Architecture Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2743
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Item Step into Green: Reimagining our Urbanscapes with Integrated Green Spaces(2023) Long, James Renwick; Gabrielli, Julie; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Communities across the country, and beyond, suffer from food insecurity due to Food Desert conditions. Food deserts persist due to lack of reasonable access to nutritious foods, often as a result of distance to the nearest grocery store or market. Minorities, impoverished areas, and otherwise marginalized peoples are particularly subject to this inadequate access to healthful foods and produce. Existing infrastructures and urban planning provide little relief, particularly for those communities that wish to become more self-reliant by establishing greenspaces devoted to urban agriculture (UA). Zoning, local regulations, costs, and access to viable soil and clean water compound the challenges that inhibit a transition from consumer (reliant) to producer (provider). While there are many factors that contribute to the commonness of Food Deserts, the following proposal shows how rethinking urban design approach can, at various scales, provide meaningful relief by way of UA to those in need of nutritious supplements to their diets.This design scheme must be scalable, affordable, and resilient while also being applicable to a variety of build scenarios including new construction, renovation, and repurposing. As such, this proposal rethinks urban design strategies from a theoretical standpoint and exemplifies the execution of this theory in the neighborhood of Harlem Park, Baltimore, MD, that currently and historically suffers from food desert conditions. The scale of this neighborhood will allow the execution of urban planning aspects, community integration strategies, and individual household or unit-scale production to be showcased. Many UA initiatives have proven successful across the country and will serve as a basis by which to quantify the potential impact and effectiveness of this new design proposal in terms of initial and upkeep costs, volume of produce, and sustainability.Item ENMENDAR EL ZOCALO: AMENDING THE PLINTH(2021) Belmonte, Jocelyn Elizabeth; Burke, Juan L; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A community with the lacks school, resources, and food supplies creates a difficult living situation. General Francisco Paz, a neighborhood located in the central part of the state of Veracruz, Mexico is dealing with these conditions. This neighborhood of 886 individuals contains only and elementary school for education. For students to receive further education, a 40-minute walk South will get the student to the nearest middle or high school. Due to the high rate of drop out students and unfinished education, illiteracy within the town is rising. This thesis will explore a design for a middle and high school, to provide the students the education needed to care, grow, and sustain agricultural land. Vernacular architecture and sustainability for the neighborhoods of General Francisco Paz and General Alatriste for the students who are soon to be tending for this land. This project is in hope of improving the quality of education and sources in opposition of current conditions to motivate families towards wanting to create and expand their futures and families within this community.Item The Growcery Store(2021) Grady, Hannah; Williams, Brittany; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis explores a socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable alternative to the current food production and consumption systems, a framework which currently leaves neighborhoods without food, farmers without incomes, and communities without a sense of the ecological or cultural significance of the food that they eat every day. Utilizing the abandoned manufacturing infrastructure of Cleveland Ohio, this thesis explores how food production can be incorporated into the community as a new industry, focused on stewardship of the land, buildings, community, and history of the site. Integrating farming with sustainable heritage and building practices to create a multi-functional space to re-invent how we grow, buy, and understand food, both as a tool for preserving the past, as well as the future.Item CULINARY IDENTITY: CULTURE, PLACE, COMMUNITY(2017) Manongdo, Lawrence; Rockcastle, Garth; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis is about placemaking through architectural expression of Hawaiian history and culture by looking at culture, place and community, and the role they play in promoting architectural identity. Throughout the world, feasting has been and is a universal form of celebrating important events. However, the Hawaiians have evolved this great pleasure into a truly unique cultural experience. In Hawaii, this feast is called a “luau,” marking an important celebratory occasion, that is culturally rooted, festive and all about food, fun and family. A luau is more than just a gustatory event, it’s also a feast for the senses. Rooted in Hawaiian cultural values, the vision for Kaka’ako is built on empowering creativity, cultivating innovation and building a truly unique, local community by inspiring a local dialogue around food and architecture.Item The Contemporary Local Market: Creating a Network of Food Distribution(2017) Shanklin, Eli William; Lamprakos, Michele; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)During the United Nations’ 1996 World Food Summit, the concept of “food security” was defined as existing “when all people, at all times, have physical, [social] and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. In the United States, the Department of Agriculture, measures food security on four levels—high, marginal, low and very low, with income and access as two of the major factors contributing to the problem of food insecurity. The country is dotted with hundreds, if not thousands, of food deserts—rural, suburban and urban census tracts—wherein the inhabitants do not have access to fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthy whole foods. Today, 1 in 7 households, which equates to approximately 17.5 million households, are estimated to be food insecure. This thesis seeks to address the problem of food insecurity by creating a community-supported agricultural prototype in which nutritious foods are made accessible to an underprivileged neighborhood while debunking the beliefs surrounding the practices, processes, and sourcing associated with food production and distribution (e.g. “Farm to Shelf”).Item FOOD FOR THE CITY: CULTIVATING COMMUNITY IN BALTIMORE CITY(2016) Kang, MinSoo; Bell, Matthew; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)One in four residents of Baltimore City live in a food desert. Food desert disproportionately affects the low income neighborhoods more than the neighborhoods with financial stability. Throughout history, food became a commodity that depends on and dictates the market force. Food sources were being eliminated in the inner city while the suburbs saw rising development of grocery stores. Without grocery stores and other food retailers, communities are missing gathering and commercial hubs that make neighborhoods livable and help the local economy sustain and thrive. This thesis studies why food was further displaced from suffering communities and how an inclusive sustainable urban food system can help create a hub of neighborhood revitalization and promote health, social, safety, stability, and economic well-being of the community.Item TIMESCAPES: an architectural process of memory and adaptation(2015) Chamy, Adam; VanderGoot, Jana; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)What if the architectural process of making could incorporate time? All designers who impact the physical environment- consciously and unconsciously are gatekeepers of the past, commentators of the present, and speculators of the future. This project proposes the creation of architecture and adaptive public space that looks to historical memories, foster present day cultural formation, and new alternative visions for the city of the future. The thesis asks what it means to design for stasis and change in a variety of scales- urban, architectural, and detail and arrives at a speculated new neighborhood, institutional buildings, and landscape. Central to this project is the idea of the architect as archeologist, anthropologist, and artist. The project focuses on a rapidly changing part of the city of Fort Worth, Texas and assigns a multipurpose institutional buildings and public space as a method of investigation. The thesis hopes to further architectural discourse about into the role of architecture in the preservation of memory, adaptive potential of public spaces, and the role of time in architecture.Item Mothballed: Transforming the Carcass of a Naval Warehouse into an Agricultural Incubator(2012) Pizzo, Anthony Salvatore; Rockcastle, Garth C; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Philadelphia has one of the oldest and most rich industrial heritages in the United States. The Philadelphia Navy Yard itself was one of the first established shipyards in the United States. After a long history of shipbuilding, the end of the Cold War had rendered the site and its production of military ships inoperative. Since the yard's closure in 1996, the remaining derelict buildings and vessels are a ghostly reminder of the Navy Yard's past significance. This thesis will explore the stimulation of the yard by reestablishing its reason for being. The rapid progression of technological advancements has left shipbuilding a trade of the past. As a result, many structures that were once hubs of superior industrial manufacturing now remain neglected. This project will investigate adaptively reusing the abandoned carcass of a naval warehouse and its surrounding officer quarters. Memory of the site's industrial past will foster the integration of an agricultural research center that demonstrates state-of-the-art processes as part of a renewed form of technological tradition. This research center will become a beacon of agricultural research, education, and exhibition, while carrying on the building and Navy Yard's tradition as a place of technology and production.Item 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.