Landscape Architecture Commons^™

Providence Productivity Framework : Ideas For A Network Of Sites Rethinking Productivity In Providence, Patricia Noto

Masters Theses

This thesis attempts to answer the broad question: “How can designers have a role in creating or enhancing productive systems in cities?”

The focus is on rethinking the function of public and quasi-public space with the aim of building inclusiveness, ecological diversity, and productivity. The project explores the meaning of productivity and works to push the defi nition of urban productivity to include but also extend beyond community gardens. For example, a productive city might include a network of agroforestry sites, sites being remediated so that they can grow food in the future, a nursery on a capped brownfi eld …

Me Too Park : Inform, Connect, Heal, Xiao Chen

Masters Theses

This project creates an urban sublime experience at an abandoned railroad in order to foster a reflection and healing experience in terms of sexual violence. The big strategy is evoking an urban sublime in the landscape as a bridge to inform, to connect and to heal. The experiment of physical actions to materials and how that could achieve the sublime experience above is also addressed.

In Phase I, the investigation focuses on the definition of sublime and what the sublime is using for. Literature review, site analysis, interviews and experiments are done to clarify the relationship between sexual violence, site …

City In / Above Water, Jin Yan

Masters Theses

Sea level rise is a serious situation facing coastal cities in the world. In the United States, Miami is one of the most vulnerable cities as far as sea level rise is concerned. Floods in Miami not only come from high seawater but also from inland rivers and frequent storm surges. With Miami as a target city, this paper was prepared after taking care of its current political, economic, and cultural status, aiming to explore the way in which Miami responds to rising sea levels and proposes future urban visions. The new solution may also be applied partially or completely …

Floating Miami, Jiongye Li

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on designing adaptations in order to reduce the impact of flooding in Miami, Florida. Flooding that is generated from stormwater, hurricanes and sea-level rises largely impacts upon Miami in terms of its transportation systems, eco-system and the daily lives of its residents. Even though a large number of adaptations have already been applied in some districts of this city, , such as improvement of pump stations and pipelines, the capacity and materials of those infrastructures still cannot resist the adverse impact brought by hurricanes or other natural disasters.

In order to understand the reasons why Miami has …

Healing Landscapes, Siyi He

Masters Theses

This thesis divided to three parts; it mainly looks at the scenario of healing landscapes in the Financial District. Phase one focused on the overall history and site condition of the Financial District, and tried to combine it with the typology of a traditional healing landscape. New typologies of healing landscape for high density and unhealthy urban areas were explored. Phase two evaluated various site conditions and documented the flow of people in the Financial District. The typology of healing practice forms was developed. Phase three tried to locate the specific location of healing practice paths and the area of …

How To Get School Children Access To Urban Farming By Activating Vacant Land And Rooftops, Yixin Ren

Masters Theses

The thesis topic is how to get school children access to urban farming by activating vacant land and rooftops.

Phase one focuses on research about the rooftop urban farming systems in New York. As a high density and high land value city, New York is one of the cities with the largest number of rooftop farms in the United States. People use urban rooftop farms as a medium to improve community engagement and improve environmental issues. For phase one, this thesis researched the operation and conditions of existing rooftop farms, and evaluated the advantages and disadvantages of them to figure …

Look Up, City Skygazers, Yiyang Qian

Masters Theses

This is a research-design project looking for tools to rebuild the lost connection between city dwellers and the cosmos through visual effects, spatial experience and materials implemented in public spaces in a modern city. Disturbed by high-rises and their neon lights at night, New York citizens tend to look around instead of looking up. The sky has become unfamiliar to most people. Without seeing the same vastness above us, people forgot how small we are compared to the universe, as well as how much we resemble each other. This project started with a wish that everyone could remember our commonalities, …

Culturally Integrated Space, Jing Wang

Masters Theses

The topic of this thesis is the urban public space responses to new residents in old neighborhoods. In phase 1, the GIS collection of demographic changes of New York and typology studies about existing urban parks asks the question: how might urban parks better integrate the new residents into old neighborhoods? This question helps choose the Sunset Park Neighborhood as the study and test site. In phase 2, the site analysis including history, climate, and the park usage of Sunset Park Neighborhood, leads to a preliminary proposal of a new urban park typology for better integrating the new residents into …

