Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

“The St. Louis Flat:” A Typological Study Of The Characteristics And Distribution Of Four-Family Flats In Greater St. Louis, Camden Maggard

St. Louis Publications

The four-family flat is a multi-family housing type that consists of four residential units in a double-stacked arrangement. These buildings are one of the most common multi-family housing types in the United States. While the four-family building type is present in multiple cities, these buildings are uniquely characteristic of the St. Louis region. In a 1920 report on housing, the St. Louis City Plan Commission wrote that “slightly less than 50 per cent of the housing” in the city consisted of two- and four-family buildings by the late 1910s, building types that were “popularly known in other cities as ‘The …

Public Spaces For Community Campuses And Universities, Marichela Sepe

Books and Monographs

Chapter: Modern Pedestrian Campus Design in North America, 1940s-70s, Eric Mumford, pages 13-22

This volume explores the growing significance of open public spaces within università campuses—spaces that go far beyond their functional role to become essential arenas for social interaction, informal learning, well-being, and urban integration.

Structured around three interconnected themes—Campus and Public Spaces, Campus and University Communities, and Campus and the City—the volume gathers international best practices, offering an insightful tool for students, academics, designers, administrators, and urban thinkers.

Full text also available for download at https://www.inuedizioni.com/en/prodotti/pubblicazione/public-spaces-community-campuses-and-universities

A Pocket Park In Kirkwood: Community, Connectivity, And Urban Transformation, Catalina Freixas

Books, Office for Socially Engaged Practice

The course Architecture For Non-Architects [AFNA] is supported by CityStudio STL, Sam Fox School of Design Visual Arts, Washington University in St. Louis.

AFNA is a foundational course that acquaints students with the principles and practices of architectural design. Beginning with a community-based project, the curriculum integrates lectures, readings, and research to guide participants through understanding and shaping the built environment. Field trips play a key role, encouraging active observation and engagement with both the physical site and invested stakeholders.

Cultivating observation is essential to perceiving our surroundings with intention, yet many people view the environment passively, shaped by habits …

Codifying Domesticity: The Story Of The Recommended Minimum Requirements For Small Dwelling Construction Of 1923, The Housing Policy Of The Hoover Secretariat, And The Impact On American Residential Architecture, Noah Morris

Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design Theses & Dissertations

During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, fire disasters and health-safety issues led to the widespread adoption of building codes. While the National Board of Fire Underwriters published the National Building Code in 1905, the code did not maintain regulatory consistency across the nation. This lack of consistency across the nation and socio-economic factors contributed to a nation-wide housing shortage of a million units by 1919. During World War I, the government addressed the housing crisis through the United States Housing Corporation and Emergency Fleet Corporation, building public housing based on the ideals of the Garden City Movement.[1] Following the …

Designing Social Connection: Older Adults And The Infrastructure Of Social Encounters, Bomin Kim

Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design Theses & Dissertations

In recent decades, public space has gained significant attention in both design theory and practice as a critical components of sustainable development for older adults. With growing concerns about social disconnect, economic inequality, and environmental injustice, the revitalization of public space has become a critical piece in creating safe and just cities to foster social connection, health, and resilience for our aging population. I argue in this dissertation that older adults rely on an infrastructure of encounters to navigate social life and that designers and policymakers should critically examine how public spaces distribute and burden labor necessary to create weak …

The Influence Of Facades On Outdoor Comfort And Behavior In Urban Spaces, Mingliang Li

Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design Theses & Dissertations

Global warming and rapid urbanization have intensified the urban heat island (UHI) effect, and its effect on human comfort in urban spaces has attracted widespread attention. The UHI effect increases the risk of heat-related mortality and building energy consumption and reduces outdoor human thermal comfort. A comfortable outdoor space supports sustainable urbanism by making the outdoor environment more comfortable and usable, thereby helping reduce the time spent indoors and the energy consumption of buildings.

