Landscape Architecture Commons^™

Ecological Restoration Parks In Xi’An, China: An Evolving Type, Han Yan

Dissertations

This dissertation examines four urban ecological restoration projects used as public spaces in the city of Xi'an, China. The overall goal is to understand the social and ecological implications of the site features at both design and planning scale and define what is ecological restoration in China's urban context. The result of the research shows that the top-down planning initiatives approach for establishing ecological restoration sites in urban areas that meet the need for more public open space in addition to restoring healthy urban ecological systems is very different from the definition of what is traditionally understood as "ecological restoration". …

Dance In Public Space, Rachel Cruzan

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Dance is a universal cultural phenomenon that provides physical, emotional, and social benefits. Public Space, when well-utilized, provides people with opportunities to meet various needs. In this way, Dance and Public Space have the potential for a mutually beneficial relationship, Public Space providing a way for people to meet certain needs through Dance, while Dance improves the quality of Public Space. This relationship is already in existence worldwide. This paper explores seven case studies globally where Dance occurs in Public Space. Written research is combined with diagrams developed to study key aspects of these spaces. The diagrams study Dance and …

The Healing Landscapes Of Usu: Discovering Spaces Of Potential Mental Restorativeness: A Geospatial Analysis Of Usu Campus, Amelia H. Wilcken

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This project focuses on understanding an alternative resource that can be intentionally improved upon to help address the mental health crisis on university campuses. With ample research showing how nature and being outside can help improve, or be restorative for, the mental state of individuals, this project developed an analytical method for understanding the restorative potential within the campus landscape as a whole and within districts. The analysis uses nine separate elements that make up the campus landscape: (1) trees, (2) landscape plantings (grass, planters, etc.), (3) art pieces, (4) benches, (5) water features, (6) sidewalks, (7) roads, (8) parking …

Umass Brut: Re-Imagining The Plinth, John Amodeo

UMassBRUT Community

Modeled on UVA’s Lawn, Paul Rudolph’s mid-century Brutalist UMass Dartmouth buildings march down both sides of a gently sloped great lawn following the grade with one exception, the Auditorium, which is raised above the quad’s lawn on a 6’ high plinth, accessed by monumental stairs underscoring the entire building. With its entries elusively tucked into the ends of the building, the Auditorium steps were ceremonial at best and vacant, functionless and windswept at worst.

Evolving tastes, priorities and social behavior over subsequent decades, and even more recently, the pandemic, have made indoor/outdoor relationships, outdoor space, and universal access a top …

Notes Towards A History Of The Brutalist Landscape, Marisa Angell Brown

UMassBRUT Community

When we talk about Brutalism, we are generally talking about architecture. Is there such a thing as the Brutalist landscape? If so, what defines it, and who are its practitioners? How does the Brutalist landscape navigate the relationship between plantings, hardscape and public art? What is it designed to do, and for whom? If the Brutalist landscape exists as a category, was it successful? Is the history of its public reception different from the reception of Brutalist architecture? This presentation lays out notes towards a history of the Brutalist landscape, considering the work of Bertrand Goldberg, M. Paul Friedberg, Lawrence …

Beholding Brutalism: A Cultural Landscape View, Elaine Stiles

UMassBRUT Community

This talk looks at the complexities of how we encounter monumental concrete not as art objects, but as elements of the cultural landscape with social meanings, relationships, and stories encoded into their spaces. This socially-driven approach rooted in historic and cultural context, renders fuller biographies of these places than aesthetics alone, and also enriches thinking about the futures of these monumental places.

Historic Millyard Revitalization Project: Ware, Ma, Andrew Carrano, Limin Chen, Wyatt Collins, Omar Eissa, Andrew Folger, Kevin Herlihy, Kerran Holmes, Samuel Huntress, Tharanah Lundi, Emily Menard, Aidan Murray, Meaghan O'Brien, Harrington Riendeau, Corrina Rossetti, Amelia Scofield, Yichen Wan, Jinning Yan

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

This project’s mission is to provide an all- encompassing destination for the needs of current and future employees, residents, and visitors of the Ware Millyard Historic District and the community of Ware, MA. The project aims to facilitate the revitalization and redevelopment of the Millyard and develop a communal campus which provides employment, housing, goods, services, as well as recreational and social opportunities for the region. The vision of this project is to facilitate the revitalization and redevelopment of the Ware Millyard Historic District by establishing an emerging industry within the site. Incorporating the cannabis industry and all of its …

Book Review: The South Carolina State House Grounds, Jennifer S. Gibson

South Carolina Libraries

Jennifer Gibson reviews The South Carolina State House Grounds, written by Lydia Mattice Brandt with photographs by Chandler Yonkers.

