Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / William P. Winslow III / Sports venues require large amounts of parking to facilitate the number of spectators attending an event. The parking, mostly surface, is underutilized when compared to traditional parking lots accommodating daily use. Large parking surfaces alter the natural hydrological cycle by generating large volumes of runoff. Over time, pollutants build up on a parking surface and are discharged into a stormwater drainage system during a rain event. The intent of the research is to investigate the use of Best Management Practices that ultimately reduce the pollutant loads created by stormwater runoff while creating amenities for spectators that could potentially generate revenue. The focus of the study will be on a 400 acre sports venue in Kansas City, Missouri, the Truman Sports Complex. To understand retrofitting stormwater management practices, one must understand how large parking lots are constructed and understand successful examples. Through the use of archival research, interviews and analysis of two parking lot case studies, Northgate Mall in Seattle, Washington and US Cellular Field in Chicago, Illinois, the research analyzed how retrofitting design solutions are utilized to reduce stormwater pollutant loads. Each case study documents a distinct type of retrofitting strategy; bioswales at Northgate Mall and permeable concrete pavers at US Cellular Field. Using the Design Point Method developed by the Center for Watershed Protection, the research analyzes each case study retrofit design solution - conceptually and post construction. The Design Point Method allowed the research to measure the success of retrofitting strategies and informed the research to as to how the strategies could be implemented at the Truman Sports Complex. The conclusion of the project is a retrofit design solution of a surface parking lot at the Truman Sports Complex. Using the Design Point Method as an analysis tool, the final study provides compelling evidence that retrofitting existing surface parking lots at sports venues using Best Management Practices provides a sustainable solution to reducing pollutant loads while creating the potential for enhancing the tailgate experience for the sports fan.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / LaBarbara J. Wigfall / Historically downtown St. Joseph was a vibrant urban center where many people came for entertainment and shopping (Bunkowski, 2010). With the rise of the automobile in the 1950’s and 60’s, the city has become largely focused around auto-oriented development. The downtown has been separated from the Missouri River with the construction of Interstate 229 and rail lines, limiting access to the riverfront. Overtime, some of the sites have become contaminated and are now designated as brownfields. Redevelopment of downtown St. Joseph can help solve these problems, and help position the city for future development. By restructuring existing buildings and planning for future infill, as well as incorporating green space into the design of the area, the downtown can once again be a vibrant, vital area of the city. The redevelopment of downtown St. Joseph will focus around creating walkable mixed-use urban fabric that attracts people to the city’s core. Downtown St. Joseph will once again become an important economic and social center for the city. New mixed use development in the downtown will provide places for new businesses and residences in the city. Enhanced connections to the surrounding areas will increase access to the downtown and parks in the area. Improvements to the downtown will make the area a vital part of St. Joseph.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Timothy D. Keane / Over the past 90 years Amman’s population has increased approximately 400 times from 5,000 inhabitants to over two million (Al Rawashdeh and Bassam 2006). As Amman’s population grows, so does their demand for clean water. The climate of Amman has produced only an average 595.5 mm (24.5 in) of rain per year from 1976 – 2005 (Jordan Meteorological Department, 2009). In addition to the need for more water, Amman is also confronted with congested traffic, deteriorating air quality and lack of public open space. Implementation of green or sustainable infrastructure in new urban development projects will aid in supporting the projected growth of Jordan’s capital city. Living machines, ephemeral water features and eco-roofs are ways of improving water quality. The flat roofs of old and new Amman architecture create opportunities for the implementation of eco-roofs with minimal amounts of effort. Ephemeral water features within open space creates a dynamic environment throughout the year. Landscaped parks and plazas will be a fusion of the rich history, culture, and place contributing to the city’s movement towards sustainability. Further study of the interaction between green infrastructure and pedestrian experience in Amman will determine what is possible in future urban development projects.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary Catherine E. Kingery-Page / This project addresses landscape acoustics for a complex site and complex program. The site is a campus owned by two separate yet equally important entities, the Aspen Music Festival and School and the Aspen Country Day School. Each owner has very different program requirements for the Campus. Because of a mountainous setting the Campus is surrounded by natural hazards affecting the development potential of the site. Most importantly, the program requires performance and practice spaces for the music students. These spaces should be acoustically sound. However, acoustics in the outdoors is rarely thought of in the design profession. More often, sound is considered strictly in the sense of noise control. Carefully placing and designing the outdoor spaces for the students will enhance the acoustic quality, environmental sensitivity and unity of the campus as a significant and unique place. To enhance the acoustical experience of the Castle Creek Campus this research addresses what characteristics affect the movement of sound. This research identifies which outdoor environments propagate or hinder sound movement. A comparative sound study first identifies, locates and records characteristics of the campus. Some of these characteristics include the height of tree canopy, amount of enclosure, and surface type, for example. The audio recordings of the characteristics are then analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, and ranked accordingly. This method allows for replicable results in other geographical areas. The ranking system results show that the appropriate location for the primary performance space is near calm water with little obstruction on three sides. The location for the practice spaces is generally, most appropriate in heavily wooded areas with dense canopy coverage. The results of the research guide the location and design of the required outdoor performance and practice spaces for the Castle Creek Campus serves as an example for incorporating acoustics into design.