There are thermal, visual, and acoustic features that influence outdoor comfort in terms of human physical, psychological, and social behaviors. Building façades, a common component of …

Neighborhood Form And Social Cohesion: What Can We Learn Before And During Social Distancing, Wei Liu

Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design Theses & Dissertations

Creating a more sustainable urbanism is among the most pressing issues facing the world. Social sustainability is often overlooked as a pillar of sustainable urbanism. A cohesive community, a core component of social sustainability, is an essential social resource in developing a fundamental unit of sustainable urbanism. Social cohesion has the ability to help communities navigate and overcome crisis, a quality of a cohesive neighborhood that has been brought to the forefront during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. While the urban planning and design literature provides insights into the role of physical form in social cohesion more research is still needed. …

Concrete Poetry, Sara Ghazi Asadollahi

Graduate School of Art Theses

This text addresses my work as an artist and defines it in the context of the following subjects: The concept of ruins, which highlights the relationship between architecture and landscape; the formal and metaphorical dialectic between absence and presence in abandoned places; and the idea of dystopia, which emerges from that in-between space where the real dissolves into the imaginary. At the same time, my work is inspired by the visual culture of cinema and literature, principally within the science-fiction genre, and draws upon my observation of abandoned buildings in Tehran, my native city. These urban ruins are products of …

Gwen Giles Park Turtle Time Track, Martine Kushner

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

Gwen Giles Park Turtle Time Track

Gwen Giles park, the victim of misguided urban renewal efforts, still contains evidence of its rich ecological history and the significant role it once played in the community. The installation of a mile-long jogging track with distance markers and outdoor fitness equipment takes advantage of the altered topography and the rich bottomland soil; the legacy of a once-thriving prairie ecosystem.

The Catalpa tree, for which the park was previously named, is reintroduced, and a field of Goldenrod on the mounds becomes the catalyst for on-site biodiversity. Central to the proposal is the introduction of …

Biodiverse Batway, Graham Mcallister

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

The little brown bat, Myotis Lucifugus, is the focus of this intervention. Not only is this tiny insect-eating bat an intriguing create in its own right, it is also an excellent pollinator and important contributor to the urban ecosystem; its droppings function as a superior fertilizer for plant growth.

A series of bat nesting boxes are placed on the verge between the Hodiamont Tracks and Laurel Street. Oak trees are planted within the paved surface of the inaccessible section of Laurel Street that runs parallel to the tracks forming a shady plaza and an active node. The oaks provide roosting …

Musical Therapy Center For Parkinson's Disease, Howie Chen

2019 Spring Shared Sites: Design for Intergenerational Aging

Site: Hong Kong

Design Intention for Uncle Shan and Nephew Justin:

This simple space tends to establish a kind of space prototype for intergenerational people living and working together. The space is designed mainly for two of my relatives including my 68-year-old uncle—Shan, and my 7-year-old nephew—Justin. Shan has been retired for almost ten years and developed his stable daily schedule throughout these years, while Justin is still a young kid who always kept being curious about the exterior world and whose schedule might be more flexible. the space should serve them both and fulfill their spatial needs either simultaneously …

Greenway Development, Makio Yamamoto

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

In this landscape-based studio, senior lecturer Jacqueline Margetts led a group of undergraduate architecture students in exploring ecological and public open space networks through the West End neighborhood in the City of St. Louis, focusing along the historic Hodiamont Tracks. The former streetcar line, which remains as a neglected service alley, will be converted to a greenway by Great Rivers Greenway. The studio was sited in the West End neighborhood in part due to its high number of native bee species, a vital component in maintaining biodiverse ecosystems and key indicator of environmental health. Students were charged with transforming sites …

Reproductive Benefits Of Sexual Cannibalism, Tobie Soumekh

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

No abstract provided.

Intergenerational Touch, Heewoong Yang

2019 Spring Shared Sites: Design for Intergenerational Aging

Site: St. Louis

Intergenerational exchanges are becoming more and more important as the society ages. Throughout this studio, I have tried to figure out what are the walls between generations and how to tear down the barriers with architectural languages.

Between two generations, there are a lot of strong stereotypes which make more difficult to interact with each other.

If we just ignore these stereotypes and try to make them interact, it might bring many side effects.

