Parking lots can no longer be the inhospitable, pedestrian-minimalizing, environmentally-degrading uses of valuable open space that are accepted and tolerated as the "norm". The open space that makes way for parking lots is too precious to be wasted on places that provide little or no comfort to the user while also contributing to the degradation of the environment. By inserting a fantastical landscape — one which engages the senses through color, texture, and smell — into the mind-dulling landscape of a large surface parking lot, the resulting comparison is a waking call about the missed opportunities of celebrating beauty and the environment. This gives value to the landscape in today's mobile society where the natural world appears to be losing ground to the automobile. This thesis proposes a series of landscape structures over a vast surface parking lot — Potomac Yard Shopping Center in Alexandria, Virginia — that provide open space,the ecological benefits of absorbing storm water runoff and preventing UV bounce back, while ultimately repositioning and rejoining the pedestrian with the landscape. The project does not set out to eradicate parking. Rather, the project recognizes the need for parking in today's mobile society but prioritizes the important connection that must exist between people and nature within that context. / Master of Landscape Architecture

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Blake Belanger / The pollinator crisis - a catastrophic decline in domestic and feral pollinator populations across the world - has grown in severity over the last decade, and recent rise in the publicity of pollinator decline has brought it to the forefront of conservation work. The decline in pollinator populations is due to many human and environmental factors – one of the most prominent being the decline in natural pollinator habitat as urban and agricultural areas expand. Designed urban pollinator habitat can fill the need for foraging and shelter, however gaining public support for these ecological spaces can be a difficult endeavor. Pollinator gardens and urban ecological habitats are typically viewed as messy or unattractive to users, and landscape architects and designers are often met with resistance when proposing such landscapes for public spaces. What visual elements can be used as communication tools by professionals in landscape architecture and ecological design to increase the understanding and appeal of pollinator spaces to the public? This knowledge could provide insight into the ways designers and landscape architects present their work to improve the chances of public approval, and thus implementation. A visual preference survey was implemented and became a vital strategy to find the relationship between key visual elements in images, and the visual appeal and the quality of habitat they communicate. Previous studies in the field of semiotics show that images contain visual elements of language that imply meaning through the use of signs and visual cues. Participants evaluated images showing naturalistic sites during the growing season, and showing subjects like flowers and pollinators, especially up-close images. The survey revealed various levels of understanding of ecological function in different demographics, and a proportional level of appeal. The relationships revealed from the survey were used to create a set of representation guidelines for landscape architects and designers to use when proposing urban pollinator habitat, and other urban ecological spaces. These tools will help to communicate the functionality and need of these spaces, while portraying their intrinsic beauty and potential for enjoyment. A conceptual design was produced from the literature to illustrate how the guidelines can be used in the context of an urban setting.

This thesis is a study of oral histories and literary records covering the professional development and works of Edward Blake Jr., ASLA, (1947-2010). The study considers Blake’s design principles via newly collected oral histories and a review of his literary record within the continuum of landscape architecture history from 1970 to 2010. Additionally, the study explores Blake’s position within the ecological design community to establish his status as a possible founding voice of ecologically focused landscape architecture practice in the Coastal Plains Region of the southeastern United States. The primary sources include a newly developed oral history collection with questionnaire-based interviews of Blake’s eight colleagues, professional mentors, and collaborators, along with various forms of project and process documentation generated by Edward Blake Jr. and his practice, known as The Landscape Studio. The study concludes with a distillation of Blake’s design principles, lexicon, and contribution to the field of landscape architecture.

This thesis explores variation of ecological design preference due to the population demographics: urban, city, small town and rural areas in public gardens under four major paradigms of landscape preference: mystery, legibility, complexity and coherence. The findings of this study reveals that high ecological design preference has a significant relationship with mystery category. Ecological design preference in complexity and mystery has a statistically important relationship with rural areas and cities respectively. The outcome of this study shows that the preference of ecological design has considerable possibility to differ according to the paradigms of visual landscape preference and respondents’ population demographics.

