Environmental Design Commons^™

Foundations Of Belonging, Yerim Jang

Masters Theses

In the early 1900s, hundreds of thousands of immigrants displaced by World War II sought refuge in the United States, drawn by the promise of a new life and the hope of finding community in an unfamiliar land. To navigate the challenges of a new country, these immigrants formed ethnic social clubs that provided essential support, including housing, employment, and spaces for social connection. Over time, as later generations assimilated and established new identities, these once-thriving social hubs diminished, barely operating their original functions and transitioned into bars, event halls, or restaurants. Since the early 2000s, a new wave of …

Crux: Urban Ecology And Cultural Essence, Maria Del Valle

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The CRUX, stands for islands grappling with the aftermath of hurricanes. Its transformative vision is set against the backdrop of a city scarred by abandoned homes, tainted water sources, agricultural decay, and a crippled electrical grid. CRUX aspires to breathe new life into this urban landscape, envisioning a self-sustaining city dedicated to nurturing community ties for the resilient people of Yabucoa. The testament to the restoration is not just physical structures, but the research studies the very spirit of the community. By delving into the realms of art, farming, Afro-Carribbean culture, and food, the project seeks to create a vibrant …

Demographic Data In The Built Environment And Human Health Studies, Huaqing Wang, Louis G. Tassinary

Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Faculty Publications

Demographic data is widely used in both built environment and population health studies. Traditional data sources include national, state, and local surveys as well as archived data from longitudinal studies and newly emerging sources such as digitally accessible administrative data and real-time data from mobile devices. The value of these diverse data sets hinges on their accuracy, completeness, reliability, relevance, and timeliness. This chapter reviews the literature published in this field, provides a selective overview of the extant published research based on such data, and offers suggestions for the continuing access and use of such datasets.

Urban And Community Tree Cover In The Mountain West, Zachary Billot, Zachary Walusek, Annie Vong, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Environment

This fact sheet examines data on tree cover and impervious cover in urban land for the United States and for the five states in the Mountain West: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The original report includes data for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia

Traveling With A Purpose, Nina Rossman

Capstone Projects

The act of traveling is often seen as exciting for many travelers looking for adventure or to experience something different than their everyday routines. However, many current tourism trends force negative burdens onto local communities and environments. For instance, when development increases consumption in an area where natural resources are scarce to begin with, it can put pressure on those resources. There is a certain level of visitor use that an environment can manage; negative impacts occur when the changes in visitor use exceed this limit.

While tourist destinations experience negative impacts from the tourism industry, tourism also supports the …

La Floresta; An Appreciation And Reimagination Of My Barrio, Ana Rodríguez

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis is a love letter to my barrio, La Floresta in Quito, Ecuador. I have divided it into three different sections: a creative writing piece where I walk readers through my barrio and my life in it, a historical section where I analyze its history and the reasons for its uniqueness and current identity, and finally a project proposal for a community center called "Casa La Floresta".

Re-Imagining Design For Affordable Housing In Mexico, Kenza Fernandez Dominguez

Scripps Senior Theses

Since the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto, affordable housing developments in Mexico have been produced in a massive, unsustainable scale. The speed at which these developments are produced equates to the carelessness that goes into their planning. At large, the developments’ monotonous design is aesthetically dehumanizing and fails to promote a sense of community. These developments lack basic infrastructure, and their residents have abandoned them, which has incentivized increased criminal activity.

In this paper, I will be looking at successful models of affordable housing globally, exploring the histories of communal living, and function of architectural collages. Based on my findings …

Student-Centered Learning Spaces During A Pandemic, Rebeccah J. Maley

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study is to examine the experience second year, live on students study habits in outside academic spaces during a pandemic from 2020-2021 academic year. Through gathered testimonies of residents it was found students value their communities, appreciate localized spaces for collaboration, and acknowledged various influences that can enhance or inhibit their ability to study. Additionally, they shared the impact COVID-19 had on their personal lives, academics, and how they interacted with others. It was found that holistic measures are needed for students to be successful in outside academic spaces. This study brought attention to these measures …

