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A Design Program for a Girl Scout Urban Campus

The Girl Scout organization's mission is to build "girls of courage, confidence and character who make the world a better place." The organization often lacks adequate facilities to fully cater to girls and the issues they face today. Most properties owned by the Girl Scouts are located in rural areas which are not easily accessible by the majority of the members to fulfill their mission. These facilities do not help the organization challenge the stereotype that Girl Scouts is only about selling cookies and camping. Furthermore, the image that the Girl Scout organization is a progressive and innovative one is not portrayed to the communities they are in through the facilities they occupy. This is because, as mentioned before, most of the facilities are located in rural areas and revolve around outdoor activities and connecting girls with nature. In no way does this thesis argue that this connection with nature is somehow unimportant or unneeded. However, this thesis does make the case that the majority of the Girl Scout owned buildings located within city and urban areas lack inclusive functions and appeal to draw in new members and offer existing members facilities to be proud of. To rectify this situation, this thesis has proposed that Girl Scout councils design and construct Girl Scout Urban Campuses. As defined in this thesis, a Girl Scout Urban Campus is, "a facility utilized by Girl Scout members for the purposes of education and fun. These properties are similar to camps and can be used in many of the same ways camps are utilized. However, campuses seek to combine the spaces essential to the functioning of any council (such as program spaces, service spaces, meeting spaces, camping places and council shops) to a central location while also providing programs geared towards urban lifestyles. These are additional programs offered as a contrast to the rural/ outdoor centered programming offered at the camps." The idea for building these facilities came from Girl Scout facilities around the country, several of which were specifically given the name "urban campus". Other ideas came from Girl Scout buildings whose innovative features were worth consideration. The objective of this thesis was to prepare design programming for one specific Girl Scout council, the Girl Scout Council of the Florida Panhandle. The profiles and requirements of the members were examined in this study. The specific ideas taken from the members of the council were then translated into individual spaces. The spaces were broken down into a programming format to determine the specific aspects and design features which were required within each individual space. Further, the spaces were grouped into categories based on user access. Each space reviewed various aspects of design such as atmosphere, security, approximate square footage and design characteristics. Ideas for design features were proposed and explained for each space. Many of the spaces were given bubble flow diagrams to show circulation, as well as images to help the reader understand how the space might look. The compilation of these individual spaces can later be translated into an actual design. It is the hope that this thesis will provide the Girl Scout Council of the Florida Panhandle with a springboard to continue with the design and fundraising processes in order to fulfill this vision. Furthermore, it is the hope that other councils around the United States will use the information in this thesis to begin to create their own Girl Scout Urban Campuses. / A Thesis submitted to the Department of Interior Design in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts. / Degree Awarded: Summer Semester, 2010. / Date of Defense: April 28, 2010. / Urban Campus, Girl Scouts, Girl Scout, Design, Design Program, Trefoil Effect, Camp, Juliette Gordon Low / Includes bibliographical references. / Tasuku Ohazama, Professor Directing Thesis; Jill Pable, Committee Member; Lisa K. Waxman, Committee Member.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_168238
ContributorsAletras, Leialni (authoraut), Ohazama, Tasuku (professor directing thesis), Pable, Jill (committee member), Waxman, Lisa K. (committee member), Department of Interior Design (degree granting department), Florida State University (degree granting institution)
PublisherFlorida State University
Source SetsFlorida State University
LanguageEnglish, English
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeText, text
Format1 online resource, computer, application/pdf

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