UMD Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3

New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

Browse

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 3 of 3
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Change is Coming: Pre-adaptability for a Resilient City
    (2020) Omidvar, Ava Toosi; Williams, Joseph C; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Since its inception, the Earth has been a living and evolving planet. Phenomena such as tectonic plates shifting and changes in the atmosphere have caused our ecosystems to change and evolve by natural events. Humans have been part of this ecosystem for the past 2.1 million years but have only stopped their nomadic way of life and built village settlements 10,000 years ago. Civilizations have faced many natural and human-made disasters forcing them to renovate, rebuild, or relocate. However, the frequency of these disasters through climate change will exacerbate these transformations. For many cities around the world where landscapes are being permanently affected by climate-induced landscape change, the built environment has the responsibility to adapt. How can architecture allow for change over time? When we know that intermittent floods are becoming more detrimental, how must we build our cities to prepare for living with water?
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Jakarta Underwater: Rising Seas as Opportunity
    (2019) Gilmartin, Lauren Michelle; Eisenbach, Ronit; Hendricks, Marccus; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    According to the UN, by 2100 nearly 5.25 billion people will live in coastal megacities in the global south where infrastructure, energy production, and water management has not kept pace with rapid urbanization. It is projected that this mass global migration will occur in Asian and African cities that also have the highest risk of vulnerability to climate change effects. The most concerning of these is sea level rise that could displace billions of people and submerge entire cities. This global transformation threatens massive humanitarian crises, ecological degradation, destruction of historical and cultural treasures, and the global economy. This thesis proposes a solution that integrates city development, coastal infrastructure, and public resources by merging architectural innovations and planning to create a protected megacity with a high quality of life and resiliency. These solutions will ease the effects of sea level rise and offer a promise of a better future for the planet -- ultimately creating a net positive solution for coastal megacities of the future.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Reclaiming the Fall Zone: Mediating Physical and Cultural Exchange in Richmond, VA
    (2016) Filler, Kenneth Paul; Noonan, Peter V; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This thesis will address cultural and physical place reclamation, at the ambiguous intersection of ‘city’ and nature.’ By creating a juxtaposed sequence of multi-scalar interventions, which challenge the conventional boundaries of architecture, and landscape architecture; in order to make commonplace a new dynamic threshold condition in Richmond, Virginia. At its core, this thesis is an attempt at place-making on a site which has become ‘no place.’ This concept will be manifest via a landscape park on Mayo Island in Richmond, anchored by a community retreat center, and architectural follies along a constructed path. The interventions will coincide with value of place in historical Richmond: an integrated, socially desegregated waterfront hinge; a social nexus of inherent change, at the point which the river itself changes at the fall line.