Theses and Dissertations
This collection includes both ASU Theses and Dissertations, submitted by graduate students, and the Barrett, Honors College theses submitted by undergraduate students.
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- All Subjects: urban planning
Description
There are unfortunately very few curricular guides that focus on community engagement within the higher education of landscape architecture. A Beginner’s Guide to Community Engagement in the Curriculum of Landscape Architecture and Urban Planning to Improve Social Justice and Sustainability helps resolve this issue and serves as a resource to students, educators, designers, and more. The guide centralizes a diverse collection of resources, guides students through learning materials, shares insight, and proposes potential community engagement methods. The booklet aims to help readers understand the importance of community engagement in design and shares different curricular approaches to introduce the work to students.
ContributorsNeeson, Margaret (Author) / Cheng, Chingwen (Thesis director) / Coseo, Paul (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / The Design School (Contributor)
Created2023-05
Description
This dissertation focuses on thermal comfort and walking as an experiential phenomenon in outdoor urban environments. The goal of the study is to provide a better understanding of the impact of psychological adaptation factors on thermal comfort. The main research questions included the impact of psychological factors on outdoor thermal comfort as well as the impact of long-term thermal perception on momentary thermal sensation. My research follows a concurrent triangulation strategy as a mixed-method approach, which consisted of a simultaneous collection and analysis of qualitative and quantitative data. Research consisted of five rounds of data collection in different locations beginning February 2018 and continuing through December 2019. During the qualitative phase, I gathered data in the form of an open-ended questionnaire but importantly, self-walking interviews where participants narrated their experience of the environment while recording one-minute long videos. The visual and audible information was first processed using thematic analysis and then further analyzed via Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA). During the quantitative phase, I gathered information from participants in the form of three-step survey questionnaires, that data was analyzed using T-Test regression analysis in STATA. The quantitative data helped explore and address the initial research questions, while the qualitative data helped in addressing and explaining the trends and the experiential aspects of thermal environment.
Results revealed that spatial familiarity (as a psychological adaptation factor) has a significant relationship for both overall comfort and thermal comfort within outdoor environments. Moreover, long term thermal memory influences momentary thermal sensation. The results of qualitative and quantitative data were combined, compared, and contrasted to generate new insights in the design of outdoor urban environments. The depth and breadth of the qualitative data set consisting of more than a thousand minute-long of narrated video segments along with hundreds of pages of transcribed text, demonstrated the subjective aspects of thermal comfort. This research highlights the importance of context-based and human-centric design in any evidence-based design approach for outdoor environments. The implications of the study can provide new insights not only for architects and urban designers, but also for city planners, stakeholders, public officials, and policymakers.
Results revealed that spatial familiarity (as a psychological adaptation factor) has a significant relationship for both overall comfort and thermal comfort within outdoor environments. Moreover, long term thermal memory influences momentary thermal sensation. The results of qualitative and quantitative data were combined, compared, and contrasted to generate new insights in the design of outdoor urban environments. The depth and breadth of the qualitative data set consisting of more than a thousand minute-long of narrated video segments along with hundreds of pages of transcribed text, demonstrated the subjective aspects of thermal comfort. This research highlights the importance of context-based and human-centric design in any evidence-based design approach for outdoor environments. The implications of the study can provide new insights not only for architects and urban designers, but also for city planners, stakeholders, public officials, and policymakers.
ContributorsGarshasby Moakhar, Mohsen (Author) / Hejduk, Renata (Thesis advisor) / Cheng, Chingwen (Committee member) / Coseo, Paul (Committee member) / Margolis, Eric (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2020
Description
Following the prolific car-centric design of the twentieth century, many cities are grappling with increasing pedestrian deaths and greater vehicle congestion. To solve these problems, many of these cities are expressing a desire to create more effective and vibrant walkable places. Aside from safety, numerous benefits come from pedestrian friendly communities, including greater economic activity, better health, greater social capital, and less environmental impact. Although there are several tools already available, evaluating an area’s current walkability situation is still varied, and evaluating a pedestrian’s thoughts on safety and enjoyability is also difficult. The benefits of walkability and past and present tools are summarized in this paper. The goal of this paper was to create a walkability evaluation tool that included smaller, often overlooked aspects of the sidewalk and site design that contribute to a pedestrian’s experience and safety. The author developed a tool containing 40 different measures of the sidewalk concerning safety, connectivity, enjoyment, and accessibility, as well as created methods for visualizing the data. The tool was then utilized to gather data at six Phoenix-metro area intersections using a combination of on street data collection and GIS software and Google Street View. The paper also details suggestions on how to act upon the data and improve walkability in an area, including minor street alterations and larger policy shifts in zoning codes. Although in preliminary data collection the tool provides a good snapshot of the data, further development of the tool and assessment of its reliability are needed, as well as greater data collection to compare evaluated areas to a larger region.
ContributorsLaufer, Daniel (Author) / King, David (Thesis director) / Coseo, Paul (Committee member) / School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12