Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary C. Kingery-Page / A 2009 research report by the U.S. Census Bureau and the National Resources Inventory predicts that the developed area in the United States will increase by 54.4 million acres during the next 25 years (McMahon 2010, 2). America’s rural landscape and character is replaced everyday by “placeless” neighborhoods with limited emphasis on conservation efforts. The intent of this report is to demonstrate the benefits of applying conservation design principles to the development of a conservation subdivision in rural Kansas. A 132 acre tract of land, currently known as Nelson’s Ridge, is planned and designed for a subdivision development. The property is located just east of Manhattan, Kansas. The site includes a tributary drainage corridor surrounded by woodlands, existing agriculture fields and upland prairie. It is located no more than a mile from existing amenities of a growing residential and commercial corridor along Highway 24 in Pottawatomie County. The preliminary plat designed by local engineering firm Schwab-Eaton, demonstrates America’s typical or “conventional” approach to subdivision design (Arendt, 1996). The alternative approach is known as a low-impact development or “conservation development” (Gause 2007). After completing a thorough site inventory and analysis, two preliminary designs eventually led to a final conceptual master plan. The two preliminary designs included contemporary and neo-traditional schemes, each portraying conservation principles in alternative ways. Fully understanding the two design alternatives allowed for a balanced and more cohesive final design that incorporated the most positive aspects of both conservation approaches. The preliminary plat and the conservation design were then compared and analyzed in terms of demonstrated design principles and their economic feasibility. This project provides an example for rural subdivision development in Pottawatomie County, Kansas. The project provides decision makers with a conceptual master plan for Nelson’s Ridge that implements conservation subdivision design principles. This project will educate developers, homeowners and the public about design alternatives for subdivision development. The comprehensive analysis of the proposed design will provide important insight into the benefits and limitations of implementing conservation principles into a development.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Laurence A. Clement / Street musicians and performers attract people to public spaces. These performers, or ‘buskers’ as they are commonly referred, typically congregate along specific streets, parks, plazas, and transit stops in a city. The term pitch describes the place buskers perform. Pedestrian flow, visibility, and acoustics are just some of the factors that street performers consider when selecting a pitch. While performers resourcefully adapt to the challenges of different pitches, public spaces often do little to accommodate performers and their audiences. William Whyte observed how street performances facilitate social interactions between strangers and give character to cities and neighborhoods. Relative Pitch explores where performances occur and how they benefit public places. Case studies of popular busking locations establish a typology of squares, streets, and transit stops. Video clip analysis of street performances demonstrates the spatial relations between performer and audience. Dimensions and observations from these case studies provided insight and information for the application of the typology to proposed sites in Wichita, Kansas. Buskers adapt pitches relative to their physical environment. Point, linear, planar, and volumetric elements define and articulate temporary stages, audience space, and circulation paths during performances. Design proposals for the typology sites in Wichita illustrate how flexible performance spaces can be incorporated in squares, streets, and transit stops. This project looks at ways to activate public spaces by encouraging street performance.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Lee R. Skabelund / College and university campuses have the potential to organize buildings, outdoor spaces, pedestrian corridors, roadways, parking lots, and infrastructure all within one cohesive and unified place. Dynamic but unified spaces are typically the result of thoughtful architecture, landscape architecture, and years of planning. Recognizable design styles, material use, and plant palettes work together to create something bigger than simply a collection of buildings, transportation corridors, and outdoor spaces. Each building, group of buildings, series of spaces, transportation feature, and infrastructural component needs to be designed and implemented with the entire campus in mind to be truly successful. When planned correctly, a unified campus can harbor innovation, provide inspiration, and initiate interaction. Stouffer Place Apartments has evolved into a secluded housing development within the midst of the busy University of Kansas (KU) campus. Apartments are only available to graduate students, international students, students with families, non-traditional students, and post-doctoral researchers. Stouffer Place has maintained a quiet and peaceful atmosphere at the corner of 19th and Iowa in Lawrence, Kansas since 1957. Like so many of