Landscape Architecture Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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.