Date of Award

5-2017

Document Type

Terminal Project

Degree Name

Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA)

Department

Landscape Architecture

Committee Member

Dr. Martin Holland (Chair)

Committee Member

Dr. Mary Padua

Committee Member

Dr. Matthew Powers

Abstract

During summer months, the sunny warm beaches get packed with millions of visitors. Those seasonal vacationers invigorate the local economies and create seasonal income and jobs for a lot of cities and towns. On the negative side, seasonal population change leaves a huge burden on the town’s shoulders. Beach goers expect a variety of services to be available in their beach destination. For instance, beach goers expect easy and accessible vehicular routes, enough parking spaces and safe pedestrian sidewalks. Another level of serivces beach goers expect to find in their beach destination are ideal locations of beach access spots, for clean restrooms, and for trash bins. In fact, there is a third level of services that seaside towns aught to provide, and that is planning and allocating for the invisible reality of the underground infrastructure; stormwater management is the main concern to seaside towns in this regard, as an example.

Hence, dealing with seasonal population change is the main focus of this study. This paper provides a comprehensive plan for a small seaside town on how to accommodate for the summer population surge through three main layers. In the first layer, this study aims to provide practicle solutions for parking and accessibility issue. Also, within this layer, the study proposes why a seaside community need to focus on creating accessible public spaces, and overlays the significant role that social interaction plays in highlighting a strong place identity. In the second layer, this study suggests practicle ways on how to pormote for unique and distinective identity in terms of using recent technological means within the landscape spectrum. Finally, the third layer focuses on branding and authenticity. In another word, this layer offers practicle ways on how the a small seaside community can show a strong place identity using sensible branding elements.

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