the university housing developments built after World War II, Stouffer Place is full of aging infrastructure, providing the basis for a discussion of a new or renovated development on the site (Casey-Powell 1999, 86). Not only are the aging Stouffer Place buildings an eyesore to many people in the community, but their existing arrangement limits community interaction and shared space. Additionally, many of the Stouffer Place apartment buildings are near the end of their lifetime, but they can they be recycled, reused, and deconstructed to create dynamic spaces for the residents. In short, Stouffer Place can be redeveloped to create a new model of affordable, sustainable, and self-sufficient on-campus apartments that attract and retain students as well as create a higher quality of life. With the growing trend of sustainable building practices, KU’s Department of Student Housing (DSH) has an immense opportunity to transform this student community into a model for other universities nationwide. By implementing a design strategy that successfully reuses and phases out the existing built infrastructure of the site, a place that facilitates sustainable living and community interaction will be created. Through this project, the culture and identity of Stouffer Place is revealed and catalyzed, using the missions of KU and DSH to create a plan that supports, sustains, and creates.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Laurence A. Clement / Contemporary design of the urban environment focuses increasingly upon the quality of space found within the public right-of-way. Landscape architects and urban planners are beginning to ask new questions that deviate from the conventional streetscape designs of the latter half of the 20th century. Under the mantra “complete the streets,” communities all across America are calling for a paradigm shift towards multimodal, pedestrian-scaled urban rights-of-way. At the same time, existing stormwater and combined sewer infrastructure is nearing the end of its productive lifespan in cities all across the country and world. The direct costs associated with repairing this infrastructure combined with the indirect costs of poor water quality and a greater frequency and intensity of flooding events downstream present a strong argument for developing new, innovative ideas about how to best design the stormwater infrastructure of tomorrow. The reintegration of ecological processes into the urban fabric will act as a catalyst for the appreciation of genius loci (spirit of the place) and user meaning while mitigating downstream flooding, increasing water quality, and extending the lifespan of existing stormwater infrastructure. By studying the hierarchical categorization of urban rights-of-way according to increased levels of user orientation, this research project aims to clearly articulate a new theoretical framework for expanding upon the current discourse surrounding “complete streets” and “green streets” theory. In the long-term, it is both economically and socially profitable for cities to use ecological processes to reclaim auto-oriented, urban rights-of-way as valuable public space for the health, safety, and welfare of all their users.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Jessica Canfield / Interactive technology is rapidly affecting our society, extending opportunities for convenience, communication, function, and pleasure. Defined as electronic or computation-based entities that reciprocate human use or action, interactive technology allows people the opportunity to personalize how something looks, how it feels, what it does, and how it is perceived. Many physical objects, such as a home thermostat system or a motion-activated sculpture, are embedded with computation that allows them to detect certain environmental influences, and respond with a purposeful action. As suggested by Malcolm McCullough, interactive technologies will be implemented into the urban environment, grounding them to a specific place and reflecting the character and context. Interactive technology will be combined with traditional urban design practices to generate an interactive urban environment. The Civic Room in Downtown St. Louis is prime for renewal. Underutilized and monotonous, the park space is seen as a tear in the urban fabric and lacks diverse program opportunities. The Civic Room will be used as a testing ground for an interactive urban environment, utilizing three dimensions of interactive technology, including information exchange, creative expression, and kinetics, as well as the specific elements of an effective urban open space (Whyte, 1980). Then, the existing site and resulting interactive urban environment will be evaluated on its potential to improve certain dimensions of performance (Lynch, 1981), and its impact on the identity and use of the space. Engaging an interactive urban environment in the St. Louis Civic Room will promote an understanding of the effects that interactive technology can begin to have in a larger context. It will activate the space, promote social collaboration, and establish a dynamic atmosphere that reflects more closely the desired intent of all users. In turn, it can propel the opportunity to approach interactive urban environments as an alternative method of urban space design.