Landfill Suitability Analysis Using Gis (Geographic Information System) And Ahp (Analytic Hierarchy Process): A Case Study Of Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska, Sunah Moon

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

The objective of this study was to identify and prioritize the potential sites that are the most suitable to host landfills using Geographic Information System (GIS) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) in Scotts Bluff County, Nebraska. First, the criteria that influence in a decision-making process of landfill placement in social, environmental, and physical perspectives were established, and the area was assessed based on the grading structure of each criterion on a scale of 0 to 10. The second step was the main process for the study using the AHP. Thirty-two experts who work as planners, engineers, landfill staff, and environmental …

Design Hub: Activating Community By Design, Ed Williams

Theses and Dissertations

MOTIVATION

At the turn of the century, Robert Putnam (2000, 27) wrote “...a powerful tide bore Americans into ever deeper engagement in the life of their communities, but a few decades ago that tide reversed and we were overtaken by a treacherous rip current.” Putnam is describing a loss of “social capital” throughout American society. Research suggests that many of our contemporary issues are the result of a decline in “social capital,” or “community.”

This pervasive lack of community is thought to be detrimental to “educational performance, safe neighborhoods, equitable tax collection, democratic responsiveness, everyday honesty, and even our health …

Community-Based Healthcare | Interlace Of Biophilic Design In Outpatient Facilities, Joshua Robinson

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis questions how architects can redesign typical healthcare typology in response to the medical and sociological needs of the community while integrating the measures of wellness and biophilic design. By redefining architectural programs within a wellness clinic, this can allow the facility to prioritize the communities needs through non-medical determinants. The research will look at both the social and medical needs of a community, along with the Seven Standards of Wellness as defined by the Well Building Standard and The Fourteen Patterns of Biophilic Design as defined by the Terrapin Bright Green, to develop a connection between the facility …

Analysis Of The Difference Between Two Approaches To Assessing Housing And Community Standards, Kundoldibya Panitchpakdi, Tirawat Pimwern, Thammanoon Laohpiyavisut

NAKHARA (Journal of Environmental Design and Planning)

This comparative study on housing and community comfortable living performance standards is a partof a participatory research conducted to meet the needs addressed by the Thai National HousingAuthority to improve existing housing and community standards. The research team conducted a case study of the Rim Khwae Awm Community in Samut Songkhram Province. This community had been identified as a model of comfortable living. This article presents the results of an analysis of comfortable living standards derived from a review of related literature and standards derived from the participatory process with the community case study. This research found that the standards …

Planning For A Community Wildfire Protection Plan In San Luis Obispo County, Justin Sauder

City and Regional Planning

San Luis Obispo County has a long history of wildfires and can be expected every fire season. Agencies providing fire protection do an excellent job at reducing the risk to loss of life, property, and natural resources in the area, but there is always room for improvement. California in general is experiencing increasingly longer, hotter, and drier fire seasons due to climate change, and San Luis Obispo County is no exception. As the population increases urban development is pushed to the outer limits of city boundaries where it often conflicts with forests in an area called the wildland urban interface. …

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 …

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 …

Sustainable Portland: Implementation Series 3, New England Environmental Finance Center

Climate Change

This report is the third in a series of efforts by students at the Muskie School of Public Service, Community Planning and Development Master’s program, in a core class called “Sustainable Communities.” In this course students seek to understand principles of sustainability and how efforts to implement Sustainability programs can become more successful. The report assembles term papers students completed on particular efforts by municipalities, universities, and other groups to achieve sustainability goals. Students worked on each project in a service learning format with real world clients. They were asked to fashion their papers around lessons learned by other organizations …

South Burlington, Vt: Mixed-Use Comes To O’Dell Parkway, Ryan Neale, Brett Richardson, Richard Barringer

Planning

The proposed redevelopment of an underutilized property along major travel routes in South Burlington presents possibilities for infill development. The City of South Burlington, the developer, neighbors, and a variety of public and nonprofit financial partners work together to create a mixed-use residential/commercial development to meet a variety of housing and community needs. The case study describes the obstacles overcome to make redevelopment possible through zoning and regulatory changes, negotiation with local residents over traffic and other concerns, support from state and local housing advocates, and political leadership; as well as the development’s application of smart growth principles.

