Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Faculty Selected Works pages

Telling the Springfield Story: Project Report

Elizabeth Brabec — Mon, 12 Nov 2012 20:12:21 PST

This project applies locative media technology (video on website and mobile devices) to spur community engagement and economic development in downtown Springfield. Video performances (narrative stories, songs, dances, etc.) by local Springfield residents relate their experiences and perceptions of the city. The video performances are accessed through locative media, which enables smart phones and other Internet devices to download content in a downtown Springfield "performance walk."

The Use of Spatial and Mixed Methods in Analyzing Cultural Landscapes

Elizabeth Brabec et al. — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 01:22:47 PDT

The cultural landscape is a complex phenomenon resulting from both natural-geographical and social-cultural processes. Defining the normative patterns produced by each culture and/or historical period is essential to understanding the patterns and features of the anthropogenic landscape and the inherent meaning. Currently, an understanding of both historical and contemporary patterns is developed from the qualitative analysis of a single or small number of cases. Results obtained from a single or small number of cases are inherently limited in their ability to clearly identify the pattern in a complex system, particularly when a chosen case may present an anomaly rather than the norm. A more comprehensive and robust research methodology can be found in a population sample design using a mixed method approach including qualitative, quantitative and spatial analysis methods. While classic statistical methods are useful for quantifying objects and analyzing distribution patterns in the landscapes, qualitative methods can illuminate and interpret the cultural meanings in the patterns. Therefore, a mixed methods approach takes advantage of the strengths of applying both quantitative and qualitative methods in a sequential, concurrent, and transformative manner (Creswell 2009). Stated another way, while spatial analysis is useful in finding statistically significant relationships between objects in landscapes, qualitative analysis methods are crucial in making the spatial pattern meaningful. Combining the two into an integrated spatial and mixed method approach can provide a full analysis and understanding of the cultural landscape.

Spatial analysis has long been in use in the fields of archeology and heritage management to identify cultural patterns (Baena et al. 1998; Soltysiak and Jaskulski 1998). Based in part on these existing methodologies, a sequential and iterative, spatial mixed-method approach for analyzing settlement patterns in cultural landscapes is presented and evaluated in this paper. The methodology is applied and evaluated in two contexts: the Gullah community of St. Helena Island, South Carolina, and the pluzina patterns of medieval settlement and field patterns in the Czech Republic. The cultural landscape patterns are analyzed at the regional, community and individual household levels, using iterative applications of spatial, quantitative and qualitative methods to both individual cases and large sample sizes. The paper presents the strengths and weaknesses of single cases versus samples that are reflective of entire populations, the application of quantitative, qualitative spatial analysis methods and subsequently the benefits of a mixed-methods approach to cultural landscape analysis.

Using Locative Media in Heritage Landscapes: A review of current practice

Elizabeth Brabec et al. — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 20:19:41 PDT

Locative media projects are beginning to be recognized in various arts and humanities disciplines as a portal through which interpretive information can be connected to location. Projects can be accessed from two different perspectives: in front of a computer screen or on the ground with the aid of a GPS enabled smart phone. In either format, content in the form of narrative, video, images, historic documents, etc., can be connected with a specific GPS point location on a map or on a real site. However, while locative media holds the potential to create a visitor experience without negatively impacting the local community and their cultural landscapes, its utility, impacts and weaknesses have not yet been fully explored.

This paper reviews a series of six projects in the United States, Canada and the Czech Republic, to analyse the strengths, weaknesses, and hurdles to implementation of this emerging technology. While it holds promise for the interpretation of both tangible and intangible heritage, there are significant ethical and privacy issues to its implementation. The central case, of a project implemented in the Gullah community of St. Helena Island, South Carolina, illustrates the potential for the technology to become a conduit for the sharing of intangible heritage with younger generations. It also provides an illustration of the impacts of heritage tourism, and both the strengths and weaknesses of this approach for the interpretation of tangible and intangible heritage.

In conclusion the paper evaluates the types of heritage that can be effectively conveyed through this medium, as well as heritage that is not well suited to this approach (e.g. private home landscape) that causes issues of visual access for the public, and perceived intrusion for the community.

