Landscape Architecture Commons^™

Waterfront Ecologies: Coastal Resilience And Urbanization In Cali-Baja Region, Agniya Seliuzhytskaya

McNair Summer Research Program

This research contributes to “Waterfront Ecologies,” a binational initiative addressing urbanization and climate change along the San Diego-Tijuana coastal area and watershed systems. By examining the threshold between land and water, this paper investigates the impacts of sea-level rise, coastal erosion, watershed contamination, and rapid urban development. The study employs a case-study methodology focused on coastal conditions within the Cali-Baja region. Through this framework, it reviews planning history, environmental reports, and past precedent studies. Methodologically, the project produces analytical drawings and comprehensive base maps that synthesize regional environmental systems, urban patterns, topography, hydrology, and infrastructure.

Preliminary findings reveal that post-colonial …

A Design Guide For Extreme Heat In Play Environments: Exploring Landscape Architecture Strategies, Amy Elise Guenther

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Urban heat is a rising concern and is affecting vulnerable populations such as our youth. A particular concern is exposure to extremely high temperatures on playgrounds – an environment that is meant to be safe for children even in extreme weather conditions. There has been an increase in many impervious surfaces such as concrete and asphalt in urban areas. These surfaces absorb solar radiation, which contributes to the heat island effect. These same surfaces are in and around playground areas, which are contributing to the extreme heat felt within these play environments. Therefore, requiring intervention to help mitigate the effects …

Modern Instructional Science, Ai Integrated Pedagogy & Innovation In Higher Education, Yasmeen Ahmed

Presentations and Posters

The rapid evolution of digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping teaching, learning, and knowledge production across higher education. This one-day faculty development workshop, Modern Instructional Science, AI-Integrated Pedagogy & Innovation in Higher Education, explores contemporary approaches to designing, delivering, and enhancing student-centered learning experiences in both face-to-face and online environments. The workshop introduces key principles of instructional science, course design, active learning, formative assessment, and learner engagement, supported by established educational theories and evidence-based best practices. Participants examine strategies for developing well-organized, outcome-aligned courses; fostering collaboration and meaningful interaction; and enhancing student success through effective instructional planning …

Where The Walls Came Down: Reimagining The Disaster-Induced Modern Ruin, Zhenmi Tang

Masters Theses

In contemporary society, large-scale destructive events are continuously generating a new architectural condition: the modern ruin. Unlike historical ruins shaped and legitimized through time, the remnants left by war, wildfires, and other natural disasters remain embedded in lived reality and collective memory. These environments are not distant artifacts of the past, but recently inhabited spaces whose material presence and social meaning remain active. However, prevailing reconstruction practices tend to prioritize complete demolition and site clearance, followed by rebuilding on restored empty ground. While this approach provides reliability in terms of safety, engineering, and regulation, it often interrupts the material and …

Edge Of Shade, Zhengguang (Lancelot) Li

Masters Theses

Shadow is usually treated as a by-product of architecture. In public space, however, it quietly shapes comfort, orientation, movement, and the willingness to pause or stay. This thesis asks how shadow can become a spatial material that is designed, assembled, and occupied.

Drawing from East Asian architectural and garden traditions, the project studies shade as a condition between exposure and protection. Field research in Providence serves as a testing ground, where three sites represent typical urban gap conditions: a linear passage, an open civic ground, and a neighborhood lot. These sites reveal how existing shadows, circulation, and public use are …

Productive Armature, Gabriel Ofem Peter

Masters Theses

What if water was all you had, what if your only source of survival was a body of water? I shudder to think that some people get to be put in this situation in the world we live in. As I understand the importance of water to survival, it is obvious that water can be the only lifeline of survival for a community. This is the experience for residents of Makoko, Lagos. Their survival depends on the Lagos Lagoon, a large body of water flowing in from the Atlantic Ocean. This research looks beyond the surface of what this community …

Weaving Grounds: Connecting Canyons And Empowering Borderland Communities, Maria D. Lopez Vazquez