From Displaced To Our Place: Using An Educational Narrative To Build Community In A Displaced Community, Morgan Frederick

Symposium of Student Scholars

Thomasville heights is a displacement neighborhood for people pushed out by Atlanta’s Urban Renewal projects. Thomasville Heights remains a casualty of a system of economic segregation. Under this system of segregation these neighborhoods are left in detrimental states. It is in places like Thomasville Heights where the phrase “place matters” becomes a call to action. A town of 6000 residents and only one elementary school, Thomasville heights is bordered by multiple freight yards, a cemetery, landfills, and Atlanta’s US penitentiary, just a 5-minute walk from that one elementary school. There remains a vast difference between that of low-income urban, and …

Designing With Users: A Participatory Design As A Community Engagement Program In The City Zoo, Yulia Nurliani Lukito, Nevine R. Kusuma, Enira Arvanda, Zafira R. Ummah

ASEAN Journal of Community Engagement

This article discusses a participatory design project that aims at creating a collaborative design among architectural students, visitors, and zoo management in designing street furniture and selfie spots in city zoos. Participatory design is used in the design process to get the users’ and designers’ interpretation of the space, improve design outcomes, and increase the community awareness of their surroundings. As part of the Universitas Indonesia Community Engagement Program, the zoo design project fosters a collaborative design between the university and zoo community and supports the educational, conservational, and recreational goals of Ragunan Zoo in Jakarta. Designing street furniture and …

Exploring The Use Of Grid-Scale Compressed Air Energy Storage In The Urban Landscape, Connor S. Slover

Masters Theses

Energy storage is becoming a crucial element to the renewable energy grid, and new facilities will have to go somewhere. This thesis will propose to co-locate compressed air energy storage on a site with residential units, and a community park.

This thesis will make the argument that co-locating a compressed air energy storage system with residential units could create a new start for the communities most harmed by fossil fuel infrastructure. This thesis will propose a design for a site in East Boston; a community badly scarred by heating oil and natural gas storage; with the goal of creating a …

From Sanctuary To Home In The Post-Interstate City, Morgan B. Sawyer

Masters Theses

The removal of New York Interstate- 81’s (I-81) 1.4 mile stretch of raised, four-lane highway in Syracuse will highlight the critical role of socioeconomics, accessibility, and community building in urban neighborhood reclamation. The removal of what had been previously deemed an urban renewal project, presents Syracuse with new opportunities for space restoration and place-making efforts, atoning for careless and traumatic historic divisions, all the while exploring more substantive design responses tailored to the realities of the City. This thesis explores these fundamental planning considerations through a design lens; by proposing a comprehensive and integrated vision of physical and spatial opportunities …

Firesafe: Designing For Fire-Resilient Communities In The American West, Brenden Baitch

Masters Theses

The perception that wildfires are completely preventable has caused many structures and communities to be built in locations that will inevitably experience an uncontrollable fire event, risking human lives and infrastructure. Modification of built environments into fire-adapted communities has been explored in this thesis, through multiple strategies. Central to this analysis is the idea that sustainable human developments could adopt a form of biomimicry and indigenous design informed by the adaptions of plants, animals, and native groups that endure and even thrive with regular cycles of fire. This possibility has been assessed through the scope of fire adaptation strategies available …

How Can Portland's Urban Landscape Better Utilize Stormwater?, Joni Frame

University Honors Theses

This thesis worked to explore stormwater management and water runoff using urban green infrastructure in Portland, Oregon. Water management systems are used to store and treat stormwater (precipitation) that runs off impervious surfaces in our built environment. Stormwater is produced by rain and other forms of precipitation that runs off impervious surfaces such as streets, parking lots, and other sites. Climate changes are projected to include more frequent and more intensive storms which can lead to extreme flood hazards, increasing the stormwater runoff. This study analyzed the context of climate change in the city of Portland, OR, to understand how …

The Nolan House, Keiko-Ann K. Sanders, Gilbert C. Munoz, Michael A. Bahr, Titas Kalvalnis

Architectural Engineering

As a precedent, The Green Team analyzed the history of glass architecture, literature, and culture. Based on our research, we found that glass is often depicted as breakable, delicate, and a way to expose or display aspects that would otherwise be hidden. We challenged ourselves to incorporate safety and privacy into our glass house as a way to combat the pre-existing notions of glass in architecture.

