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Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary C. Kingery-Page / In the last 30 years there has been a shift toward educating people about conservation within zoos. Public learning about conservation of wildlife and habitats is vital if the extinction of wildlife is to be avoided. Zoos offer opportunities to educate visitors about habitat conservation through programs and activities, and the way individual habitats and zoos are being designed. Education about wildlife and habitat conservation is important, and must address scientific, aesthetic, and ecological values to be effective. When educating people about the importance of conservation of species and their habitats in zoos, it is important to create a connection between them and nature. This connection can be achieved by creating a sense of place that allows people to be inspired by nature and understand the importance of preserving it for the future. These connections have the potential to change attitudes towards nature and help people imagine wildlife and humans existing in harmony with each other. This report focuses on the redesign of the tiger and sloth bear exhibits at Sunset Zoo in Manhattan, Kansas, which offer opportunities to create exhibits that focus on animal welfare, offer educational experiences, and evoke a sense of place. In studying the role that zoos have in educating and encouraging wildlife and habitat conservation, and in creating a sense of place for the broader community, a variety of methods have been used including: literature review, precedent studies, and passive observation of zoo users. Using these methods, I determined that a successful educational programming strategy and design should include: having keepers or volunteers available to talk directly to zoo visitors, creating opportunities for visitors to form an emotional and intellectual connection to the animals and their habitats, creating an immersive experience for visitors within a naturalized exhibit, offering enrichment features for animals that encourage activity and natural behaviors that visitors can observe, and including interactive educational components for visitors. These programming elements can contribute to Sunset Zoo implementing successful strategies for education within exhibits.

The landscape has long been the focus of my artistic research. Yet no matter how often I return to it, I continue to wrestle with how to engage, respond to, and conceptualize landscape and my place in it. I recognize "that which is real (the actuality of one's experience) butting up against the forms of cultural representation that encode it." There are two primary ways that I encounter landscape: 1) through my body and a phenomenological orientation; 2) through layers of discourse, stories, and representations. While the landscape and its features may be neutral space and objects, it is a site fraught with highly charged stories and competing systems of representation, narration, and perception surrounding the same events, time, and place. To this end, my thesis is guided by the following questions: what stories shape my interaction with and understanding of landscape and nature? How have I been disciplined by cultural and historical scripts, media, and technology? How does a lineage of art history influence a particular way of picturing and framing the natural world? And finally, what stories do I perpetuate or contribute in my work as an artist to this discourse about landscape?

Typical of many American downtowns, Austin, Texas, has experienced renewed interest in redevelopment over the past two decades. Following City policies, this redevelopment has tended to be mixed-use in nature and has included elements of placemaking and walkability. A glaring exception to recent trends is the Capitol Complex, an area north of the State Capitol building that is home to various state government office buildings. The Capitol Complex displaced a more traditional mixed-use neighborhood in the 1950s and has been plagued by disjointed planning activities ever since. Recent budgetary challenges and a shortage of office space have prompted the state government to reexamine the Capitol Complex as a target for redevelopment. This professional report scrutinizes the Capitol Complex as a “non-place” that is challenged by walkability issues in an effort to make recommendations to ensure successful redevelopment that is more consistent with that found in the rest of downtown Austin. First, the literature on placemaking and walkability demonstrate what the Capitol Complex lacks. A case study provides a good comparison to see what policies have helped to improve districts near state office buildings. Second, the history of the Capitol Complex provides context for how the area became what it is today. Third, a land use and walkability analysis utilizing GIS along two corridors in the Complex and a pedestrian count show that the area is unfriendly to pedestrians and lacks activity on nights and weekends. Finally, the report offers both policy and urban design recommendations to help ensure that redevelopment activities contribute to make the Capitol Complex a walkable “place.” / text

The research project focused on studying the effectiveness of placemaking initiatives to promote social, physical and economic improvements. The case of study is the Central Park neighbourhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba, named after its major public space. The research indicated placemaking initiatives were capable of contributing to increasing safety, promoting community development and enhancing opportunities for social interaction. However, the capacity of placemaking to achieve positive improvements is directly determined by the involved stakeholders. The Central Park initiatives were successful due to the emphasis on engaging the residents and neighbourhood organizations. The residents were given the opportunity to meaningfully share their experience and aspirations with external stakeholders. The collaborative approach to placemaking contributed to the development of a sense of ownership. The residents saw their input reflected in the amenities and programming offered in Central Park. The planning profession can benefit from using placemaking practices to engage in comprehensive planning.

