Browsing by Subject "urban design"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5

Austin’s Great Streets: Success and Failure on Second Street
(2023-05) Kim, Donghyun
Great streets make great cities. This holds especially true in the United States, where public space and life in American cities are typically relegated to the streets in the relative absence of plazas, squares, and parks. As cities began to acknowledge how car-centric life and low-density sprawl dismantled the life of its downtowns, they sought to employ urban planning and design values for revitalization. Austin, Texas is a notably rapid-growing American city which also began to reimagine its downtown through the lens of urban planning and design, especially at the turn of the millennium. Decades of visionary planning led to the adoption of the city’s first modern, comprehensive street design initiative—the Great Streets Program. Along with a renewed focus on street vitality, Austin engaged in several redevelopment efforts across the city. Of these, the Second Street Retail District was a flagship downtown revitalization project which sought to embody the city’s new urban planning and design values. Now, a decade after the completion of the Retail District redevelopment project, this thesis examines the historic circumstance of Austin’s urban environment and the evaluates the ways Second Street succeeded and failed in its goals regarding economic revitalization, pedestrian prioritization, and urban character. The thesis begins with a recounting of key urban planning decisions in Austin’s history, describes the Great Streets program and Retail District project in detail, then analyzes the project and concludes with key findings.
GIS Spatial Analysis for the Design of Urban Open Space
(Graduate School of Texas Tech University, 2008-05) Howard, Michael
Urban design in the landscape tradition has a unique set of users and uses due to the nature of urban sites in densely developed areas, yet many urban designers employ the same basic approach in terms of their design process and site analysis methods as they would in suburban or rural areas. In addition, urban design theory is not adequately reflected in the analytical methods traditionally used by landscape architects, nor do traditional methods adequately synthesize the multitude of complex information urban designers must consider throughout all phases of the urban design process. However, GIS offers unique tools for data management, visualization and most importantly spatial analysis, allowing the urban designer new methods for the design of urban open space. The author examines the traditional site design process and site analysis methods, the most common GIS spatial analysis techniques, and the theoretical framework of urban design in the landscape architectural tradition in an effort to determine the applicability of GIS functionality as a resource to the traditional design process, determine the applicability of GIS spatial analysis tools to aid and enhance the traditional site analysis methods, and determine the applicability of GIS spatial analysis tools as a means to analyze the key dimensions of urban design as set forth by urban design theory. GIS spatial analysis tools are demonstrated following the traditional design process in an application study at Republic Square, an urban park in Austin, Texas.
Low impact development and decisions: a framework for comparison of spatial configurations low impact development in the design of a district
(2013-05) Fuentes, Nelly Fernanda; Shearer, Allan W.; Moore, Steven A., 1945-
This study analyzes the quantifiable impacts of low impact development features, sometimes referred to as green infrastructure, across three alternative proposals for the development of a city district along the edge of a lake and a creek. Low impact development is defined as a stormwater management approach designed to capture water before it goes into stormwater drains or directly into bodies of water in order to allow the water to infiltrate groundwater sources or evapotranspirtate back into the atmosphere. The study applies Carl Steinitz’s Framework for GeoDesign to the three alternative proposals and the existing conditions as a means of comparison in order to understand an informed decision based approach to design.
The Sentinel City: A Multivalent Resiliency Plan For Houston, Texas
(2019-05-01) Moore, Dana; Atkinson, Simon
Sentinel Cities are the first metropoles in the United States to exhibit signs of climate change-related stress. Each Sentinel has a unique set of problems to overcome. In Houston these are climate-augmented storms and sea level rise, which subject its residents to compound flood vulnerability from drastic rainfall and storm surge. Today, Houston is subject to several underlying systemic weaknesses inherited from the city’s unchecked growth, which make the urban populace particu- larly vulnerable to flood events. The most acclaimed proposal to mitigate flood risk Houston is the “Ike Dike” Coastal Spine, a system of flood barriers and gates modeled after the 20th century Delta Works of Holland as precedent. Further interrogation of the Dutch model as precedent reveals deep differences between the Texas flood problem and that of the Netherlands, while also revealing aspects of the Delta Plan that Houston could emulate. A multivalent resiliency strategy for Houston can imitate these methods while also ensuring success in the distinct Texas social and political climate. This report explores a scheme called the String of Pearls, a strategy to incentivize sustainable growth in Houston while building emergency preparedness into the very fabric of the city.
Waller Creek Corridor Framework Plan
(City of Austin, 0000-00-00) City of Austin Watershed Protection Department