Landscape Architecture Commons^™

Restorative Streetscapes: Promoting Positive Mental Health Outcomes Through Urban Landscape Design In Winooski, Vermont, Sean R. Fitzsimmons

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity

The global health burden of mental health disorders is immense. The World Health Organization ranks depression as the single largest contributor to global disability; anxiety disorders alone rank sixth. One in four people will have a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetime and mental health conditions are increasing worldwide, rising 13% in the last decade. The economic implications are also immense, costing the global economy US $1 trillion each year. Mental health is more than the absence of disorders or disabilities, however. It is defined by the WHO as “a state of well-being in which an individual realizes his or …

Creating A Successful Wayfinding System: Lessons Learned From Springfield, Massachusetts, Yanhua Lu

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Masters Projects

The masters project presents findings from recent work the author completed related to wayfinding, and wayfinding systems. This work began as part of a graduate urban design studio, followed by work as a research assistant at the UMass Design Center in Springfield, on a new “demonstration” wayfinding system installed in Springfield, Massachusetts. The wayfinding project was done in association with the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission and the Springfield Office of Planning and Community Development, was implemented with the main goals of improving public health by encouraging more people to walk.

Wayfinding systems are increasingly seen as an important part of …

No Space Left Behind - Graduate Urban Design Studio - Landarch 606, Christopher H. Counihan, Matthew R. Hisle, Yanhua Lu, Maozhu Mao, Emilie Marques Jordao, James S. Prendergast, Michalagh C. Stoddard, Ruoying Tang, Jing Wang, Nelle Katharine Ward, Yuqing Yang, Yi Yang, Yu Yu, Kellie Fenton, Yue Li, Yuquing Wu

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity

The following report documents the work of the 2015 Spring Graduate Urban Design Studio course in the Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional Planning. This fourteen week studio focused on using tactical urbanism to engage Springfield’s Metro Center neighborhood with visions to revitalize the downtown core of this legacy city.

In addition to completing the components of a traditional urban design studio (site analyses, schematic plans, spatial designs, and programming), the student teams also developed conceptual projects to immediately engage the public. These efforts culminated in a free afternoon walking tour throughout the Metro Center that presented several tactical interventions. …

From Fail-Safe To Safe-To-Fail: Sustainability And Resilience In The New Urban World, Jack F. Ahern

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity

Abstract: The extent to which the 21st Century world will be "sustainable" depends in large part on the sustainability of cities. Early ideas on implementing sustainability focused on concepts of achieving stability, practicing effective management and the control of change and growth-- a "fail-safe" mentality. More recent thinking about change, disturbance, uncertainty, and adaptability is fundamental to the emerging science of resilience, the capacity of systems to reorganize and recover from change and disturbance without changing to other states-- in other words, systems that are "safe to fail." While the concept of resilience is intellectually intriguing, it remains largely unpracticed …