Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Stephanie A. Rolley / The challenges of the 21st Century will require a force of bright, innovative thinkers and leaders, researchers and scientists. Academic Institutions all across the world must prepare these future leaders. Creating physical spaces that manifest an institutions mission is critical. This study seeks to find a paradigm for the 21st Century campus; to create a more collegial, engaging, influential environment to study, research and learn. Each academic institution is guided by a mission that shapes curricula and informs scholarship. It is the campus environment that provides the physical space for study and shapes interactions between students and faculty and creates a meaningful community of learning. The goal of the project is to create spaces which encourage strong interaction, collaboration and the creation of ideas. The intersection and convergence of knowledge at Wellesley College exemplifies the dynamic campus of the 21st Century. The study will connect the campus community through the creation of vibrant, dynamic campus spaces along its waterfront, furthering the goals —engagement, collaboration and experience—while enhancing the immutable regionalism of Wellesley College. Convergence at Wellesley College aspires to create spaces which inspire, encourage and assist in the education of leaders who will confront the worlds greatest challenges.

The project suggests an alternative means for living in Qatar. It proposes the development of a transient, floating community a man-made, transitory archipelago of floating housing units located at the ‘soon to be abandoned’ docks a short distance from the Museum of Islamic Art and the Doha Corniche. The design, through a variety of bespoke dwelling options, can provide both more and less nomadic housing to accommodate a variety of dif- ferent lifestyles and social units. Clustered around three permanent islands (containing a cultural/activity center, three adaptable ‘work-unit’ towers, and a park/commercial area), the design provides a wide set of adaptive layout patterns within which the mobile units can be arrayed. Directly plugged into the city, the community functions as a floating appendix to downtown Doha: an adaptable and flexible city-supplement that can expand or contract ac- cording to need, whether to aid in the accommodation of guests for various large-scale sporting or other events, or merely to provide an alternative locale for long or short stay visitors to Doha alike.

Waterfronts in post-socialist cities have became under the influence of post-socialist transformations an areas of conflict, which are full of contradictory pressures based on the different actors and their views. This diploma thesis deals with plans and waterfront regeneration projects in Bratislava from the perspective of discursive practices and representations of investors, developers, city government and citizens. The work also examines the role of the actors involved in the formation of new identities of regenerated areas via different representations. It focuses on the process, which leads to the formation of new identities in the plans and projects of waterfront regeneration. The work uses an qualitative analysis of planning documents and discourse analysis of different web resources. It examines both the process of discursive construction of place through a variety of discursive practices and offers an insight into the backstage relationships of actors involved. Keywords: discourse, representation, identity, Bratislava, waterfront, regeneration

As transformações sociais decorrentes dos novos arranjos da economia mundial nos últimos quarenta anos têm repercutido enormemente na estrutura espacial das cidades. Em razão disto emergem novos modos de interpretação da realidade territorial da cidade e novas formas de intervenção que passam a considerar, como ponto de partida, a cidade existente. Neste processo assistimos à revalorização do projeto urbano como instrumento de reflexão e intervenção no âmbito de políticas urbanas que atestam a necessidade de assumir ações conjuntas entre o poder público e a iniciativa privada, isto é, de buscar uma aproximação entre o planejamento urbano, o desenho urbano e a economia de mercado. Este novo contexto aponta para a afirmação do projeto como instrumento fundamental da política urbana contemporânea. Dentre as múltiplas perspectivas abertas no âmbito da política urbana contemporânea destacamos, neste trabalho, aquelas que decorrem do processo de revalorização de Áreas Centrais e Frentes Marítimas decadentes ou abandonadas e da percepção do potencial existente nestas áreas no que se refere à possibilidade de recuperação das cidades com vistas à sua (re) inserção na economia global por meio da atividade turística e da atração de negócios e eventos. O objetivo desta pesquisa é situar o recente processo de revalorização do projeto urbano em Fortaleza com foco no recorte espacial da Frente Marítima da Área Central da cidade. Este trabalho procura demonstrar a hipótese de que os projetos recentes para a orla de Fortaleza estão inseridos no contexto dos projetos urbanos contemporâneos e buscam inseri-la no panorama do turismo internacional. Dentre estes destacamos o projeto não executado do Centro Multifuncional de Eventos e Feiras do Ceará, elaborado em 2002. / The social changes derived from the new arrangements of the world economy over the past forty years have reflected greatly in the spatial structure of cities. For this reason we are seeing the emergence of new modes of interpretation of the territorial situation of the city and new forms of intervention which began to consider, as starting point, the existing city. In this process we witness the revaluation of urban design as a thinking and intervervention instrument in the scope of urban policies which attests to the need to assume joint actions between government and private initiative, that is, to an approximation between urban planning, urban design and the market economy. This new situation indicates the assertion that design is the major instrument in contemporary urban policy. Among the many possibilities opened up in contemporary urban policy context we highlighted, in this work, those that derived from the revaluation process of decaying or abandoned Downtown Areas and Waterfronts and from the perception of the existing potential in those areas in regard to the possibility of recovering cities aiming to it\'s (re) integration into the global economy through tourist activity and by attracting businesses and events. The objective of this research is to situate the recent urban design revaluation process in Fortaleza with focus on the spatial cutout named Downtown Waterfront. This work seeks to demonstrate the hypothesis that the recent projects to Fortaleza\'s waterfront are placed in the context of contemporary urban projects and seek to insert it in the international tourism panorama. Among these we highlighted the not executed project of Ceará State\'s Conventions and Exhibitions Multifunctional Center, developed in 2002.

