The focus of this thesis is to establish a basis for a typology of New Orleans gardens from 19th Century Notarial drawings. Previous inquires of the New Orleans Notarial Archives drawings emphasized elite gardens of the Vieux Carré and Garden District. This baseline study investigates both vernacular and elite gardens of 159 drawings in the three oldest of the city Municipal Districts during the period 1810-1880, and identifies 19 garden templates. It sets the drawings in their social, political, and historical context to inform a critical understanding of the garden types. The inquiry examines 47 spatial and design variables, using the New Orleans Notarial Archive drawings, photographs, maps, and personal accounts as primary source materials. Quantitative data analysis methods, qualitative image analysis, site observation, and interviews with experts are used. Three products were derived from this study: Property Location Map, Property Variable Data Base, and Lexicon of the three Municipal District gardens. The study findings reveal that while individual properties sometimes vary within a particular garden template type variants are not geographically (and perhaps not culturally) dependant. The garden typology determinants are: space dependence, gardener program, environmental and cultural conditions, vegetation availability, resources, and consensus gardenways. All results are consistent with previous research conclusions. The 19 garden templates identified may be applied in period garden rehabilitation, restoration, and reconstruction.

The objectives of this research are to demonstrate the process of applying perception of safety in a campus environment to actual crimes and to use the results to better implement safety improvements within the campus landscape. The focus of the research is the outdoor environment on a college campus. The Louisiana State University campus was selected as a case study. The survey was developed and tested to better understand how people perceive their surroundings and to incorporate the findings of perception of safety to improve design and planning decisions for the LSU campus. The criteria for a safe design was developed from research gathered on crime prevention and the psychological reactions of users to exterior site features. Crimes reported on the LSU campus were compiled on a crime map in order to analyze whether student perceptions of unsafe and safe areas were justified. The hope of this thesis is to enlighten designers on the subject of crime prevention and the perception of safety in the landscape. Further research on the LSU campus that leads to actual improvements of public safety is encouraged for persons involved in campus planning and maintenance.

Master-planned communities can be designed for the protection of wildlife while providing an aesthetically pleasing, eco-friendly, and affordable community for people. This study was conceived from a background of academic studies in plant biology, forestry, and landscape architecture, and a desire to rescue wildlife habitat from the encroachment of urban sprawl. A variety of books and periodicals were consulted, along with a few web sites. The primary threats to wildlife habitat are habitat fragmentation, pollution, and exotic invasive species of plants, animals, insects, and diseases. Many aspects of planning are addressed, including wildlife corridors, site selection, connecting habitat patches, and stormwater management. With careful planning, new communities can incorporate the principles of sustainable design, building inside natures envelope, green infrastructure, new urbanism, and Smart Growth to protect and preserve wildlife habitat.

This study seeks to identify the key components that would enable neighborhoods to become responsible for the trees under which they dwell-their urban forest. Guidelines will be established for neighborhoods to use to compose a plan that allows them to create and sustain the tree population specific to their needs and desires. To develop these guidelines, this study is divided into two parts. The first section examines urban forestry. This review revealed several issues pertinent to urban forestry: (1) The urban forest is crucial to the health and beauty of the city and is directly linked to the well-being of the city's inhabitants and, (2) there are simply too many trees in a city for municipal arbor crews to provide adequate care for them all. There are however, (3) other resources available to help citizens care for their urban forests. The second section presents case studies of three neighborhoods that have established successful urban forestry programs and projects. The case studies attempt to isolate the ideas, methods, and characteristics of urban forestry programs created and carried through at the neighborhood level. The case studies examine the neighborhood urban forestry projects of three southern neighborhoods: Boulevard Oaks in Houston, Texas; Inman Park in Atlanta, Georgia; and Central High in Little Rock, Arkansas. The case studies examine these three different neighborhoods' projects in terms of these specific components: project name, location, date created, progress to date, date completed, neighborhood description, project background, project goal, role of the project's directors, role the neighborhood residents, maintenance, and lessons learned. As a result of the research and case study analysis, the necessary components were developed to help neighborhoods devise plans and implement urban forestry projects. The guidelines would enable interested neighborhoods to cultivate the urban forest that best meets their neighborhood needs.

This thesis explores what can happen when planners and designers allow local narratives to inspire and inform all stages of community planning and design processes. Specifically, this paper suggests how local narratives can contribute to the ongoing revitalization efforts underway in Old South Baton Rouge, a historically significant, low-income, African-American community in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A personal narrative introduces the subject matter at hand. Thereafter, each chapter is preceded with a narrative interlude to add texture to the ideas presented herein. Chapter two underscores the theoretical and practical relationship between place, memory and development, particularly as this relationship applies to planning methods and development practices for low- income neighborhood revitalization projects. Old South Baton Rouge is introduced in chapter three as an example of a community that has the potential to undergo a revitalization that is founded on local narratives. In chapters four and five the public process components of two in-progress revitalization projects in Old South Baton Rouge are assessed in terms of how well they utilize local narratives and to comprehend the current roles and values of local narratives, public participation and historical context. Chapter six seeks to highlight the potential roles and potential values of these factors in revitalization projects by giving examples of designs and plans founded on local narratives and by proposing plans for Old South Baton Rouge based on existing local narratives. The conclusion asks planners to aim to define success in revitalization efforts within a given area not only by increased private and public investment and increased market values, but equally by the intangible: How many young children in distressed situations are afforded opportunities that help them achieve stability and success against the odds of their own personal circumstances? For the sake of longevity, and for the purpose of developing complex solutions for complex planning matters, this study suggests that revitalization efforts must balance market-driven and people-driven approaches. Utilizing local narratives in public participation is proposed as a means to that end, and therefore, to viable, rich, lasting solutions for complex planning issues faced in urban revitalization projects.

