Adaptive Barn Reuse As A Model For Aging In Place And Multigenerational Living On A Rural North Dakota Farmstead, Jared Eggermont

Architecture Theses

Across rural landscapes, agricultural buildings are increasingly left vacant as farming practices evolve, while a growing senior population remains in homes ill-equipped to support aging, often facing challenges with daily needs, health, and social connection as younger generations leave for urban areas. These underutilized farmsteads present an opportunity to support multigenerational living through the reuse of existing structures, allowing families to remain rooted while adapting to changing needs. This thesis explores how rethinking agricultural buildings can sustain social and physical continuity, drawing on research into adaptive reuse, aging in place, multigenerational households, and rural living. It proposes design strategies on …

Cultivating Wellness Through Architecture: A Community-Focused Approach, Olivia Marie Haakonson

Architecture Theses

This thesis addresses the deficit of nature-integrated, accessible public wellness infrastructure in the United States, often threatened by the commercialization of wellness and harsh winter conditions in northern climates. Through an analysis of global wellness rituals, “Winter City” design strategies, the importance of social infrastructure and “third places”, the health benefits of nature, and urban policy logistics, this research culminates in a design framework to recenter holistic health in the public realm. This project integrates architectural interventions, programmatic activation strategies, and urban policy recommendations to create a holistic, accessible, and nature-integrated building to serve as a hub for urban activity.

From Steel To Sanctuary: Rethinking Sustainable Architecture Through Passive Design, Trent O'Neill

Architecture Theses

Architects, innovators, and the entire construction industry continue to push the newest, most expensive, high-tech solutions to problems that technology itself has caused. The broader public, however, seems to have little interest or support in investing in such endeavors. From Steel to Sanctuary presents a different solution, one with roots thousands of years in the making. Sustainable design is not a new way of thinking. Our ancestors had subsisted as active participants, rather than simply as a spectator to nature for millennia before the rise of the technological age. Today, we coin the strategies they employed as ‘passive’ architecture; Systems …

Fragments Of Civic Life: Reviving Public Life In The Abandoned Mall, Diego Valle

Architecture Theses

This thesis investigates adaptive reuse as a method for reviving public life within contemporary American cities through the transformation of abandoned commercial architecture into civic space. Using Hawthorne Plaza Mall as the primary case study, the project examines how the decline of the shopping mall reflects the broader disappearance of third places and informal environments of collective gathering. Grounded in the writings of Ray Oldenburg, Walter Benjamin, Federica Goffi, Marco Frascari, and Alberto Perez Gomez, the thesis interprets the abandoned mall as both a cultural artifact and a spatial framework capable of supporting new forms of participation, encounter, and communal …

Roots In Timber, Tate Dawson Runge

Architecture Theses

This thesis investigates how mass timber construction can serve as a low-carbon framework for developing attainable, mid-scale “missing-middle” housing integrated with meaningful urban greenery. Contemporary cities face dual challenges: limited affordable housing options and reduced access to nature, both of which impact community well-being and environmental resilience. By examining mass timber systems such as CLT and glulam alongside green infrastructure strategies, including planted terraces, courtyards, vegetated facades, and indoor botanical spaces, the research explores how these elements can be combined into cohesive, replicable housing prototypes. Precedents and literature on timber construction, biophilic design, and urban development inform the project’s design …

The Oasis: Decompression For Urban Living, Gabrielle Moede

Architecture Theses

The modern metropolis has evolved into a landscape of sensory bombardment, where chronic noise and visual clutter trigger a state of constant psychological strain for its inhabitants. Despite the density of these environments, there remains a critical deficiency in intentional architectural interventions that offer accessible, high-impact relief from urban alienation. This project challenges the convention of water as a decorative feature, instead re-engineering it into an active therapeutic tool designed to trigger specific restorative neurological responses. By meticulously layering the auditory, tactile, and visual properties of aqueous elements, the design creates a sequenced sensory journey that transitions from urban chaos …

Renewal: Connecting The University Campus To Improve Student Success, Micah L. Wood

Architecture Theses

The modern university increasingly faces many challenges such as competition to get and maintain students, relevance in a digital world and beyond. But what if we take a deeper look into how the built environment influences and has potential to improve student success. To do this, we must understand one of the main reasons campuses still exist beyond education, which is community. Most things that can be achieved from a university could be received in a digital format, but human connection is increasingly important. It is important to realize that, through the built environment, we can help empower campus communities. …

