Currently, the University of Washington’s Notifications of Criminal Incidents notify members of the UW community about less than five percent of all crimes that occur in the University District, and the criteria the emergency communications committee uses to determine whether to report specific events is not easily accessible to the UW community. This lack of transparency and clear criteria prompted the question of how transparent UW’s emergency communications should be to maintain the highest level of student safety possible. To answer this question, I conducted case studies of other universities’ emergency communications systems, reviewed public records about UW’s emergency communications systems, and interviewed the founder and head of UW Alert. As a result of this research, I have a much more comprehensive understanding of UW’s emergency communications. I used my contact with Dr. Arkans to make recommendations as to how UW’s emergency communications could be operated more transparently while still maintaining victim privacy. As a result of my research and recommendations, information about UW’s emergency communications should be more accessible to the UW community.
Subject: Senior
Deterring Crime through Tactical Design
Abstract
Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) is an alternative approach to deterring criminal behavior through the application of interdisciplinary design principles within the natural and built environment. This project seeks to pair particular CPTED principles to site-specific residential deficiencies within the neighborhood north of the University of Washington’s Seattle campus. Currently, there is a procedural disconnect between the ideologies of CPTED and their application to existing neighborhoods and criminalities. To effectively merge the gap, this project establishes an evaluation process and develops a corresponding blueprint for changes to be made within the study area. To achieve this end, the project follows three distinct phases comprised of research, fieldwork, and site improvement. Specifically, this scheme uses crime statistics and gauged community perspective to guide street segment evaluations based on predominant components of CPTED. From this assessment, corresponding recommendations are deduced to provide an array of relevant principles to aid in the deterrence of crime. The final product is a report detailing the diagnoses of deficiencies in coordination with a set of recommendations scaled to the parcel and neighborhood level. By aiming the analysis and prescription of principles to the local community, this project functions as a preliminary case study for comprehensible CPTED implementation. Components of CPTED can be readily employed within personal properties, offering an alternative to increased police presence and defensive target hardening, while supporting the development of safer communities and public spaces.
Decolonizing the Land
Abstract
Colonialism and globalized capitalism have created a civilization divorced from nature and disconnected from place. These forces have also worked to undermine and destroy Indigenous cultures and languages in pursuit of control over land and resources. I created a campus walking tour to teach the Lushootseed names for the plants as an act of decolonization, as well as a way to support and honor the Indigenous people of the Puget Sound. Through research and sitting with elders, I compiled a list of important plants, their Lushootseed names, and their traditional uses. I used the list to make a foldable map with plant names and photos to be used by people on the tour. The goal of the project is to teach the local community about the plants in order to reestablish a connection to nature and the people of this land.
Seeing Green
Abstract
Due to increasing urbanization, cities including Seattle are seeking creative means of increasing the amount of greenspace in their urban environments. Green walls are one example of including natural elements on vertical surfaces that are often left unutilized. Green walls have been linked to a wide range of benefits regarding sustainability. Compared to the social elements of sustainability, much more attention has been given to the environmental and economic factors. This project explores the public social benefits of green walls in order to determine if green walls are a feasible means of creatively including more sustainable greenspace in urban areas. The identified benefits are individually explained regarding their connections to sustainability. An additional component of this project is a set of site evaluations and a survey exploring public opinions on the benefits of green walls. This results in a report that addresses the potential benefits of green walls, in addition to the challenges, with specific examples in Seattle. This product is intended to provide insight on the feasibility of using green walls to contribute to the public social benefit while simultaneously incorporating necessary greenspace into urban areas.
Livable City Year
Abstract
The model for this type of university-community partnership is a potential solution to a long existing gap between knowledge and practice. Historically, this gap has been perpetuated by the unwillingness of universities to make both intellectual and financial investments in their surrounding communities. The purpose of this project is to both guide an understanding of how Livable City Year seeks to address this disparity and to promote the impact of the program on both the university community and the City of Auburn, UW’s community partner for the 2016-2017 academic year. This is done through the creation of a short video that aims to tell the story of LCY’s inaugural year in a way that will influence students, faculty, and community partners to engage with the program in years to come.
