Landscape Architecture Commons^™

Process, Place, And People: A Study Of Contemporary Land Art And Environmental Awareness, Lauren Wright

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This capstone investigates how land art can evolve within contemporary environmental, cultural, and educational contexts. The research addresses the issue that much historical land art, while innovative, often lacked ecological accountability, public accessibility, and environmental integration. Through precedent analysis, literature review, and site-based field observation, this study evaluates selected works in the United States and the United Kingdom using a framework focused on site specificity, ecological sensitivity, materiality, construction process, cultural relevance, public engagement, aesthetic value, and longevity. Photographic documentation and annotation were used to translate on-site experiences into comparative analysis. The results reveal that successful contemporary land art prioritizes …

Federal Government Shutdowns And Gateway Communities: Impacts On Businesses, Communities, And Workers’ Perceptions And Attitudes, Dean W. Zakrzewski

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study aims to answer a presented gap in the literature on how gateway community workers and businesses are directly impacted by federal government shutdowns. Three gateway communities were selected as case-study communities for this research based on a set list of criteria, including size, proximity to urban centers, geographic context, and the prominence of their associated park. The selected communities are Bar Harbor, Maine; Estes Park, Colorado; and Moab, Utah. Community profiles were drafted for each community to understand them from a contextual level, including the breakdown of their workforce and other general descriptions of their communities. A combinational …

Perceived Safety And Equitable Access: An Investigation Of The Northwest Arkansas Regional Greenway, Jessica Shearman

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

In today’s world, designers, planners, and policymakers are grappling with conflicts of climate change, habitat loss, and increasing diversity all during a migratory trend towards urban areas and higher densities of living. Creating public spaces that are both resilient ecologically and environmentally, while also creating a sense of place is essential for providing a higher quality of life equitably for all citizens. Through case studies and literature review, the public’s safety perceptions when accessing public spaces is key to equitable access. Specifically, differing perceptions of safety based on gender, race, and backgrounds. Perceived safety can be defined as an awareness …

Young Adults In A Costly World: Can Accessory Dwelling Units Serve As An Alternative Form Of Accommodation For Recent College Graduates Amidst The Rising Cost Of Housing And A College Education?, Aaron Schlosser

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Over the past few years, young adults have been put in a rather tough situation concerning personal finances. As college tuition has risen, so has student debt accrual, leaving many recent college graduates near-crippled financially. Along with this issue, which is large in and of itself, is the fact that housing prices have risen in many of the metropolitan areas in the United States. Both of these problems, when coupled, lead to a decrease in quality of life for most young adults, and people in general. Because of this, the approach of this thesis is to find an affordable form …

The Hot Springs Creekway & The Rediscovery Of The Water That Made Hot Springs Famous, Zane Colvin

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Arkansas’s Hot Springs National Park was the first natural reservation in the United States and is the oldest park in the National Park System. In Hot Springs, 47 springs release almost a million gallons of potable 143° water every day - the problem is, almost all of this water is hidden from sight, funneled directly into an 1884-constructed tunnel underground, where no person (or other life) can experience it.

Hot Springs Creek should be daylighted and connected with the surrounding National Park, creating thermal 'pools' for public use, and restoring its banks to pre-settlement ecologically rich conditions. My plan to …

Consulting Place As Stakeholder: Accessing The Input Of Ecological Community, Hunter Adkisson

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This is a project about how landscape architects approach the landscape in their design process. Indigenous worldviews hold that the world is living and animate in its own right. When we consider stakeholder engagement in this light, the need arises to extend the definition of stakeholders to include the ecological communities of place – the flora, fauna, soils, and other non-human elements of place. To gather that input, I experimented with techniques to access a greater awareness of ecological community at two sites with different levels of urbanity and types of land management practices. This experimental approach was surprisingly successful …

Americanization Of Islamic Cultural Design: Erasure, Orientalism/Exoticism, And Americanization, Peter L. Stanley

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Islam arrived in North America primarily through the importation of Muslim African slaves. Subsequent suppression of the slaves, and by extension their religion and places of worship, generated a lack of understanding and misunderstanding about Islam. Over time, this misunderstanding evolved into xenophobic and orientalist representations of the religion. This Capstone project researches Islam’s roots in colonial America through the period before the Columbian Exposition of 1893, and its evolution after the Columbian Exposition, with defining time periods expressed as Erasure, Orientalism/Exoticism, and Americanization. With the help of cultural trust organizations such as the Aga Khan Foundation, the contemporary Americanization …

Apollo And Columbia: Landscape As Power In Washington D.C. And Versailles., Beau Cameron Burris

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

The grounds of the Palace of Versailles and the urban fabric of Washington, D.C. are monumentally scaled, richly mythologized landscapes of power. Through massive baroque geometries, both sites impress order on the vastness of space, reframing it for the glory of their respective creators. Within these grand spaces, symbolism and iconography provide narratives of conquest, violence, glory, and fear. Stories of seemingly immortal men emerge from classical traditions of architecture and sculpture. Louis XIV and the presidents and war heroes of the United States have become god-heroes in bronze and stone, presiding over palatial grounds and public space as if …