Inhabit The Storm : Emergency Evacuation Route, Anastasiia Isakova

Masters Theses

Today a lot of design research is concentrated on problems of resiliency and performance in conditions of hazardous events, such as sea level rise, hurricanes, tsunamis, cyclones, earthquakes and drought. And while designers, architects and engineers try to convince people to care about these issues, offer building higher seawalls, recreating marshlands, reinforcing shorelines and various ecosystems, they never really address evacuation, which remains a big problem for vulnerable areas prone to cyclical occurrence of natural disasters.

More people die during evacuation - escaping the disaster site, rather than from the disaster itself; more people die because of the consequences of …

Super Natural : Hybrid Strategies For Urban Flood Protection In Coney Island Ny, Georges Fischer

Masters Theses

How will inundation change the design of city coastlines? This thesis is an investigation into strategies to mitigate urban flooding from storm surge in Coney Island NY.

In Phase 1, dynamic phenomena are identified and deconstructed, the result are properties that can be assembled to make a machine that applies forces to wet plaster, which solidified to yield insights into the sectional forms of waves. This process was used to inform a conceptual model documenting the site’s physical form, and the relative differences between land and water in terms of its density and porosity.

In Phase 2, a catalog of …

Wayfinding Streetscapes : How To Integrate A Wayfinding System Into The Streetscape, Improving Public Transit And Pedestrian Mobility, Lu Zhang

Masters Theses

This is a thesis investigation in 3 phases, integrateing wayfinding system into streetscapes by effective spatial planning and environmental communication, aiming to improve public transit and pedestrian mobility. Considering streets as one of the major sites of city life, they play a critical role in the process of daily information flow and communication. This entire thesis tests the possibility of adding a new layer into streetscapes as both a city infrastructure and a method to raise people’s awareness towards a certain site.

Alleyways As Avenues, Rebecca E. Ladd

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the possibilities of in-between spaces bounded by the realms of public and private experience in an urban environment, specifically situated in Downtown Providence, RI. This thesis begins by questioning the meaning of what public space is and how we as humans choose to inhabit space that has been given a particular program or quality. What allows a person to feel that he or she has ownership over a public space? Through the interdisciplinary lens of Landscape Architecture and Interior Architecture, the subsequent phases will analyze how people in Downtown Providence perceive and utilize space within the city …

Twilight Revelation, Shuwen Xu

Masters Theses

The first inspiration came from the thrilling phenomenal nuance caused by the natural light, especially the diffused and cool light — that’s why I am so fascinated with the dawn. Also, the “conditional” idea proposed by Robert Irwin in his book “Being and Circumstance — Notes Toward a Conditional Art” influenced my attitude towards landscape and public art: the design could be a tool to “reveal” the phenomenal changes and make people become more aware of them, instead of changing the existing condition arbitrarily.

Then I chose “threshold” — the space between private and public condition, interior and exterior, which …

Thrive In Sea Level Rise, Xiang Zhao

Masters Theses

Port Morris has played an important role in the industrial realm of New York City since 1842. After the construction of the first Railroad in Port Morris, the area became an accumulation zone of factories and warehouses. These settlements, over time, though, have caused certain problems.

The waterfront area cannot be reached by the public: traffic is dense, air pollution is prevalent. The particle pollution in Port Morris is 2.6 micrograms per cubic meter, the highest in New York City. Across the three miles of shoreline, there are only three spots where people are able to access the waterfront. Besides …

Thresholds : Natural Phenomena, Urban Form, Equilibrium, Peiyi Liu

Masters Theses

My research topic is finding methodologies to address thresholds between natural processes and the urban network to achieve equilibrium between the two at Battery Park community.

Phase 1, In this phase, this investigation will seek to look at the definitions of thresholds, and then generate a system to categorize the operations of thresholds in order to understand and access more possibilities for thresholds within landscape.

Phase 2 will build on phase 1 by looking at the existing features and subtle processes of the site in order to understand its potentials and problems.