This thesis proposes that sensory experience should play an important role in setting up a direct relationship between people and the natural environment, and it is based on the premise that contemporary urban public space ecological designs. Are often deficient in this regard. In order to develop a design methodology that addresses both ecological function and sensory experience, the author examine both contemporary western ecological design and classical Chinese garden design. The former focuses on the ecological functions of the environment, while the latter typically emphasizes the sensory qualities of the landscape. Drawing from the strengths of both approaches, an experience-oriented ecological design framework is proposed with the goal of improving human experience in urban public spaces. The framework emphasizes both sensory experience and ecological functions in two phases of the design process — site analysis and site design. The framework is applied to a design for Bridge Park in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts. The design is evaluated to assess efficacy of the framework for the design urban public spaces that address both sensory experience and ecological processes. The evaluation suggests that the framework could be an effective tool for designers, and also draws conclusions regarding the potential role of sensory experience as a tool for creative discovery in the design process. Finally the paper raises questions regarding the desirability of employing sensory experience as a didactic tool to enhance environmental awareness. / Master of Landscape Architecture

This thesis explores the ecological design of schoolyard environments. It employs a systems approach, and considers energy, hydrologic, biotic, and social systems and their interrelation. The question of how to integrate experiential learning with the school landscape is also examined, as the concept of empowerment through experience in the landscape is a strong component of this project. With insights gained from an extensive literature review, the author tests the design position through the design explorations of a single schoolyard. The design process, described herein, illustrates the potential for ecological schoolyard design. / Master of Landscape Architecture

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Lee R. Skabelund / Throughout the history of Kansas City, the Brush Creek Corridor has experienced severe flooding which, on numerous occasions, has resulted in loss of life. This urban stream supports a high profile area of the city. It is located adjacent to what is considered Kansas City’s most elite shopping district, the JC Nichols Country Club Plaza, the University of Missouri - Kansas City urban campus, as well as numerous high density residential units. The stream corridor has been confined due to the encroachment of the surrounding urban environment which has minimized many opportunities for the future management of Brush Creek. There have been many flood control projects but these solutions have not been effective in reducing along the entire corridor. Previous projects have been done in a way that alienates urban dwellers from Brush Creek and does not allow pedestrians to utilize the stream corridor as an effective urban green space. The Brush Creek Corridor can be redesigned to revitalize the existing area by embracing natural ecological processes in order to create a more sustainable urban stream system. Brush Creek can be envisioned in a way that will enhance visitor experience by exposing and revealing the ecological processes to the users without inhibiting the functionality of those natural processes. Four project goals have been identified through research: improve, connect, and educate. In order to achieve the project goals, a set of sites are to be selected from the corridor. A corridor study is done to identify sites by assessing factors related to the site’s ability to improve, connect, and educate. Once the sites have been identified and defined, programming and site design strategies will be implemented to relate to the project goals. The selected sites within the Brush Creek Corridor will be models for experience oriented urban stream design. The project area will harbor healthy ecosystems with integrated pedestrian oriented spaces that connect the corridor, improve environmental conditions, and support environmental education. These projects will be catalysts for experience oriented ecological design solutions throughout the Brush Creek Corridor in the future.

The ecological design considerations are focusing on the built environment and the living process of the building. It considering the environment impact in designing building, and integrating ecological responsive design methods. While the traditional Chinese building shared the same design philosophy. Our ancestors are really concerning the connection between their living space with the broader environment, not only in the time they occupying the building, but also when they construct and demolish it. They use the word "harmony" to describe this relationship with the environment, and consider it as the high-quality pursuit of life. Wooden building has been a major building type in China for thousands of years, however, over 40 thousand traditional Chinese building has been demolished in the past 30 years, most of them are wooden buildings. Since the steel, concrete and other emerging materials has become the major materials for the modern building, wooden building seems to step down from the stage of history. Not until in recent years, wooden building come into people’s view again, it’s increasingly appeared in all over the world and take part in a major role in mordent architecture. Since the wood is a sustainable and renewable building material, and a good carbon sink, it is more environmental friendly than steel, concrete or some other building materials. The wooden building has a great potential to discover its ecological benefits and as a carrier of traditional Chinese culture. In seeking the development of wood as a building material, and the future of sustainable buildings, I integrate the theory with practice that human population is growing rapidly, the high-rise wooden building might be a best solution for this quest. I expect to explore the application of wood in high rise building’s envelope and structure, integrate the wood with other material to expand its performance, emotionally and reality connect the traditional Chinese culture and people’s memory of the land to the present day.