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Eric A. Bernard / Many mountain resorts lack balance in revenue from season to season. Mountain resorts are most often geared toward, and capitalize on, peak ski season, receiving much less visitation and revenue in the summer season and even more so in the spring and fall. Due to projected climate changes, “increasing temperatures will affect important winter activities such as downhill and cross country skiing, snowshoeing, and snowmobiling, which require snow on the ground. Projections indicate later snow and less snow coverage in ski resort areas” (Karl, Melillo, Peterson, 133). This indicates an even greater need for a shift to year-round attractions for visitors in order to balance the revenue stream of mountain resorts. The infusion of an all-season action sports camp is a catalyst to generate an increase in year-round visitation and profit for the resort. Examples of action sports include skiing, snowboarding, skateboarding, BMX biking, and mountain biking. When integrating an action sports camp into the existing resort, striving for balance, harmony, and oneness between the existing and proposed is imperative to success. These principals are present in the sports and allow for the connection from the athletes to the landscape. With any proposed development, specifically in mountain environments, potential environmental impacts are an issue, especially at a site where the natural scenic beauty is in such high demand. “It is the resort’s environment that draws the customer” Schwanke, 119). The relationships between the mountain, resort, camp, and users must be balanced and work in harmony with each other. Copper Mountain Resort provides an ideal location to implement this strategy. Catalyst Action Sports Camp plays on the tension between the mountain and the human, capitalizing on the balance, harmony, and oneness between them. Campers are connected to the surrounding mountain majesty through directed views, inspiring and exciting them to progress their skills and challenge their fears and become one with the mountain. Catalyst is infused into the existing resort, harmonizing with resort operations and stimulating life in the village in all seasons. Ultimately,Catalyst Action Sports Camp helps balance the revenue stream and provide additional stability given changing climate scenarios.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary C. Kingery-Page / Over time the conventional design process has minimally evolved from Hideo Sasaki’s staged-design process, one of the original models of landscape architectural design process (Murphy 2005, 50; Sasaki 1950, 35). Different types of conventional design process, as it is called in this study, incorporate more stages, devoting more time to each; however, the stages are still completed in an exact order due to the focus on problem solving. The lack of encouragement for personal creative thinking through an individual creative process within the conventional design processes used today is apparent in both the profession and the education of landscape architects today. Because a creative process does not simply solve problems but encourages creative thinking throughout design, the profession would see greater generation of new ideas if landscape architects began to embrace a more creative process, as identified by Graham Wallas in the 1920s (Lawson 2006, 149-150; Herrman 1995; Goswami and Goswami 1999, 43-44). Interviews with highly creative, or avant-garde, landscape architects, such as Thomas Balsley, Claude Cormier, Mikyoung Kim and Peter Walker, and assumedly creative artists helped to provide answers to primary research questions: How does the design process of avant-garde landscape architects compare to the assumedly creative process used by artists? And how can the conventional landscape architectural design process be reframed to incorporate more creative thinking in landscape architectural practice and landscape architectural education? Using a grounded theory approach, in-depth, open-ended interviews were completed with eight subjects. Initial coding themes were based upon broad categories from literature review. Substantial coding and analysis of interviews to find the creative and conventional design processes and characteristics of creativity for each subject resulted in emergent themes and sub-themes from the interviews. Analysis matrices were developed to document commonalities and discrepancies between initial themes from literature review and emergent themes from interviews. Conclusions on findings from initial and emergent themes include:highly creative landscape architects employ non-linear, creative processes throughout design, confidence in personal creativity is imperative to creative thinking, and landscape architectural programs should allow students flexibility and creative license for developing personal design processes.