Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

Does Grid Alternatives Impact Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction Targets In Central Coast Climate Action Plans?, Sandra V. Knapp

Master's Theses

As of March 2016, GRID Alternatives’ 179 solar electric system installations on low-income housing contributed 103 metric tons of carbon (MT CO₂e) emissions reduction for the climate action plans’ Energy or Renewable Energy climate action measures that pertain to solar electric installations in the cities of: Arroyo Grande, Atascadero, Paso Robles, and San Luis Obispo and San Luis Obispo County.

In 2007, the San Luis Obispo County Air Pollution Control District (APCD) created a team of government agencies to design climate action plans (CAP) that met the emission reduction goals set out by AB 32 and the …

Bring Back State-Run Social Housing, Lorcan Sirr

Media

Two weeks ago I was in what remains of O’Devaney Gardens, the social housing complex off Dublin’s North Circular Road, filming a programme with RTE. O’Devaney Gardens,behind Dublin’s Arbour Hill Prison, was built in the early 1950s, and named after a Bishop O’Devaney, a friend of 16th-century resistance leader Hugh O’Neill. O’Devaney was hanged in 1612 in the Arbour Hill area for treason . In recognition of his greatness, three centuries later 13 blocks of flats were named after him.

The "Adam Cube" : Categorizing Portland, Oregon's Urbanization Using Gis And Spatial Statistics, Jeremy Grotbo

Dissertations and Theses

Transportation availability and land use intensity demonstrate a strong relationship, with intense development concentrated near significant transportation investment. Transportation networks evolved in response to emergent transportation technologies and changing urban land uses. The irregular distribution of transportation systems reinforced patterns of land use development, shaping urban form. Understanding the relationships between transportation and the intensity of land uses allows urban geographers and city planners to explain the urbanization processes, as well as to identify areas historically susceptible to future development. The goal of this research is to develop a quantitative framework for the analysis of the development of urban form …

The Crisis In Housing Has Deep Roots And Supply Alone Will Not Resolve It., Tom Dunne

Conference papers

Ireland is suffering a housing crisis which will not be easily solved. This is not the first generation to struggle with housing problems. A review of history shows that property markets have pronounced cycles and a continual struggle to provide affordable housing with much direct state provision and extensive subsidises for home ownership. Part of the current crisis results from the abandonment of direct provision of housing by the state but the gradual withdrawal subsidies for owner occupation, has also made a contribution to making home ownership less affordable for many.

A crucial part of dealing with the crisis is …

Where Is The Realism In The State’S ‘Hotchpotch’ Programme?, Lorcan Sirr

Media

The publication of the new programme for government brought fewsurprises. It astonished nobody that two of its most significant components were ending the housing shortage and homelessness, and boosting jobs and rural development. The document weighs in at a hefty 155 pages, which averages out at 2.67 pages per government member and supporter. It seems as though every idea from every corner, no matter how unrealistic, was included to garner support. There were positives. It broadly identifies many pertinent issues, including the need for political leadership, tackling homelessness and promoting tenants’ rights. It aims to review building standards and says …

James Joyce Run: Good Puzzle Would Be Cross Dublin Without Passing A Pub, Barry Sheehan

Academic Articles

I write a blog www.jj21k.com which looks at the works of James Joyce, the environment which he wrote about and changes that have taken place since he wrote about them. The blogposts are predominantly about Dublin. As part of discovering Dublin by reading and Running I have written several longer pieces.

In Ulysses Leopold Bloom thinks Good puzzle would be cross Dublin without passing a pub. This piece creates a running narrative that does just that, linking Cabra where the Joyce family lived on the north side of Dublin, with Shelbourne Road on the south side and where James Joyce …

Colonization To Construction: Bridging The Gap Between Ancient Chamorro, Spanish Colonial & Modern Architecture On Guam, Dominic J. Lizama

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Guam is an island in the Marianas that, over time, has experienced a rich cultural history brought about by its exposure to colonization, natural disasters, warfare and the continual influx of people and culture. Therefore, the architecture that exists on the island is one that divides itself into four distinct styles with each as a response to external forces that affected the island. By researching each of these styles, one is able to fully understand the holistic view of Guam’s history in order to design architecture that reflects the past with anticipation for the future. This thesis works to explore …

From Empty Lot To Garden Plot: Urban Agriculture In Chula Vista, Jennifer E. Gutierrez

