Through natural and constructed elements, landscape architects design public landscapes to engage the public in the great outdoors. While many local governments and designers actively create landscapes to keep the unsheltered and homeless out of public spaces, keep water in storm drains, and keep native plants on the periphery of the public landscape, my project, Safe Haven, is about creating an inclusive public landscape for people, water, and native plants. Preliminary research into the history of property ownership, discrimination, economic inequality, and government programs for the unsheltered created a picture of why certain demographics struggle with housing. Case studies of homeless encampments in the Washington DC area of NOMA, Abbot's Camp in Austin, Texas, and car camping in San Diego, California, and Seattle, Washington, gave insight into the current landscape needs of unsheltered people. Studies of the watershed and plants native to the site inspired a water retention system and a seasonal pallet of plants. The design incorporates existing infrastructure, new buildings, a natural playground, wilderness camping, a Mount Vernon-inspired vegetable garden, and a sunken garden designed to retain water while showcasing native plants. Describing the design are narratives sharing the perspective of water, native plants, the unsheltered, and the homeless. Lady Landscape guides the stories and offers her views on the responsibilities of a landscape architect. / Master of Landscape Architecture / Inclusive landscapes create a vision of places where children, older adults, people with and without disabilities enjoy the beauty of Mother Nature. There are ADA regulations that ensure everyone can be accommodated within a public landscape, but those regulations don't extend to the needs of unsheltered or homeless people. Their needs to enjoy public parks and recreation areas are different from housed people. They're looking for a home, and many public spaces are built to deter them from living on public lands. My project is a landscape designed with the unsheltered and homeless as the primary client. My project is about creating room for people without homes in the landscape - offering them dignity and meeting them where they are. Researching the needs of the homeless and what is presently available helped guide my design. After choosing an appropriate site in Fairfax City, Virginia, it became apparent that water and native plants would also need a home in this project. A thorough study of the water pattern over the area informed design elements that gave water a home through a Vegetative Swale and Sunken Garden while native plants found space in garden rooms. The thesis is presented as a narrative with Lady Landscape guiding the reader through the design by introducing them to the people and natural elements the landscape offers refuge to.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/107628 |
| Date | 13 January 2022 |
| Creators | Mitchell, Michelle Lynn |
| Contributors | Landscape Architecture, Kelsch, Paul J., Piedmont-Palladino, Susan C., Heavers, Nathan |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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