Landscape Architecture Commons^™

Residents’ Perception Of Environmental Performance In New Urbanist Landscapes In North Texas: Learning From Addison Circle, Austin Ranch And Hometown, Riza Pradhan

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

New Urbanism movement has been shaping the cities and suburbs in increasing numbers in the US for more than three decades. The Congress for New Urbanism is promoting compact, mixed-use, interconnected, and walkable models for sustainable development. In recent years, the environmental implications of New Urbanism have not been sufficiently addressed in the literature (Spirn, 2000; Waldheim, 2010). However, the Charter of New Urbanism (Talen, 2013) highlights the importance and relevance of environmental factors. Overall, the literature lacks sufficient evidence about the environmental performance of the New Urbanist landscapes, specifically in the Dallas- Fort Worth (DFW) region. The purpose of …

Dream And Reality: The Selective Implementation Of The Kessler Plan In Dallas, Molly A. Plummer

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

This research examines George Kessler’s 1911 A City Plan for Dallas to understand the gaps between the ideals of the City Beautiful era plan and impact on the realized physical design of the city. As inequality rises in our urban centers (insert citation), it is increasingly important for us to understand our social and political environments that shaped the landscapes that physically reinforce that inequity. As stated by Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar in their history of Central Park, “its meaning as a public institution also has two dimensions: its political character as property and its cultural character as an …

Assessment And Attitudes: Biodiversity In Urban Landscapes Of North Central Texas, Gray Harrison Kerry A.

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

North Central Texas is expected to undergo increased population growth and density inside and outside of current municipal boundaries. As development increases to meet the needs of the growing population, the landscape is transformed, which results in the loss or homogenization of species (McKinney, 2006; Vitousek, Mooney, Lubchenco, & Melillo, 1997). This study examined how landscape architects can quickly assess biodiversity on a project site before and after construction without specialized knowledge or skills. Three methods were used to collect data for this study: interviews, a DNA assessment of soil fungi, and a rapid biological assessment (BioBlitz). Two groups were …

Landscape Architecture Education: A Study Of Patterns, Tanya Rice

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This research is focused on analyzing landscape architecture education of accredited bachelor programs in the U.S. The primary intent was to obtain a comprehensive understanding of the current state of landscape architecture education and the direction in which it is heading. This was conducted through an evaluation of each landscape architecture program’s course offerings. The objectives were to explore the degree of coherence and dispersion of course requirements among programs, compare similarities and differences and identify current patterns, trends, strengths and emphases of the programs. Then design course descriptions were analyzed for identification of word families and cluster networks to …

Relationship Between The Built Environment, Physical Activity, And Chronic Disease Among Individuals With Disabilities In Rural Communities, Nicholas F. Tanner

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Increased risk for chronic disease is closely associated with individual nutrition, tobacco use, and physical inactivity. This thesis focuses on physical activity as a means of preventing select chronic diseases. A major barrier preventing engagement in physical activity is the built environment. Populations residing in rural environment are not afforded the abundance of opportunities for physical activity prevalent in most urban networks. Of the demographic living in rural environments, individuals with disability face additional barriers to physical activity than those without disability. This leads to a higher prevalence of chronic diseases associated with sedentary lifestyles among populations with disability. Few …

Evidence-Based Practices For The Design Of Inclusive Playgrounds That Support Peer Interactions Among Children With All Abilities, Courtney L. Fernelius

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Play is necessary for the social, emotional, intellectual, and physical development of all children. Although playgrounds are designed to support the play of children, children with disabilities are often unable to fully participate in play on playgrounds. In part due to the lack of awareness of evidence-based practices supporting the play of children with disabilities, playground designers continue to perpetuate this disparity. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine the evidence-based practices for inclusive playground design that support peer interaction between children of all abilities, and to demonstrate how they can be implemented into a playground design.

A …

Community Wildfire Planning And Design: A Review And Evaluation Of Current Policies And Practices In The Western United States, Carlene C. Klein

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Wildland fire is an important and complex issue, particularly in the fire-prone ecosystems of the Western United States. At the same time that the number of catastrophic wildland fires is increasing across the United States, more people are moving in to wildland areas growing the interface between urban and wildlands. Managing wildfire in the Western United States is becoming increasingly more complex and costly as growth and development continues to push the edge of municipalities into undeveloped wildlands. Communities in this wildland urban interface are exacerbating the problem of wildfire in the West.

With more people living in wildfire prone …

How Useful Is Gsv As An Environmental Observation Tool? An Analysis Of The Evidence So Far., Katherine Nesse, Leah Airt

SPU Works

Researchers in many disciplines have turned to Google Street View to replace pedestrian- or carbased in-person observation of streetscapes. It is most prevalent within the research literature on the relationship between neighborhood environments and public health but has been used as diverse as disaster recovery, ecology and wildlife habitat, and urban design. Evaluations of the tool have found that the results of GSV-based observation are similar to the results from in-person observation although the similarity depends on the type of characteristic being observed. Larger, permanent and discrete features showed more consistency between the two methods and smaller, transient and judgmental …

West Chester University Landscape Master Plan, Landworks Studio, Inc., Biohabitats ...