Masters Theses

National policies materialize in the United States-Mexico political divide, also known as the borderlands. Willow Canyon is a dissected land form inextricably linked to the Tijuana River watershed, forming with the adjacent landforms on both sides of the border one landscape. The Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty¹, signed in 1848 by the US and Mexican governments, traced an arbitrary line across these landscapes, disregarding their relationship. The consequences of these actions are visible in the physical deterioration of the landscape and ecology, as the hydrological cycle has been modified. In the 1940’s, the picturesque flow of Willow Canyon was dissected by urbanization, …

Watershed Amendments: Assembling New Pervious Ground From Landscape Waste, Sophie Kaplan-Bucciarelli

Masters Theses

In Providence, Rhode Island, much of the downtown area is built over a vast historic tidal estuary. Though we no longer see the salt marshes, wooded bluffs, or meadows that once characterized this landscape, we recognize their absence in contemporary crises of urban heat, flooding, polluted soils and stormwater runoff, and habitat loss. These conditions are particularly acute along the city’s industrialized river corridors, where vacant lots and parking areas sit idle, their history paved over and potential constrained by limited imagination and resources.

These lots - already experiments in fill and land building after centuries of disturbance - can …

Learning From The Remains: Meditations On Sustainability, Julae Tan

Masters Theses

What remains when a person or material assemblage is stripped of its

component parts?

What is left is the remainder, an irreductible core.

Purely cerebral learning can be fleeting. A hybrid approach of cerebral and

visceral, “perverse” learning grounded in a familial understanding of the

remainder yields a more resilient pedagogy that endures long after leaving the

site of formal education.

This research was completed under the aegis of the 2025/26 Sustainability

Design Lab and features the subject of making with paper discards as the

primary mode of interrogation.

Via a collection of essays, a literature review, as well as …

Unleashing Material Agencies, Yahui Chen

Masters Theses

Contemporary architectural practice has come to rely on a narrow repertoire of high-energy industrial materials, giving rise to what might be called a material "hegemonic structure" in which certain substances and construction logics dominate at the expense of others. This dominance suppresses material diversity and limits architecture's capacity to align with ecological processes, producing a systemic metabolic imbalance within the built environment. At its root, this imbalance reflects a structural absence: the persistent treatment of architecture as a closed, controllable system that imposes human will upon matter while suppressing its inherent agency.

Engaging with what Jane Bennett terms "vital materialism," …

Embodied River: Deliberate Unbuilding In Post-Dam Landscapes, Travis Kelley

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the possibilities and challenges that legacy hydro-powered dams and mill complexes offer. Through historical and contemporary analysis of New England’s 14,000 dams and of a particular site in Maynard, Massachusetts, the research delves into the factors that make these interventions so challenging. It begins from an assumption rooted in the ethical and environmental imperative to remove or modify legacy dams, which are those built for a purpose that is no longer being utilized, and rejects the existing binary of “remove” vs “preserve,” which is the dominant narrative in the dam removal conversation as it exists in 2026. …

Saving The Great Basin: Creating Places For The Birds, Bees And Beyond, Carlos Gomez

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

This project looks at how vacant and underused parcels along the Truckee River in Reno, Nevada, can be rethought as part of a larger ecological system. Rather than treating these parcels as empty leftover spaces, the project sees them as opportunities to create small habitat patches that can support native species, improve stormwater function, and strengthen the river corridor over time. The work focuses on three sites along the Truckee River: California Avenue, Island Avenue, and Commercial Row. Each site responds to a different condition along the urban transect, from a sloped residential river edge to a tighter urban parcel …

Schools Of The Desert: An Integrated Approach To Learning Through Biophilic & Contextual Design, Rejndi Hylviu