Some places which once were celebrated by many slowly become places of desolation and social problem while others built with similar intentions and forms continue to flourish. This is typically true of a number of large residential neighbourhoods of Post-World War II Europe and many cities of the global South. Large residential environments have been extensively studied since their emergence in the early 20th century, but often from disciplinary perspectives. Moreover, studies have often focused on singular aspects of these environments. Thus, knowledge of how large residential environments develop as places once created, and what the residents’ role in this process is, remains fragmented and hardly usable for effective urban design/planning interventions. Studies, particularly in the last decade, have begun to show the usefulness of the notion of place as an integrative conceptin housing research. This thesis aims to contribute to interdisciplinarydiscussions on large residential environments by drawing upon theories of space and place from vast fields of social and human sciences, and using anthropological and historical research methods. It explores the multiple ways and means that large residential environments gain their material and social identity as places. The main interest is to understand how the residents perceive, receive and appropriate living environment, and how that contributes to the becoming of the places. Based on such a notion of place, the study presents a critical review of the current transformation of Addis Ababa and its ongoing large-scale housing development. Residents’ ways of articulating their needs, desires, and values are investigated ethnographically and in relation to the socio-political, historical and spatial contexts within which they are taking place.The findings of the study are presented in four academic articles, and in an introductory essay. Each article addresses the main research question (i.e. “how residential places become”) from different angles: Article I (History, Modernity and the Making of an African Spatiality) explores place as a construction of historical and socio-political processes; ArticleII (Socio-SpatialTensions and Interactions: An Ethnography of Condominium Housing of Addis Ababa) and Article III (Home-looseness in Large Residential Environments?) explores place as an assemblage of multiple spatial practices and experiences. Article IV (Sustainable Urbanism: Moving Past Neo- Modernist &amp; Neo-Traditionalist Housing Strategies) explores place as a product of particular urban design/planning paradigm.The findings of the thesis show that the key processes that shape spaces into places are highly embedded in the dialectical relationship between larger structures (i.e. social, economic, political and physical) and the everyday practices of people within the built environment. The findings also show that this relationship is highly mediated by local experiences of modernity. Thus, for example, when modernity is sought as an end, as in the case of the condominium housing of Addis Ababa, a fragile and often paradoxical relationship develops between people and their places as could be seen by the weak senses of place or attachment among condominium residents. One implication for urban design/planning practice is the recognition that place (or the home-place) is predominantly a process, and in the context of modernity, placemaking is highly contested because the process is evaded and people’s relationships with place overridden. Based on the findings, the limits and potentials of the urban design or planning are highlighted. It is recommended that theories of place- becoming – implying understanding of a place as an open-ended process and spatial experiences of ordinary people as the fundamental aspect of place – should be the integral basis of placemaking understanding and practice. Design ethnography is suggested as a possible way to promote placemaking practices closer to the multiple experiences of ordinary people / residents. / Några platser som tidigare prisats av många blir långsamt platser som ligger övergivna och får sociala problem medan andra som byggts med liknande avsikter och med likartad bebyggelse fortsätter att blomstra. Detta gäller särskilt många stora bostadsområden i Europa efter andra världskriget och många städer i det globala Södern. Stora bostadsområden har undersökts utförligt sedan de kom till i början av 1900-talet, men ofta ur ett disciplinärt perspektiv. Dessutom har undersökningarna ofta fokuserat på enskilda aspekter av dessa omgivningar. På så sätt har kunskapen om hur stora bostadsområden utvecklas som platser när de väl skapats och vilken roll som de boende spelar i denna process förblivitfragmentiserad och knappastanvändbar för effektiva insatser inom urban design och planering. Undersökningar särskilt under det senaste årtiondet, har börjat visa användbarhetenav begreppet