Anthesis: The Blooming Of The Las Vegas Strip, David Navarrete

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

The diversity of thought throughout the HD Studio always produces great synergy between projects with overlapping areas of interest. Here, we see a question about why Las Vegas' public green space lags behind other cities' lead to more questions (and answers) about how the pedestrian experience along Las Vegas Boulevard could transform from a predominantly car-centric space into a sidewalk experience that extends the excitement of resorts' interiors to the outside. Like other theses that explore everything from public promenades to places for social media posts, the work of David Navarreto calls on lessons learned from urban planning, landscape architecture, …

A Vision For Buchanan, Andrew C. Von Maur

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

The River, The Residents, And The City: A Holistic Vision Study For Logan River's Upper Reach, Lisa Aedo

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The three-mile Upper Reach of the Logan River starting at the USU Water Lab to the 100 East bridge has been negatively impacted by residential development and diversion for agriculture and industry. A task force comprised of faculty at USU, professionals, government and city officials, and concerned residents has developed a Conservation Action Plan focused on twenty-two baseline indicators which, if improved, can help rehabilitate the river. This thesis looks at the factors that created the current challenges and seeks to provide a holistic vision with design solutions to address said challenges in alignment with that Plan. A literature review …

An Indicator Based Transportation Sustainability Assessment In Regional Development: A Case Study For Cache County, Utah, Humaira Yusuf Nabeela

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Evaluating sustainability for a key system like transportation can be vital for both planners and citizens alike, as planners provide the system and citizens use the system. A sustainable transportation system not only builds a prosperous economy, but it also ensures social equity and a healthy environment for years to come. There are differing scales of sustainability assessment, ranging from neighborhood to global. However, a sustainability scale between the local and national scale is not very common in practice. Therefore, this study offers a regional scale sustainability assessment for the transportation system that will address local changes while also reflecting …

Understanding Spaces Of Abandonment Through Virtual Frameworks In Landscape Architecture, Aus Perez

Honors Theses

In recent years, design professionals have implemented many contemporary landscape architecture projects across the United States. With a primary goal of returning nature to urban environments, contemporary landscape architects and other transdisciplinary partners work diligently to sculpt physical spaces that reflect the human-living experience. However, a leap into the world of video game design could allow landscape architects and urban planners to more freely create virtual social environments to address rising issues of abandonment in today’s urban and rural spaces. Video game mechanics and methodologies can be used extensively in the disciplines of design that value participatory processes, like landscape …

From Quadrangle To Square: Connecting Culture, Art And Public Spaces In Downtown Springfield, Lauren Azuela, Patrick Burns, Bo Carpen, Winfield Henry, Joseph Langois

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

From Quadrangle to Square: Connecting Culture, Art and Public Spaces in Downtown Springfield provides strategies to revitalize Springfield’s Metro Center through landscape architecture and public art initiatives, and to acknowledge the role that race has played in Springfield’s development from the City’s incorporation in the early 1600s through present day. With the Studio’s partnership between the Springfield Cultural Partnership, Armory Quadrangle Civic Association, Springfield Museums, Fresh Paint Springfield, and Art for the Soul Gallery, an overarching goal for each student was to create a cultural corridor along Bruce Landon Way from Springfield’s Museum Quadrangle to Court Square.

Athenian Graffiti And The Right To The City: The Illegal Practice Of Public Space Reclamation, Lillia Schmidt

Senior Theses and Projects

Graffiti is not often thought of as a positive tool for change, especially in the era of urban neoliberalism. Rather, it is regarded by such forces as harmful to the urban fabric, a signifier of urban decline and a crime progenitor. While neoliberalization threatens the authenticity of the urban through privatization and appropriation, graffiti has the potential to reclaim and reappropriate public urban spaces. How can graffiti be used as a tool to enforce Lefebvre’s theory of authentic urban space? Simultaneously, how does graffiti combat the processes of urban homogenization and commodification at the hands of the state and the …

Bundesgartenschau Mannheim (1975): Sustainable Urban Development Through A Horticultural Festival, Aubrey Sofia Bader

Haslam Scholars Projects

The purpose of this research was to analyze the success of the 1975 Mannheim Bundesgartenschau (BUGA-MA), a highly visible and popular BUGA then and now, in achieving sustainable development. A BUGA is a German Federal Horticulture Show, but it is not simply a one-time exhibition; it is a full-time commitment to sustainable development in German cities and regions. BUGAs are complex undertakings, involving national and regional players, and they are fine-tuned to the sustainable needs of their respective location and culture. This presentation will outline the key tenets of sustainability addressed by BUGAs and analyze the degree of their success …

Arquitectura Modular Para El Uso Educativo Y Comunitario En La Ruralidad, Juan Sebastian Pascagaza León, Johan Sebastian Rodriguez Jaramillo

