Architecture Commons^™

A Social-Ecological Systems Inquiry For Understanding Environmental Change In Los Angeles Outer-Ring Suburbs, Farnaz Kamyab

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Within the framework of the city's green infrastructure, urban and suburban green coverage play a pivotal role in delivering substantial benefits to health, economy, and the environment. However, the permanence of these green coverage is threatened by dynamic changes in neighborhood socio-economic, spatial, and ecological elements and their loss or degradation presents a problematic issue. Social-Ecological System Theory (SES) offers a comprehensive framework for understanding the potential correlations between socio-economic trends and the degradation of green coverage. This research is based on a case study of the highly diverse megacity, Los Angeles (LA), which encompasses a wide array of built-environments, …

A Mixed-Method Study On The Walkability Of Streets In Hospital-Anchored Neighborhoods, Xiaowei Li

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The field of healthcare design is adopting planning and design principles from the Healthy Communities movement to connect hospitals to their adjacent communities. This research explores the impact of neighborhood and street design on the walkability of Hospital-Anchored Neighborhoods (HANs), a concept integrating hospitals and satellite services with their surrounding communities to enhance public health. Walkability, a crucial marker of healthy and vibrant communities, was investigated through a mixed-method study across three HANs. A comprehensive Walkability Framework with 17 built environment dimensions was developed from the literature to inform data collection utilizing GIS archival data, ethnographic observations, street audits, and …

Developing Design Guidelines Of Deployable Bamboo Scissors-Like Arch Structures: For Structural Performance, Flexibility, And Constructability, Anastasia Maurina

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Prefabrication approaches are widely used to improve vulnerable communities building quality. It would be valuable if the prefabrication relied on locally available resources instead of depending on heavy industry. Although prefabrication approaches have many advantages, such as efficiency and consistency, they may lack flexibility, which may not be adaptable to the community's needs and preferences. The modular approach generally enhances flexibility by arranging modules into various end products. Incorporating a modular approach with deployable structures, which can transform from compact to predetermined configurations, is expected to boost flexibility. In addition, regarding constructability, developing this idea using bamboo, which is massively …

The Erasure Of Rural West Texas Voices In Higher Education Institutions An Autoethnographic Study Of Minoritized Students Of West Texas In Their Journey To Obtain Success In Higher Education Institutions, David Whaley-Weems Sr

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I was once told there is a person in the world who has locked within his or her mind the framework for the cure for cancer or even the ability to create an energy model that will revolutionize how society consumes natural resources. Now imagine if I told you I have seen that person alive and well working as an oil well driller on a rig in Mentone, Texas. The first question most people would ask is, “Why is the person drilling in the middle of nowhere Texas instead of impacting the world by way of displaying his or her …

Likeliness To Recommend: A Mixed Methods Analysis Of Consumer Perception Of Homebuilders, Todd Usher

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Measures of consumers’ likeliness to recommend a business or company have been shown to relate to business performance. Less is known about how such scores might operate in the homebuilding industry. This study examines the factors influencing consumers’ perceptions of homebuilders, an area with little published research. Using a sequential mixed-methods approach, the study analyzes survey data from consumers (N = 366) who had new homes built within the preceding 12 months. Quantitative analyses of the data reveal several aspects of consumers’ likeliness to recommend a homebuilder. One finding of great interest is that consumers of the survey were more …

Reading Toward Breath: A Poetic Ecology Of Creative Reading, Jessica Schad Manuel

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Reading is an act of perception that begins in wonder and leads to wisdom. It is not a response to writing but a response-ability we have to interact with the world around us and the phenomena before us. Reading with the body leads to wisdom, and when we participate in our existence by being in the world, we are reading. So what is reading? Reading is making. We make connections, and we form relationships. The act of reading is more than a cognitive process and even surpasses the phenomenological encounter.