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Timothy D. Keane / Naturalistic landscapes have increased in popularity, especially in the landscape architecture profession, due to the push for greener and more sustainable landscape designs in civic spaces. The increase in popularity and resulting use of naturalistic landscapes by landscape architects creates a need to understand users’ preferences for naturalistic landscapes. Users need to have moderate to high preference levels for the naturalistic landscape spaces in order for such spaces to be successful. This work identifies and explains civic spaces, characteristics of traditional landscape designs, characteristics and history of naturalistic landscapes, and characteristics and details of previous preference studies that focused on people’s preferences for natural areas. This study also identifies current preference levels and background characteristics of respondents, which are used to determine who does and does not prefer naturalistic landscapes in civic spaces and why. A survey questionnaire targeted toward users of naturalistic landscapes identified opinions, preferences, and statistical data relevant to this study. A total of sixty-one surveys were completed and collected from two separate survey sites. Survey results were used to determine: 1. Preference levels of the respondents. 2. Background characteristics and values of the respondents. 3. Correlations and patterns between respondents’ preference levels and their background characteristics. 4. Correlations and patterns between respondents’ preference levels and their values and opinions. 5. Differences between the results from the two survey sites. Survey results and analyses indicate that perceived safety is a major factor that influences preference levels. Background characteristics such as the level of formal education and the participation in classes and seminars that focus on topics relevant to naturalistic landscapes are also significant indicators of preference levels. Another of the indicators is the participation in outdoor activities of all sorts. Along with determining the indicators of preference levels, the survey results were used in the comparison of the results from the two survey locations.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Jessica Canfield / Riverfronts and greenways are our retreat to nature within the urban setting. They provide connections, opportunity for recreation, habitat for flora and fauna, and most importantly spaces that encourage exercise and social interaction. When these areas are located within the urban context, they are especially susceptible to the degradation that comes with the development of an area such as pollution, erosion, and in some cases lack of care or maintenance. The riverfront in Wichita suffers from three hindrances that restrict it from becoming an asset to the community and compromises human and ecological health along the river. Limited accessibility, a lack of recreational amenities, and poor environmental quality all contribute to the river being under-utilized. While these three elements compromise the site, the location makes it a prime candidate for transformation, creating a cohesive riverfront that has great potential to be utilized by the residents of a quickly growing downtown area. Through the establishment of these dilemmas a framework that focuses on the access and awareness, recreational amenities, and corridor enhancement can then be applied to the Wichita Riverfront. The Wichita Riverfront will encompass active and passive recreation that promotes human health through exercise, social interaction, and improved ecological conditions.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / William P. Winslow III / Synthetic turf has been used extensively for football, soccer, and baseball playing surfaces as a substitute for natural turf because of its increased durability, low maintenance costs, and similar characteristics. The popularity, however, has not extended to golf courses, a seemingly appropriate application. Golf courses are prized for their aesthetic beauty, and their maintenance requires regular, detailed upkeep with particular attention to fairways, tees, greens, hazards, and the surrounding landscape. The combination of regular mowing, watering, grooming, and application of chemicals aim to strengthen the overall appearance of the golf course, but have negative effects on the ecologic and economic values of the golf course. Is it possible to use synthetic turf to reduce the ecologic and economic effects of golf course maintenance, while still providing an aesthetically pleasing playing surface and environment? This study develops three methodologies from the primary areas of concern: ecologic, economic, and aesthetic. The ecologic method uses criteria derived from the Sustainable Sites Initiative. Criteria in the economic method assist in understanding the cost efficiency of synthetic turf over time. Finally, the aesthetic method contains criteria that define characteristics that affect the look of the golf course. These methods are then organized into a metric structure with the respective evaluation criteria. Using the two re-designed options of Lakeside Hills Municipal Golf Course in Olathe, Kansas as the site for application, the methodologies are evaluated for three different scenarios, the traditional turf course, a partial replacement with synthetic turf, and a full replacement, and given a score. This score provides a quantitative value to weigh the ecologic, economic, and aesthetic benefits and constraints of synthetic turf in a golf course application, and important initial step in discovering its viability in the golf course design industry.