Planning and Design for the Levee Green and Historical Downtown District, Wharton, Texas

During the spring semester of 2021, Master of Landscape Architecture (MLA) students developed design concepts in the LAND 621 studio. Students build on the local knowledge and community feedback collected by the City in December 2020. Further, they participated in a virtual community engagement design charrette with community leaders and residents who provided the community vision and direction for the designs. The final ideas were presented to the public using a virtual platform, Social Pinpoint, where community members engaged and provided community feedback. Students explored designs for the greenway corridor along the Colorado River to address flooding mitigation and stormwater management while meeting the community's recreational needs by connecting the riverfront and existing parks by a trail system. The designs aim to restore shared outdoor gathering spaces and to establish long-needed connectivity to other parts of the City. Based on the community priority and future development potential, students focused on enhancing existing assets like the downtown, Fulton Street Corridor, Guffey Park, Milam Street, Elm Street Promenade, Railroad Greenway, and Sunset Street, Riverside Nature Park, and West-end Community Health Park.The City of Wharton partnered with TxTC to develop a Master Plan and Landscape Improvement Design for the Levee Green and Historic Downtown District. The City reached out to TxTC to help plan a levee green space overlay project, which includes an $80 million the US Army Corps of Engineers levee project that will span approximately 6 miles through Wharton and along the banks of the Colorado River. The levee will be adjacent to communities that have been repeatedly impacted by flooding events and run along the southern border of the historically registered downtown business district and preserved courthouse.City of Wharton, Texas; Texas Target Communities (TxTC); Texas A&M University (TAMU

Monolithically-grained perovskite solar cell with Mortise-Tenon structure for charge extraction balance

Abstract Although the power conversion efficiency values of perovskite solar cells continue to be refreshed, it is still far from the theoretical Shockley-Queisser limit. Two major issues need to be addressed, including disorder crystallization of perovskite and unbalanced interface charge extraction, which limit further improvements in device efficiency. Herein, we develop a thermally polymerized additive as the polymer template in the perovskite film, which can form monolithic perovskite grain and a unique “Mortise-Tenon” structure after spin-coating hole-transport layer. Importantly, the suppressed non-radiative recombination and balanced interface charge extraction benefit from high-quality perovskite crystals and Mortise-Tenon structure, resulting in enhanced open-circuit voltage and fill-factor of the device. The PSCs achieve certified efficiency of 24.55% and maintain >95% initial efficiency over 1100 h in accordance with the ISOS-L-2 protocol, as well as excellent endurance according to the ISOS-D-3 accelerated aging test