Active and restorative campus: designing a garden street for student’s mental and physical well-being

dc.contributor.authorDeVault, J. Ross
dc.date.accessioned2015-05-11T14:12:11Z
dc.date.available2015-05-11T14:12:11Z
dc.date.graduationmonthAugust
dc.date.issued2015-05-11
dc.description.abstractA significant decline of mental and physical health exists within college students today (ACHA, 2014; Gallagher, 2006). Recently, to promote mental health, restorative landscapes have emerged as a trend in healthcare environments by formalizing the healing properties of nature within a designed environment. Humans have been shown to undergo a measurable relief of stress, improved attention, and an improved overall sense of well-being when exposed to a restorative landscape setting. Opportunities exist for university campuses to more advantageously employ the mental health benefits of restorative landscapes. Furthermore, to address physical health, the university campus holds unique opportunities to increase students’ physical activity through promotion of active lifestyles using active modes of transportation. Campus streets, based on their lack of affordances to promote mental and physical health as well as their inherent connectivity to key campus buildings and spaces are investigated as a site for a designed solution. A recent trend of campus street conversions to pedestrian malls is identified and explored as a tool to facilitate creation of a restorative and active campus. The project, based in two fundamental research questions, investigates how campus street design can improve the collective mental health of college students, and how campus street design can promote physical health. Literature review analysis reveals theories and principles of restorative landscape and campus design. The project unites these findings with case study analysis to form a framework to facilitate the design of restorative environments within a university campus. Pragmatic evidence of built environment interventions has been synthesized from literature review and case study analysis into an additional framework to increase physical activity through active transportation. Kansas State University’s campus has been identified as a suitable case for a design proposal. Planning and design decisions at three nested scales are made to illustrate how the frameworks may be applied to reclaim a campus street as an active and restorative “garden street.” In the context of declining mental and physical health among college students, the synthesis of principles related to restorative landscape design and active transportation presents a valuable structure to mitigate declining mental and physical health of students.
dc.description.advisorHyung Jin Kim
dc.description.degreeMaster of Landscape Architecture
dc.description.departmentDepartment of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning
dc.description.levelMasters
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2097/19238
dc.language.isoen_US
dc.publisherKansas State University
dc.rights© the author. This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
dc.rights.urihttp://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/
dc.subjectLandscape architecture
dc.subjectStudent health
dc.subjectRestorative landscapes
dc.subjectActive transportation
dc.subjectTransportation planning
dc.subjectCampus design
dc.subject.umiLandscape Architecture (0390)
dc.subject.umiPublic Health (0573)
dc.subject.umiTransportation (0709)
dc.titleActive and restorative campus: designing a garden street for student’s mental and physical well-being
dc.typeReport

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