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project is an exploration of how agriculture can be incorporated into the fabric of the city of Chula Vista, which has both uniquely urban and suburban areas. The proposal is to integrate agriculture as a design tool to reconnect to the city’s agricultural past and as a model for cities of the future. First, I discuss Chula Vista’s history and contemporary context, including demographics. I review the existing urban agriculture policies Chula Vista has and compare them to other cities in California. The second part of the project is concerned with how to choose and develop a site for …

Cumulative Impact Of Shortest Path, Environment And Fuel Efficiency On Route Choice: Case Studies With Real-Time Data, Syed R. Islam

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) provides a great platform for the planners to reduce environmental externalities from auto. We now have access to real time data. We have been using shortest path to provide route choice to the user. But we have the potential to add more variables in choosing routes. Real time data can be used to measure carbon di-oxide emission during a trip. Also, fuel efficiency can be measured using the real time data. Planners should use this potential of ITS to reduce the environmental impact. This paper thus try to evaluate if considering three variables shortest path, environmental …

Unearthed: Advocating Against Fracking And Breaking The Bond Of The Imagined World Order, Colleen E. Cloonan

ENV 434 Environmental Justice

While discussing the imagined world order, it is evident that the world is not perfect. Over the course of the centuries, the earth has been maimed by humans, whether it be during the agricultural age or throughout the process of industrialization into the modern era. Humans must realize that sooner, rather than later, we must address the environmental destruction we are causing. A specific case, with that such as hydraulic fracturing of shale, otherwise known as fracking, provides as an example of one of the environmental justice issues that is plaguing the earth. However, there are complications. In the consumer …

Cal Poly Climate Action Plan, Adrienne Greve, Chris Clark, William Riggs, Jesse A. Carpentier, Curran K. Lord-Farmer, Crp 410/ 411 Community Planning Lab

City and Regional Planning Studios and Projects

The Cal Poly Climate Action Plan (PolyCAP) is designed to achieve the California State University (CSU) Chancellor’s mandate to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% below 1990 levels by 2040 (CSU, 2014). California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) Facility Management and Development (FM&D) and the City and Regional Planning (CRP) Senior Community Planning Laboratory developed the PolyCAP during the Fall 2015 and Winter 2016 quarters, with editing and refinement in subsequent quarters. The goal of the PolyCAP is to reduce Cal Poly’s GHG emissions and to adapt the Campus to a …

Deployable Domesticity, Daniel Hopkins

Architecture Senior Theses

Deployable homes have characterized the survivalist origins of our species, the lifestyles of disenfranchised populations, and the luxurious retreats of others. Still, a predominance of contemporary domestic space relies on the ‘permanently’ stationary and situated object. As the social and ecological conditions of our society are rapidly and continually fluctuating, we must reaffirm our association with deployable culture and expand the utilization of mobile and adaptable unit. Further, architecture must negotiate the contrasts between ephemerality and permanence.

Through speculation of the social and sustainable implications of the deployable unit, issues of flexibility, material selection and afterlife, economics, ecology, and efficiency …

A Shifted Perspective On Affordable Micro Housing, Jonathan Reisman

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis contends that growing cities around the world are out-pricing the younger demographic from the urban fabric. It recognizes that constantly rising real estate markets are forcing millennials outside of city centers. It understands that socially, the younger demographic provide the energy and atmosphere required to keep the city alive, and ultimately believes that in order fro young professionals to reclaim their position int he hosing market, a new typology of hosing need to be established.

Such housing takes increasing urban density into consideration, and provides an appropriate dwelling supply for expensive cities moving forward. It is a typology …

Collaborating With Catastrophe | A User's Guide To Post-Apocalyptic Farming, Patricia Cafferky

Architecture Senior Theses

“Collaborating with Catastrophe” contends that architecture has the capacity to visually manifest unseen forces through design’s reaction to them, allowing people to more fully comprehend and engage the intangible. Climate change, arguably the largest threat to modern day humanity, is not visible, existing only as a collection of data and patterns in a statistical construct. Taking stock of the present day failings of society in the face of crisis, this thesis then extrapolates a potential future dystopia precipitated by man-made pollutants in order to engage the problem at its most severe. Architecture is then able to make the toxic visible …

Redefining The Constraint | Designing Control To Support Rehabilitation, Jessica Borri

Architecture Senior Theses

The concrete lined cells of a contemporary prison do not lend themselves well to processes of rehabilitation. This thesis contends that it is time for architects to rethink the architecture of the prison. When an inmate knows he is being watched, he tends to exhibit positive behavior out of fear of the consequences of any action deemed to be negative. This thesis contends that by incorporating the apparatus of surveillance seamlessly into a prison's architecture it may be possible to provide spaces that feel more open and less oppressive.

