MA Theses - DO NOT EDIThttp://hdl.handle.net/10106/97262024-03-28T20:24:29Z2024-03-28T20:24:29ZDesigning for Best Use of the Downtown I-345 Corridor in Dallas, TX: Stakeholder Perspectiveshttp://hdl.handle.net/10106/310262023-01-27T09:27:11Z2022-12-12T00:00:00ZDesigning for Best Use of the Downtown I-345 Corridor in Dallas, TX: Stakeholder Perspectives
What is a city? It’s more than a location where many people live and work. It is a conglomeration of shared experience over generations. One generation informs the next, which informs how each subsequent generation adds to the development of their shared home. This is what gives each city its own unique form, character, and identity. But what happens if a city repeatedly outgrows itself, disconnects its communities, and demolishes the physical memory of its own cultural history? Dallas, Texas is one such city confronting these issues and is perceived as one without significant place memory or culture (if not history).
The downtown-adjacent neighborhood of Deep Ellum, in particular, has regularly found itself at the heart of this conflict, much of it having been bulldozed in 1969 to make room for I-345, a raised highway that serves as a connection to several major Dallas highways (Maxwell 2020. Like most modern cities, Dallas has largely been designed and planned to accommodate the automobile at the expense of the pedestrian, with I-345 being one of the largest offenders. Deep Ellum and Downtown see some of the city’s heaviest foot traffic but without pedestrian networks, streetscapes, and open spaces that support such activity. Pedestrian pathways between the neighborhoods are few while derelict buildings and parking lots are many.
The purpose of this thesis is to study stakeholders’ spatial preferences and needs, and to design an appropriate replacement for I-345 in Dallas, TX that respect the culture and history of the Deep Ellum neighborhood, improves the connection between Deep Ellum and Downtown, and enhances the identity and economy of the city.
This design master thesis follows a four-step process using qualitative methods (Creswell 2008) to assess stakeholders’ spatial preferences and needs, and to redesign the I-345 corridor in Downtown Dallas, TX for its best use for the future. First, the histories of urban highways and their removal, as well as Deep Ellum and Downtown, are reviewed and documented. Next, four case studies of similarly affected cities are likewise reviewed and documented. One-on-one in-depth interviews are then conducted with seven people who live and work in Deep Ellum and local design and/or community experts. Finally, the spatial qualities of the area are documented using passive site observation, photography, and GIS mapping techniques. The findings from these steps are then used to produce a design vision for the segment of I-345 corridor that resides between Deep Ellum and Downtown Dallas.
The findings illustrate that the best use for this area based on stakeholders’ preferences and needs includes, but is not limited to, uses such as a walkable mixed-use neighborhood, communal green space, promotion of history and culture through public art, and affordable housing. Furthermore, the study concludes a necessity for a depressed highway (I-345) covered with a deck park which connects Downtown and Deep Ellum. As more cities try to correct the design and planning mistakes of the past, landscape architects are uniquely poised to help create new urban connections and green spaces that strengthen their communities. The space occupied by I-345 has the potential to become a new transitional neighborhood that connects Deep Ellum to Downtown, while simultaneously improving the city’s walkability and spotlighting what remains of the rich arts culture of Deep Ellum. Such scrupulous design also has the potential to preserve the culture and history of the Deep Ellum neighborhood, improve the connection between southern Dallas and Downtown, and enhance the identity and economy of the city as a whole.
2022-12-12T00:00:00ZDesigning Cemeteries for Personal Expressions in the San Francisco Bay Areahttp://hdl.handle.net/10106/309782022-11-18T21:13:37Z2022-08-15T00:00:00ZDesigning Cemeteries for Personal Expressions in the San Francisco Bay Area
Our country’s largest cities have become more racially and ethnically diverse than they were in 2010 (US News, 2020). Differences are present and yet, our cemeteries, originally catering to a predominantly Caucasian market (Sloane, 1991), remain Eurocentric in design (Jones, 2011). The purpose of this master’s design thesis is to determine the design principles and elements necessary for a cemetery that is transformed by the personal expressions exhibited by visitors after the day of burial. The study focuses specifically on cemeteries in the San Francisco Bay Area. The findings were used to develop a new kind of cemetery typology that aims to have cemetery design be led by behavior, activities, rituals, and traditions of its users rather than being led solely by the personal and business preferences of cemetery designers and professionals.
This study utilizes qualitative research methods (Sommer & Sommer, 2002) beginning with a literature review to see what issues may be addressed by this study and to gain insight on how to improve cemetery design (Sommer & Sommer, 2002). Data collection began with initial site visits to cemeteries that included notes derived from photo documentation and casual observation (Sommer & Sommer, 2002). Case study sites were then selected from these initial visits to conduct systematic observations in using tally sheets and ethnograms/observation sheets (Sommer & Sommer, 2002).
Adopting the case study pattern used by Marcus and Francis in their book, People Places (Marcus & Francis, 1998), the gathered data was analyzed and synthesized to reveal insights on the successful and unsuccessful features in cemetery design as it relates to personal expressions, sufficiently informing the researcher in developing the final non-sectarian cemetery design (Simonds & Starke, 2006) adapted for the city of Oakland.
The design concludes the study and addresses the findings on the design features and elements that conflict with personal expressions such as lack of delineation, missing features and elements for a gathering space, conflicting rules, and inaccessibility. The design also reflects the design features and elements that encourage personal expression such as the gravestones designed as and for personal expression, vertical elements, and personal maintenance.
