Thesis Research

Thesis Research

By: Chris Pacanowski

                Research can be hard to do when the project has such a large scope. Some interesting things that I am coming across when I was researching for my thesis project, was what was already done. What I mean by that is that a lot of sites especially if they are in a large city, already have designs that were designed for it. My research had started with looking at old city plans, some of which did have a design for my site. Looking at old city plans is a great way to see the development of ideas. After I had analyzed all of the city plans that I could find I went on to trying to find out who exactly owns the property that my project is going to be located on. Originally when I had looked at the site I had thought that it was just owned by the train yard, which it may have been, but finding out if that was true was becoming a harder task than I had thought it would be. Some helpful places that I had looked at were online zoning maps, these zoning maps had specified what my site was, a PD 904, meaning it was a Planed Development, 904 was the designation number of what planed development it was. The best thing about looking online is that the map is an interactive map, so you can just click on the site and it brings up information about the area. By doing this I had found specific plans there were designed for the site that I am doing my thesis on. These plans went into detail in written form as well as in visual for what the development could be. In looking at these designs I had seen some interesting connections between the ones done by this firm and the ideas that were starting to come in my project. Both plans had accounted for the use of mix use buildings and a variety of different types of housing. The greatest thing to do research on is multiple different case studies, and if there are case studies for the site in which the project is on, all aspects of the case must be examined and fully understood.  By looking at possible solutions to a project you can pick out the best things that were apart of each project and implement them. It's a win-win situation!