College of Agriculture & Natural Resources
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1598
The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
Browse
4 results
Search Results
Item Spreading the Seeds of a Solidarity Landscape: Co-creating a Biophilic Landscape and Training Curriculum in Northern Italy(2024) Christensen, Mary Elizabeth; Ruggeri, Deni; Plant Science and Landscape Architecture (PSLA); Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)A wealth of research explores the link between biophilia, access to nature, health, well-being, and quality of life (Wilson, 1984; Kellert, 1997; Louv, 2008; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989; Cooper Marcus & Sachs, 2013). Drawing on this body of research, nature-based interventions employed by social work professionals promote positive connections to nature and improve health and well-being for vulnerable populations (Obeng et al., 2023; Overbey et al., 2021). This thesis explores a participatory action research project using the case study of Villaggio Solidale, a charitable co-housing community in Northern Italy. Following the use of participatory methods, including co-creation, listening, observation, and prototyping, researchers are co-designing a Solidarity Landscape and co-creating a training curriculum with community social workers and educators to integrate nature-based interventions, biophilia, and well-being into the larger ecosystem surrounding Villaggio Solidale, ensuring that the landscape will become a central tool to support community solidarity, health, and well-being.Item Reimagining Vacant Assets with a Land Use Economy System: Design to deliver diverse benefits(2023) Marshall, Lauren EL; Sachs, Naomi A; Sullivan, Joe; Plant Science and Landscape Architecture (PSLA); Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The City of Baltimore has more than 16,000 vacant structures awaiting demolition, and with more than 200 properties coming down each year, a surplus of vacant land it does not have the resources to maintain. These unmaintained vacant parcels erode already distressed neighborhoods, decreasing safety and serving as breeding grounds for unwanted pests. Current research shows that well designed and maintained projects on vacant properties can be community amenities, increasing adjacent property values, treating stormwater, lowering crime rates, reducing dangerous summer temperatures, and improving mental and physical health. There are vacant land restoration strategies in post-industrial cities across the United States that propose interventions ranging from installing raingardens to creating urban forests. What many of these strategies lack, however, is an intentional approach to designing a system for vacant land restoration that delivers key outcomes and creates conditions to attract the resources needed for implementation and maintenance. This lack often leaves cities struggling to find capital to address the glut of vacancies across the landscape. The specific objective of this project was to improve the lives of the people by strategically restoring vacant parcels through a systems-based approach. By employing a transdisciplinary research process rooted in community power sharing, this research uncovers key components to a vacant land restoration economy system in Baltimore. An assessment of groups interested in vacant land restoration offers a replicable methodology for uncovering desired outcomes from potential funders such as cleaner water, safer neighborhoods and jobs for underemployed people. The researchers then conducted a literature review to develop design strategies for delivering identified outcomes. These design guidelines were then applied to a vacant property in the Johnston Square neighborhood of Baltimore. A community engagement process co-designed with neighborhood leaders identified community desired outcomes and features for a vacant property then the research created designs in an iterative process with community members. Finally, the potential outcomes of that design were modeled using the National Green Values Calculator and the Community-enabled Lifecycle Analysis of Stormwater Infrastructure Costs, two models designed to look at social, economic, and environmental impacts of green infrastructure. This project advances the field of landscape architecture by offering a model by which planning and design can position vacant parcels to deliver critical benefits that create the conditions for public and private reinvestment. The project positions planning and design as tools to translate best available science in landscape processes into functional elements of places that support communities while delivering services and outcomes. This project has the potential to improve the quality of life for residents of Baltimore by delivering outcomes such as cleaner water, cooler temperatures, safer neighborhoods and jobs. It can also serve as a template for cities that are struggling with similar vacancy issues.Item SOUND OF THE CITY: Creating a balanced sound composition in urban green spaces(2021) Gray, Lauren Reed; Sullivan, Jack; Plant Science and Landscape Architecture (PSLA); Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Sounds in the landscape are an important, and an often-ignored aspect of the human experience. In urban landscapes, the sounds in the landscape create a symphony. Combining the beloved sounds of nature and humans, with the often less desirable, but no less important sounds of traffic and sirens. This thesis aims to put that symphony of sounds and its relationship to the landscape under the microscope. By first looking into the theories of composers John Cage and R. Murray Schafer, and then applying those theories to the soundscape and landscape, the exploration and examination of the conscious, subconscious, beautiful, and necessary, as it pertains to soundscape and landscape design, will be revealed.Item Energy Balance, Water Balance, and Plant Dynamics of a Sloped, Thin Extensive Green Roof Installed in the Mid-Atlantic Region of the United States(2014) Tjaden, Scott William; Tilley, David; Environmental Science and Technology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Vegetated extensive green roofs can reduce peak runoff amounts during rain events. As the desire to install green roofs expands beyond roofs with little slope to those with steeper slopes, often found on residential homes, there is a need to understand how slope affects runoff. WaterShed, the University of Maryland's winning entry in the 2011 U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon competition, is used as an applied research site where studies like the runoff analysis can be completed, while helping to promote and demonstrate environmental sustainability and energy consumption efficiency. Instrumentation installed on the roof will allow high-resolution data analysis, producing hydrographs. The research has related the sloped green roof to different moisture holding capacities throughout the different elevations, resulting in a unique energy balance for the installed green roof. The thin substrate did not significantly contribute to overall runoff reduction, rather it helped to reduce the overall peak runoff and elongate the runoff lag after a rain event. This living technology's performance over time in a new application to sloped roofs is crucial both to ensure regulatory standards are met and to provide feedback for future improvements to the design and technology itself.