The knowledge produced from this research contributes to the field as it aids landscape architects in creating inclusive cemeteries that encourage personal expression of its users. These landscapes have the potential of not just ameliorating the pain of death, but also providing the opportunity for cultural preservation and meaning.
2022-08-15T00:00:00ZDesigning Neighborhood-Scale Green Infrastructure (GI) to Improve the Health and Well-Being of Industry-Adjacent Communities through Air Pollution Mitigation in Joppa, Texashttp://hdl.handle.net/10106/304142022-11-15T19:45:11Z2022-05-17T00:00:00ZDesigning Neighborhood-Scale Green Infrastructure (GI) to Improve the Health and Well-Being of Industry-Adjacent Communities through Air Pollution Mitigation in Joppa, Texas
Ambient outdoor air pollution kills roughly 4.2 million people every year worldwide and is linked as a contributing factor to diseases such as asthma, cancer, infertility, and neurological disorders. In the United States, minority communities are more likely to live near sources of air pollution, such as highways and industrial sites, and therefore face higher risks of developing the associated health difficulties. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), people of color (POC) are exposed to disproportionately higher levels of ambient fine particulate matter (PM) air pollution, regardless of income levels or region. While the EPA monitors and enforces outdoor air quality standards across the US, there are not regulatory standards for the distances between air pollution sources and neighborhoods. There is a need for site-specific and short-term solutions. The EPA recommends tree planting as a strategy for improving air quality, with total annual air pollution removal by US urban trees estimated to be 711,000 metric tons, a $3.8 billion value. This design thesis explores the benefits of Green Infrastructure (GI) in addressing air pollution as well as secondary benefits including but not limited to decreased flood risk, increased access to open green space, and increased-community value. A multi-method approach is used to study the issues of air pollution and vegetation, employing GIS-mapping, case-studies, expert interviews, and i-Tree planting calculator to produce findings which can inform a design. The GIS findings resulted in a map of Dallas revealing where PM air pollution and asthma rates are highest. Case studies revealed how landscape architecture has addressed air pollution in other scenarios and informed the development of design principles: greener edges, green gradient, green lots and green corridors. Expert interviews resulted in recommendations on site specific solutions for addressing air pollution, by sharing maps and data with the interviewees. Lastly, i-Tree planting calculator produced from a list of trees the quantifiable benefits of a planting plan, such as PM captured, Ozone removed, Stormwater intercepted, and Carbon sequestered. Then, the design principles, the planting palette, and other findings of this research are then applied to a master plan design for Joppa, Texas, a low-income Dallas freedmen’s town that is currently exposed to high levels of air pollution and secondary health risks such as flooding, lack of public transit and lack of immediate access to grocery stores.
2022-05-17T00:00:00ZTHE ROLE OF TEMPORARY INSTALLATIONS TOWARDS PERMANENCY IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENThttp://hdl.handle.net/10106/303912022-11-15T17:24:48Z2022-05-09T00:00:00ZTHE ROLE OF TEMPORARY INSTALLATIONS TOWARDS PERMANENCY IN THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT
Heralding a new wave against “business-as-usual” planning, design and development practice that had in part brought about the Global Crash of 2008 (Marcinkoski, 2016), the rise in rapid and temporary design typologies, like Park(ing) Day or Better Block (CNU Next Gen, 2010), suggested a new direction that recognized that if you wanted to make a positive change in the built environment, it was easier to act first and apologize afterwards (Lydon et al, 2012). Taking the responsibility of living in the city into their own hands, a new guard of designers looked to the unfinished skeletons of civic construction to open up possibilities, test scenarios and subvert preconceptions of what our cities should be like, and how we should behave in them.
Set against the backdrop of catastrophic civic public space development (Kunstler, 2003), the research investigates the rise of temporary installations (such as Tactical Urbanism) over the last decade, and its current state of practice within allied design fields, accessing whether these short-term temporary solutions are a viable mechanism for long term “place making” (Casey, 1996). The research specifically focuses on understanding landscape architecture’s position in this arena.
The research primarily uses qualitative techniques (Deming & Swaffield, 2011), adopting a three-step procedure to assess temporary installations within the context of landscape architecture practice. First it conducts a comprehensive review of the literature amongst design and planning fields to understand the state of temporary installations in landscape architecture. Then, using convenience sampling methods, researcher selects nine temporary projects across the globe for in-depth evaluation with secondary data. Where possible, post-occupancy evaluation methods are also utilized to assess the impact on long term place-making in subset of cases (Marcus & Francis, 1998). Lastly, semi-structured interviews with professionals, often intimately connected to the case studies, are used to test the evaluation results. Data findings were analyzed using a Grounded Theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990) and common themes are drawn in response to the pursued research questions.
In conclusion, this research reveals that despite its detractors suggesting temporary installations being just a cover up for failing governments (Minkjan & Boer, 2016), this does prove to be a preferred method of generating long term positive change (Kent & Nikitin, 2011). Permanency, in this regard, offers two alternate perspectives; not just in long-standing of site, but also as permanently reshaping the perception of local identity and place (Reynolds in interview, Spittle 2019), and that it is difficult to get to long-term placemaking thinking without the use of temporary installations (Lydon in interview, Spittle, 2019). It is this researcher’s view that short-lived projects can remedy existing urban norms, activating not just those landscapes in transition, but also the public imagination. This research also reveals that the role of landscape architecture can be significant in contrast to the success of those in the allied fields of architecture and planning.
2022-05-09T00:00:00Z