One way to generate a feeling of openness is to create …

Unreal Urbanisms | A User Guide To Engagement Gaming For Community Planning, Temitope Olujobi

Architecture Senior Theses

The virtual environment is the digital manifestation of user’s transnational image of the city. It is an image conceived through small scale and short term interventions that prompt experimentation and iteration. Its development is implemented solely through active participation, community engagement and crowd sourcing. Adversely, planning experimentation in the built environment is a climate that conceives slow, costly and often unimaginative progress. Unreal Urbanisms contends that cities in the built environment can use the User Generated image of city created in virtual environments to collaboratively reinvent and re-imagine the design of the urban environment. In the absence of reality (ie. …

Imaging The Near Future, Fang Fan

Architecture Senior Theses

Instead of critiquing the danger of globalization, it propose a rather positive and Utopian version of it. The role of architecture and infrastructure being ambiguous in a future world after globalization, in which infrastructure is heterogeneous and inhabits a global space.

Also it response to the issue of cultural identity in a globalized world, believing that technological interventions will not only adapt to the needs of traveling and migration for a dense population, but also making infrastructure as a space for entertainment and a place celebrates both global and local cultures in a constantly changing world.

It's Not Easy Being Whole | Reevaluating The Relationship Of Part Whole In Pursuit Of A New High-Rise Vernacular, Josh Bransky

Architecture Senior Theses

Architecture has the power to structure societal relationships. Specifically, architecture's form can bring the balanced relationship between community and individual identity, as exhibited in vernacular single-family homes, to the housing tower. This thesis plans to achieve such a social orchestration through a nuanced understanding of formal part-to-whole relationships, or "differentiated" parts within the whole, exhibited in a 300' housing tower in Seattle, WA.

By carefully balancing the relation, material, scale, and form of each part, this project will achieve this difficult whole (of differentiated parts). Mining this middle ground will produce a housing tower in Seattle, which actively balances the …

The Allopoiesis Of The Urban Artifact And The Palimpsest Of Context, Cristina Abondano

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis contends that Pathological Urban Artifacts , as defined by Aldo Rossi, could be made Propelling through Allopoiesis in combination with the palimpsest of the urban context. The proposal consists of a dialogue between the two strategies of growth, aiming to reconnect the Artifact to the city.

Allopoiesis is the process by which a system produces something other than the system itself. In this thesis, allopoiesis is the mapping of the artifact’s underlying geometry as catalyst for urban development.

Rossi sees in the Propelling Urban Artifact a formal structure that confirms the presence of the city and persists through …

The Renaissance Of The Railway | Towards A Global High-Speed System, Xiaoyu Li

Architecture Senior Theses

The railway has shown its unique character as a mode of transportation since its invention in Europe during the Industrial Revolution. In the beginning, its carrying capacity made it stand out, transforming human behavior, and stimulating economic productivity. During the 20th century, air travel, the railways, and long-distance road networks have shared the burden of human transportation - in many countries the car and plane have won out. In recent decade, however, new interest in the railway's potential has been generated as a result of the emergence of new technologies like high-speed rail and the maglev system. Greater speeds are …

Where Wellness Begins, Chelsea M. Wheeler

Architecture Senior Theses

A public need for improved health has called into question the manner in which one's built environment has the ability to affect a person's health and well-being. Recent studies have revealed a correlation between health and residence, suggesting that the built environment has a significant influence on occupant health and well-being. As a result of such studies, Delos Living, a well-building consulting firm, has proposed a set of deign standards that can be used to promote occupant health. The problem with such methods is that there are processes of certification relying primarily on post-deign evaluations. This thesis seeks to align …

Two Lands, One System | Redefining The Border Crossing, Matthew Trulli

Architecture Senior Theses

The Israeli and Palestinian populations each have their own distinct infrastructural system, which operates independently and fails to connect the people in this region. This thesis contends that if a two-state solution is implemented under the guidelines of the 2003 Geneva Accord, new connections can stitch the populations of Israel and Palestine together through a reimagined border system.