According to research conducted by Taiwan civil organization, they tried to give a particular preparation stage before making two different aging groups meet. …

Garden Intersection, Kai Smith

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

In this landscape-based studio, senior lecturer Jacqueline Margetts led a group of undergraduate architecture students in exploring ecological and public open space networks through the West End neighborhood in the City of St. Louis, focusing along the historic Hodiamont Tracks. The former streetcar line, which remains as a neglected service alley, will be converted to a greenway by Great Rivers Greenway. The studio was sited in the West End neighborhood in part due to its high number of native bee species, a vital component in maintaining biodiverse ecosystems and key indicator of environmental health. Students were charged with transforming sites …

Local Lavendar, Tiffany Zheng

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

In this landscape-based studio, senior lecturer Jacqueline Margetts led a group of undergraduate architecture students in exploring ecological and public open space networks through the West End neighborhood in the City of St. Louis, focusing along the historic Hodiamont Tracks. The former streetcar line, which remains as a neglected service alley, will be converted to a greenway by Great Rivers Greenway. The studio was sited in the West End neighborhood in part due to its high number of native bee species, a vital component in maintaining biodiverse ecosystems and key indicator of environmental health. Students were charged with transforming sites …

Shared Sites - Design For Inter Gernerational Aging: Movement Around Water, Teresa Lu

2019 Spring Shared Sites: Design for Intergenerational Aging

Site: St. Louis

Environmental press plays an important role in both a person's physical and mental development. Research shows that children and older adults' walking speed are both in the lower range of all age groups and are quite similar to one another. Even for a healthy senior, their mobility will most likely decrease in a gradual but stable pattern as they age. A healthy environment should be able to encourage mobility in a safe surrounding, while a completely safe space is often unenterprising.

The program proposed is a physical health center with a pool in the center of activities. …

Birdscape Programming, Rebecca Shen

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

In this landscape-based studio, senior lecturer Jacqueline Margetts led a group of undergraduate architecture students in exploring ecological and public open space networks through the West End neighborhood in the City of St. Louis, focusing along the historic Hodiamont Tracks. The former streetcar line, which remains as a neglected service alley, will be converted to a greenway by Great Rivers Greenway.

The studio was sited in the West End neighborhood in part due to its high number of native bee species, a vital component in maintaining biodiverse ecosystems and key indicator of environmental health. Students were charged with transforming sites …

Cicada Grove, Helen Han

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

The gentle throb of cicada song is an essential element of hot summer nights. The annual performance not only reminds people of a carefree childhood, but also signals a rich ecosystem. The cycle of cicada emergence is emblematic of the natural cycles of growth and decay.

This project proposes a neighborhood hub—an epicenter of cicada habitat and social activities. Located in the heart of the historical West End neighborhood and sited between apartment complexes, parking lots, and a playground, Cicada Grove is both a productive garden, a gathering space, and a place of repose where the song of the cicada …

Situational Assemblage, Mikaela Gatewood

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

In this landscape-based studio, senior lecturer Jacqueline Margetts led a group of undergraduate architecture students in exploring ecological and public open space networks through the West End neighborhood in the City of St. Louis, focusing along the historic Hodiamont Tracks. The former streetcar line, which remains as a neglected service alley, will be converted to a Greenway by Great Rivers Greenway.

The studio was sited in the West End neighborhood in part due to its high number of native bee species, a vital component in maintaining biodiverse ecosystems and key indicator of environmental health. Students were charged with transforming sites …

Grandparenting Center: Connecting The Generations, Jessica Deangelo

2019 Spring Shared Sites: Design for Intergenerational Aging

Site: Hong Kong

Grandparenting Center: Connecting the Generations

This building represents a Grandparenting Center, a place with a variety of activities where grandparents or older guardians can take children for the day. One in three older adults in Hong Kong are caretakers for children at least one day a week, and in most cases much longer. This center is a space where grandparents can connect with their grandchildren while also building a community of peers with similar responsibilities and demands.

A chief complaint of older adults caring for children is the physical demands of keeping up with a child. In …

A Street-Scape Named Remembrance, Michele Chen

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

On May 21, 1996, streetcars rattled through the West End neighborhood for the very last time as #15 Hodiamont line, the only remaining streetcar route in St. Louis, ceased operation. Memory, however, persists and this intervention honors the Hodiamont service by creating an ecologically rich trailhead to the track's new life as a Greenway. Streetcars are celebrated through embedded track lanes, vertical handhold like insect hotels, and transformable furniture along tracks inserted into Gwen B. Giles park. Existing pavement cracks at the intersection of the Greenway and Hodiamont Avenue are seeded with Virginia mountain mint. As the mint spreads the …