Cycles Of Work And Shelter: Adaptive Architecture For The Rhythms Of Rural Labor, Gabriel Ketcham

Architecture Theses

This thesis explores temporary modular housing as a flexible, context-driven solution for North Dakota’s rural agricultural communities. As a land grant university, North Dakota State University carries a mission to address state needs, yet many small farming towns face growing challenges in providing seasonal and affordable housing for agricultural workers. By examining regional farm labor patterns, harvest seasonality, and construction logistics, this project proposes a modular housing system adaptable to various rural conditions. The design emphasizes mobility, adaptability, and durability, enabling North Dakota’s farming communities to reduce operational costs, minimize worker transportation demands, and lower carbon impacts associated with daily …

Adaptive Reuse At The Hmongtown Marketplace: Using Food As An Agent For Gathering Through A Closed-Loop Circular Food System, Sulia Sheng Lee

Architecture Theses

This thesis explores the built environment through social and architectural lenses: examining how food connects communities, particularly ethnic and diasporic groups like the Hmong, and how adaptive interventions can create spaces that foster closed-loop food systems.

Research into the Hmong diasporic journey has shown that growing, making, and sharing food has been a central aspect to the community. The Hmong community's food assimilation in the United States has replaced traditional agrarian lifestyles with reliance on local American grocery stores. These stores operate within linear "take, make, use, waste" systems that disconnect consumers from food origins. However, spaces like the HmongTown …

Confluence: From Barrier To Connection: Reconnecting The Lower Ninth Ward To The Industrial Canal Through An Inhabitable Water Edge, Ciara Albrecht

Architecture Theses

Confluence reimagines the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans as a resilient waterfront community shaped by memory, ecology, and adaptive housing. Located along the Industrial Canal at the site of the 2005 levee breach, the project replaces defensive separation with an inhabitable water edge composed of amphibious housing, public circulation, constructed wetlands, visible water systems, and an underground memorial. The thesis argues that post-disaster rebuilding cannot be measured only by infrastructure or replacement housing, but by dignity, return, cultural identity, public health, and long-term stewardship. Through buoyant foundations, concealed mooring systems, passive climate strategies, and a spatial sequence that moves …

Erasing Boundaries: Strategies For Universities And Cities In Developing Integrated Planning, Jack Quinn

Architecture Theses

The population of the Fargo-Moorhead area is steadily growing per year, however since 2010 both Concordia and Minnesota State University Moorhead have seen a steady decrease in students. Factors such as President Trump’s immigration policies, lower birth rates, and high school students who are doubting the value of a college education has set the stage for a difficult future for universities in the United States of America. This thesis will explore Town-Gown relations, studentification, and the strategies behind the best designed campuses in America. It will explore the relationship between neighboring schools, P3 developments, dive into what the Metro college …

Re:Place: Leveraging Cultural Memory To Transform Communities Through Adaptive Reuse, Olivia Leingang

Architecture Theses

This thesis investigates how adaptive reuse can leverage cultural memory to transform declining small-town economies, specifically addressing the socio-economic erosion in Mandan, North Dakota. By reimagining the 1958 Mandan High School as the "Mandan Marketplace," the research proposes a 165,000-square-foot multi-use commercial hub designed to reverse regional retail leakage and density imbalances. The project utilizes a research-driven Design Framework and Strategic Building Program to integrate 23 new amenities, including a food hall, business incubator, and wellness center, into the local fabric. Through a methodology of six adaptive reuse types, the design preserves the building’s role as a "custodian of memory" …

Transformall: Redeveloping The Suburban Retail Space To Save It From Decay, Tate Trushenski

Architecture Theses

The decline of traditional retail has left behind expansive "Greyfield" sites underutilized shopping malls that disrupt the suburban fabric. This thesis presents Transformall, a comprehensive master plan for the Albertville Mall site in Minnesota, reimagining the 430,000 square foot footprint as a resilient, mixed-use town center. By employing adaptive reuse and strategic densification, the project transitions the site from a car-centric retail island into a walkable, community-oriented district.

