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oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/90617 2023-07-11 col_2142_5131 com_2142_5130

The student, David Douglas, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2016-04-21 at 14:57. This Thesis was approved for publication on 2016-04-22 at 13:55. DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #9416 on 2016-07-07 at 13:32:21 Henson, Jessica M. Deming, M. Elen Roesler, Jeffery Douglas, David S 2016-07-07T19:54:37Z 2016-07-07T19:54:37Z 2016-04-22 2016-05 Thousands of acres of grassy shoulders and medians line the network of high-speed Interstate highways that crisscross the United States. While these shoulders and medians serve a necessary safety purpose, the non-native turf-grass species that are typically planted in these areas are high-maintenance plants which require expensive mowing regimes. How can these underutilized shoulders and medians be employed for additional purposes, transforming the Interstate corridor into a high-performance landscape? This thesis project explores the impacts that landscape architects could have on these corridors through the implementation of interventions in these under-utilized areas. The project goal is to develop a collection of landscape interventions which would more fully utilize the thousands of acres of shoulders and medians within the Interstate corridor. The study groups the interventions into four categories: productivity, ecology, safety, and education. The compatibility of the proposed interventions with the existing conditions in, and around, the corridor are quantified, resulting in a matrix of compatibility. The ensuing matrix can be employed by department of transportation staff, engineers, and landscape architects to determine which interventions are most appropriate to apply to a section of corridor based on existing conditions. In order to make the matrix and the information collected in the thesis project more user-friendly, the data is distilled into a design manual, which is included in Appendix B. While applying the program to the Interstate corridor would make a substantial impact, implementation would face significant logistical, financial, and administrative challenges. Several of these challenges are discussed, in addition to how the matrix could be incorporated into a landscape architecture design studio class. Submission original under an indefinite embargo labeled 'Open Access'. The submission was exported from vireo on 2016-07-07 without embargo terms The student, David Douglas, accepted the attached license on 2016-04-21 at 14:43. Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-07T19:54:37Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 DOUGLAS-THESIS-2016.pdf: 14790769 bytes, checksum: 20091c41fafbe3c691792e66eec0e55c (MD5) LICENSE.txt: 4210 bytes, checksum: 3ed43bc5e52fa4be7e95b7389239b37d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-22 application/pdf http://hdl.handle.net/2142/90617 en Copyright 2016 David S. Douglas Interstate Green infrastructure Corridor design Interstate interventions text text Landscape Architecture Landscape Architecture University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Thesis M.L.A.