Call number: LD2668 .T4 1948 W5 / Master of Science

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Mary Catherine E. Kingery-Page / Over the past centuries, modernization and industrialization has resulted in increasingly disconnected communities. With the advent and increased availability of the personal vehicle, the desire for larger homes on larger lots, and a steady increase in population, cities are all-too-often relinquishing their open and community-oriented spaces to concrete and mortar. Gone are the medieval days in which cities and towns were centered on large community spaces - places where residents could gather, work, shop, and play together. Therefore, this Master’s Project and Report proposes the reintroduction of the town square – the quintessentially European notion of a central city space – as a means to unify modern American cities. To support this proposal, existing research regarding the various characteristics and qualities of squares is compiled. The resulting information, including work by Carolyn Francis and Claire Cooper Marcus, Cliff Moughtin, Leon Krier, and Camillo Sitte, is then critiqued and synthesized in order to establish function, form and spatial organization typologies of squares. These typologies address not only the use and formal attributes of individual squares, but also where squares should be located and how they can link to one another in order to form larger networks. Together, the research and types substantiate the square as both a refuge from the city and a place for community members to connect. In order to test the community connectivity of public squares, the research and typologies are applied to Super Neighborhood 22 in Houston, Texas. Houston established Super Neighborhoods as a means to link neighboring communities. In many cases, though, disconnections occur between the various natural and social systems found within the combined neighborhoods. Therefore, this Master’s Project and Report proposes a network of public squares as a means to unite the contrasting land uses, residents, and natural systems found within Super Neighborhood 22’s eleven smaller communities.

This dissertation is an in-depth examination of cultural interactions between Mexican Americans and Anglos in post-World War II Houston. Today, Houston's Mexican American community ranks as the third largest in the United States. This thriving metropolis offers an urban platform through which one can understand how acceptance and celebration of ethnic cultural ways have come to form an intrinsic part of American culture. While much of the past and current literature on Mexican American history in the postwar period focuses on conflicts over desegregation and fights for equal treatment under the law, my research offers a new perspective on less confrontational cultural exchanges between Anglos and Mexican Americans. Ethnic festivals, Spanish-language radio programming, and the Mexican restaurant industry in Houston illuminate how Mexican American businessmen and women introduced aspects of Mexican culture to a large array of Houstonians and, as a consequence, how Houstonians came to accept these cultural manifestations as a natural part of the city's life. My use of English- and Spanish-language newspapers, oral histories, personal papers, business records, advertisements, photographs, and municipal, state, and federal documents allows me to explore the regular cultural exchanges and syntheses of Anglo and Mexican cultures in Texas, even during ongoing struggles for racial equality. Additionally, the surge in celebrations of Mexican ethnicity in the postwar era led to a heightened interest from national corporations in attracting and profiting from the Hispanic dollar. Ethnic festivals, radio broadcasts, and the Mexican food industry gradually opened the way for a repackaging of ethnicity as something to be consumed. By the 1980s, these cultural manifestations remained emblematic of the Mexican heritage but had also become highly marketable commodities; traditions that used to be associated solely with the Mexican American community in Houston now pointed to their increased level of incorporation into the city's cultural life. I conclude that this greater acceptance of certain aspects of Mexican culture signaled the gradual penetration of Mexican American ethnicity into American cultural ways.

No description available.

Although literature on flood risk and environmental justice investigates the link between race and ethnicity and vulnerability to floods, few studies examine the distribution of flood mitigation amenities. This study analyzes census tract proximity to flood mitigation projects (FMPs) completed between 2012 and 2016 in Harris County, Texas to determine if a) project location is biased towards economic growth and the urban core; b) areas most impacted by previous floods are prioritized for drainage assistance; and c) if low-income and Latinx populations are being neglected. A spatial error regression analysis indicates that FMPs are significantly proximate to the urban core, net of other factors. Results also indicate no significant relationship between census tract-level Latinx composition, income status, and proximity to FMPs. Finally, built environment characteristics and locations of previous flooding had no significant effect on where projects were placed.

Rather than functioning as an icon, Involuted Matter dissolves into the background of commercial construction, conceals difference at the envelope, and orchestrates a succession of alternate environments. Accepting the unifying neutrality of a larger framework this project articulates difference at the individual site. But unlike iconic projects, the real force of this thesis unfolds through the interior. Identity is formed not at the level of district, but is centered on the individual occupation of a specific place. The program for this project is a jimjilbang or Korean Bath House. The jimjilbang has the potential to become a new form of collective space not typical of the American metropolis. The bath house is simultaneously an intimate and egalitarian public venue and a private center for personal well being. Immersed in the same waters and ambient environments, clothed in matching jimjilbang attire, a plurality of classes, age groups, and social values congregate around a common program.