My research describes the reader’s relationship to the text as …

Design, Integration, And Evaluation Of Iot-Based Electrochromic Building Envelopes For Visual Comfort And Energy Efficiency, Qingqing Sun

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Electrochromic glazing has been identified as the next-generation high-performance glazing material for building envelopes due to its dynamic properties, which allow the buildings to respond to various climate conditions. IoT technologies have improved the sensing, communication, and interactions of building environmental data. Few studies have been done to synthesize the advancements in EC materials and building IoT technologies for better building performance. The challenge remains in the lack of compatible design and simulation tools, limited understanding of integration, and a paucity of evaluation measures to support the convergence between the EC building envelopes and IoT technologies. This research first explores …

Evaluation Of The Chinese Sponge City Program: The Resilient Transition Of Urban Stormwater Management, Wuhan, Chongqing, Zhenjiang, China, Case Studies, Jueminsi Wu

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The Sponge City Program (SCP) is a Chinese national-level policy initiative with the primary goal to ameliorate urban flooding created by rapid urbanization and climate change, and it incorporates both green and blue infrastructure strategies. China’s Sponge City construction guidelines (MOHURD, 2014) established the Volume Capture Ratio of Annual Rainfall (VCRa) as the SCP’s key performance index and a general target VCRa goal of 70% annual rainfall was set for all pilot Sponge Cities (General Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, 2015). Yet few studies have been conducted to assess the SCP’s obtainability of the …

Reinforcement Learning Based Design Methodology For Building Performance: A Case Of Building Facades With Kinetic Elements, Sida Dai

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With the increasing complexity of design problems in building performance, traditional design methods are difficult to meet the growing demand of designers. For example, in building facades with kinetic elements, traditional design methods are facing many constraints due to the complex design variables and requirements. This study applied reinforcement learning(RL) to building performance optimization and proposed a novel design methodology. This design methodology consists of two parts: (1) a reinforcement learning-based design system; (2) an improved design process based on reinforcement learning.

The construction of the design methodology started from the analysis of design algorithms. Next, the design system was …

The Impact Of Daylight And Window Views On Health And Recovery: A Quash-Experimental Study Of Patients With Heart Disease In A Cardiac Icu, Roxana Jafarifiroozabadi

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Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States. Being diagnosed with heart disease can lead to depression, anxiety, sleep disruption, and delirium symptoms, which can cause prolonged hospital stays among patients. Evidence suggests that the presence of daylight and window views can influence these symptoms positively. However, no studies to date have differentiated the impact of daylight from window views on heart disease patients or addressed how window use can impact patient recovery in cardiac intensive care units (CICUs).

This IRB-approved study employed a retrospective and prospective quasiexperimental approach to investigate CICU rooms of the same …

The Influence Of Windows On Surgeons' Stress, Christopher William Kiss

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Surgeons endure a significant amount of mental stress while operating in complex and intense surgical environments. In the United States, most operating rooms are windowless spaces that rely on artificial lighting and mechanical ventilation. Surgeons spend much of their day in these surgical environments with little access to exterior views or daylight. There is a growing body of occupational health research that supports the therapeutic benefits of views and daylight in various non-surgical work environments. It is reasonable to consider that windows in operating rooms may mitigate surgeon mental stress and consequently improve surgeon occupational health.

This study used a …

Computational Investigation Of The Morphological Design Dimensions Of Historic Hexagonal-Based Islamic Geometric Patterns, Mostafa Waleed Hashem Alani

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This dissertation examines the morphology of Islamic Geometric Patterns (IGP). Using mixed methods, including the simulation of historical designs and content analysis, this dissertation explores the question of how it is possible to mathematically describe the IGP. The study argues that the compositional analysis of geometry is not solely sufficient to investigate the design characteristics of the IGP, and the underlying mathematics and computational nature of the IGP should be considered when investigating historical IGP.

