Theses and Dissertations from UMD
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2
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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Razing the Bar: Coastal Resilience and Community Cohesion through Ecological Design(2024) Nivison, Erin Hamilton; Kelly, Brian; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Separated by iron fences, dense trees and drastic changes in elevation, two seemingly close communities are divided by economic greed, a lack of urban planning and community engagement. Over the last two decades the shoreline along National Harbor, Maryland has transformed from abandoned plantation land to a revitalized urban center. Now home to the MGM Casino, Gaylord Convention Center, Tanger Outlet Malls, the iconic Capital Wheel, and million-dollar townhouses, National Harbor’s master plan has been realized into a dense economic hub. While it has grown extensively, it lacks connectivity to the surrounding suburbs of Fort Washington on a multitude of scales. On a macro scale, it is one of the few suburbs of DC that isn’t serviced by a metro line and on a micro scale it lacks porosity to neighboring developments. Iron fences aren’t the only issue Fort Washington is facing, with the continued effects of climate change, sea levels are expected to rise an additional two feet by 2100 and commercial and residential developments will be put at risk. While the Potomac River is finally showing signs of improvement after half a century of pollution from sewage, agricultural runoff and sediment runoff, how can we protect both the natural and built environments harmoniously?Item Boulder's Missing Community(2023) Mora Rangel, Miguel Alejandro; Kelly, Brian P; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Addressing housing disparities in the United States has been a hot topic issue for many years as it cannot be solved with a singular design that incorporates affordable housing. In order to produce change in communities that suffer from housing disparities, a new typology of affordable housing communities must be introduced and change the way in which housing is perceived.Boulder, Colorado is a city that is in dire need of change. Over the past decades, Boulder has served as a hotspot in Colorado and will continue to be one for many more to come. However, living with the city limits has become an unattainable dream as housing prices rise to astronomical levels and steer newcomers and young entrepreneurs away. This long standing issue is one that, if left unresolved, will reduce Boulder to a city that lacks life outside of commerce and business, which is a characteristic that the city has avoided since its incorporation. However, by carefully analyzing the city, understanding what contributes to its uniqueness, and proposing a housing community that will address the city’s issues while also enhancing the fabric, an over encompassing solution can be reached in an attempt to maintain Boulder’s vibrant communities.Item Post-Industrial Landscapes: Amplifying Existing Food Systems in Chicago's Chinatown(2021) Li, Juanita; Williams, Brittany; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Cities have long grappled with how to feed their populations, globalization being a key tool for supplying food and enabling city growth beyond ecological limits. Outside the agro-industrial complex, the Chinese diaspora in the United States built an efficient, biodiverse and global food system to satisfy cultural yearnings. At the local level, residents in Chicago’s Chinatown have adapted private and public space to meet food needs in creative ways as a complementary system. These adaptive strategies allow Chinatown to be food rich while also experiencing high rates of poverty. Looking forward, new urban developments should support and sustain these activities as vital elements of urban food systems to complement conventional large scale agriculture. Incorporating multiple strategies to amplify the food system in Chinatown can serve as a model for diverse urban food system strategies at multiple scales.Item STRONG FOUNDATIONS: EXPLORING THE ROLE OF EDUCATIONAL ARCHITECTURE IN MITIGATING BALTIMORE’S RACIAL DISPARITIES(2021) Quintanilla, Melonee; Noonan, Peter; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The underfunding of public infrastructure in majority Black communities of the USA is an historic issue exacerbated by disenfranchisement, redlining, ‘slum’ clearance, and systemic racism. The Harlem Park neighborhood in West Baltimore needs a new school complex to replace the current Harlem Park Elementary/Middle and Augusta Fells High School building. The existing building is a relic of the disastrous 1961 Urban Renewal plan that created Route 40 (the “Highway to Nowhere”) and destroyed hundreds of homes in the neighborhood. This thesis will explore the role of educational architecture in both repairing a community harmed by discriminatory design and lessening racial disparities in education. As we grapple with yet another wave of societal reckoning, let us imagine a world where the children of Harlem Park have equal opportunity to a strong foundation of public education.Item New Urban Network of Southeast DC(2021) Koenings, Andrew R; Kelly, Brian; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Title of Thesis: WASHINGTON DC TRANSIT NETWORK: RESTORING THE CITY FABRIC BACK TO THE HUMAN SCALE Andrew Roger Koenings, Master of Architecture, 2021 Thesis Directed By: Professor Brian Kelly, AIA The goal of this thesis is to explore a new transportation network by creating a transit hub along the metropolitan area of Washington DC, in order to return the urban fabric back to the human scale. Precedents such as the National Mall in Washington DC, the city of Amsterdam in Netherlands and the capital city of Denmark, Copenhagen will be analyzed to highlight major elements of their successful urban experiences. While exploring potential solutions this thesis will consider the past, present, & future stakeholders of the city, while researching new uses for existing infrastructure, and integrating modern technology into the DC transit system. All while designing this thesis as a part of the District’s 2032 Sustainability Goals. This includes goals such as