Architecture Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2743

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End date: 2009Subject: search.filters.subject.Baltimore

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    Community Redevelopment in Greenmount West
    (2009) Bryson, Matthew Wells; Wortham, Brooke D; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This thesis explores strategies of community revitalization through means of developing public zones in the highly vacated Baltimore neighborhood of Greenmount West. The building of community facilities including an after-school recreation center, public market and community café will bring various groups of people together at street corners once ruled by drug trafficking. At the corner, residents will participate together in everyday activities and be watchful over these public zones. In addition to creating casual forums for community discourse and strengthening bonds between disenfranchised neighbors, a sense of regional and local identity is created through references to local folk art traditions and provisions for neighborly sidewalk loitering through repeated use of certain street furniture and canopy systems. Greenmount West will gain a recognizable identity within the local arts district as a sustainable mixed-income community with an encouraged spirit and cooperative attitude toward defending public spaces.
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    Yielding Architecture: A Manifesto for [Urban + Agri]Culture
    (2008) Dickson, Beret; Williams, Isaac S; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The contemporary, monoculture-based agricultural model is failing, as evidenced by worldwide food shortages, environmental degradation, and mono-diets. Grassroots efforts to reanimate neglected urban space with food production foretell an impending farming revolution. Additionally, 20th century economic changes have left many American cities devoid of the industry around which they were founded, leaving behind vast swaths of uninhabited and often polluted sites. This thesis imagines reclaiming these post-industrial landscapes with institutional infrastructures constructed to support the burgeoning urban agriculture revolution. Recasting what and how urban farming can yield will provide a new vision for both architecture and agriculture. A conceptual agenda that reinterprets yield as both value and potential suggests a high-performance architecture that exhibits the efficiency and sustainability found in natural systems. It also demands an evolutionary architecture that establishes a framework for potential forms, events, and output by yielding to external circumstances and inevitable future change.
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    Re-Establishing Community: A Renewed Village Center for Edmondson Village, Baltimore, MD
    (2007-05-25) Leonard, Jessica Lynn; DuPuy, Karl; Bell, Matt; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This thesis proposes to reintroduce a "sense of place" into a community that has undergone rapid and severe physical, social, and economic changes. It examines how the built and natural environment can stabilize and recenter a community through the development of a renewed village center. Southwest Baltimore's Edmondson Village serves as a transition between the urban and suburban patterns of the city. The community's decrepit shopping center is located along Edmondson Avenue (Route 40) and is central to wealthy, middle, and lower class neighborhoods. It is surrounded by important civic and educational buildings, making it an ideal location for neighborhood revitalization and ultimately a new village center. The addition of a metro station on the city's proposed Red Line, along with a pedestrian focused, mixed use, mixed income development are essential elements in re-establishing an identity for Edmondson Village. Creating coherent public spaces are vital to fostering an environment where people can interact outside of the private realm. The village center serves as a home, shopping area, and gathering place for the residents of the community.
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    Connections to Community (Integrating Pimlico Race Course Into a Renewed Community Vision)
    (2007-05-21) Yan, Chi Yung; DuPuy, Karl F.G.; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Historic Pimlico Race Course holds many distinctions as a time honored American landmark whose life spans three centuries and many noteworthy events. It is the crowning jewel to a vibrant and historic Maryland thoroughbred industry as the home to the Preakness Stakes. Pimlico embodies the truest sense of a rural Maryland identity within the context of its most urban city. Pimlico Race Course is in the northwest quadrant of Baltimore City adjacent to the Park Heights neighborhood. Once a vibrant immigrant community, today it is home to a struggling predominantly African American community suffocated by crime, drugs, and a high degree of housing and property vacancies. This thesis asserts that Pimlico must become an asset to its neighbors. To survive and revitalize, a new Pimlico must become an active participant in the community through the integration of a program conducive to its business, the culture of horseracing, and the community.
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    Architectural Activism: Rebuilding Lives/Rebuilding Communities
    (2005-12-21) Silber, Arthur J.; Hurtt, Steven W.; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Rebuilding Lives/Rebuilding Communities entails the adaptive reuse and transformation of mostly abandoned buildings formerly used as an orphanage and hospital in West Baltimore into an expanded drug treatment facility and building trades school. Students will experience the therapeutic power and sense of accomplishment derived from working with their hands while developing the skills necessary to rebuild the crumbling urban fabric seen throughout Baltimore's most disadvantaged neighborhoods. The area adjacent to the site is in desperate need of rehabilitation and could serve as a workshop for the building trades program. As owner of the site since November 2003, Coppin State University could manage the facility and coordinate the building trades program with their Department of Applied Psychology and Rehabilitation Counseling. This department offers graduate degrees in several related fields including Alcohol and Substance Abuse Counseling, Rehabilitation Counseling, and Correctional Education. The Hebrew Orphan Asylum could serve as the anchor of the new campus. Built in 1876 to benefit the Jewish children of Baltimore, it could now become a refuge for today's orphans of society, those whose lives are shattered by drug and alcohol addiction. Creatively reusing virtually all of the buildings on the site would also demonstrate any building, especially historic properties in challenging neighborhoods can be successfully recycled and become the catalyst for positive change in a community. It would also illustrate the leadership role architects can and should play in determining how best to address the visual, social, and economic impact that vacant and abandoned buildings have on cities across the nation.