WCU Campus Sustainability Initiatives

Historically, the college campus is organized around a central ‘Yard’ or evolves over time as a result of development and expansion. West Chester University is a product of the latter, growing to meet needs and curricula of the last 150 years, and doing an admirable job. Most of the walkways are accessible; there are large student gathering spaces; the Campus is open for public enjoyment; housing and recreation opportunities are varied; parking is ample for commuters, and a robust canopy of trees covers much of the Campus. The campus of the future is envisioned as a very different place, still …

Ua66 Ogden College Of Science & Engineering Newsletter, Wku Ogden College Of Science & Engineering

Ogden College of Science & Engineering Publications

Newsletter created by and about Ogden College of Science & Engineering.

• Stevens, Cheryl. A Word with the Dean . . .
• From the Hilltop
• 3rd Annual Research Experience for Undergraduates Program Conference
• Into Bowling Green
• Barren RIver
• Mammoth Cave National Park
• Barrow, Alaska
• South Korea
• Postcards from the Field
• WKU Research Foundation
• Office of Research & Creative Activity
• About Applied Research & Technology Program
• Dean's Office News
• School of Engineering & Applied Sciences
• How to Connec
• Ogden College Hall

Baden Community Open Space Plan, Rod Barnett

Books and Monographs

A team led by professor Rod Barnett has completed the Baden Community Open Space Plan. In summer 2016, Barnett and a team of research assistants collaborated with the on-the-ground team to engage residents to understand their needs. This data, combined with ecological data points, and public health assessments collected in the community, informed the proposed masterplan. In the voids created by voluntary buyout and demolition, the Baden neighborhood has an opportunity to redefine how infrastructure and greenspace can come together to create a space that serves residents. The team of partners has included the Green City Coalition, the City of …

Desert Pool {If Every Desert Was Once A Sea}, Karen Miranda Abel

The Goose

Desert Pool {If every desert was once a sea} is a site-specific art project by Canadian artist Karen Miranda Abel completed in 2016 while artist-in-residence at Joya: arte + ecología, an arts-led research centre situated in an alpine desert within a national park in southern Spain. The elemental installation represents an envisioning of the ancient sea that occupied the Sierra de María-Los Vélez Natural Park millions of years before the current desert ecology, a time when its highest mountain peaks may have been islands.

Belt, Road, And The Xinjiang Issue, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

The Belt Road Initiative promises economic development for China’s westernmost province but reality on the ground is less promising

Cooperation Is Key To Building China’S Bay Area, Singapore Management University

Perspectives@SMU

Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area is expected to surpass the Tokyo Bay Area or San Francisco Bay Area in ten years, if the cities in the region can leverage their strengths, streamline their coordination mechanism and speed up the economy integration,” said Dr. Tse Kwok-leung, who currently serves as head of Economics and Policy Research at the Bank of China (Hong Kong) Limited. Dr. Tse was speaking at a seminar themed “How to Build a World-class Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area” organized by the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce in July 2017.

Geological Principles Illustrated In The Art Along The Antelope Valley Hiker/Biker Trail – The Big X (Salt Creek Roadway/Antelope Valley Parkway) South To Q Street, Robert Diffendal, Jr.

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

When the weather is good (and even sometimes when it isn’t) I occasionally walk around the periphery of the UNL city campus, often over the lunch hour, now that the trails and the sidewalks allow one to walk a complete circuit. The walk along Antelope Creek from the Big X to Q Street is beautiful. The designers of the project made nice art works on the floor of the creek and on the retaining walls on the valley sides that add to the beauty of nature.

I am a geologist and wondered about some of the art and its meaning …

Exploring The Value Of Interprofessional Collaboration Between Occupational Therapy And Design: A Pilot Survey Study, Amy Wagenfeld, Lori Reynolds, Tamar Amiri

The Open Journal of Occupational Therapy

Background: Consistent with the American Occupational Therapy Association’s Vision 2025, interprofessional partnerships between occupational therapy and designers is necessary to “maximize health, well-being, and quality of life for all people . . . through effective solutions that facilitate participation in everyday living” (2016, para 1). Occupational therapy’s knowledge of the person-environment-occupation fit appears to make us well suited to collaborate with design teams to create environments that facilitate optimal function and promote health and well-being (Ainsworth & de Jonge, 2014).

Method: Two short closed-ended online questionnaires were designed to gain an understanding of designer and occupational therapy practitioner impressions of …

Awareness Of Psychological Based Strategies And Modes Of Perception By Landscape Architects In North Texas, Randy Glenn Mclain

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

This research presents a study of the diffusion of innovation (Figure 2.8) as it relates to the manipulation of psychological responses through landscape architecture that enhance the user’s experience and achieves the design intent of an outdoor environment. This research also tests the level of awareness of psychological based strategies (Table 1.2, 1.12) and modes of perception (Table 2.1) by landscape architects in north Texas. Design solutions focus heavily on function and/or aesthetics within the profession of landscape architecture (Norman 2009, Ortony 2014). The functional design solution satisfies the rational and analytical mind while the aesthetic design solution facilitates short …

Awareness Of Psychological Based Strategies And Modes Of Perception By Landscape Architects In North Texas, Randy Glenn Mclain

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

This research presents a study of the diffusion of innovation (Figure 2.8) as it relates to the manipulation of psychological responses through landscape architecture that enhance the user’s experience and achieves the design intent of an outdoor environment. This research also tests the level of awareness of psychological based strategies (Table 1.2, 1.12) and modes of perception (Table 2.1) by landscape architects in north Texas. Design solutions focus heavily on function and/or aesthetics within the profession of landscape architecture (Norman 2009, Ortony 2014). The functional design solution satisfies the rational and analytical mind while the aesthetic design solution facilitates short …

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 …