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary Catherine E. Kingery-Page / Over the past centuries, modernization and industrialization has resulted in increasingly disconnected communities. With the advent and increased availability of the personal vehicle, the desire for larger homes on larger lots, and a steady increase in population, cities are all-too-often relinquishing their open and community-oriented spaces to concrete and mortar. Gone are the medieval days in which cities and towns were centered on large community spaces - places where residents could gather, work, shop, and play together. Therefore, this Master’s Project and Report proposes the reintroduction of the town square – the quintessentially European notion of a central city space – as a means to unify modern American cities. To support this proposal, existing research regarding the various characteristics and qualities of squares is compiled. The resulting information, including work by Carolyn Francis and Claire Cooper Marcus, Cliff Moughtin, Leon Krier, and Camillo Sitte, is then critiqued and synthesized in order to establish function, form and spatial organization typologies of squares. These typologies address not only the use and formal attributes of individual squares, but also where squares should be located and how they can link to one another in order to form larger networks. Together, the research and types substantiate the square as both a refuge from the city and a place for community members to connect. In order to test the community connectivity of public squares, the research and typologies are applied to Super Neighborhood 22 in Houston, Texas. Houston established Super Neighborhoods as a means to link neighboring communities. In many cases, though, disconnections occur between the various natural and social systems found within the combined neighborhoods. Therefore, this Master’s Project and Report proposes a network of public squares as a means to unite the contrasting land uses, residents, and natural systems found within Super Neighborhood 22’s eleven smaller communities.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Stephanie A. Rolley / People living in urban and suburban areas are disconnected from agriculture. The food that we consume is grown many miles from our homes and we have little knowledge of how that food travels from seed to plate. Incorporating edible landscapes into public land in cities brings people in direct contact with the food they eat. Edible landscapes are neighborhood scale sites with the specific purpose of producing food. Edible landscapes became popular in the late 1970s. Typically developed with a focus on food production and little attention to aesthetics, the general public often thinks of these landscapes as messy and farm-like. Through quality design edible landscapes can be productive and aesthetically pleasing. The combination of these ideals create exciting and unique solutions that differ from the edible landscapes of the past. Attention to site and community design principles as well as growing conditions results in a new type of public landscape that can enhance a community’s appearance while feeding its residents. A typology of edible landscapes was applied to Manhattan, Kansas to test the potential for a community-wide system of edible landscapes. The typology is based on: garden purpose, physical characteristics, visual characteristics, and potential user groups. The inventory of public land is based upon the Diggable City project in Portland, Oregon. Potential sites were evaluated on their physical characteristics, visual profile, and design potential to determine what garden type would be most appropriate. Further analysis of each site’s design potential resulted in the selection of three sites for prototypical design development. The prototypical designs provide examples of how design principles and growing conditions can work together to create new edible landscapes and enrich the community.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture / Stephanie A. Rolley / The location and type of future development around a light rail transit station has the ability to affect its success of failure. Not only should the location of the future light rail line be carefully considered, but the locations of stops will greatly affect future development of the surrounding areas. The implementation of a light rail system has been proposed for downtown Kansas City as a solution to link its many attractions which are currently spread throughout the metro area. Although the proposal has not been passed by voters, the concept has generated a great deal of interest and brought up challenges Kansas City would need to address such as funding, alignment, space requirements and impacts on future development. The success of such a large scale, public project would require significant amounts of coordination and planning between many people. By using the current proposed alignment and studying seven stations located in the core of downtown Kansas City, the station which would require a station district plan the most could be determined. From there, through inventory and analysis of the surrounding area, guidelines would be written to put parameters on future development occurring as a result of light rail implementation. Planning a transit station district in this way would allow the planner to create a unified district, without confining designers to a singular approach. By completing a comprehensive development plan containing design policies and regulations which outline the desired development, this neighborhood can become a dynamic transit district with a mix of retail, commercial and residential development to support a high quality of lifestyle with access to a wide variety of amenities close to downtown Kansas City.