These divisive infrastructural networks, which are a result of tense relationships, have also sparked increased violence throughout the region, particularly in Jerusalem. The French Hill, located north of the Old City in Jerusalem, is positioned at a critical point in the infrastructural …

The Foreign Complex | A Cross-Cultural Vernacular, Dexter Cicchinelli

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis investigates transforming a decommissioned military site into a productive part of its host nation’s context. Okinawa consists of a group of islands that make up the southern-most prefecture of Japan. MAP It is situated midway between Tokyo and Manila, and called the “keystone of the Pacific” by military planners because of its strategic location. AERIAL FLIGHT MAP It was the site of the devastating Battle of Okinawa in WWII which prompted an ongoing history of military intervention and occupation. TIMELINE Immediately after the war, displaced Okinawans were put in camps while the military claimed land for bases. Some …

Central City, Nebraska Risk Assessment, Belinda S. Fowler

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Small communities have limited resources for disaster preparation and planning. This project provides a factual basis for Central City, Nebraska, to work toward a comprehensive, locally based, hazard mitigation plan by estimating potential losses to people and property from natural and man-made disasters within the city's jurisdiction.

In cooperation with: The University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Community and Regional Planning Program; The Nebraska Emergency Management Agency; Region 44 Emergency Manager; The City of Central City, Nebraska

Climate Change Planning In Dallas-Fort Worth: Discourse And Public Participation In A Politically Conservative Region, Ann W. Foss

Planning Dissertations - Archive

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges currently facing our world, and in the field of planning there has been much attention paid to climate action planning by environmental leader cities. However, political controversy surrounds climate change in the United States, making it difficult for some cities and regions to explicitly and effectively respond to climate change. This dissertation examines planning actions related to the federal Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant, and climate change more broadly, in the politically conservative Dallas-Fort Worth region of Texas from 2005 to 2015. In particular, the research strives to better understand the …

Developing Housing Finance Framework As An Approach To Provide Affordable Finance Mechanisms For Middle Income Citizens And Housing Developers In Saudi Arabia, Musaed Khalid A K. Alqannas

Planning Dissertations - Archive

With high economic growth rate, population rate, increased employment, and income opportunities, the demand for housing has increased, along with the lack of affordable finance mechanisms. A main concern of the housing problem in Saudi Arabia is the high demand compared to housing needs. Saudi Arabia lacks a housing finance framework or strategy to create flexible and affordable lending mechanisms to tackle the affordable finance problems. This research targets: 1) the middle income citizens to increase the homeownership rate and 2) the housing developer to increase affordable housing units and the investment in the housing market. This research compares the …

A Mat Response To Deinstitutionalization | A Model For Spatial Medicine, Dominic S. Lipuma

Architecture Senior Theses

In an attempt to salvage the institution, this thesis adopts the Mat-building strategy and typology, coined by Alison Smithson in 1974, exploiting its inherent qualities as a minimal, flexible, and temporal framework, which best supports the unique program of a Community Mental Health Center (CMHC).

This is in response to the severed and contentious relationship between architecture and mental health, in regards to psychopathology. The two fields were estranged with the onset of deinstitutionalization, beginning in the 1960s, and the consequent abandonment of architectural issues has prevented their reconciliation. As a result, further social issues have manifested, with higher proportions …

Incision Of Division, Nicoletta Kyverniti

Architecture Senior Theses

Conflict is a timeless topic of conversation, rising and recurring in various parts of the world. Whether active or dormant, the conflict exists within our urban environments in multiple forms and scales. A border that cannot be crossed. A building that cannot be accessed. A view that cannot be seen. It defines how we move within our cities and creates distinct boundaries. Architecture can diverge form its current use of division to instead exhibit the potential for mediation. It can confront the divide through incisions into the existing site thus exposing the need to intervention. It can cerate a wall …

Occupy Pomo | A Citizen's Guide To Urban Excavation, Kriti Garg

Architecture Senior Theses

Traditionally, architects' definitions of solid-void conditions create a dichotomy between private, or built matter, and public, or void, spaces. Yet, this notion is a missed opportunity to understand the complex society of the twenty-first century that no longer operates within the realm of open, public space nor acts as a point of primal cohesiveness for culture and community. Rather than aggregating at instances of density, it is lost within a new ghostly cosmopolitan substitute of mass consumption and globalized culture. This new public realm is a "phantom public sphere", one comprised of "sub-publics", tailored to the demands of a mass …

Absorbency In Tidal Resiliency | The Thickened Pier, Shauna Strubinger

Architecture Senior Theses

The inevitable truth of climate change has placed coastal cities at great risk. Past natural disasters in the United States such as Hurricane Sandy and Katrina, displaced many people because these communities’ only protection was their failed infrastructure.1 Although hard and soft infrastructure strategies have addressed the rising sea level, architecture at the building scale creates static surfaces and divisions that are slow to adapt to flooding and leave little to no room for the ambiguity of tidal flooding and storm surge. Though numerous areas are at risk of sea level rise across the globe, the Chesapeake Bay area is …