This creative project produced a Development Plan for the 60-year-old 200+ acre Cascades Park in Bloomington, Indiana. Combining principles of historic preservation with passive forms of unfacilitized recreation provided the framework for the final design concepts. The final product was the actual master development plan and 11 other 30" x 40" sheets that illustrated a thorough inventory and analysis of the park and its context, suitabilities of the park for specific forms of recreation, concepts, and graphic illustrations. The inventory and analysis sheets have sought to identify the unique character of the park that came about from two distinct sources: 1) The natural environment that spawned the interest for the area to become a park in 1924 and, 2) The park amenities in the forms of shelters, retaining walls, play equipment, water wells, drives, etc. that were added in the past 60 years indicating man's impact upon the area. The design concepts for the park emphasized and protected this unique character. The extent of information, both written and graphic, on the 12 sheets was intended to provide the information without needing an accompanying booklet or oral explanation from the designer. In addition to the site-specific information that was illustrated in the maps, general information was also required. To understand the social framework that was responsible for the creation of Cascades Park and other parks of the time, park planning principles of the 1920's were researched. These were then compared and applied where possible to the historic development of Cascades Park. Also, developmental criteria were established for forms of recreation that were found to be in demand in Bloomington and had the potential of being accommodated in the park with a minimal disruption of its natural beauty. / Department of Landscape Architecture

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)

This study was an effort to identify the reasons for use or under use of neighborhood parks in Fort Wayne, IN and to suggest the solutions for the problems found. Two heavily used parks and two underutilized parks were chosen after an interview with the Director of Parks and Recreation Departments of Fort Wayne. Questionnaires and direct observation were the two major tools used to understand user preferences and tendencies. Each data were analyzed to find out the differences between the heavily and underutilized parks in the categories of age, sex, income and race. The significant differences between under and heavily used parks were found by the quantity and quality of each park's facilities and by the racial characteristic of residents around the each park. Environmental and social factors, and user satisfaction with their neighborhood park are suggested to be the solutions. The solutions may be used as a general recommendation to improve the conditions of neighborhood parks. / Department of Landscape Architecture

The goal of the creative project was to provide recommendations for renovating the Holliday Park Arboretum based upon existing conditions, tree species, open space analysis and interpretive activities.All trees within the Holliday Park Arboretum were mapped, tagged and identified by species. An Indiana native tree species list was developed and compared to the existing tree species in the arboretum. It was then determined how many native and exotic trees existed in the arboretum. Native tree species not existing in the arboretum were placed on a separate list to establish which native trees were needed to have a representative of each native tree in the arboretum.An open space analysis was conducted to determine potential planting areas within the arboretum and the number of additional native trees that could be planted in those spaces. Recommendations were provided for the selection and planting of native trees as part of the renovation process that can be used by the park administration. / Department of Landscape Architecture

The purpose of this report was to investigate the role of George Edward Kessler and the historical events which effected the development of the Indianapolis park system. Heretofore, this area of study has received little scholarly attention. Kessler has proven to be a significant figure in landscape architecture and city planning history; his landscape and planning philosophies profoundly restructured the urban fabric of Indianapolis and numerous other cities throughout America. As a result of Kessler's involvement, Indianapolis is heir to a sophisticated network of parks and boulevards representational of City Beautiful Era planning. This park system is an historically and a culturally valuable legacy as it has shaped the city's urban character.The study focused on the Indianapolis park system's developmental period, 1895-1915. Primary and secondary source material was researched in order to document the park system's initial beginnings during the Park Movement through its maturation during the City Beautiful Era.Kessler's original plan contemplated 175 miles of parkways along the city's river and stream corridors, and an additional 175 miles of connecting boulevards. The Kessler park system included a total of 12,000 acres for the city. It should be noted that the system fell short of this grandiose scheme, however, the study concluded that Kessler played a significant role in the development of the Indianapolis park system. By the close of the 1920's, much of the groundwork for the Kessler plan had been successfully implemented.In recent years, designed landscapes have gained considerable new attention from preservationists, landscape architects and allied professions. Kessler's visionary scheme for the Indianapolis park system is a significant layer of design upon the city's physical plan.In light of this growing appreciation of the nation's historic urban greenspaces and the events which shaped them, this study was undertaken. / Department of Architecture

The objective of the study was to determine how visitors perceive park management method alternatives to preserve scenic beauty in Mounds State Park, and how other factors, such asvisitor characteristics and primary purpose for visiting the state park affected their preferences. Additionally, this study has presented a comparison of preferences for park management approaches between park managers and visitors, and a relationship between visitors' perceptions of scenic beauty and other factors. Furthermore, this study explored the contribution of a qualitative analysis. The result showed that visitor preferences for some park management approaches were influenced by sociodemographic characteristics, while visitor preferences for other park management approaches were influenced by the current state of scenic conditions in the park. Differences were observed between park manager's perceptions and visitors' perceptions. Visitors' perceptions of scenic beauty were related to whether or not they had visited the park in the past. Finally, it was clear that qualitative analysis was worthwhile for obtaining information that quantitative data could not provide. / Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Management

This study evaluates the relationship of the Civilian Conservation Corps' stonework in Indiana's state parks and the National Park Service's design guidelines for stone landscape features. The design guidelines were instrumental in establishing an overall design approach for many of the stone structures evaluated in this study. A general history of the Civilian Conservation Corp program provides the context for the program as well as the relationship to stonework in Indiana's state parks. Through a sampling of stone landscape features in six Indiana state parks it can be concluded that the Civilian Conservation Corps were impacted by the National Park Service's design guidelines. At the same time the Civilian Conservation Corps deviated from the guidelines and improvised with their own variation. / Department of Architecture

