School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation
Permanent URI for this communityhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/1607
The collections in this community comprise faculty research works, as well as graduate theses and dissertations.
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Item Restoration Space: Designing for Improved Workplace Culture and Health(2020) Knoebel, Adam Thomas; Simon, Madlen; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Depression, as the leading cause of disability in the United States among people ages 15 - 44 and the top workplace issue. The goal of this thesis is to explore and identify strategies for designing for depression in the workplace. It aims to develop further the relationship between the built environment and the process of managing the vast symptoms and causes of workplace depression, stress, and anxiety. The goal will be to create spaces that encourage connection to nature, sensory comfort, physical wellness, and building social relations as a part of the solution. By understanding the difficulty of depression in the workplace and how those with depression react to their surroundings this thesis aims to design for health, engagement, and happiness.Item NEGOTIATING DIVERSIFICATION: IMMIGRANT SETTLEMENT AND NEIGHBORHOOD CHANGE—THE CASE OF GREEKTOWN IN BALTIMORE CITY, MARYLAND(2017) Matsumoto, Naka; Baum, Howell S; Urban and Regional Planning and Design; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Creating and maintaining diverse neighborhoods has been a challenge for planners, policymakers, and community organizers as the recent and rapid influx of immigrants from Latin and Asian countries into the United States generates many diversified neighborhoods throughout the country. This phenomenon has created new social dynamics in the neighborhoods due to the differences among new and longtime residents, such as ethnicity, language and culture, socioeconomic status, generation, and family type. The neighborhoods stand on the diverging point of whether the neighborhood stays diverse or one group takes over the place. This dissertation illustrates the situation in Greektown, Baltimore City, in Maryland, which has been seeing an influx of Latino immigrants as well as new, young professional residents in the last decade. This small neighborhood was once a Greek immigrant enclave and still maintains some original ethnic characteristics on the surface, yet it is becoming drastically more diverse. In this neighborhood, the three ethnically, socioeconomically, and generationally different groups—old timers who are mostly Greeks, Latino immigrants, and new residents who are in a higher socio-economic status than the others—are negotiating with each other on various occasions in various ways, which is leading the neighborhood in a certain direction. Interviews with the residents and community leaders, a survey, and more than two years of participant observation were conducted to examine their relationships and possible outcomes. The results of this research show that although they live side by side in a small neighborhood, none of the groups has much social interaction with the others in the neighborhood. Despite the little interaction, however, the neighborhood maintains its diversity without major conflicts, and many seem to accept, and some even embrace, the diversity. The study finds there are positive “symbolic relationships” that are built upon perceptions and images in people’s minds that derive from their previous experiences, their cultural heritage, and their self-identification. The symbolic relationships can be the foundation of a diverse and collaborative neighborhood. The study also finds that due to the diversity within each group, such as subsequent, US-born generations among the immigrants and racial minorities among the new residents generate various ties across each group’s boundary. This dissertation argues that in the contemporary diverse neighborhoods where residents’ interactions are becoming more selective, cultivating symbolic relationships and utilizing those multidimensional ties can be effective to create more collaborative yet diverse neighborhoods.Item PUBLIC SPACE \\ THE INTERNET: Public Embodiment of Digital Cultures(2015) Hampton, Elizabeth Anne; Rockcastle, Garth C; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Public space is vital to urban society because it lies at the center of social and cultural life, however today the internet acts as a new centrality where interaction and socialization occur in a new invisible setting. Today both physical and digital public space serve as a vital interface for civic engagement and public participation, yet there is much content that often only remains significant on the internet. This thesis seeks to both strengthen the significance of our online public interactions and enliven the urban public realm by translating digital cultures into the urban environment, giving content the ability to flow between both worlds. This hypothesis will be tested through the redesign of Pershing Square in Downtown, Los Angeles, CA.Item DIFFERENT LAYERS OF A CULTURE: EMPOWERING TRADTIONAL TURKISH VILLAGE LIFE THROUGH ARCHITECTURE(2014) AYSIN, KEMAL KORAY; KELLY, BRIAN P; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Can an architectural intervention provide positive and sustainable cultural, economic and environmental developments for a Turkish village? The architectural formation of a cultural center that fortifies cultural traditions and creates bridges between locals and visitors, diminishes the negative effects of migration and brings economic dynamism to the area is the aim of this thesis project. Migration from villages to big cities is a common occurrence in Turkey. However, due to constantly increasing population and limitation of the resources in major cities, most of the time, people who migrate from villages with the desire to find better living conditions cannot fulfill their dreams. On the other hand, there are many qualities and aspects of villages such as agricultural production, unique arts and crafts and folkloric/traditional values. With proper coordination, these qualities may easily become economic, social and cultural drives. Therefore, a program that strengthens these values and makes them viable economic and cultural resources for village populations, may contribute to the development of villages and small-scale neighborhoods.Item Designing Hostels: Spaces Promoting Positive Cultural Interaction(2013) Bates, Benjamin Michael; Draper, Powell; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The focus of this architectural thesis is to create a design process diagram that takes into account the cultural and spatial features affecting interactions and apply it to the design of a hostel. The thesis utilizes concepts from sociology, specifically, Georg Simmel's theories regarding objective and subjective culture as well as his five "fundamental qualities of space for communal life," and applies them to the field of architecture taking into account virtual space as a sixth fundamental quality of space. This process can shed light on how to design space within a hostel, enhancing positive cross-cultural interactions by focusing the user's attention on objective cultural expression rather than a subjective cultural one. Site, program, structure, form and building skin parameters were developed using matrices, cross referencing design options against one another and the specific cultural and spatial features selected for analysis.Item The Side Stage(2005-06-06) Peters, Matthew; Francescato, Guido; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)There is never a seamless transition when societies adopt new ways of communicating and interacting, rather, there are periods that require the re-balancing of morals and values. Lacking in the public realm and urban fabric of U.S. cities are places to partake in the discourse and deliberation associated with shifts in communication and interaction rituals due to the ubiquity of electronic media. This thesis reclaims a vital part of the urban experience in the form of a public forum while at the same time celebrating the creation, critique, and consumption of culture associated with electronic media.