Street Style
PARADIGM SHIFTS
Abstract
The purpose of this project is to build empathy for people experiencing homelessness by creating of a fashion zine featuring stories and style. Challenging the prevailing, stigmatized viewpoint presented by the media, this project explores the intersection of resourcefulness, self-expression, and survival through something everyone does- get dressed. Acknowledging the current political system and framework, I present the perspectives of people living unsheltered on their lifestyles to dispel stigma and set a cultural paradigm shift into motion. To produce this zine, I conducted conversational interviews and street fashion photography with homeless individuals in Seattle. By sharing the humanity of people experiencing homelessness, I hope to spark understanding and encourage people to build community with those around them.
Community Based Restoration
PRESERVING ECOSYSTEM SERVICES & BUILDING SOCIAL CAPITAL
Abstract
In urban areas, greenspacesi with thriving natural ecosystems are essential to the health of humans and other living organisms. These systems provide ecosystem services, such as stormwater mitigation, carbon sequestration, and wildlife habitat, as well as space for recreation and community gatherings. Community-based ecological restoration is a strategy to preserve these essential ecosystem services while giving community volunteers an opportunity to improve their neighborhood greenspace and build social capital.
This project studies the motivations and ideologies that drive community-based restoration in the Seattle area. I conducted a comprehensive literature review of community- based restoration benefits and motivations and interviewed ten restoration leaders in Seattle. The interviews explore the diversity of approaches and outcomes of community-based restoration, drawing connections between different restoration projects.
Four themes emerged from the interviews in addition to key motivations: competing uses of the restored space, ideal trail design, the role of community in restoration and ongoing maintenance, and relationships with Seattle Parks and Recreation and other collaborators. Understanding these differences is essential to informing long term management plans for urban greenspaces, a limited resource in the face of a growing population.
Emergency Urbanism
DESIGNING REFUGEE CAMPS IN JORDAN
Project statement
Refugee camps are not considered as long-term settlements when they are planned and built, but the reality is that these camps exist for years and years. This lack of planning contributes to the increased alienation of refugees and to camps that are not necessarily designed in the best interest of the people they are suppose to serve.
The purpose of this project is to address that gap in refugee camp planning by looking to urban design topics as a way to think comprehensively about camp design. The project aims to provide macro and micro-level recommendations for refugee camps in Jordan, Syria’s neighbor to the south which is trying to accommodate the mass in ux of Syrian refugees eeing the Syrian civil war. The recommendations will be sent to designers at the Ennead Lab working on the Rethinking Refugee Communities projects with UNHCR and Stanford.
This is qualitative research project reviews the Handbook for Emergencies from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Additionally, the project investigates Zaatari and Azraq, the two most recent refugee camps in Jordan, as case studies to learn more about camp development, and interviews those who have had direct experience and exposure in these camps.
My project concludes that the UNHCR policy, although comprehensive for the initial emergency phase of a situation, does not adequately address the long-term needs of a camp. Zaatari needs
to address how its looming permanence will a ect host populations, and Azraq needs to boost community and address the emptiness issue. Both camps need a contingency plan for the how they will integrate into Jordanian society after the camps are no longer necessary.
Refugee camps are a crucial feature of the humanitarian e ort. They serve as a part of UNHCR’s emergency response, and are particularly useful in identifying people with speci c needs and delivering large amounts of supplies to large populations. About 40% of the world’s 13 million refugees live in camps, and there are more than 1,000 refugee camps scattered over 60 countries (UNHCR Policy on Alternatives to Camps 2014)(Herz 2008:281). Camps are used in order to assess the initial emergency situation and can support refugees for some time, but they have their problems. By de nition, a refugee camp is “any purpose-built, planned and managed location or spontaneous settlement where refugees are accommodated and receive assistance and services from government and humanitarian agencies.” The de nition continues with “the de ning characteristic of a camp…
is some degree of limitation on the rights and freedoms of refugees, such as their ability to move freely, choose where to live, work or open a business, cultivate land or access protection and service”
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(UNHCR Policy on Alternatives to Camps 2014). I was drawn to study refugee camps for my senior project because despite of these limitations, refugee camps have managed to mimic cities in their complexities. Interestingly, these makeshift cities are erected in a fraction of the time it takes for
the average city to develop, yet still displays some of the characteristics present in cities. Taking my knowledge and curiosity of urban planning and design, I apply several topics within this eld in order to understand how refugee camps have developed and grown over time.
