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North Old Town in Alexandria, Virginia currently has two abandoned parcels, the 500 and 501 North Union Parcels. 500 Parcel is well under the planning stage to be rede- veloped into a new hotel. This leaves 501 Parcel as a perfect opportunity for a thesis project location. This site is relatively flat. It is located between Oronoco Bay Park and Founders Park with no safe way to walk or bike from one park to the other. The site breaks a contentious walking path along the Potomac River Waterfront. The 1960s the warehouse on the site was demolished last year down to the concrete slab which is currently fenced off from the public. The site also includes a large concrete dock, railroad spur, and three underground storage tanks. The site is screaming for help! The project's goals are to provide (1) a waterfront connection between the two parks, and (2) an educational experience about the plastic recycling program to local residents and youth groups. The design pushes local recycling solutions with a small production warehouse space. It promotes recycling plastic materials into construction materials like lumber and blocks. In this design, the building includes two main sections which are the production ware- house space and the civic educational space. The warehouse space receives recycled plastic materials that have been crushed into cubes by the baler at the recycling center. The major issue the US is dealing with is that plastics are sorted and crushed at the recycling centers, where they remain unused. No one is willing to buy crushed plastics to convert them into new products. The plastics are either contaminated from not being properly being cleaned or the cost to melt and mold the plastics is not profitable for resale. The warehouse space will turn the recycled plastics into new construction materials like lumber and blocks. The civic educational space will educate kids and adults about the plastic recycling process through experiences like exhibits tours, artwork, training and being part of the process. / Master of Architecture / Just north of Old Town Alexandria in Virginia, this vacant warehouse and pier property sits on the waterfront of the Potomac River. The property sits between Oronoco Bay Park and Founders Parks so it disrupts a continuous waterfront path ending into Old Town Alexandria. This thesis design, Tomorrow's Bottle, attempts to connect the two parks along the waterfront with an active public pier. The major issue the US is dealing with is that plastics are sorted and crushed at the recycling centers, where they remain unused. No one is willing to buy crushed plastics to convert them into new products. This thesis design includes two main programs which are the production warehouse space and the civic educational space. The warehouse space will turn the recycled plastics into new construction materials for local builders. The civic educational space will educate local residents and large youth groups about the plastic recycling process through experiences in the building.

In an effort to bolster Old Town Alexandria Virginia's burgeoning reputation as a mecca for the arts, I chose to design a dance center, set in what is currently a large parking lot adjacent to King Street's terminus at the Potomac River. Given the importance of movement to my site, especially in terms of pedestrians and the Potomac River, a dance center is a fitting building type. To aid in crafting a cohesive building that spoke to both the demands of the site and the programmatic needs of a dance center, I looked to movement as the answer to all design quandaries: movement as thesis. I developed a stepped parti- a concept informed by strategies to invite, accommodate, and glorify movement. All elements of the building reinforce this parti to create a holistic building. The building follows the ascension of a primary staircase, and is supported by a multitude of columns, simultaneously reminiscent of a corps de ballet and an enchanted forest, both staples in the classical story ballet. / Master of Architecture

La solution la plus pratique et économique pour réduire la congestion est d'améliorer les systèmes de contrôle de la circulation, en particulier les feux de circulation. Ces systèmes ont des impacts importants sur les temps d'attente, les risques d'accident et la consommation inutile de carburant. La majorité de ces systèmes est cependant statique, c'est-à-dire que la programmation est fixe. Ils sont donc mal adaptés aux variations de la demande et peu réceptifs à la demande. Les deux principaux objectifs de cette thèse étaient de réduire la complexité pour la gestion des feux de circulation en temps réel et de proposer un modèle pour collecter les données nécessaires pour appliquer notre approche dans la vie réelle. L'approche proposée pour atteindre le premier objectif, s'inspire du travail d'un agent de circulation humain. Elle consiste à diminuer les arrêts et à favoriser les déplacements en groupe de véhicules comme les agents de circulation. Pour y arriver, la densité de circulation a été mesurée à chaque instant et les séquences des feux de circulation ont été modifiées au moment propice. Pour la tester, un secteur achalandé de la ville de Québec a été identifié et une simulation avec un simulateur microscopique a été effectuée. Les délais d'attente ont été réduits de façon importante. Notre deuxième objectif était de transférer cette solution dans la vie réelle. Un en jeu fondamental était de mesurer la densité de circulation en temps réel. Cette tâche est cependant coûteuse et nécessite d'installer des appareils vidéo ou autres capteurs disséminés sur le réseau. Une architecture de services a été définie en utilisant les voitures connectées. Il s'agit d'une technologie émergente qui permet d'obtenir la position des véhicules toutes les 0,1 seconde. À partir de cette valeur, il était ensuite possible de calculer la densité de circulation et d'appliquer la solution proposée. La collecte des données, la transmission à un centre de gestion de la circulation, le traitement et l'application de la solution peuvent ainsi se faire instantanément à un coût économique. Cette thèse montre qu'il est possible d'améliorer la performance d'un système de feux de circulation en appliquant des règles basées sur le sens commun et d'avoir une méthode de mise en œuvre pratique et économique pour les transposer dans la vie réelle. Le processus de simulation reste cependant un aperçu de la réalité et il est difficile de prévoir les résultats dans d'autres contextes. Il serait donc avantageux de poursuivre les recherches dans d'autres environnements. Par ailleurs, la technologie des voitures connectées n'est pas encore déployée au Canada. Il est cependant permis d'espérer qu'elle est sur le point d'émerger avec les investissements des constructeurs de véhicules et le déploiement du 5G. Un banc d'essai serait la prochaine étape pour tester la solution proposée in situ. / The most practical and economical solution to reduce congestion in the cities is to improve traffic control systems, especially traffic lights signals. These systems have significant impacts on waiting times, accident risks and unnecessary fuel consumption. The majority of these systems are however static, that is to say that the programming is fixed or pre-timed. They are therefore not receptive to demand. The two main objectives of this thesis were to reduce the complexity for the management of traffic lights in real time and to propose a model to collect the data necessary to apply our approach in real life. The approach proposed to achieve the first goal, is inspired by the work of a human circulation officer. It consists of reducing stops and encouraging group travel of vehicles such as traffic officers do in real life. To achieve this, the traffic density was measured continuously, and the traffic light sequences were modified accordingly. To test our approach, a busy sector of Quebec City was identified and a simulation with a microscopic simulator was performed. Waiting times have been reduced significantly. Our second goal was to transfer this solution in real life. However, a fundamental challenge was to measure traffic density at every moment as request in our approach. This task is expensive and requires installing video devices or other sensors scattered over the network. A new service architecture model has therefore been developed to work around this problem and it relies on connected cars technology. This technology allows to obtain the vehicle position every 0.1 second on a road network and it was the necessary ingredient to apply our approach in real life. From this value, it was then possible to calculate the traffic density and apply the proposed solution. Thus, data collection, transmission to a traffic management center, processing and application of the solution could be done instantly at an economical cost. This thesis therefore shows that it is possible to improve the performance of current traffic light systems by applying rules based on common sense and to apply a practical and economical implementation method to transpose them into real life. Furthermore, a limitation of our work is that the simulation process is an overview of the reality and it is difficult to predict the results of the experiment in other contexts. It would therefore be advantageous to continue research in other environments. In addition, the technology of connected cars is not yet deployed in Canada. However, it is hoped that this technology is about to emerge with current massive investment by vehicle manufacturers and deployment of 5G. A test bed would be the next step to test the solution proposed in situ.