The Economic Vitality of the Blackstone Valley Mills: A Snapshot at a Moment in Time

John Mullin et al. — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 05:44:25 PDT

The Economic Resilience of the Blackstone Valley Mills Illustrates the Viability of a Flexible-use Business Strategy for New England's Mills and Mill Complexes

Trends in Industrial Development

John Mullin — Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:04:22 PDT

Zenia Kotval and John Mullin review the key issues involving local land use decisions and industrial development in Massachusetts. They point out that the cumulative impact of town after town discouraging industrial development has resulted in creating a state where land use is a limiting factor for industrial development and growth. Concurring with recent thinking on economic development, the authors take a strong stance that our future economic well being must be based on a mixed economy where industry and manufacturing are a key player.

'Learning by doing': adaptive planning as a strategy to address uncertainty in planning

Sadahisa Kato et al. — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 08:10:21 PDT

Adaptive management, an established method in natural resource and ecosystem management, has not been widely applied to landscape planning due to the lack of an operational method that addresses the role of uncertainty and standardized monitoring protocols and methods. A review of adaptive management literature and practices reveals several key concepts and principles for adaptive planning: (1) management actions are best understood and practiced as experiments; (2) several plans/experiments can be implemented simultaneously; (3) monitoring of management actions are key; and (4) adaptive management can be understood as ‘learning by doing’. The paper identifies various uncertainties in landscape planning as the major obstacles for the adoption of an adaptive approach. To address the uncertainty in landscape planning, an adaptive planning method is proposed where monitoring plays an integral role to reduce uncertainty. The proposed method is then applied to a conceptual test in water resource planning addressing abiotic-biotic-cultural resources. To operationalize adaptive planning, it is argued that professionals, stakeholders and researchers need to function in a genuinely transdisciplinary mode where all contribute to, and benefit from, decision making and the continuous generation of new knowledge.

Landscape Ecology for Watersheds

Jack F. Ahern et al. — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 07:58:48 PDT

German City Planning in the 1920's: A North American Perspective of the Frankfurt Experience

John Mullin — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 05:56:48 PDT

This paper on German City Planning in the 1920's, represents a North American perspective of the urbanistic experiences of Frankfurt in that period. Tremendous strides and advances were effectuated in virtually all aspects of government, housing policy, open space and town design, prior to the grasping of power by the national socialists. The legacy is an important one, for indeed, many of the great pioneers of early 20th century urbanism worked in Frankfurt, tested their ideas, saw them implemented, and subsequently emigrated from Germany to many parts of the globe, where these experiences followed them.

Greenways as Strategic Landscape Planning: Theory and Application

Jack F. Ahern — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:15:27 PST

This thesis investigates greenways as an emerging strategy for landscape planning. In the thesis, greenways are researched through case studies in the Netherlands and the USA and through published literature. Application of the greenway concept is made to several landscape planning projects in the USA. An original greenway typology is proposed based on: scale, goals, spatial context, and planning strategy. Using the typology, greenway planning is compared with other contemporary landscape planning concepts and activities including: ecological networks, wildlife corridors, and habitat networks. The thesis discusses three fundamental benefits of greenways: the hypothesis of co-occurrence of resources; the inherent benefits of landscape connectivity; and the concept of compatible, or synergistic multiple use in greenways. A “framework method” for landscape/greenway planning is proposed based on an alternative future scenario approach. The method provides a framework for applying landscape ecological principles to landscape planning (i.e. landscape ecological planning). The integration of cultural resources and issues is identified as a challenge in greenway planning and is integral with the framework method. Landscape aesthetics is considered as fundamental in greenway and is incorporated in the case applications and reviewed in the literature. A survey of greenway planning in the USA was conducted which found that: greenways are increasingly integrated with comprehensive landscape planning in the USA, and greenways are often initiated to provide trail and recreational use, but evolve to support multipurpose/multi-functional planning goals and objectives. Finally, the thesis addresses the issue of uncertainty in data and knowledge for planning and proposes an interactive and adaptive approach through which greenway planning may be conducted with imperfect knowledge.

7 Principles of Sustainable Design

Jack F. Ahern — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 10:05:07 PST