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

This capstone investigates how high school environments in arid regions can be reimagined through the integration of biophilic design, climate-responsive strategies, and place-based learning. Grounded in personal experience growing up in the Southwest, the project begins by identifying a widespread condition of disconnection, where students are educated in environments that are sealed off from the very landscapes they inhabit. Through a synthesis of literature, case studies, and interviews, the research establishes that exposure to natural systems can measurably improve cognitive performance, emotional well-being, physical health, and social behavior. Biophilic principles such as dynamic light, material connection, prospect and refuge, and …

Edra 57: Bibliography, Tamara Karr

Bibliographies

edra 57: Embracing Regional Sustainability: Networks for People and Places

Vegclassify: A Hybrid Deep Learning–Ndvi Greenspace Classification Tool And Gui, Huaqing Wang, Yawen Zhang, Jiaojiao Fu

Browse all Datasets

VegClassify is a hybrid, high-resolution greenspace classification tool integrating a fine-tuned deep learning model with automated NDVI threshold optimization. The tool improves accuracy and reduces subjectivity in vegetation classification using NAIP imagery. This graphical user interface (GUI) was developed to extend and simplify the use of the previously established greenspace image classification tool. The GUI provides an accessible, user‑friendly environment for running the VegClassify workflow without requiring users to interact directly with Python scripts or command‑line tools. It supports loading NAIP or other high‑resolution imagery, running deep‑learning–assisted NDVI threshold optimization, visualizing classification outputs, and exporting vegetation masks.

The underlying Python …

Food Green Cities For Urban Sustainability (Book), Ambika P. Adhikari, Keshav Bhattarai, Drona Rasali, Sunil Babu Shrestha

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

The book delves into the essential role of urban agriculture, forestry, and sustainable practices in ensuring food security while addressing the challenges of climate change and urbanization. It highlights urban greening and sustainable land use as strategies to create livable cities and mitigate environmental degradation. Through its chapters, the book offers a rich compilation of research, practical solutions, and transferable strategies for application in other developing countries.

Developing Design Principles For Multimodal Connection: A Case Study Of The Commerce Bridge Corridor In Dallas, Texas, Panisa Thanpaisarnsamut

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses

Downtown Dallas has undergone substantial growth, yet major streets and bridge corridors continue to prioritize vehicular movement, resulting in fragmented and uncomfortable pedestrian environments. This condition is especially evident along the Commerce Bridge corridor, where narrow sidewalks, high traffic volumes, and unclear crossings limit safe and accessible movement between Downtown and West Dallas. Although several parks and public spaces lie in close proximity, the lack of continuous and legible routes prevents these areas from functioning as a connected system.

This thesis investigates how the Commerce Bridge corridor can be transformed into a multimodal connection that supports movement, safety, and user …

Protecting Wetlands In The State Of Texas: Assessing Gaps In Regulations, Knowledge, And Professional Roles And Responsibilities, Grace A. Moy

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses

Wetlands rank among earth's most productive ecosystems, providing crucial ecological services such as hydrological regulation, water purification, and habitat support (US EPA, 2015). In Texas, however, rapid urbanization, inconsistent policy enforcement, and the absence of statewide protection frameworks of hastened wetland degradation (Brody & Kang, 2011). Without a robust state regulatory framework (Environmental Law Institute [ELI], 2020), these ecosystems face increasing threats from development and hydrological disturbances.

This thesis aims to identify regulatory and knowledge deficiencies that influence Texas’ current wetland protection status and to offer targeted professional recommendations for landscape architecture professionals to address these shortcomings in future public …

Equitable Siting Of Green Stormwater Infrastructure In Urban Areas For Flood Resilience In Vulnerable Communities, Elnaz Chitsazzadeh

Planning Dissertations

Cities face increasing pressure from rapid urbanization, aging gray infrastructure, intensifying rainfall, and uneven flood protection. In this context, green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) and other nature-based solutions are increasingly promoted as tools for climate adaptation, flood resilience, and environmental justice. Yet a central planning challenge remains: how to identify where GSI should be prioritized when flood-related physical burden, weak environmental protection, social vulnerability, and lower recovery capacity overlap. This dissertation addresses that challenge in Fort Worth, Texas, by examining how equitable GSI siting can support flood resilience in vulnerable urban neighborhoods.