creating employment opportunities, reducing obesity, strengthening equity and diversity, reducing emissions, promoting walkability, reducing energy use, increasing public parkland, promoting bikeablity, and engaging in flood mitigation strategies.Item Grid and the Gridiron: Re-imagining Mega-Structures in the Neighborhood(2017) Cunningham, Peter; Kelly, Brian P; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In dense urban environments, space is valuable. Unused space is not a luxury taxpayers or developers can afford. Mega-structures like football stadiums are important civic and sacred spaces and are valued in American culture as such. However, they receive infrequent use, sitting idle most days of the year. This thesis will examine how architecture and urban design can make these sacred, civic spaces active and restore public value from Monday to Saturday. The means of activating spaces stem from allowing the field to function as a park, making retail space in and around the stadium functional on game days and non-game days, providing maximum structural flexibility for non-football functions, and adapting parking lots into public plazas by encouraging in them a variety of uses.Item Integrating Infrastructure South of the Capitol(2017) Camargo de Albuquerque Sanchez, Pedro Henrique; Kelly, Brian; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis looks at the role that infrastructure plays as it relates to the city. It is about taking an area of uninhabitable and divisive infrastructure and elevating it to something civic. It focuses in an area just south and west of the U.S. Capitol Building. It aims to embrace railroad and highway infrastructure as elements that serve multiple city needs, as part of the everyday, while adding artistic and monumental attributes to Washington D.C. It accepts the premises that the presence of, and the need for, the infrastructure will remain. This thesis proposes a master plan, involving the redevelopment of portions of Interstate 395, 695, and 295 highways and the railroads, to provide better use of valuable land, re connection of neighborhoods, and to create place, experienced through a series of civic spaces. Ultimately this thesis aims to set a new ideal that embraces infrastructure and elevates it to civic quality.Item Designing Happiness: Architecture and urban design for joy and well-being(2016) Habtour, Rebecca; Simon, Madlen; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Scientific studies exploring the environmental and experiential elements that help boost human happiness have become a significant and expanding body of work. Some urban designers, architects and planners are looking to apply this knowledge through policy decisions and design, but there is a great deal of room for further study and exploration. This paper looks at definitions of happiness and happiness measurements used in research. The paper goes on to introduce six environmental factors identified in a literature review that have design implications relating to happiness: Nature, Light, Surprise, Access, Identity, and Sociality. Architectural precedents are examined and design strategies are proposed for each factor, which are then applied to a test case site and building in Baltimore, Maryland. It is anticipated that these factors and strategies will be useful to architects, urban designers and planners as they endeavor to design positive user experiences and set city shaping policy.Item URBAN AGRICULTURE TYPOLOGIES, SOCIO- ECOLOGICAL CAPITAL CREATION, AND THE EVOLUTION OF A RESILIENT, LOCAL FOOD SYSTEM IN ATLANTA, GA(2015) Adams, Kevin; Chanse, Victoria; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)As urban agriculture evolves in North America it is fostering social and ecological benefits, not just in isolation but as a more comprehensive system where physical, social, and ecological aspects intertwine and scale into an urban food mosaic or a new type of green city. How is this change occurring and what are key characteristics? Building on traditional urban planning and design methods of keen observation, listening, mapping, and visualization and updating these methods with current techniques such as photo voice and map voice, this inquiry unpacks the rapidly evolving context of urban agriculture with in the metro area of Atlanta, GA. The dissertation breaks the inquiry into three parts or ‘essays’ each with its own sub-question and research literature on which it builds. Essay one asks how urban agriculture is integrated socio-ecologically on site and across city scales, looking for variation as it interacts with fifteen Atlanta urban entities representing forty sites. Essay two then asks how this variation can be typed, and essay three adds a quantitative piece to the ensemble by taking the fifth and last theme of essay two, the eco-literacy value of urban agriculture, and creating a tool to measure its distribution in Atlanta. Although the primary disciplinary focus is urban and landscape design, since the inquiry also sits within a college of planning and design, the concluding essay reflects on the dissertation and its methods and how they correspond to urban planning theory.Item The Revitalization of the American Downtown: A Network of Public Squares in Richmond, Virginia(2013) Elliott, Mark; Kelly, Brian; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In Europe, public squares are outdoor living rooms where people experience vibrant urban life in community with others. Well defined streets and squares work together to create a rich spatial experience for people moving through cities. American cities often lack this strong tradition of public space and experienced serious decline during the mid-20th century. Now as urban populations are increasing, it is time to re-invigorate the public realm of our urban areas. This thesis proposes an enhanced network of public squares in the downtown of Richmond, VA, a typical mid-sized city whose downtown is experiencing a resurgence. Using extensive precedent analysis, the investigation will apply design principles and typological characteristics to three proposed public squares in Richmond. The goals are to create catalysts for new development in the downtown and to encourage a renewed pedestrian experience of the city.