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Browsing by Author "Echols, Stuart Patton"

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    Split-flow Stormwater Management Strategy Design Feasibility and Cost Comparison
    Echols, Stuart Patton (Virginia Tech, 2002-10-11)
    This dissertation develops a new distributed split-flow stormwater management strategy and compares its site design feasibility and construction cost to existing stormwater management methods. The purpose of the split-flow strategy is to manage stormwater by preserving predevelopment flows in terms of rate, quality, frequency, duration and volume. This strategy emulates the predevelopment hydrology: it retains and infiltrates additional runoff volume created by development by using bioretention and paired weirs as proportional flow splitters connected to small infiltration facilities distributed throughout a site. Results show that 1) the distributed split-flow stormwater management strategy can provide a higher level of environmental protection at comparable construction cost to existing detention-based methods, 2) split-flow systems are less expensive to construct than current truncated hydrograph-based bioretention and infiltration systems and 3) non-point source water pollution-reduction objectives, currently achieved with either detention with first flush or comparable bioretention and infiltration systems, could be achieved in a more cost-effective manner using distributed split-flow stormwater management strategy.
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    Teaching design: a qualitative study of design studio instruction
    Echols, Stuart Patton (Virginia Tech, 1994-09-05)
    This thesis is a qualitative study of current teaching practices in landscape architecture centering around instructors' understanding and use of studio teaching methods. Selected faculty, considered by their peers to be expert studio instructors, participated in one hour, open-ended interviews sing their instructional experiences and examining the teaching methods they espouse. The resulting transcripts provided a base for qualitative analyses for a small sample of current teaching practices. By documenting selected design studio instruction methods, new faculty may draw upon a pool of education possibilities ranging far beyond their experience as students. Similarly, examination of the theoretical foundations, expected outcomes, and teaching methods of professors may provide new faculty with a more holistic benchmark for gauging their professional growth.