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture,Regional and Community Planning / Blake Belanger / Resilience theory provides an approach for landscape architects to analyze systems and design adaptive environments. C.S. Holling created the theory in response to changing social-ecological systems (Holling 1973). Resilience is the ability of a system to adapt to disturbances and remain in the same state (Walker and Salt 2006). This report proposes a framework that applies resilience to site analysis. The goal of the Resilience Analysis Framework is to help designers address expected and unexpected threats to human well being on a global and local scale. The framework was created by synthesizing findings from a literature review and expert interviews. A literature review based the framework in theory. Interviews with professionals working on the Rebuild by Design (2013) competition grounded the framework in professional practice. The goal of the Rebuild by Design competition was to develop resilient solutions to the changing environment. Synthesizing findings from the literature review and expert interviews resulted in a five part framework. The five parts are: Stakeholder Engagement, System Description & Goal Establishment, System Analysis, System Report, and Prioritization. Stakeholder Engagement is a process that occurs throughout each part of the framework. It includes education, data collection, reporting, and feedback. The System Description & Goal Establishment part describes the basic properties of a system and establishes goals for the future of those properties. System Analysis is an in depth evaluation of the factors determining a system’s level of resilience. The System Report synthesizes the important information from the System Description & Goal Establishment and System Analysis parts. Prioritization performs the essential task of focusing a project by identifying high priority systems. The goals (from the System Description & Goal Establishment and System Analysis parts) for the high priority systems determine the primary goals for the project. These goals inform decisions during the site analysis/strategic planning phase of the design process. The framework was applied to Washington Square Park in Kansas City, Missouri. This application provided an example of how to apply the framework to a park analysis. This report’s main finding was a framework for building evidence to make resilient design decisions.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary Catherine (Katie) Kingery-Page / Restorative landscapes, healing gardens, and therapeutic gardens can improve mental and physical health. They relieve stress, slow us down and make us appreciate the present moment (Kaplan 1995). Research confirms these benefits: “A restorative environment provides measurable physical and/or psychological benefit to human health” (Krinke 2005, 107). Unfortunately, few restorative landscapes are designed for night time use, though stress and the need for healing occur at all hours of the day and night. To that end, the purpose of this research is to create a set of lighting design strategies that will enable designers to create restorative landscapes for nighttime use and demonstrate how they can be applied. A literature review synthesizing the information on healing garden types, outdoor lighting techniques, and their relationship to Attention Restoration Theory, identified four main components required for a space to be considered restorative. Two precedent studies allowed the author to explore the components of Attention Restoration Theory and healing garden types. The lighting principles that afford these four components and healing garden types that are best suited for an urban public space were layered in a final design to create a restorative urban space that is functional at night. The set of design strategies created with the support of this research was applied to Occidental Square, a public park in Seattle, Washington. The applied design strategies are represented and demonstrated through the site design. With these tools in hand, designers can create spaces for those in need of rejuvenation, restoration, and tranquility not only during the day, but also at night.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Blake Belanger / As the world continues to grow and cities continue to change, landscapes architects are constantly challenged with identifying design solutions that address the endless change of urban environments. In 1973, C.S. Holling developed the term “resilience theory,” which identified how social and ecological systems communicate across different landscape scales (Holling, C.S. 1973). In 2013, Kansas State Graduate Kevin Cunningham tested the validity of Holling’s resilience theory as a theoretical basis for urban design. This report attempts to further test the validity of resilience theory as a theoretical basis for social systems within urban design. Methodology utilized includes literature review with specific attention to current social resilience frameworks and guidelines, case study analyses, and an application of the author’s social resilience goals and strategies through a projective design of Washington Square Park, Kansas City, Missouri. Social resilience goals and strategies were developed to respond to social objectives identified within Washington Square Park RFQ/P, GDAP, Main Street Streetcar, Making Grand “Grand” and KCDC’s plan for the park. Objectives were derived based upon their relationship to resilience theory. The created social resilient goals, objectives and strategies will be specific for the revitalization of Washington Square Park. However, the process of identified social resilience goals, objectives and strategies can be utilized as a tool for designs of other urban, civic spaces. The process of identifying social resilience goals, objectives and strategies utilized within this report has the potential to continually promote landscape architects as the primary leaders in urban design practice.