om plats som ett integrativt koncept ibostadsforskningen. Denna avhandling syftar till att bidra till tvärvetenskapliga diskussioner om stora bostadsområden genom att utnyttja teorier om utrymme och plats från vidsträckta fält inom social- och humanvetenskaperna och genom att använda antropologiska och historiska forskningsmetoder. Den forskar om de många sätt och medel genom vilka stora bostadsområden får sin materiella och sociala identitet som platser. Det viktigaste är att förstå hur de boende uppfattar, mottar och tillämpar dem och hur det bidrar till hur platserna utvecklas. Baserad på ett sådant begrepp om plats presenterar undersökningen en kritisk granskningav den nuvarandeombildningenav Addis Abeba och dess pågående storskaliga bostadsutveckling. De boendes sättattuttrycka sina behov, önskningar och värderingar undersöks etnografiskt och i jämförelse med de sociopolitiska, historiska och spatiala ramar inom vilka de äger rum.Undersökningens resultat presenteras i fyra akademiska artiklar som sedan sammanfattas och kopplas ihop till en inledande monografi. Varje artikel tar upp den viktigaste forskningsfrågan (t.ex. ”hur bostadsområden blir till”) från olika vinklar: Artikel I (Historia, Modernitet, och Skapandet av en afrikansk rumslighet) utforskar plats som en konstruktion av socio-historiska processer; Artikel II (socio-spatiala spänningar och interaktioner: Enetnografi om bostadsrätter i Addis Abeba) och artikel III (Hemlöshet i storabostadsområden?) utforskar plats som en samling rumsliga metoder och erfarenheter. Mer specifikt utforskar Artikel II hur politiska intentioner och folks förväntningar och deras vardagliga användningar av rymd, form och plats och Artikel III utforskar hur hem och platser formas som ett resultat av olika former av rumslig disposition, inom de ramar och de restriktioner som bestämts av hegemonisk rumslig praktik. Artikel IV (Hållbar urbanism: Att gå förbi neomodernistiska &amp; neotraditionella bostadsstrategier) utforskar plats som en produkt av särskilt paradigm av urban design/planering.Avhandlingens resultat visar att de viktigaste processerna som skapar platser av utrymmen ligger lagrade i det dialektiska förhållandet mellan större strukturer (dvs. sociala, ekonomiska, politiska och fysiska) och vardagliga rutiner för människor inom den byggda miljön. Resultaten visar också att detta förhållande har en stor förmedlande funktion i moderniteten. På så sätt ökar spänningent t.ex. inom den förstärkta moderniteten mellan det globala och det lokala, mellan makro och mikro, mellan struktur och verkan och i sista hand mellan utrymme och plats.Men viktigast av allt när modernitet söks som ett ändamål i sig, som i fallet med bostadsrätter i Addis Abeba, utvecklas ett ömtåligt (dvs. ytligt och paradoxalt) förhållande mellan stora platsers identitet och folks rutiner som man kunde se av de svaga känslor för platsen ( eller tillgivenheten) bland bostadsrättsinnehavarna. En slutsats av urban design/planeringspraxis är insikten att plats(ellerhemvist) är företrädesvis en process och inom ramen för moderniteten är urban förnyelse och platsskapande försök omstridda eftersom processen avbryts eller undviks. Baserat på resultaten, framhävs begränsningarna och möjligheterna för urban design eller planering. Det rekommenderas att teorierna om hur en plats blir till vilket innebär förståelse för plats som en öppen process och en rumslig erfarenhet för vanliga människor som den grundläggande aspekten på plats – borde vara den väsentliga grunden för insikt och rutin i platsskapandet. Ett reflexivt tänkande i praktik och teori föreslås, vilket innebär en metod som omprövar sina grundläggande premisser/teorier och erkänner kontextens betydelse. Några idéer om etnografisk design föreslås som ett sätt att främja sådana metoder. / <p>QC 20150423</p>

The research project focused on studying the effectiveness of placemaking initiatives to promote social, physical and economic improvements. The case of study is the Central Park neighbourhood in Winnipeg, Manitoba, named after its major public space. The research indicated placemaking initiatives were capable of contributing to increasing safety, promoting community development and enhancing opportunities for social interaction. However, the capacity of placemaking to achieve positive improvements is directly determined by the involved stakeholders. The Central Park initiatives were successful due to the emphasis on engaging the residents and neighbourhood organizations. The residents were given the opportunity to meaningfully share their experience and aspirations with external stakeholders. The collaborative approach to placemaking contributed to the development of a sense of ownership. The residents saw their input reflected in the amenities and programming offered in Central Park. The planning profession can benefit from using placemaking practices to engage in comprehensive planning.