To encourage increased stability in declining neighborhoods, government planning agencies and other land developers, continuously search for solutions to improve the quality of life for people living in communities in need of revitalization and a boost to their local economy. Studies have shown that well developed greenways and other public open spaces are improving the economic stability for many neighborhoods. Consequently, it is the creation of successful parks and public open spaces that have been found to be the first steps to improving such communities (The Trust for Public Land). If creating parks is the key to saving neighborhoods, can a parks design features increase its chances for success, while acting as a catalyst in the movement toward revitalization? Currently in New Orleans, Marigny and Bywater have been targeted as sources of opportunity to test this theory by taking steps to improve their communities through the development of additional public open spaces. Parkway Partners and the Trust for Public Land are negotiating the purchase of a six-block tract of railroad corridor that bisects Bywater near the eastern boundary of Marigny. Their specific objective is to develop a linear park in partnership with the New Orleans Department of Parks and Parkways. Parkway Partners hopes that developing a park will improve the quality of life for the residents and initiate improvements for Marigny and Bywater (Parkway Partners). The intent of this thesis is to develop a new park design for the linear park to be developed along the Press Street corridor. The primary objective is to stimulate improvements within these communities by providing design ideas that have utilized history as the source of inspiration in the development of a park. These design ideas forges distinct historical and cultural links that the community can recognize. No one can truly predict what type of design elements will make a park successful. However, this project does offer creative ideas that could be used to improve that possibility.

This study investigates the use of site-specific art as a means of enhancing and interpreting an historic battlefield. The finding of this study are demonstrated in a series of designs for interpretive installations for the Port Hudson State Historic Site, a Civil War battlefield located in Louisiana. The interpretive methods commonly used in historic battlefields today, as identified in chapter two of this thesis, tend to produce remote relationship between visitors of the current generation and the site. To help visitors understand the meaning of historic battlefields batter, site-specific art is introduced in this thesis as an instrument to retrieve the subtle relationship between humans and their land. To employ art as an interpretive in an historic battlefield is a novel experiment in the United States. This study therefore conducts a review of the genre of site-specific art in order to inform readers of its nature. Notable works by contemporary "land artists" are described, and certain landscape architects' adaptation of site-specific art in historical commemorating are discussed as well. After modes of application of site-specific art are identified, I survey the local history of the study site in order to explore the site specificity of the place through its past patterns of human occupation. The settlements and the Civil War military deployments are both found to have been closely related to local geographic characteristics, demonstrating a high degree of material site-specificity. An ethnography of the Historic Site follows to discover the meanings that the Site's staff and visitors routinely attach to it (immaterial site-specificity). Combing the results of these two studies, the sense of place and the fundamental interpretive subjects of the Site emerge. Several significant spots in the historic site are then selected to demonstrate site-specific art. Through a series of rehabilitative designs, this kind of creative interpretation is shown to be an effective means of conveying the meaning of an historic place to visitors. Applied in conjunction with the existing traditional interpretive methods, site-specific art is thus shown to be effective in bringing a close relationship between the current generation and their legacy of historic battlefields.

This thesis began from my interest in using indigenous architectural and dwelling patterns of fishing villages in coastal Thailand as a model for a new sustainable community. The provincial government has a policy promoting longstay tourism for affluent retirees from other countries, enabling them to experience the natural, historical, and cultural heritage of the area at an economical cost. To fulfill the local government's policy and my intention to design such a facility, this thesis proposes to design an international "ecolodge" for a site near Yisan Village. The area is very peaceful yet it is not so far from downtown Samut Songkhram City. This thesis offers the design of a sustainable resort community as a guide to be adapted to other applications on the specific site using local vernacular building and dwelling patterns in a new situation.

In this study of The Central Garden at the J. Paul Getty Center was found evidence that the Central Garden designed by Robert Irwin is a postmodern garden. Beginning with an evaluation and description of the individual elements and conditions of the garden, the study then explores the larger body of artistic work produced by Irwin. This investigation also extrapolates how the ideas of modernism and postmodernism have been applied to past works of landscape architecture. The precedents provide a basis for interpretation and analysis of the Central Garden. Direct observation of visitors at the Central Garden provided evidence of the gardenâs success as a perceptual work of art. Evaluating the Central Garden by how it choreographs and conditions individual perceptions is important in understanding the work as a postmodern garden. The J. Paul Getty Center is an ideal venue for a comparison between modern and postmodern forms. At the center clear evidence can be seen of the contrasting ideologies between the phenomenal and conditional concerns of Robert Irwin in the Central Garden and the Euclidian timelessness expressed in Richard Meierâs Getty Center buildings and site layout. The Central Garden is a postmodern garden because it abandons classic geometric order and presents instead a formal and organizational structure similar to what postmodern theorist and architect Robert Venturi describes as a difficult whole. The garden displays an internally coherent organization and an order not derived from the architecture. Irwin also recombined past garden types into a new composition. The Central Garden does not present an artistic conception to be translated by the user nor does the garden design imply a pure or universal form.

Inaug.--diss.--Breslau. / Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. [111]-113.