Phase 3 will build on phase 2 by …

Surveillance City In A Post 9/11 Era, Wanting Dong

Masters Theses

Surveillance City in A Post 9/11 Era is a thesis investigation trying to understand our privacy, perceived safety and public realm in the large context of evolving terrorism worldwide by promoting a conversation about how surveillance would change our city, our new relationship with the city under surveillance, and how people will live with surveillance in the future.

Phase one seeks to understand terrorism and terrorist attack in general, and the opportunities and limitations of the existing security design strategies that have been implemented by US government. In phase two, a specific investigation direction is determined and a series of …

Grave : Landscape Necromancy, Jil Sanchez

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the phenomenon of festivity in order to better understand the spatial qualities of platforms for experiences of release. The work is grounded in the intimate connection between post-industrial landscapes and the emergence of raves and electronic music. The design approach questions western cultural norms by creating a scenario for a combined rave venue and cemetery. The investigation’s material and spatial manifestations are applied to Red Hook Grain Terminal, an ideal latent venue for raves, concerts, and other festive and contemplative functions on New York City’s fringe. The project aspires to widen the range of conversations landscape …

Light Installations For Le, Yiqi Jiang

Masters Theses

This investigation derived from a personal childhood memory of an autistic boy, living with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). His struggles to communicate and to have people understand him drives this thesis investigation in hopes of better connecting people of all abilities through accessible design. After serving a summer term working at a special needs inclusion camp, there is the exposure to the lack of awareness and communication gap between design and people living with autism. The study develops a series of strategies that strengthen communication between people with and without ASD and ultimately seeks to educate the design profession on …

Viaduct Landscape, Juanru Wang

Masters Theses

Thesis question: can spaces under viaducts become objects of appreciation; can design promote their original characteristics?

This thesis focuses on the space created by the elevated transit infrastructure in urban areas. In recent years, the spaces under viaducts attract attention in the field of landscape architecture. There are many successful practices that transfer the negative space under viaducts to popular urban plazas. Most of those designs, however, may simply regard spaces under viaducts as dangerous spaces or as obstacles in the city. Nevertheless, the scale and spatial characteristics of the spaces under viaducts are not in other public open spaces …

Grid In Landscape Architecture, Ying Xu

Masters Theses

Driven by the interest of the cultural meaning in the landscape architecture and the fascination of the power of the grid, the inspiration of this thesis is from the landscape architecture works that obtain both characters.

Many landscape architecture works simultaneously are expressing the cultural concern while use the grid form. Thus this thesis is exploring the association between the cultural meaning and the grid as a formal device, or to say how the grid is used to express the cultural meaning.

The investigations mainly rely on the research about historical cases.

The whole thesis process is divided into 3 …

Fluid Solid : Can We Converse With Granite?, Patrick T. Beals

Masters Theses

This investigation seeks to detect sources of the quantitative granite anomalies through various methods and use available resources to allow for an immersive, qualitative, and perhaps didactic experience, which will build a conceptual foundation for design of the in-between spaces made by the negative form of granite architectures. This thesis is about timescales and lenses by which to view them in partnership. With lenses are assumed perceptions, ones that define the understanding of the object in the viewfinder of the landscape, and in this case, the timescales which will be addressed in the following three phases:

Phase 01 Background : …

Water For The Future, Ziqing Chen

Masters Theses

Water is a fundamental element for lives. Located in Long Island detached from the mainland of New York State, the densely-populated counties - Kings, Queens, Nassau, and Suffolk Counties - rely on groundwater for their sole freshwater source for a long time. The underground geology determines the groundwater movement on western Long Island: from Nassau County to Queens. When overpumping happens in Queens, Nassau County is firstly threatened by lowered water table. The thesis is aiming to propose a local solution to mitigate the problem brought by groundwater movement when overpumping.