Key interventions include the preservation of existing structural grids, the introduction of diverse housing typologies, and the implementation of green infrastructure. The resulting master plan demonstrates that suburban redevelopment can move beyond …

Architecture Of Healing Beyond The Institution: A New Model For Veteran Care, Megan Lyn Welk

Architecture Theses

The transition from military to civilian life presents unique challenges for veterans navigating trauma, yet traditional clinical settings often aggravate anxiety and disconnection through sterile, institutional design. This thesis addresses the critical “mismatch” between current healthcare environments and the neurological needs of veterans suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Arguing that architecture must evolve from a passive vessel to an active therapeutic partner, this research proposes a comprehensive rehabilitation center located on O’ahu, Hawai’i, which integrates the island’s profound cultural connection to the ‘aina (land) with evidence-based design strategies.

The design methodology synthesizes three core …

Reviving The Mill District: Post-Industrial Revitalization Through Recreational Development, Kylee Frisbie

Architecture Theses

Transforming post-industrial cities through recreational development examines how medium-sized communities can transition from declining industries to new economic identities by expanding sports and recreation infrastructure. Centered on Sartell, Minnesota, this study addresses the civic and economic void left behind from the destruction of the Verso Paper Mill in 2012. Using the “research by design” method utilizes qualitative analysis, a community-focused survey, and case studies showing how a hybrid sports complex can function as an economic engine and replace a community’s lost identity. The findings show that these facilities activate “sports-led regeneration” by attracting regional engagement, generating annual economic impact while …

How Can Architects Design Spaces That Foster Active Participation And Connection Within Communities, Tyler Michael Gillen

Architecture Theses

This thesis explores how architecture can strengthen community engagement through the design of civic infrastructure. Focusing on a proposed Fire Station Three in Moorhead, Minnesota, the project investigates how a fire station can function as both an emergency response facility and a community gathering space. As Moorhead continues to expand southward, increasing demands on emergency services reveal the need for additional infrastructure while also presenting an opportunity to rethink the civic role of fire stations within growing suburban communities. Through site analysis, precedent studies, fire station tours, and architectural research, the project develops a design proposal that integrates operational efficiency …

Cooling Washington Avenue: A Guide To Urban Heat Island Effect Mitigation For Detroit Lakes, Mn, Nathan Johnson

Landscape Architecture Theses

This thesis explores the redesign of an urban corridor in Detroit Lakes, Minnesota. Detroit Lakes is a small urban city characterized by its year-round tourism, vibrant downtown, and sandy beachfront. Like many other urban environments, it faces growing challenges associated with the urban heat island effect, as well as stormwater management and pedestrian safety. To address these issues, this project proposes integrating green street design strategies to mitigate the urban heat island effect and increase pedestrian safety. Using design principles drawn from four case studies, this project introduces natural stormwater management systems, designated bike lanes, increased canopy cover, and decreased …

Climate-Adaptive Urban Arboretum: Designing Tree Diversity And Landscape Resilience Against Climate-Related Tree Diseases In Fargo, North Dakota, Rojin Ghafori Dehgolan

Landscape Architecture Theses

This thesis explores how climate change may influence the severity of Oak Wilt Disease and Dutch Elm Disease in Fargo, North Dakota, and how landscape design can respond to future urban forest health challenges. Urban trees are essential components of green landscapes because they provide shade, aesthetic value, ecological benefits, and social comfort. However, climate change is altering environmental conditions such as temperature, precipitation, soil moisture, humidity, drought, and flooding, all of which can influence plant disease development. This research focuses on two major tree diseases: Oak Wilt Disease, caused by Bretziella fagacearum, and Dutch Elm Disease, caused by …

Living Shorelines: A Regenerative Landscape Approach To Coastal Protection And Community Resilience In Bhasan Char, Bangladesh, Anamul Hoque Mojumder

Landscape Architecture Theses

Bhasan Char is a newly formed, unstable silt island in Bangladesh which is home for more than one million Rohingya refugees—an ethnic Muslim minority from Myanmar who have fled decades of systematic persecution and violence—suffering from an ecological and humanitarian crisis. This community faces extreme vulnerability from cyclones and sea-level rise on a landscape of profound precarity.

Traditional hard-engineered defenses are costly, ecologically damaging, and ineffective against the island’s dynamic geomorphology. This research proposes a regenerative "Living Shorelines" model, intersecting coastal resilience with refugee empowerment through Blue-Green Infrastructure. Drawing on successful global precedents in Vietnam and the USA, the study …