Sustainable Portland: Implementation Series 2, New England Environmental Finance Center

Climate Change

The Portland Municipal Climate Change Working Group prepared a report in March 2008 that outlined several recommendations as a commitment by the City to address greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) produced during daily municipal operations. The Municipal Climate Action Plan was written in partnership with Clean Air – Cool Planet and Portland officials, and acknowledges under Recommendation #2 that an employee energy efficiency program would provide significant positive impact on the City’s reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Best practices from three cities show that focus on the greening of City Hall is critical in developing a program that promotes partnerships, community …

Sustainable Portland: Implementation Series 1, New England Environmental Finance Center

Climate Change

When the Sustainable Portland Task Force Report was released in November 2007, under the leadership of Mayor Jim Cohen, Portland Councilor Kevin Donoghue had the idea that students at the Muskie School of Public Service might be able to help implement recommendations from the report. It may have helped that Kevin was himself a graduate of the Community Planning and Development Master’s program at the Muskie School, but it was a good idea nevertheless. He approached Professor Sam Merrill in the CPD program, who spoke with the new Mayor Ed Suslovic about a possible partnership between the City and the …

Selected Lid Projects In New England, New England Environmental Finance Center

Planning

Examples of low impact development (LID) projects in each state in New England.

Mansfield Ct: Planning A New Village Center, Maggie Jones, Richard Barringer

Planning

The case follows the development of a plan for a new village center in Storrs, the central village of Mansfield, Connecticut. A process that was transparent and inclusive of the community members yielded a plan that gained the approval of the Town, the landowner (the University of Connecticut), and the citizenry. The process relied on the mending of fences, the leadership of key participants, and an innovative strategy that included development of a nonprofit corporation and creative use of grant money. While zoning changes are still in the works, the first stage of building goes forward.

Promoting Low Impact Development In Your Community, New England Environmental Finance Center

Planning

Low Impact Development (LID) is an approach to stormwater management and site development that is gaining popularity throughout the country. Its attractiveness lies in its potential to lessen off-site stormwater impacts, reduce costs to municipalities and developers, and promote development that is “softer on the land” compared with typical traditional development. The approach, which is applicable to residential, commercial and industrial projects, and in urban, suburban and rural settings, often is linked with efforts by governments and citizens to foster more sustainable communities.

Analysis Of Per Capita Expenditures Of Suburbanizing Communities In Maine, New England Environmental Finance Center

Economics and Finance

This study analyzes per capita expenditure trends among selected fast-growing Maine towns from 1970-2004. The ten communities studied are termed as “suburbanizing” towns. This term is used to describe towns that over the past 30-40 years have been in the process of transition from rural to suburban – in terms of their population and housing densities, their forms of government, and the services they provide, as well as other characteristics.1 Such towns are of particular interest because they have been absorbing a healthy percentage of the state’s population growth during this time period, often at the expense of Maine’s service …

Creating Identity Within A Residential Community Using Open Space, Jason W. Harr

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Popularity of suburban developments is not new to most communities of today. Many have come to the understanding that suburbia is the only way to go, and the only place to live and raise a family. What suburbanites don't understand and choose to avoid are the demanding requirements suburbia requires of our natural resources and open space.

In recent years, many have come to the understanding that our natural resources and open space are very valuable and must be preserved now and in the future. People have also noticed that implementation of basic design principles of residential communities are advantageous …

Analyzing The Sustainability Of Puppets To Create A Puppet Theater, Emily Buttrick

Architecture Thesis Prep

'The revitalization of an urban community can begin with a public building and can incorporate sustainable design. Sustainable architecture is not only ecologically sound but programmatically flexible and utilizes the resources of the neighborhood. Sustainable design can therefore incorporate ideas of future use of a building. It can also be used in a way to inspire the people using the building so that their own lives become subsistent.

"This thesis contends that through the analysis of the sustainability of puppets, the construction of a community theater building can be fashioned. A puppet's flexibility, layers, scale, structure, and joints make it …