Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Laurence A. Clement, Jr. / Advancements in technology, architecture, landscape, planning and design, and education are being pursued in the 21st century. Unfortunately, the campuses of higher education institutions, which promote such advancements, do not reflect the vision of innovation and creativity. Rather, the exterior environments on college campuses portray a 19th century gardenesque landscape aesthetic, which emphasizes a “park-like” appearance and discounts ecological functions. The Kansas State University campus evidences a gardenesque aesthetic that arguably is not performing socially or ecologically to its fullest potential. This Master’s Project and Report uses an open space on K-State’s campus, Coffman Commons, to challenge its aesthetic performance. Campus landscape aesthetic performance can be improved by designing a community amenity that celebrates ecological processes, especially regarding stormwater, and involves the campus community in the design process. A conceptual framework, rooted in the Vitruvian Triad, directs the project’s methodology. Methods of photojournalism and design are conducted. Photojournalism is used to collect aesthetic responses of Coffman Commons from K-State students, faculty, and staff. Their photographic and textual responses inform the design process. The photography method allows each participant to confer importance to aspects of the landscape that moved them. Through photographic coding and content analysis, commonalities are discovered in the landscape with which each person identifies. The participants’ written descriptions further inform an understanding of expectations and hopes for Coffman Commons. Influenced by the photographic research and guided by set goals and objectives, the design method allows the innovation of a contextually specific and personable design solution for Coffman Commons. The design exhibits two community amenities which invite social activity to Coffman Commons. The amenities incorporate visible water systems (rain gardens and dry swales) - increasing the ecological performance of the Commons, and provide research opportunities for piezoelectric technology. The design also features inscriptions which honor Dr. Coffman and K-State Distinguished Faculty. This Master’s Project and Report transforms a gardensque campus landscape into a high-performance landscape that responsibly manages stormwater and enriches user experience.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Timothy Keane / Stormwater management within the urban context has evolved over time. This evolution has been categorized by five paradigm shifts (Novotny, Ahern, & Brown, 2010). The current paradigm of stormwater management utilizes hard conveyance and treatment infrastructure designed mainly to provide protection for people from typical 1-5 year frequency storms. Consequently, this infrastructure is sometimes unable to deal with larger sized, 50 to 100 year events which can have serious consequences. Manhattan, Kansas has suffered multiple flooding episodes of severe proportion in the past decade. The dilemma of flooding within the Wildcat Creek watershed is a direct example of the current paradigm of stormwater management. This once ecologically healthy corridor is fed by conveyance systems that do not address the hydrologic needs of the watershed; decreasing the possibility for infiltration and groundwater recharge. Vegetated stormwater management systems must be implemented to help increase infiltration and address flooding problems within the Wildcat Creek watershed. The aesthetic performance of designed landscapes has a tremendous effect on the appreciation and care given to them by the surrounding population (Gobster, Nassauer, Daniel, and Fry, 2007). Landscape architecture has the ability to aid in the visual appeal and ecological design of vegetated stormwater management systems (SMS) by utilizing existing frameworks that address aesthetic reaction of the outdoor environment (Kaplan, Kaplan, and Ryan, 1998). This document evaluates design alternatives of vegetated SMS in order to discern a set of variables that inform the relationship between each systems aesthetic and amenity performance and their ecosystem and hydrological performance. Identified variables are combined into a set of guidelines for achieving different levels, or patterns of aesthetic performance found within the Understanding and Exploration Framework et al. (Kaplan, Kaplan, and Ryan, 1998) and amenity performance listed by Echols and Pennypacker’s Amenity Goals et al. (2007) through vegetated SMS. These design guidelines illustrate how aesthetic theory can be applied through ecological systems in order to increase the coherence, legibility, complexity, and mystery (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989) of existing sites. Creating spaces where ecological and socio-cultural activities can coexist addresses the local characteristics of aesthetics with the universal dilemma of stormwater management.

Apparel purchase is an everyday decision process for consumers and the decision is motivated by various consumer needs. As an important aspect in the study of consumer behaviour, the link between South African young adult male consumers’ perception of apparel quality, use of informational cues, and apparel evaluation criteria needs to be established. The purpose of this study was to explore and describe the role of intrinsic and extrinsic apparel features as informational cues on young adult males’ assessment of apparel quality during purchase decision-making. The quantitative research approach involved a structured questionnaire with Likert-type four-point scales to measure the importance of informational cues in the quality assessment of smart casual wear. This study involved a non-probability purposive sample of 330 young adult males between the ages of 24 and 36 living in Pretoria and Johannesburg, Gauteng. The study included purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Descriptive analyses were used to determine the importance of apparel features in the assessment of apparel. Correlation analyses were conducted to explore relationships among the quality dimensions. Lastly, exploratory analyses were done to measure the interaction of demographics and shopping behaviour with the importance of apparel quality dimensions. Results showed that South African young adult male consumers rank comfort most important in their quality assessment criteria, next to durability, in assessment of smart casual apparel. The country where garments are manufactured or assembled is the least important to the young adult South African males. The strongest relationship among the various apparel dimensions existed between extrinsic features and aesthetic performance. The weakest relationship, although positively significant, existed between the extrinsic features and functional performance. This suggests that to some extent, male apparel consumers form links between apparel features as each feature to some extent influences the importance placed on other apparel quality features. Furthermore, findings suggest that male consumers differ in their apparel assessment criteria based on how much money they have for apparel, and that income is an important socio-economic variable in apparel purchase decision-making. Most of these male consumers, although not experts in the field of apparel quality, considered it important to assess apparel for perceived quality during the pre-purchase phase of consumer decision-making. In all, informational cues, although varying in importance, play a role in the young adult male’s quality assessment of smart casual wear. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2014. / lk2014 / Consumer Science / MA / Unrestricted