The field of landscape architecture has been increasing opportunities to assist small- town communities in connecting their important natural and historic cultural resources to nationally and regionally identified "green" heritage corridors, such as rail-to-trails, river corridors and other projects. In Indiana, steps have been slow in developing and restoring natural and cultural resources unique to these small-town communities in relation to larger recreational corridor initiatives. Facts showed that the Mid-North region of Indiana were drastically short of publicly accessible regional parks and recreational open space. Incorporating community landscape preferences and values and private property rights in the overall approval of a project - particularly those planned from a regional scope - has often been excluded from the design processes to meet these needs. New sensibilities and sensitivities in landscape architecture must evolve to include identifying local visual and behavioral attachments to the landscapes in the design process, especially those projects concerning recreation and open space, since these proposals tend to be one of the flashpoints of public funding concerns in land development.Adjacent to the small town of Williamsport, Indiana, is the tallest waterfall in the state. Williamsport is also located on the Wabash River, which has recently been promoted as a strategic national and regional heritage corridor potential by various state agencies and the National Park Service. This study chose to explore a planning and design process to incorporate local aesthetic and cultural values for the Wabash Heritage Corridor system. a now nationally recognized network of nodes and linkages along one of America's most famous historic waterways. The Williamsport Falls site represents one of the few remaining Hoosier natural resources overlooked for protection due to its proximity to urban environments.Assisting the community in identifying visual and landscape values, and including these assessments as a design process modifier, along with strong local contact and project interaction by the designer / researcher. further the landscape architect in developing a more thorough site program and design.This study demonstrates community input in the programming and design guideline development for the recreational and natural systems resources of a site, and to a lesser degree, assessing relative cultural and historic factors. Local citizens were given a visual preference and landscape characteristics values questionnaire, from which site preference and visual conservation zones were determined. The resultant data was used as a design modifier for the park's visual regime - physically and legally defined protection areas for viewsheds and natural character areas within and adjacent to the site, as well as for the overall recreation and preservation goals of the project. By generating mappable visual attributes of the site that were identified as important by the community members, the site design process was modified to insure that the community's collective visual and landscape preference values and concerns were honored in the site Master Plan.Hopefully, the scholarly contribution of this work was not just be the inclusion of visual assessment and landscape preference methodology in analyzing a unique landform (though this is critical), but also a deeper level of documentation showing the importance of recognizing and preserving significant local and regional natural resource character areas of small-town communities along the Wabash Heritage Corridor. / Department of Landscape Architecture

The project addresses the role of urban parks and open spaces in the downtown community through written document and as well as through conceptual design of proposed project using the principles derived from some current movements, the traditional American towns, and some successful cases. The goal of this project is to study how to revitalize downtown's community through the physical design of urban parks and open spaces in the community. Heekin Park and surrounding neighborhoods in Muncie, Indiana are selected as the sites for this study. Literature reviews, case studies, and analysis of site context are included in the study. Design recommendations for the open spaces in surrounding neighborhoods and a concept for Heekin Park are the written and graphic product of the project. The solutions can be used as a general recommendation to improve the conditions of open spaces in downtown community. The concept for Heekin Park will be used to illustrate the potential of the site as an attractive space for the people of Muncie, IN. / Department of Landscape Architecture

An important requirement of a rational policy for provision of outdoor recreation opportunities is some understanding of natural processes and public concern and /or preferences. Computerized land use suitability mapping is a technique which can help find the best location for a variety of developmental actions given a set of goals and other criteria. Over the past two decades, the methods and techniques of land use planning have been engaged in a revolution on at least two fronts as to shift the basic theories and attitudes of which land use decisions are based. The first of these fronts is the inclusion of environmental concerns, and the second is the application of more systematic methods or models. While these automated capabilities have shed new light on environmental issues, they, unfortunately, have failed to develop sufficient intelligence and adaptation to accurately model the dynamics of ecosystems.The work reported proceeds on the belief that neural network models can be used to assess and develop resource management strategies for Mounds State Park, Anderson, Indiana. The study combines a photographic survey technique with a geographic information system (GIS) and artificial neural networks (NN) to investigate the perceived impact of park management activities on recreation opportunities and experiences. It is unique in that it incorporates both survey data with spatial data and an optimizing technique to develop a model for predicting perceived management values for short and long term recreation management.According to Jeannette Stanley and Evan Bak (1988) a neural network is a massively parallel, dynamic systems of highly interconnected interacting parts based on neurobiological models. The behavior of the network depends heavily on the connection details. The state of the network evolves continually with time. Networks are considered clever and intuitive because they learn by example rather than following simple programming rules. They are defined by a set of rules or patterns based on expertise or perception for better decision making. With experience networks become sensitive to subtle relationships in the environment which are not obvious to humans.The model was developed as a counter-propagation network with a four layer learning network consisting of an input layer, a normalized layer, a kohonen layer, and an output layer. The counter-propagation network is a feed-forward network which combines Kohonen and Widrow-Hoff learning rules for a new type of mapping neural network. The network was trained with patterns derived by mapping five variables (slope, aspect, vegetation, soil, site features) and survey responses from three groups. The responses included, for each viewshed, the preference and management values, and three recreational activities each group associated with a given landscape. Overall the model behaves properly in learning the different rules and generalizing in cases where inputs had not been shown to the network apriori. Maps are provided to illustrate the different responses obtained from each group and simulated by the model. The study is not conclusive as to the capabilities of the combination of GIS techniques and neural networks, but it gives a good flavor of what can be achieved when accurate mapping information is used by an intelligent system for decision making. / Department of Landscape Architecture