Global water depletion and unsustainable food production systems represent two iconic crises of our time. These two crises have important themes in common, referring to basic human needs and the way we interact with landscapes in order to satisfy them. But they are also closely related to the way we produce and dispose wastes in our current societal organization. Insufficient, or inadequate, sanitation and waste management practices continue to undermine not only human well-being, but the entire planet’s ecological integrity, on which humans depend. An ecological design approach to manage human waste invites to learn how to participate more harmoniously within the planet’s recycling of matter, using renewable energy sources and mimicking nature’s low entropic states to maintain the life-support systems that we and our economies are part of. This thesis is an in-depth exploration of such an approach, and an attempt to integrate several elements from ecology, engineering, economics, and community development, around issues of water quality, sanitation and waste management in Latin America. As a whole, the thesis explores how can this transdisciplinary approach translate into coherent, feasible, and concrete action, providing appropriate solutions for sanitation, in ways that are effective and viable on a long term, for Latin American rural communities. Three different papers address different dimensions of the problem, focusing on domestic wastewater and human excreta, as a type of waste of major importance to ecological integrity, public health and economic development. Two of the papers are case studies, carried out at two different rural communities in South West Colombia; one of them focuses on technological and ecological aspects, and the other focuses on social and economic considerations, for a multifunctional-ecological waste management. In the first paper I present an overview of the sanitation problem in Latin America, and the opportunities and challenges of managing waste with an ecological and multifunctional perspective. More specifically, this papers attempts to provide a sound conceptual framework for managing wastewater (sewage) as a valuable resource, in a way that: 1) is affordable –or even profitable– by small communities in developing countries; 2) is safe to the environment and to public health; and 3) provides opportunities for recycling nutrients and organic matter (available in wastewaters), to restore and protect water and soil resources, while enhancing rural livelihoods in tropical agroecosystems. The second paper evaluates the performance and feasibility of an experimental, solar-energy-based, wetland mesocosm, as a complementary aerobic unit to enhance anaerobic wastewater treatment, in a rural locality of the Cauca Valley in Colombia. In the third paper I explore the integration between ecological design and community-based solutions to sanitation, and discuss opportunities and challenges of implementing ecological waste management in the particular bioregional and socioeconomic context of a proposed ecological-low-income co-housing project, in another rural community of Colombia. In doing this, several arguments are presented to support the idea that assuming the responsibility of managing its own waste can be a powerful and transformative experience for a community to fundamentally change its perspective and understanding of its place within the planet. Furthermore, managing waste can be an integrative force linking economic, social and environmental considerations, and favoring human-scale development, genuine progress, and self-reliance in a community. In its broadest level my research aims at reviewing and questioning the very notion of “waste” and the articulation between humans, nature, and technology within that context.

Nature has an effective approach to cycling materials and energy flows to promote life. This thesis aims to expose urbanite users to nature’s way of cycling materials. The seawall is the largest public space in Vancouver at the edge of land and sea. A neighbourhood community centre along the edge called the Conservatory for Community Matters is created to nurture environmental stewardship by mimicking natural cycles in its function. By conveying architectural systems and form in a cyclical and organic approach, an architectural intervention can address the daily environmental impact of urbanites while rooting people in place and nature in the city. The community centre’s program connects the individually focused daily rituals of eating, making, and exercising to benefit the larger community where urbanites can reintegrate their organic ‘wastes’ into usable by-products. This promotes a paradigm shift transforming the apathetic consumer into an active member of the urban ecosystem.