In Phase 1, the study focuses on the underground …

Landscape As An Interactive Layer, Yifan Kong

Masters Theses

The main topic of this investigation is memory and place. The study uses qualitative and quantitative research methods with the aim of addressing the question of, “how landscape design generates interactive layers that last in a community’s memory within a constantly evolving neighborhood demographics?” This thesis is divided into three phases:

Phase I explores the evolving neighborhood in New York City. Specifically focusing on communities with high immigrant populations located in Queens. This phase helps develop a stronger understanding of the issues associated with gentrification and the impacts it has on immigrant neighborhoods and provides the groundwork for the rest …

Borderscape : Weaving Political Boundaries In The Amazon Through Water Performance, Lucila Silva-Santisteban

Masters Theses

This research project is about how to connect political bordering urban systems through the natural structure for a coherent occupation between the built environment, ecosystems and resources following the Landscape Architecture lens that can address different scale systems simultaneously to create a holistic approach between them. And the proposition of a new type of landscape of this threshold territory as its own kind. Specifically looking at the bordering cities in the heart of the Amazon Region in South America that fall between Colombia, Brazil and Peru.

Why the Amazon?

Not only because of the usual fascination, but because of the …

Remnant Landscapes As Homo Sapiens Preserves : It Is The Dystopian Utopia, The Shrine For Modernity, The Home Of Everyone, Yuan Zhang

Masters Theses

When it comes to remnant landscapes, what else can they be instead of being turned into parks, community gardens, or new architectural or urban development?

This thesis starts with a critique towards the very popular post-industrial park, the High Line, where the original materials of the site was completed removed then artificially re-fabricated. By transforming it into a publicly well accessible landscape, the design destroyed the possibility for a citizen to build his/her own intimate relationship with this piece of land because of a much visible ownership. Therefore, the goal for the thesis is to provide a powerful critique to …

Narratives Of Public Space : A Manifesto For Future Urban Landscape In Manhattan, Jaehong Chung

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates the history of public space and how it has changed over time. Looking specifically at how social, historical, and advances in technology have influenced and changed the meaning and use of public spaces. Studies of history and its characteristics and case studies check the validity of paradigm of public spaces in Manhattan. The modern features of Manhattan have been completed over 200 hundreds years with Industrial revolutions and influx of immigrants. Due to these reasons, the main focus was to track of causalities among life style changes, social paradigms, and changes of urban landscapes.

As cities developed, …

Remediating The Garment Industry, Kellie Knight

Masters Theses

This thesis culminated from an interest in addressing the pollution by the dye processes of the textile industry on the Earth’s waterbodies. The first Phase of this thesis explored the globalization of the garment industry. The movement of production was tracked over time from the 1950’s when production occurred primarily in the United States and Europe to present day when production is worldwide. With the global spread of the industry came the global spread of its pollutants.

The second phase of the thesis investigated the functioning of the fashion industry itself to determine which process from production to distribution is …

Grid Talk : Giving A Voice To Energy Infrastructures, Kelsey Wakefield

Masters Theses

Humans are energy hogs, intelligent purveyors of displaced electrical waves construed from ancient carbon compounds. Our built environment has let us forget this. Our collective ambivalence towards the subject has grown with the loss of these public assets to private companies under a socially engineered lack of public interest in energy production. There was once a time energy infrastructures were revered and upheld as public spaces, giant testaments to the greatness of society harnessing the natural world, gold stars congratulating the intelligence of humankind. Great designers, political leaders and visionaries created works of art, sculpture, landscape architecture which functioned for …

Above The Urban Surface, Xirui Zhang

Masters Theses

This thesis aims to solve inland urban flooding in residential communities of southwestern Washington D.C. by refining the current urban surface there.

By learning from the natural mountainous surface of the area, this study proposes a plan to add a new layer of urban surface above the original highly developed ground, in order to collect, recycle clean rainwater, and reduce the stress on the urban sewer system. The conclusion of the design strategies rebuilds a sustainable urban infrastructure system for the decaying urban residential area, with influence from the disciplines of both landscape and architecture.

Hybrid Spaces In The City, Zhihao Li

Masters Theses

This investigation is about the edge, hybrid space, and public engagement in the urban environment in Washington, DC. There are three phases of this research. In Phase 1, the investigation focuses on clarifying the definitions of terms such as edge, transition, vegetated, and constructed spaces. In Phase 2, the study explores methods of understanding urban fabric based on the experiential and physical analysis. In Phase 3, the investigation generates critiques of the site conditions between Union Station and Union Square in Washington, DC.

The film The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces by William Whyte, which shows people’s different behaviors …