Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary C. Kingery-Page / Our water bodies have functioned as a critical transportation network, moving people, raw materials, products and goods across countries and continents. Starting as hubs of shipping, trade, and commerce, water bodies were the center of social and economic life of early cities. Technological advances in freight transport spelled the eventual demise of urban ports. This transformation has left vast swathes of vacant, urban waterfront property under-used, neglected, and disconnected from cities that once thrived along the water. This under-utilized land is now seen as a resource for revitalizing urban cores. Cities are looking to reclaim their once prosperous waterfronts (Fisher et al. 2004). Detroit’s riverfront has long been plagued by industry and pollution. For the past 25 years, Detroit has been striving to turn its dilapidated shoreline into a thriving public asset. Today, three and a half miles of the Detroit RiverWalk stretching from Joe Louis Arena east to Gabriel Richard Park have been completed and is open to the public (Brown 2007). Designs are currently being developed to extend the RiverWalk west to Ambassador Bridge, but no studies are planned for the east end toward Water Works Park and beyond(Brown 2007). The existing eastern terminus of Detroit’s RiverWalk does not allow access to the riverfront from neighborhoods that lie to the north and east. Residents have expressed growing interest in extending the RiverWalk and greenway connections to promote use (The Villages Community Development Corporation 2010). How can the Detroit RiverWalk be configured to extend eastward in order to connect neighborhoods and communities to the waterfront, provide amenities in waterfront parks, and create pedestrian greenway linkages? The Detroit riverfront will be accessible to surrounding neighborhoods with the east extension of the RiverWalk, redesign of waterfront parks, and greenway linkages which connect communities with the waterfront and amenities. Humans have a natural attraction to water; therefore “the public increasingly desires and expects access to the water’s edge” (Brown 2007). Pedestrian access is fundamental, particularly linking outlying areas to the water’s edge (Marshall 2001). The RiverWalk extension consists of research of waterfront theory, greenway practices, and the existing riverfront. Critical theory principles and contextual information will be extruded and organized into key components: Extend, Connect, and Provide. These components will outline the analysis, programming, and design phases in order to create a coherent master plan. Detroit can be a precedent for greenway and waterfront development in residential neighborhoods. The Detroit riverfront can be transformed into a public amenity for residents and visitors to benefit, enjoy, and appreciate the power of our fundamental resource: water.

The Tampa River Walk project is one of great importance for revitalization of the waterfront of downtown Tampa. This Riverfront development will be even more important when it becomes a vital example of how a riverfront can stretch and pull together downtown Tampa and its surrounding areas: Hyde Park, Harbour Island, and Historic Ybor. The purpose of this master's project is to explore an ecological ex pansion design approach for the Tampa River Walk as a master plan and then zooming into to an area to design in detail of what the riverfront can be. It will start by concentrating on the areas that were not dealt with in the proposal by EDAW: the west side of Hillsborough River, and areas that are immediately adjacent. Furthermore, it will investigate future expansion of the River Walk as downtown Tampa potentially expands and connects out to the suburbs in thirty to forty years. The main focus of this project will be to create an iconic design that gives the Tampa's riverfront a character and identity. This unique characteristic will be created by knitting nature into the urban fabric and using the River Walk as a natural seam. The connection throughout the riverfront will be made by a natural green strip. It will explore the idea of stretching and pulling of public zones vertically and horizontally to create connectivity and identity with the River Walk. Two resarch methods that will play important roles in this investigation are Design and History Research, and Case Study and Multi-method Approaches to Research. The research timeline will concentrate on mainly the history of development and use of Tampa's riverfront starting from 1600's when Tampa Bay was discovered by Spanish explorers, through the River Walk development proposed today. Also, case studies of Chicago Water Front, San Antonio River Walk, and others will inform various strategies taken in different geographical locations and impacts they've had on the growth of the cities. This project will provide an expansion design approach that is not only a concern for the present time, but also looking ahead at what it might provide for the future. The result of this project will hopefully serve as a stepping stone for a new way of revitalizing Tampa's downtown and surrounding areas through knitting of nature into an urban fabric.

Bc. Pavla Matějová, Architecture and Urbanism, Department of Design V., Faculty of Architecture, Brno University of Technology 2009, 19 pages Diploma Thesis, Tutor doc. Ing. arch. Karel Havliš, Faculty of Architecture, Brno University of Technology The diploma thesis deals with an urban and architectural design of a stretch of post-industrial area along the Svitava raceway in Brno, specifically the locality in the area next to the municipal heating plant on Radlas and the former plant Mosilana in Křenová Street. The thesis main objective is to find the potential and capacity of the Svitava raceway concerning redevelopment and creation of new public areas, especially in the form of embankments designated for pedestrians. The design also focuses on redevelopment and finding new suitable functional utilization, in particular of the industrial buildings and premises of the former plant Mosilana. The theoretical part of the diploma thesis describes the urban development of the city, its history and the development of Brno region as well as rivers in its district. It examines and analyses the prerequisites of the area affecting the design. Complete description and specifications of the projected design are to be found here. The drawing part deals with the graphic analysis of the area as well as the concretization of prerequisites influencing the design and solves the complete urban design together with the designated local views of the area.

The diploma thesis deals with an urban and architectural design of a stretch of area along the Svitava raceway and the Ponávka river in Brno, specifically of the locality in the area where the Svitava raceway has already merged with the Ponávka river. The area is situated south of the city centre, in the cadastral maps of Komárov and partly Trnitá. The main objective of the thesis is to find the potential and capacity of the Svitava raceway concerning redevelopment and creation of new municipal areas, especially in the form of embankments designated for pedestrians and cyclists. The design also focuses on the redevelopment and on finding a new suitable functional utilization of the area. The theoretical part of the diploma thesis describes the urban development of the city, its history and the development of Brno region as well as of the rivers in its district. It examines and analyses the prerequisites of the area affecting the design. Complete description and specifications of the proposed design are to be found here. The drawing part deals with the graphic analysis of the area as well as the concretization of the prerequisites influencing the design and it solves the complete urban design accompanied with the detailed local views of the area.

This study looks at the degree to which Emile Galle's theories of symbolic ornamentation are observed in contemporary landscape architecture design. Galle's theories consist of three components: the first relates to the functional aspects of design, and the last two relate to the aesthetic aspects. These three components are used to evaluate three case studies. In the case studies, Bicentennial Commons in Cincinnati and Canal Walk in Indianapolis show a partial though apparent utilization of Galle's theories, while Riverwalk in Milwaukee comes closest of the three to demonstrating the application of Galle's theories in Landscape Architecture. However, none fully exhibit Galle's theories. Nonetheless, the case studies, and in particular Riverwalk, exhibit the initial stages of a renewed interest in ornamentation in which culture is symbolically represented through nature. Landscape Architects, more than ever, are being called upon to embody the meaning of the land through a cultural synthesis in an expression of past/present and man/nature. / Department of Landscape Architecture