The Houston Constellation is a type of architectural urbanism situated at the intersection of urban revision and projections for cultures yet unknown. The intent is to provide a template for refiguring new lines of sight and interaction within the contemporary city, between contingent forces, institutions, and a public in flux. The Houston Superdistrict: a heterogeneous collection of 20th Century urban paradigms packed loosely underneath a thick canopy. Institutions in medicine, the arts, education, and recreation make it a major hub for local and global populations. The area is undergoing a transformation, yet in contrast to its ambitious visions, current plans project investment that may drop more single objects into this static field. This project proposes an alternative. A constellation of form that slides across cold boundaries and catalyzes a new spatial consciousness to produce a newly legible environment. Encouraging creativity- the very hope for the district in the first place- begins with architectural performance and contextual interaction. Techniques and tactics of planametric alignment, visual continuity, and material cohesion provide the system a relational fitness, while establishing a larger counterform against context’s existing linear boulevards, axes, and grids. Four forms (R,G,B,O) based on site-specific conditions, constitute programmatic points with distinct characters. A complementary duality, the figures in the park (O & B) engage the spatial and airy quality of the city. While the institutional figures (R & G) embed themselves within the local form of their respective campuses. Producing new linkages between fabric and institution: the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and Rice University link through a new space for the arts in the public realm. Hermann Park’s City Beautiful design is reawoken with a new spine and periphery.

Projektet går ut på att göra en konsert med Whitney Houstons låtar. Konserten görs i samarbete med två andra sångerskor, och ett band på fyra personer. Musiken arrangeras av oss sångerskor, och hela konserten utformas som en helhet, med inslag av a capellasång, medleyn och koreografi. Målet är framförandet, men syftet är även att kunna göra konserten i framtiden. Materialet som kommer att användas i konserten består endast av Whitneys låtar, och låtvalen sträcker sig genom hela hennes karriär. / The project is to do a concert with the music of Whitney Houston. The concert will be done in co-operation with two other singers, and will be performed with a band of four members. I and the other singers will arrange the songs, and the concert will contain a capella singing, medleys, and choreography. The aim of the project is the concert it self, but the purpose is to be able to do it more then one time. The material that is going to be used is only the songs of Whitney Houston, and the songs of choice will be from her entire carrier. / <p>Bilaga: 1 DVD</p>

The Port of Houston and the Houston Ship Channel (HSC) are highly industrialized areas along Galveston Bay, Texas. The HSC is highly polluted with a host of persistent organic pollutants, including dioxins. The main objective of this study was to determine the potential for in situ bioremediation in the HSC sediments. Our study focused on the bacterial group Dehalococcoides, since it is the only known group to reductively dechlorinate dioxins. Culture independent methods were used to determine the presence or absence of Dehalococcoides in HSC sediments. Molecular methods including PCR, cloning, restriction enzyme digest, and sequencing were used to determine the diversity of Dehalococcoides as well as total bacterial diversity in HSC sediments. The metabolically active members of the microbial community in HSC sediments were also determined using the same molecular methods as described above. Dehalococcoides was detected in every sediment core and at various depths within each core. Depths ranged from 1cm (SG-6) to 30cm (11261). Dehalococcoides diversity was centered on Dehalococcoides ethenogenes strain 195 and Dehalococcoides sp. strain CBDB1. Overall bacterial diversity in HSC sediments was dominated by Proteobacteria, especially Deltaproteobacteria, and Chloroflexi, which include Dehalococcoides. Total bacterial diversity at a wetlands control site was dominated by Betaproteobacteria and Acidobacteria. Deltaproteobacteria and Chloroflexi were determined to be the major metabolically active groups within the HSC sediments. These findings indicate that the HSC sediments have great potential for successful in situ bioremediation. These results also support the use of Dehalococcoides as a biological proxy for dioxin contamination.

Measurements of ambient volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by proton transfer reaction mass spectrometry (PTR-MS) are reported from recent airborne and surface based field campaigns. The Southeast Texas Tetroon Study (SETTS) was a project within the TEXAQS 2005 field campaign, conducting airborne measurements that investigated the nocturnal Lagrangian transport of industrial plumes downwind of the Houston, Texas metropolitan area. On the evening of July 26-27, a polluted air mass with elevated mass 43, mass 45 and mass 57 VOCs along with elevated O3, CO, and NOx was tracked from the Houston metropolitan area to an area northwest of Shreveport, LA, a distance of over 200 miles. This campaign demonstrated that the PTRMS is capable of tracking a VOC plume over large distances and these measurements indicate that transport of VOCs, particularly light alkenes and their oxidation products, out of the Houston metropolitan area may need to be considered by areas downwind of the Houston area when they are determining how to attain their air quality goals. During the MILAGRO field campaign in March 2006 VOCs were measured by PTR-MS instrumentation on a rooftop in the urban mixed residential and industrial area north northeast of downtown Mexico City. Diurnal profiles of weekday and weekend/holiday aromatic VOC concentrations clearly show the influence of vehicular traffic during the morning rush hour time period and during the afternoon hours although a separate late afternoon peak is not seen. Plumes of toluene elevated as much as 216 parts per billion by volume (ppbv) and ethyl acetate elevated as much as 183 ppbv above background levels were observed during the late night and early morning hours. These plumes indicate the probability of significant industrial sources of these two compounds in the region. The high levels of toluene measured by our PTR-MS exceed levels that would be predicted by examination of the Mexico City Metropolitan Area (MCMA) emission inventory and when these VOC measurements are integrated with measurements conducted throughout the MCMA a better understanding of both the overall spatial pattern of VOCs in the MCMA as well as its variability will be attained.