This thesis is about the act of inhabiting the post-industrial landscape: about how a city with the remains of and scars from a previous era can begin to repurpose those remnants--both in a physical, as well as intangible sense. Proposing an alternative to the patterns of development that created such a landscape, it offers resistance to the entrenched values of privatization, commodification, and consumption. The chosen site--an abandoned grain elevator in Buffalo, New York--sits at a nexus of converging landscapes: the grid of downtown to the north, a former industrial canal to the east, a stretch of barren waterfront land to the south, and the expansive Lake Erie to the west. This site, existing at the mouth of the now contaminated Buffalo River, possesses both beauty and sublimity in its deterioration; as such, it is uniquely situated to become a charged point of entry to the desolate waterfront beyond, as well as a bridge--literally and figuratively--between the city, its heritage, and its legacy. Drawing on such precedents as the library and the enlightenment-era salon as traditional places of scholarship and colloquy, the project is also influenced by the archetypes of the tavern and the union hall as more informal, although no less vital, places of cultural exchange. It is the aim of this thesis to bring the residents of Buffalo together in a public platform that would impress and bring into focus the processes that created the current conditions, allow for the meaningful re-inhabitation of this landscape, as well as foster a sense of community, dialogue, exchange, learning, and inquiry, with the desired outcome of participatory change.

Ontario Place in Toronto has a long legacy of unfulfilled plans, conflicting interests and missed opportunities. Its evolution is punctuated by myriad socio-cultural, political and economic shifts. Landscape biography, an empirical research strategy, is used to capture the diversity, complexity and the transformational character of this landmark site through archival research and oral histories over five phases of development. With origins in cultural geography and social anthropology, landscape biography is a compelling analytic tool to study the evolutionary dynamics of landscape change. Ontario Place is closely examined within the broader context of Toronto’s post-industrial waterfront to highlight and explain contingent moments in this cultural landscape’s historical trajectory. Findings reveal that Ontario Place, like waterfront itself, is the aftermath of political indifference and short-term expediency multiplied over several years. A road-map is created to visualize long-term evolutionary cause-and-effect relationships and a framework is developed to provide guidance for future transformations of this public asset based on historically grounded research.

In recent decades, the role of port cities has changed dramatically. In many cases, the port function has been removed from the urban waterfront altogether. For this practicum, the subject is not the post-industrial, but rather an investigation into the role of landscape architecture in a place where industry persists on the shoreline. Halifax, Nova Scotia is the principle location for this exploration wherein the existing port-city interface is re-evaluated. This study includes an examination of the course of worldwide port development and the resulting impacts on port-city interrelationships and a historical comparison of the Port of Halifax to the general evolution. Mapping is the core of the analysis and is the primary means of assessing current conditions and future considerations. The work concludes with a final design proposal. Design drawings demonstrate the conceivability of the working port environment as a place to reconnect citizens with their harbour and the activities that occur within.

In recent decades, the role of port cities has changed dramatically. In many cases, the port function has been removed from the urban waterfront altogether. For this practicum, the subject is not the post-industrial, but rather an investigation into the role of landscape architecture in a place where industry persists on the shoreline. Halifax, Nova Scotia is the principle location for this exploration wherein the existing port-city interface is re-evaluated. This study includes an examination of the course of worldwide port development and the resulting impacts on port-city interrelationships and a historical comparison of the Port of Halifax to the general evolution. Mapping is the core of the analysis and is the primary means of assessing current conditions and future considerations. The work concludes with a final design proposal. Design drawings demonstrate the conceivability of the working port environment as a place to reconnect citizens with their harbour and the activities that occur within.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, waterfront cities expanded over wetlands and shallow water by building land on which to build the city. Today, this artificial land is threatened by a range of environmental hazards. This increases the risk of natural disaster for people occupying the area. A framework for risk analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to create maps based on the formula: ‘Risk = Hazard + Vulnerability’ is proposed. This methodology is demonstrated in four case study cities - Toronto’s Ashbridges Bay (Port Lands), Boston’s Back Bay, New Orleans’ Lakefront and Montreal’s Point St. Charles (Technoparc) – to show that census tracts that are both socially and environmentally vulnerable ought to take precedence in disaster prevention and relief efforts. Created land is inherently more hazardous than the adjacent natural land and requires planning focused on targeting and responding to the documented hazards.

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, waterfront cities expanded over wetlands and shallow water by building land on which to build the city. Today, this artificial land is threatened by a range of environmental hazards. This increases the risk of natural disaster for people occupying the area. A framework for risk analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to create maps based on the formula: ‘Risk = Hazard + Vulnerability’ is proposed. This methodology is demonstrated in four case study cities - Toronto’s Ashbridges Bay (Port Lands), Boston’s Back Bay, New Orleans’ Lakefront and Montreal’s Point St. Charles (Technoparc) – to show that census tracts that are both socially and environmentally vulnerable ought to take precedence in disaster prevention and relief efforts. Created land is inherently more hazardous than the adjacent natural land and requires planning focused on targeting and responding to the documented hazards.