Vincent Van Gogh's Wheatfields And Piet Oudolf's Meadows: Color, Contrast And Change In The Landscape, Erin A. Cox

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This capstone investigates the unique relationship between Vincent Van Gogh and planting designer Piet Oudolf's vibrant use of color and contrast in their work as it relates to their perception of the landscape. The project is mainly a comparison of the two artists, exploring Van Gogh's use of complementary colors and brushstroke techniques to create vivid contrast in his renderings of agrarian landscapes, and Oudolf's parallel approach to creating painterly meadows and prairie gardens. The project focuses on Van Gogh’s study of wheat field landscapes, which are essentially the same in structure and composition but can be used to compare …

Painting As Data: A New Way Of Analyzing The Landscape, Hannah F. Moll

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Painting as Data tells a story of the Arkansas Agricultural Research and Extension Center through painting as a way enrich site analysis, as well as discover and analyze both quantitative and qualitative data in landscape architecture. The thesis is composed of three central works that analyse the landscape over eight months through data driven and experiential lenses, including hydrology, geology, and ecology, and the people who cultivate the land with the help of modern machinery and engineered chemicals. These works include:

Field B4 - 7:00 AM Triptych

32” x1 44”, Acrylic on Panel

The study of time on the shifting …

Transitional Urban Voids In Austin, Texas, Courtney A. Tarver

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

A city’s urban fabric is constantly evolving through development and decay under the fluctuating rates of habitation. Cities are growing rapidly as populations climb higher, with new demands for the incoming waves of people seeking employment and a place to call home. Austin, Texas is the fastest growing American city today, with a population growth rate of three percent per year. With this growth and its demands for open space, open spaces in the form of urban voids and temporary use spaces become an interest to designers as spaces with flexibility. The approach of this thesis is to understand these …

Aesthetics And Performance Evaluation Of Post-Industrial Public Parks, Adel C. Vaughn

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Post-Industrial sites are often un-utilized and deserted places that are an aesthetic, social, ecological, and physical hindrance to the realm of the cities in which they lie, however they possess enormous potential. With respectful and transformative design, these new public parks gain a variety of benefits that extend well beyond the typical benefits exhibited by public parks due to their rich history, fascinating existing structures, high levels of visual and sensorial stimulation, one-of-a-kind traits, and opportunity for impactful change. By evaluating these post-industrial public parks, knowledge can be gained about what specific elements in the landscape contribute to their overall …

The Role Of Landscape Architecture In Sub-Saharan Africa, Nell Mary Patterson

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Landscape architecture is an emerging practice in the developing world. It is not, however, an established and well known profession. Developing countries, such as those in Sub-Saharan Africa, could benefit from the services that landscape architects provide for society and the built environment. This research addresses where the profession of landscape architecture currently is in Sub-Saharan Africa and speculates where it could go in the future. The International Federation of Landscape Architects held the 2008 Africa Forum in Dubai in order to record the observations of several prominent landscape architecture professionals and students. This research expands on those observations and …

Between The Posts: Research On The Cap And Top Rail To Guardrail Post Connection, Blake Buckner

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Between 2003 and 2007, an estimated 11,120 Americans went to the emergency room as a direct result of a structural failure or collapse of wood deck railings. This is an average of 2,224 people each year. Furthermore, estimates show there are over 40 million decks in the United States and about half of these are more than fifteen years old, which is past their expected lifespan (Legacy Services, 2012). Decks are exterior structures susceptible to the elements that degrade over time, making the need for proper, safe construction techniques even more important. The safety of unsuspecting people who use decks …

A Critical Examination Of The Stormwater Education, Based On Sites Parameters, In Landscape Architecture Departments In The Sec, Brandon Doss

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

The amount of accessible natural resources is dwindling and water could be the next world crisis. One response to this issue is the creation of methodologies which evaluate sustainability of new land development. A system to address the issues is the Sustainable Sites Initiative. This method was created in 2009 by the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the United States Botanic Garden. Their primary goal was to create a metric for rating development to encourage a more sustainable approach. A piece of this evaluation is water management. Landscape architecture is poised to address …

The New American Landscape: Beyond Bollards And Barricades, William Towle

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

The object of this thesis is to develop landscape architecture design guidelines that aid in the protection of people in public spaces while reducing security concerns on commercial properties. The integration of existing guidelines that come from the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), Sustainable Sites Initiative (SITES), and the Crime Prevention through Environmental Design (CPTED) will create a new standard of guidelines to be used for security credits within SITES. These guidelines will be developed through an analytical method. These new guidelines will be added to SITES for security and then tested against a local site, in Rogers, …