More speci cally, the urban planning and design topics that sparked my interest were layout design and its relationship with open spaces and lighting, and also housing type and orientation. On a
larger scale, I was interested in understanding how comprehensive planning, governance structure, community involvement strategies, and infrastructure quality were present and managed in the refugee camp. These 6 topics in total, ranging from micro to macro scale design and planning
topics, were chosen out of a number of other potential topics in the planning eld because they
were the main recurring themes that I noticed when researching for the group project while
studying abroad. Other topics I could have included might be environmental impact and host community relationships, but adding those to my list would have greatly expanded my project scope. Additionally, I made the choice to study refugee camps on their own instead of also look outward
to understand the more complex political negotiations that usually happen around camp sites. I wanted to limit myself to thinking just about the immediate camp space and only those six guiding topics, which also helped guide my research and also helped to frame my nal product. My nal list of recommendations were also structured around small and large scale suggestions based on the 6 topics that I have outlined here.
My nal product, a list of recommendations for the short and long-term goals of Zaatari, Azraq,
and the UNHCR Handbook for Emergencies, will be sent to two architects/designers at the Ennead (pronounced en-nee-add) Lab. Ennead Lab was established in 2010 as a branch of the ennead Architects’ professional practice in order to expand “the traditional boundaries of professional architectural practice by promoting discourse, experimentation, invention, education, collaboration, and action in the elds of architecture and design” (Ennead Architects). Additionally, Ennead Lab “identi es civic challenges and opportunities, creates and sponsors innovative design solutions and advances these solutions as catalysts for civic discourse, education, community improvement, a sustainable environment and urban progress” (Ennead Architects).I was able to make the connection with Ennead Lab by talking to Evan Elise, a teacher assistant who helped Kathie Friedman, my mentor, teach the Jackson School of International Studies’ class on Forced Migration class. Evan, a UW alumna, had just completed her Master’s in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies in Oxford and is a member of the Humanitarian Innovation Project. The Humanitarian Innovation Project hosted a conference last year and two members from the Ennead Lab, Don Weinreich and Eliza Montgomery, spoke at
the event about a project they are working on called Rethinking Refugee Communities. The project
is responding to UNHCR’s need to change its process of planning, building, and operating refugee camps by designing a toolkit that provides “systematic framework for integration information,
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design, and technical tools and the expertise of multiple disciplines and stakeholders to better plan settlements” (Ennead Lab | Rethinking Refugee Communities).Since there were many similarities between my thesis and that project, Evan encouraged me to send Ennead Lab and eventually I was able to connect with the two people who spoke at the event. I have been in email contact with Don Weinreich and Eliza Montgomery of the Rethinking Refugee Communities since February 2015 and they have agreed to receive my list of recommendations when I am nished.
Color in Context
UTILIZING NATURAL DYES OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST TO CREATE SUSTAINABLE TEXTILES
Abstract
The synthetic dyes used to color our clothes and other textiles are highly toxic to ecosystems and the people who come in contact with them. Natural dyes may be an alternative to the synthetics currently used, however, there are little to no natural dyes commercially available that have been sourced locally. I researched the availability of effective natural dyestuffs in the Pacific Northwest and how they may be used in local textile industries through a literature review. By taking samples of prospective dyestuffs from various bioregions and creating a dye bath out of each sample, I was able to catalog the dyestuff, mordant, and methods used to make the dye bath, as well as the fabric dyes and dyeing method. I then used a few dyestuffs to create garments for seven models that were shown in the Associated Students of the University of Washington (ASUW) “Everybody, Every Body Fashion Show”. I found many different dyestuffs in the Pacific Northwest that can be used as effective and ethical dyes. This will be a significant project for the local textile industries that are working toward decreasing their environmental impact.