Framed by urban resilience and environmental justice, the study …

Data-Driven Methodologies For Mapping Cultural Heritage: The Case Of The National Coal Heritage Area, West Virginia, Usa, Hossain Mohammad Nahyan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The objective of this dissertation was to develop a comprehensive, data-driven spatial framework for characterizing the complex cultural landscape of the National Coal Heritage Area (NCHA) in West Virginia. By transitioning away from traditional, heuristic spatial mapping, this research integrates advanced spatial statistics, machine learning, and GIS-based methodologies to objectively quantify the physical, visual, and cultural dimensions of the post-mining environment. The research is structured around three interconnected empirical studies, each addressing a specific scale of the Landscape Character Assessment (LCA) framework to support heritage conservation and sustainable spatial planning. The first paper focused on landform classification, developing an automated …

Childhood Through Motion: Reimagining Everyday Mobility Corridors For Learning, Independence, And Exploration, Olivia Liljegren

City and Regional Planning

This project proposes the Childhood Through Motion (CTM) Framework, which reimagines how everyday mobility corridors can support children’s development through repeated engagement with integrated interventions along key neighborhood routes. Building on existing approaches such as Safe Routes to School and Playful Learning Landscapes, the framework integrates mobility, play, learning, and social interaction into a connected system of corridors and nodes distributed throughout a neighborhood street network. Rather than treating mobility, play, and learning as separate, the framework explores how developmental opportunities can be integrated into the public spaces children use every day.

The framework is organized through five guiding principles …

Public Art’S Role In Urban Transformation In New York City: 5 Pointz And The High Line, Shelby Stanton

Pomona Senior Theses

Urban spaces are made not only of buildings and infrastructure but of the social and cultural practices that integrates into social fabric and assigns their meaning. They are a living, transforming entity where humans and the environment influence each other in lifestyle and identity. In New York City, art, both formally commissioned public works and grassroots urban interventions, have become central to the processes of urban transformation. Murals, installations, and curated parks are crucial to the urban environment and are frequently leveraged as tools of placemaking. Place-making is a concept used to describe and understand how meaningful places emerge from …

Practitioners’ Perspectives On Preventing Environmental Gentrification In Chicago, Illinois, Usa, Tania Schusler, Amy Krings

School of Environmental Sustainability: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Pollution cleanup, green space creation, and other improvements to environmental quality in cities are important to urban sustainability. However, because they occur within a political economic context characterized by structural racism, urban greening initiatives can intentionally or unintentionally reproduce racial, economic, and social inequities through environmental gentrification. We explored possibilities for improving environmental quality without displacing or excluding long-term residents including people of color, the poor, and members of other marginalized groups. We conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews with community organizers, environmental justice advocates, urban planners, housing specialists, and others who held deep expertise through their lived and professional experience in …

Climate Information Use In Transportation Planning: A Survey Of Metropolitan Planning Organizations, Kelli M. Archie, James C. Arnott, Julie A. Vano, Daniella Hirschfeld, Rebecca Rasch, Emilio Mateo

Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Faculty Publications

Climate change and its potential to impact transportation systems poses urgent challenges for sustainability and societal well-being, emphasizing a need to plan to reduce transportation infrastructure’s vulnerability to impacts such as sea level rise, extreme weather events, and increased erosion. Previous research has focused on document analysis and case studies and has highlighted the importance of including transportation professional needs in regard to understanding how transportation professionals use climate science. Through direct inclusion of transportation professional perspectives, this paper aims to fill the gaps in understanding about the use of climate information in transportation planning. To obtain data about local …

Too Hot To Handle: Assessing Practitioner Climate Service Needs To Advance Heat Resilience, K. M. Archie, D. Hirschfeld, S. Meerow, J. C. Arnott, L. Keith, J. A. Vano, E. Mateo

Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Faculty Publications

Extreme heat is deadly and it is disproportionately experienced by lower-income, minority, and marginalized community members. Heat practitioners are faced with the dual challenges of taking action to mitigate the level of heat experienced by local residents while preparing communities to manage unavoidable levels of elevated warming. In response to a lack of in-depth information about heat practitioner needs, this work aims to advance our understanding of how efforts to improve climate services may contribute to more effective extreme heat planning and decision-making in the United States. Through a two-round, mixed-methods approach that employed group interviews and a survey, we …

Nature Playscape: Investigating Children’S Play Behavior And Environmental Affordances In A School Playground, Sara E. Billie

All Dissertations

Existing research demonstrates that the physical environment can either hinder or enhance children’s play behavior. Diverse outdoor settings are especially effective in fostering motivation to play, contributing to children’s physical, social, and cognitive development. In response to the growing belief that outdoor play is both a necessity and a right for young children, particularly amidst concerns about nature deficit disorder and the rise of urban living among children, this study investigates the concept of nature playscapes, or naturalized playgrounds, as a vehicle for reconnecting children with the natural world. While contemporary playground design often struggles to balance structure with creativity, …

Feeling At Home Outdoors: The Courtyard Of The Rozes House, Marta García-Casabán

Interiority

Although the courtyard was not a central element in the early stages of the Modernist movement, it later became a key transitional space between the interior and the exterior. This concept was reinterpreted in Spain through a balance between modernity and tradition, particularly in holiday homes along the Costa Brava. This research explores the role of the outdoor room in modern Mediterranean architecture and its relationship with the environment, using José Antonio Coderch's Rozes House as a case study. Through redrawing, the text aims to analyse how the 'outdoor room' in Rozes House enhances spatial continuity and strengthens the relationship …

Gis-Based Swat Modeling For Surface Runoff Assessment To Support Urban Flood Resilience In Central Java, Indonesia, Putri Amalia Sholichah Ms., Endah Sulistyawati, Susana Paulina Dewi

Smart City

Surface runoff significantly contributes to environmental hazards such as floods in Indonesia, including in Borobudur District. Based on watershed delineation, the administrative area of Borobudur District is predominantly located within the Sileng Subwatershed. The rehabilitation zones managed by PT Adaro Indonesia are located in several specific areas within this subwatershed. This study utilizes the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) model integrated with GIS (Geographic Information System) to simulate surface runoff quantitaively in the Sileng subwatershed, part of the Progo watershed in Central Java Province. SWAT is applied in this research to simulate surface runoff in both watershed and …

Just Distribution Of Tree Canopy? A Digital Approach To Tree Equity, Alexandra G. Ponette-González, Matthew Fry, Daniella Hirschfeld, Jeff Rose, Evan Elderbrock

Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Faculty Publications

Trees in U.S. cities are unevenly and inequitably distributed. To address this challenge, planners increasingly use digital tools to prioritize areas and communities for tree projects. The goal is to achieve tree equity wherein all populations have access to the benefits of urban trees. Here we identify limitations and opportunities in the operationalization of the tree equity concept via digital platforms. We call on planners using digital tools in urban forest planning to (1) incorporate data that capture the heterogeneity of spaces in which urban trees grow, (2) include and support marginalized communities in urban forest planning, and (3) couple …

Assessing Fire Risks In San Luis Obispo: The Impact Of Building Construction And Landscaping On Wildfire Vulnerability, Zachary A. Pollock

Construction Management

As wildfires grow in frequency and intensity across California, understanding and mitigating residential fire risk has become a public safety priority. Communities in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), such as San Luis Obispo, are especially vulnerable due to their proximity to natural vegetation and the prevalence of older housing stock. While state and local agencies have introduced regulations and educational campaigns, there remains a need for accessible, scalable tools that help identify fire risks at the individual home level. This project assessed wildfire vulnerability across 140 homes in San Luis Obispo, California, using a custom visual grading rubric informed by academic …