Arquitectura

En una primera instancia del proyecto se debe conocer a partir de un problema a escala macro en el contexto rural y a partir de eso se determina que el sector educativo y comunitario en la ruralidad ha tenido problemas a lo largo de la historia en Colombia, debido a diferentes problemas sociales, conflicto armado o a la mala adecuación y administración que se da a las instituciones lo que ocasiona una mala cobertura y la pésima calidad en la educación rural en el país. Para generar un proyecto arquitectónico por medio de la arquitectura modular adaptable se deben estudiar …

Encuentros Barriales Espacios Para La Participación Ciudadana Y La Revitalización Urbana. Centro De Desarrollo Comunitario Los Ocobos, Barrio Nueva Castilla Ibagué Tolima, Jhon Felipe Gaitan Cristiano, Jairo Andrés Gutiérrez Bejarano

Arquitectura

El presente trabajo de investigación se estructura en dos pilares principales, el primero busca entender las condiciones de habitabilidad urbana y cómo estas influyen en la calidad de vida urbana de el barrio Nueva Castilla en Ibagué, proponiendo intervenciones multiescalares que ayuden a fortalecer las dinámicas urbanas presentes en el objeto de estudio. El segundo pilar se centra en entender el papel que juegan los centros de desarrollo social en el contexto trabajado y por medio del desarrollo de un equipamiento brindarle a la comunidad espacios que propicien el encuentro y la participación ciudadana entre los diferentes actores sociales que …

Módulos Educacionales Complementarios Flexibles, Adaptables Y Productivos Para La Formación Media En La Ruralidad, Paula Daniela Ballesteros González, Raquel Yohana Cárdenas Peña

Arquitectura

El presente proyecto de grado desarrolla módulos educacionales complementarios flexibles, adaptables y productivos para la formación media en la ruralidad. El proyecto se ubica en la ruralidad colombiana, la cual se caracteriza por tener un gran potencial agrícola

El proyecto se desarrolla entendiendo conceptos claves tales como la educación, la productividad, la flexibilidad, adaptabilidad, sostenibilidad, entre otros. A través de esta investigación y anteproyecto, se brinda una posible alternativa a partir de soluciones arquitectónicas y técnico constructivas que agrupan principios de diseño y objetivos planteados para lograr la aplicabilidad dentro de la educación tradicional de técnicas productivas en las escuelas …

Vcu Monroe Park Campus 'Iconic Green' Pre-Planning And Design Study, Nicholas A. Jancaitis

Master of Urban and Regional Planning Capstone Projects

The 'Iconic Green' pre-planning study for the Monroe Park Campus of VCU provides the framework and data necessary to support the intended 'nexus' on the proposed site. A review of the existing literature on various subjects included will highlight models and successful measures that have ensured success for previous similar built works. Having an understanding of the underlying factors and implications for the site, a needs assessment using existing literature and design precedents and in comparison with VCU's own desired end state and needs. Focusing on these comparisons within a theoretical framework called the Just Beautiful City, established in this …

Reimagining Abandoned Community Space In A Post-Pandemic Environment, Julia Drooff

Scripps Senior Theses

Earlier this year, the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the demise of the Great American Mall by forcing temporary and permanent closures across the country. The low-end malls that remain are dealing with crippling debt and the closing of key department stores like JC Penney and Neiman Marcus[1]. With only super-luxury malls thriving, many of the standard malls set up in the eighties are just abandoned parts of a community. So, what should happen to these abandoned malls? And what role does that space now play in the post-pandemic community? Since malls began to shut-down pre-Covid-19 did the need for …

A Mass Of What's Departed: Analyzing The Influx Of Middle Class Homeowners And Luxury Development Sustaining The Housing Crisis In Former Brick Manufacturing Hub Kingston, Ny, Deirdre Frances Irvine

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Complejo Agroturístico Y Trapiche Comunal Para El Desarrollo Rural Sostenible De La Laguna De Ortices, San Andrés, Santander, Víctor Andrés Reyes Barajas

Arquitectura

Desde la arquitectura, son innumerables las propuestas que se han planteado con el objetivo de mejorar las condiciones de vida y el desarrollo en general de las comunidades rurales del planeta. Algunas han funcionado y otras en el mejor de los casos pasan por obras inconclusas tras una fuerte inversión del estado.

Cada comunidad rural de Colombia presenta problemas relativos a este desarrollo rural y, por tanto, estas comunidades necesitan programas y proyectos que se ajusten realmente a sus vocaciones productivas, y que su cultura sea respetada desde las tipologías arquitectónicas, hasta el programa funcional de las edificaciones que se …