A Space For Making, Making One's Own Space, Samuel Bell-Hart

2019 Spring Shared Sites: Design for Intergenerational Aging

Site: Hong Kong

The programming is focused around the supporting of activities that broadly involve making and working with one's hands. Specifically, woodworking and gardening are chosen as activities that can be engaged in at varying levels of difficulty and enjoyed by a wide range of age groups. The first means through which multiple generations interact is the mentor/student relationship, where someone with previous skills in either area acts as a facilitator for an older or younger student to learn. There are two "higher level" activities, dragon-boat building and orchid gardening, that comprise the long-term work of the space and …

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 …

Trade(In) Space: International Incubator, Lindsley Etienne

2016 Fall Inclusion and Neighborhood Resilience with IISTL

Immigrants and refugees come into the United States with vast amount of skills and traits, but are not always granted the opportunity to showcase them. The International Business Incubator creates the opportunity for incoming refugees and immigrants to have a space that allows them to startup their own businesses. Incubation is defined as something that develops or produces or hatches. The space proposed is experienced through physical and visual connections that provide the guest with the ability to witness the production. The Incubator provides a series of spaces that our linked to classrooms, where guest can come learn how to …

Mountain Climbing Childhood, Xinzhi Pan

2016 Fall Inclusion and Neighborhood Resilience with IISTL

The proposal for the reuse of the Donna Brown Building was the result of the analysis of the public space layout on S. Grand Ave. This included an understanding of the qualities of the promenade created in the S. Grand Commercial District through a “street diet”, and the beautification of the streetscape. I was in particular interested in studying parking as it clearly affects walkability and circulation. Through a series of studies in plan and section, I was able to look at the different parking typologies that exist along Grand. It was apparent in this study that as a pedestrian …

Inclusion & Neighborhood Resilience: Designing For Equity In Post Industrial Cities, Catalina Freixas

Books and Monographs

For this studio, the SFS collaborated with The International Institute of St. Louis in a call for innovative design ideas to re-imagine the former building of the IISTL located at 3654 South Grand Ave. This architectural piece was built in 1930s as a car repair and dealership, with hydraulic elevators that lifted the cars from the repair shop at the lower level to the parking at the rooftop. Later, the building was renovated into doctor’s office space until 1999 when the Institute renovated it for office space use. The studio challenge was to create an iconic adaptive reuse for the …

Social Sustenance: Nurturing Change, Daniel Aguilera

2016 Fall Inclusion and Neighborhood Resilience with IISTL

The site’s direct connection to S. Grand Blvd. and the existing building are the fabric on which program, design and intent were concentrated. The building presented for adaptive reuse was originally the South Buick Auto Center, a structure capable of vehicle occupation on each floor, including the roof. The elevated rate of youth crime and the lack of activity space in the community brought about an idea for an alternative to re-incarceration, low employment rates and low educational and economic mobility for those individuals convicted of crimes between the ages of 17-25. Social Sustenance proposes a food truck incubator catered …

The Third Space: Creating A Community Anchor, Suzannah Grasel

2016 Fall Inclusion and Neighborhood Resilience with IISTL

Third Space is a civic space that proposes journalism as a programmatic outlet for the Gravois Park and immigrant communities of St. Louis. Throughout history, journalism has been an invaluable platform and voice for marginalized communities through Foreign Correspondents Clubs [FCC]. FCCs are hubs where journalists, correspondents, diplomats, and citizens convene within the community. In these spaces community and club members can create periodicals, host forums and exhibitions, network with fellow members, learn about topical issues, reference libraries, and generally engage with their community in a meaningful way. Third Space provides these resources concurrently with a digital library to the …

Interactive Education, Savannah Hecker

2016 Fall Inclusion and Neighborhood Resilience with IISTL

The building was constructed in 1926 as the Southside Automobile Company’s service center. The automotive industry has been an integral part of St. Louis’ history and precedents along Grand Blvd. My intention is to transform the building back to the historic use, bringing the lively nature of the automotive industry back to this area of Grand. The automotive service in St. Louis is still thriving and within the St. Louis area, and I propose a Trade School for Automobile Service. The School will have a service learning so parents and students will be able to work during their training. There …