The study presents a parametric description method that captures the reality of the IGP in numeric form and utilizes the form to derive representational codes …

Landscape Manipulatives: A Study Of Math Gardens And Learning Outcomes In Middle School Mathematics Education Research, Yang Song

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Human beings, especially children, need natural environments and outdoor play for their physical, mental, and spiritual well-being (Louv, 2008). Even though parents and teachers recognize the value of outdoor play, schoolchildren spend a diminishing amount of time engaging in outdoor activities (Clements, 2004). Furthermore, addressing strict state learning standards is the first priority for schools. Outdoor activities are often seen as extracurricular to those subjects typically emphasized and tested. As a result, outdoor landscapes such as science gardens, playgrounds, and experiential classrooms are often underutilized, discouraged since they can take away from more important, standard forms of pedagogy. Thus, traditional …

Integrating Tiny Houses Into The American Urban Fabric: A Comparative Case Study Of Land Use Policy Change In The Carolinas, Krista Evans

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The concept of the American dream, manifested in the ownership of a detached single family home, remains a driving force in the housing market. Historically, small homes have held a prominent niche in this dream in both urban and rural areas. However, the expansion of restrictive urban land use policies to protect property values, paired with the rapid diminishment of the American middle class, has made homeownership increasingly difficult to achieve. The tiny house movement has emerged as a means to promote small, affordable, and sustainable home ownership. However, the construction of tiny homes, or even the traditional cottage, is …

Income Inequality, Rapidly Rising Housing Prices And Overdevelopment Of Houses In China, Tao Guan

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Four phenomena can be observed in China’s housing market in the past 16 years. First, the vacancy rate of new condominium properties has increased significantly. Second, housing prices have been increasing very rapidly. In fact, the prices have rarely decreased even when strict housing policies have been mandated. Third, housing transactions are active, as indicated by the new condominiums that have been recently developed and have been sold very quickly. Finally, new construction/development had also been very active. Phenomena 2, 3, and 4 are inherently consistent, but the coexistence of phenomena 2, 3, and 4 with phenomenon 1 is very …

Risk Analysis And Disaster Recovery: A Florida Lihtc Case Study, Valerie Hammett

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In spite of numerous programs and policies that encourage private investment in affordable housing, particularly after hurricane disaster, insufficient numbers of affordable units exist to meet demand. Some low-income households are displaced in the course of disaster recovery, and others face severe housing cost burdens as demand for affordable housing outstrips supply. Some suggest competitive uses for limited funds impede production. Others suggest that disaster and recovery policies tend to favor homeowners and economic recovery. Little attention has been given to the development decisions of affordable housing developers during disaster recovery. This study examines LIHTC development risk after the 2004 …

Designing Complex, Interactive, Architectural Systems With Cias-Dm: A Model-Based, Human-Centered, Design & Analysis Methodology, Joe Manganelli

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The built environment increasingly contributes to improving human health, well-being, and performance in measurable, predictable, and tailorable ways. Achieving high-performance environmental systems requires real-time-interactive sensing, monitoring, actuation, and communication subsystems, as well as real-time interactions of these environmental systems with their users and other internal and external systems. Developing theories, constructs, methods, and tools necessary for designing such high-performance, complex, interactive systems is an active area of research.

This dissertation focused on methods and tools for representing the cognitive and physical affordances of complex, interactive, architectural systems (CIAS). The Complex, Interactive, Architectural Systems Design Methodology (CIAS-DM) was proposed as a …

Ubiquitous Libidinal Infrastructures Of Urbanism: The Fringing Benefits Of Rhetorics In Architecture, Lauren Mitchell

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Big-box culture - generally thought of as sprawl - is often suppressed or ignored within architectural design curricula. The overwhelming pervasiveness of big-box culture threatens the foundation of our discipline. We turn away, though it generates the context for many lives to happily unfold in this country. We remain only partially engaged with big-box because we do not fully understand its complexity. We argue with it, but at cross-purposes. This trans-disciplinary project brings rhetorical scholarship to bear on big-box culture. Emphasizing pedagogy, it offers architects and urbanists opportunities to design with more awareness about the ubiquitous, what drives it, and …

Design And Evaluation Of A Nonverbal Communication Platform Between Assistive Robots And Their Users, Anthony Threatt

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Assistive robotics will become integral to the everyday lives of a human population that is increasingly mobile, older, urban-centric and networked. The overwhelming demands on healthcare delivery alone will compel the adoption of assistive robotics. How will we communicate with such robots, and how will they communicate with us? This research makes the case for a relatively 'artificial' mode of nonverbal human-robot communication that is non-disruptive, non-competitive, and non-invasive human-robot communication that we envision will be willingly invited into our private and working lives over time. This research proposes a non-verbal communication (NVC) platform be conveyed by familiar lights and …

