Discusses the development of an online restaurant recommendation system that allows users to search for restaurants in the Los Angeles area. The user can retrieve restaurant information including, name, type of restaurant, address, phone number, rating, prices and map. By logging in, users can also give their own recommendations and rate restaurants. The system also provides functions that allow a system a system administrator to manage the contents of the site. The project is based on Java Server Pages (JSP) language, Java Server Programming, which is a server side scripting language. Utilizes MySQL to maintain persistent data and Tomcat as a web system server.

Ecological planning relies on a keen awareness of relationships between biophysical and social processes, then uses this knowledge for decision making in accommodating for human needs. The value of this planning process allows for design intervention while also ensuring a sustained use of the landscape, with these insights blending skill and artistry into place-making. In the 1960s, environmental concerns galvanized a generation of landscape architects who first codified ecological planning as a rationale for decisions with environmental stewardship. While this is the accepted canon, in the early 20th century during a period of experimentation and exploration, the Olmsted Brothers landscape architecture firm was using ecological principles as foundations for landscape architecture practice. This thesis challenges current discourse and accepted history, presenting evidence that the Olmsted Brothers' work in the 1920s predated many modern ecological theories and applications, and is an important addition to the historiography of ecological planning. This thesis largely focuses on Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. as the central historical figure, offering a more in-depth understanding of the evolution of the firm, and fills the gap of the Olmsted legacy. As the children of Frederick Law Olmsted, Sr., Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (1870-1957) along with his brother John Charles Olmsted (1852-1920) co-founded the Olmsted Brothers and created one of the most prolific landscape architecture practices, developing projects in all aspects of landscape design. The Olmsted Brothers' work in California accounts for over 200 projects, and ranks among the highest number of their 5000 designs developed in the United States. In the early 20th century, the city of Los Angeles offered significant ecological, cultural, and technological challenges for the firm, with the city's unbridled urbanization and proliferate use of water and automobility. Rich in solutions, the firm's built and proposed designs over the course of 20 years revealed the discipline of landscape architecture in its richest and most scalar form. From small scale gardens, residential communities, park and parkway systems, to open space and watershed planning, the Olmsted Brothers created public spaces that worked in relationship to the ecology of the region during a critical juncture in the history of regional planning in Southern California. A range of methods were utilized in this thesis. Primary data provided both qualitative and quantitative material for study and was extracted from letters, reports and writing, drawings, photos, plans and maps. Over 20,000 primary documents, written by the firm's principals, provided the basis for analysis, and in a new way, this thesis interprets not only the written documents, but related construction documents developed from 1914 - 1931. As part of its data collection, an original contribution of this study is a comprehensive corpus of Olmsted Brothers source material from their work in Los Angeles. Methodologies sought to modify these documents into a spatial understanding of their work through digital analysis and re-creation of designs. The Olmsted Brothers' design solutions provide insights into today's ongoing concerns about water management, sustainable urban planning, and multifunctional landscapes. Their design proposals solved multiple problems with the design, accounting for not only vast geography, but complex cultural and natural systems within it. The value of their ideas reflects landscape architecture solutions as hybrid, dynamic, and strategic, offering 21st century practitioners paradigms in an ever-changing ecology.

Playgrounds do not have to be static sites, but safety standards should not be the only force that guides their evolution over time. Just as the ongoing transformation of any city is a product of many interwoven factors, the collection of smaller sites that delineates one city from another should reflect the same holistic influences. This is not an argument for the abandonment of the safety standards that influence playground design. Instead, it is an argument for the adoption of and stronger adherence to community standards that influence city design. This paper argues that a park area (and more generally, any public space) that is relevant and unique to a community will be well-used by the community and, thus, a successful space; it is in a city’s best interest to create such spaces where they are lacking and protect them where they already exist. The first chapter provides a land-centric history of the growth and development of the Los Angeles region, which is especially deficient in public green space. I argue that transportation technology and infrastructure was the great shaping force of the urban environment during the 19th and 20th centuries, and discuss the Olmsted-Bartholomew “Parks, Playgrounds, and Beaches for the Los Angeles Region” report that was presented to the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce in 1930. The second chapter covers the design communication of American playgrounds since their beginnings in the late 19th century. I also analyze the parallel between Progressive Era playground supervision and the present-day safety standard obsession that has created an equally rigid playscape. The third chapter is a case study of the ongoing historical preservation treatment of La Laguna playground at Vincent Lugo Park in San Gabriel, CA and a discussion of the value of site-specificity.