Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Jason Brody / Within the past decade, waste landscapes of decaying regional shopping centers and malls have been transformed into new buildings, streets, and towns— otherwise known as greyfield redevelopments. The most successful of these greyfield redevelopment projects are designed as vibrant town centers that exhibit traits of larger 24-hour cities. Unfortunately, landscape has been less relevant within these projects than they have in historical town center precedents. Landscape architecture originated from societal, cultural, and environmental needs and emerged as a profession to meet those needs. Theory, research, and design principles have emerged as well from studying the importance of landscape within the urban realm. Based upon the theory of Landscape Urbanism, landscape should be the primary element of urban order and that landscape architects possess the ability to enhance these multi-disciplinary projects. In CenterScapes, explorative design projects act as experimental subjects for a landscape architecture approach to current successful greyfield-redevelopment-into-town-center design. This masters project illustrates design research in theory, precedent, design principle, analysis, and explorative design through two applications. While both applications exhibit traits of a greyfield-redevelopment-into-town-center typology, one is designed solely by landscape architects and the other is designed by an interdisciplinary team represented by architectural, landscape architectural, and real estate development disciplines. This report functions to reveal the importance of strategically allocated and designed open space to act as catalysts for new town center developments.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Jason Brody / Effective open space is critical to the urban quality of life because it fosters environmental, social, and economic vitality. However, some designers, planners, and developers have a tendency to focus on only one of these aspects and, thus, create spaces that are monofunctional and inefficient over time. To ensure effective open spaces in cities, landscape architects must think strategically and employ design tactics that are multifunctional and perform environmentally, socially, and economically. My objective was to provide landscape architects with a framework that ensured effective open spaces through the manipulation of the urban surface. In this report, I explored how the urban surface could be used to create multifunctional, flexible, and adaptive solutions that informed and directed (re)development so that urban spaces had lasting value. A thorough literature review that explored concepts from Jane Jacobs, Alex Wall, and Ying-Yu Hung was used to create a theoretical framework that consisted of various tactics. The tactics were aesthetic, programmatic, contextual, and/or performative in nature, and the aggregation of these tactics in the urban surface catalyzed environmental, social, and economic vitality in urban open spaces. My methodology was iterative, cycling periods of research, design, and analysis in both group and individual settings. The theoretical framework was used to evaluate and inform design decisions, and the design decisions refined and validated the theoretical framework itself. The theoretical framework was first applied to two precedent studies through a series of diagrammatic mapping exercises. Then, the theoretical framework was applied to two collaborative, multidisciplinary redevelopment projects. The first project was the redevelopment of the Village Plaza shopping center in Manhattan, Kansas (MHK Project), and the second project was the revitalization of Downtown East in Minneapolis, Minnesota for the annual Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition, sponsored by the Urban Land Institute (ULI Competition). Both of these projects were evaluated and refined using the same diagrammatic mapping exercises. The effectiveness of using the theoretical framework as a guide for designing successful open spaces was validated with my team’s victory in the finalist round of the ULI Competition. The tactics in the theoretical framework offered pragmatic and multiscalar strategies that I incorporated into the open spaces that my team and I designed. Ultimately, I discovered that the role of surface was to accommodate, organize, structure, and facilitate the dynamic processes necessary for environmental, social, and economic vitality, which enhanced the urban quality of life and created an indisputable sense of place.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Stephanie A. Rolley / The Urban Land Institute / Gerald D. Hines Student Urban Design Competition offers teams of multi-disciplinary graduate students the opportunity to address a large scale site that presents complex challenges requiring practicable, innovative solutions reflecting responsible land use. Solutions must incorporate design, planning, market potential, market feasibility, and development. Some of the brightest students from universities across the United States and Canada compete annually, incorporating bold ideas, outstanding graphics, and great presentations in order to win the competition. The scale of the competition and the quality of entries makes it difficult to advance from the initial submission round to the final four entries selected for the final phase of the competition. Entering the competition is a complex process requiring adherence to a multitude of rules and regulations about team formation, design solutions, financial information, presentation materials, and deadlines. This study documents the process of one student team entering the 2009 competition. Analysis of previous competition responses and principles of urban design theory informed an innovative design solution that incorporates sustainability, livability, and connectivity. This project analyzes previous project entries, looking for patterns and indicators to guide the competition response. Combining the analysis and design philosophy, which utilizes specific sustainable landscape architectural principles, forms the framework of the design solution. The response focuses on process-driven design implementing sustainable frameworks that account for existing an emergent ecologies, historical and cultural relevance, energy efficiency, hydrological patterns, and public transportation. Results of the study led to conclusions regarding team organization, teamwork, graphic composition, and presentation that will be beneficial for future competition entrants.