Monumental-It: A 'Robotic-Wiki' Monument For Embodied Interaction In The Information World, Tarek Mokhtar

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ABSTRACT
Conventional monuments are concrete manifestations of memories without the capacity to reflect individual interpretations of history. In an increasingly digital society, however, there is a need for configurable monuments reflecting our contemporary, open and complex community. “Monumental-IT” reflects the dynamic and inclusive character of our time. Rather than static, Monumental-IT is a dynamic, robotic, intelligent environment reconfigured or “retuned” by citizens and by historical information accumulating on the World Wide Web. This information is periodically “coded,” altering the multi-sensorial physical-digital “Robotic-Wiki” components of Monumental-IT. Monumental-IT is designed to embody a new form of human-robotic interaction evolving from the monument …

An Exogenous Approach To Circumventing Demolition By Neglect: The Impact Of Agricultural Preservation On Historic Colonial Towns, Galen Newman

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The effects of city decentralization and counter-urbanization of the American landscape have resulted in simultaneous negative impacts on both historic structures and agricultural landscapes. Rapid conversion of farmland has helped to facilitate the relocation of both populations and commercial activities in communities across the United States, leaving inner cities replete with functionless, unused, and unmaintained heritage structures. As civic core areas have become shells of their former selves, many once-vital structures have been removed while others have been abandoned and left to decay--a process known as demolition by neglect. While historic preservation efforts have attempted to salvage these historic structures, …

Exploring How Residential Communities In The Rural Southern Appalachian Mountains Are Branded As 'Green:' A Qualitative Analysis, Ole Sleipness

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As environmental issues have gained media prominence, a majority of Americans now consider themselves to be environmentalists. Producers of real estate development have responded with communities, branded to differentiate themselves from their competition through sagas, imagery, and symbols that communicate the values and identities that align with those of their targeted consumers. Host to a rapidly expanding population, the Southern Appalachians are home to a wealth of new communities, many of them branded as 'green.' Building on theoretical foundations in visual design, environmental rhetoric, and landscape interpretation, this research utilizes a collective case study analysis to illustrate how texts, images, …

The Reintroduction Of Heritage Streetcars And The Related Effects Of Community Identity And Social Interaction With The Residents In Streetcar-Oriented Developments, Robert Benedict

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Therapeutic Benefits Of Nature Images On Health, Ellen Vincent

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This thesis is a journey that travels back in time, when nature and health were inseparable, and forward to a time when science was the impetus for separation between the natural landscape and healing (chapter two), then into the present when nature and health are being reunited, only through science (chapter three).
The research conducted in 2008-2009 is reported in the form of three journal articles. The first article (chapter four) developed a methodology using sequential methods to select the nature images that would be used in the experiment. Appleton's prospect refuge theory was the basis for four image categories. …

The Animated Work Environment: A Vision For Working Life In A Digital Society, Henrique Houayek

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Dramatic transformations in the nature, place and organization of working life due to increasing sophistication and access of information technologies in the United States suggest a redesign of the work environment as a socially and technologically responsive system occupying both home and office.
This thesis examines the process of creation of an 'Animated Work Environment' [AWE]. A space in the scale of a cubicle envisioned as an environment-as-responsive-robot; an articulated, programmable interior accommodating a range of digital technologies across fluid assemblages of people working with both printed and digital materials in a variety of locations and settings, searching for a …

Attachment To The Physical Age Of Urban Residential Neighborhoods: A Comparative Case Study Of Historic Charleston And I'On, Jeremy Wells

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Purpose:
To counter the over-reliance of historic preservation research and practice on objective, expert values by understanding how people subjectively value and are attached to the age and design of traditionally-designed urban residential neighborhoods.
Research question:
How does the age of traditionally designed, urban residential environments affect the degree and character of place attachment for residents?
Cases:
1) historic Charleston, south of Broad Street, 2) I'On new urbanist development in Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.
Unit of analysis:
Residents of 1) historic Charleston and 2) I'On.
Methodology (methods):
Sequential mixed-method: phenomenology (interviews) followed by a survey methodology (on-line survey instrument); both …