Architecture Commons^™

Haven: Exploring Trauma-Informed Design In Transitional Housing For Women And Children, Sydney J. Rakes

Theses and Dissertations

relevance

For 15 years, I have been a volunteer at a shelter for women and children. I interact with families and women who are suffering from the trauma caused by homelessness and domestic violence. In my observations, I have learned some spaces are more conducive to the staff and resident experiences than others. This project will be addressing how transitional housing for women and children can be designed to support the healing of trauma caused by domestic violence.

As of July 2023, there were about 150 women suffering from homelessness locally in the city of Richmond, Virginia (Homeward VA, 2023). …

Phantom Spaces, Craytonia Williams Ii

Masters Theses

The world is built on ‘what-ifs’ and ‘I hopes.’ The more one can dream, the further development goes in design. We are told anything is possible if you put your mind to it, and as we have lived through many different eras, the limit in which we extend our mind has expanded. Research shows that emotional and mental instability has risen over 50% in the past decade in people under 30. How does the understanding of emotions and trauma impact the understanding and the feelings attached to designed spaces for rest and rehabilitation. We are constantly observing and adapting to …

Uncovering Emotional Contamination: Five Sites Of Trauma, Abigail Zola

Masters Theses

“Emotional contamination,” describes residual feelings associated with a space where a negative or tragic event occurred to an individual or group either personally, historically, or politically. Emotional contamination affects people’s associations with place and informs their willingness to spend time in them. This project considers a set of design principles rooted in uncovering and acknowledging the lifespan of a site, and considers how this acknowledgment can exist as an urban system rather than an individual architectural artifact. My thesis work analyzes five case studies in Berlin where political and economic factors determined the result of intervention, and how these sites …

Finding Uhuru, Joanna Waliuba

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Uhuru is Swahili for freedom, freedom that many victims of gender-based violence do not have. Several studies and articles have reported that Gender-based violence is a normalized global pandemic3. This normalization hides a bigger problem of lack of proper facilities and care services that aid the erosion of gender-based violence. The purpose of my thesis is to design a hub for victims of these crimes. A hub that would facilitate healing for victims and educational resources for the community to tackle the stigma of sexual education and violence. To achieve this, the implementation of trauma-informed care and trauma-informed design governed …

From Trauma To Resilience: The Cases Of Beirut Syndrome By Alexandre Najjar And Beirut 2020 Diary Of A Collapse By Charif Majdalani (Comparative Study), Ilham Slim-Hoteit, Lama Farhat

BAU Journal - Society, Culture and Human Behavior

This study is an attempt to think, interpret and analyze the concept of resilience and to study the factors and mechanisms that result from it under the influence of historical, psychic, social and cultural challenges. Boris Cyrulnik defines resilience as a "biological, psycho-affective, social and cultural process that allows a new development after psychic trauma". It is thus presented as an experience that can only be lived after going through various shocks, turbulences and disturbances, whether individual or collective. The two novels of Alexandre Najjar Le syndrome de Beyrouth and Charif Majdalani Beyrouth 2020 Journal d'un effondrement seem to offer …

Addressing Trauma Through Architecture: Cultivating Well-Being For Youth Who Have Experienced Trauma, Megan Itzkowitz

Masters Theses

The aim of this thesis is to create an architectural design for youth that is informed by and in response to current trauma informed healthcare guidelines and research about wellness, with a focus on safety, trustworthiness, and empowerment.

70% of adults in the U.S. have experienced some type of traumatic event at least once in their lives, which stems into a larger risk factor public health group for substance abuse disorders and behavioral health issues (SAHMSA, 2014). “Individual trauma results from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally …

Framing: Embracing Trauma In Your "Surrounding World", Zheng Xu

Masters Theses

Have you ever stayed alone and immersed yourself in memories? Have any fragments made you uncomfortable? It was a nightmare. Guilt, self-accusation, inability, exhaustion, and escape took my body and mind. They grew from my traumatic experience. They taunted me and tried to drag me into the abyss of the infinite past when I was stressed out and lost control of the external environment. The shadow struck me until my defense and control system collapsed. The scenes of loss, neglect and pressure became the violence to my psyche.

Unoptimistically, trauma always exists because of natural disasters, bereavements, cutthroat competitions, economic …

[F]Ree-[Dom] Space: Trauma-Informed Planning And Place Making Within Women And Children's Rehabilitation Centers, Rodolfo Alcaraz-Navarrete

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis researches and understands the struggles of domestic violence survivors and implements design strategies to provide a safe and stable shelter for those affected by domestic violence in Georgia. The design methodology and research will include literature reviews and precedent studies to observe and better understand the challenges that need to be met in order to provide a safe haven for victims of domestic violence to grow and succeed when the time comes to return to the world. The goal is to, through architecture and design, provide an opportunity to engage and bring awareness to the public of the …

"Never Forget": Embodied Absence And Extended Relations Of Care After 9/11, Sophie L. Riemenschneider

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation is a reflection on how loss was articulated in the wake of 9/11. The terror attacks engendered a memorial style that sought to give shape to grief, acknowledging it without filling it in or erasing it. This new style, which I term embodied absence, exists across a range of mediums, from literature to architecture. It is such a potent memorial form because it also captures the traumatic process, which is prolonged, layered, and potentially open-ended. However, despite their ability to mirror the nature of trauma, instances of embodied absence never verbalize the attacks’ root trauma—the disconnect between our …

The Aesthetics Of Memory, David Trinidad

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The Aesthetics of Memory is an exploration into the role that Architecture plays in the Resolution of Trauma and Loss. The thesis explored the various places that Architecture is involved, broad research was done on hospitals, graveyards, and then eventually focused on Memorial Design. Memorials serve a unique purpose; much the same way music organizes our emotions at a visceral level Memorials make tangible the emotions around loss/trauma events. The goal was to leverage this unique capacity of memorials to create a space for “Rolling Loss”. A space dedicated to the universal human experience of Loss, a space where people …

Auto-Bio-Fiction La Litterature A La Poursuite Du Reel Dans Lambeaux, De Charles Juliet, Carole Auroy

BAU Journal - Society, Culture and Human Behavior

Separated at the age of three months from his sick mother following a depression and attempted suicide, Charles Juliet only discovered her existence at her funerals seven years later. It took him many more years to relate the tragedy experienced by this woman to the policy of extermination which, under the occupation, caused the death by starvation in psychiatric institutions. Between 1983 and 1995, the novel was accompanied by a hard biographical investigation; the writer attempted to uncover the mystery of his own depths and the origins of his own story: he came out enlightened on the feeling of guilt …

Responding To The Emotional Needs Of Resettled Refugees In The Context Of Community Gardens, Ann T. Mai

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses

Refugee populations suffer from the effects of post traumatic stress disorder (Shannon, et al., 2014), and members struggle with feelings of helplessness, displacement and marginalization. Research indicates that healing landscapes can address the needs of those suffering from trauma and mental disorders, particularly war veterans and children. This research applies to the emotional needs of refugees settling in new countries (Murray, et al., 2010). For the displaced, creating meaning in their new environment is an essential part of the adjustment process (Brabec, 2018). This thesis draws upon documented research about how landscape experiences can mitigate the effects of trauma in …

Responding To The Emotional Needs Of Resettled Refugees In The Context Of Community Gardens, Mai Ann T

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses

Refugee populations suffer from the effects of post traumatic stress disorder (Shannon, et al., 2014), and members struggle with feelings of helplessness, displacement and marginalization. Research indicates that healing landscapes can address the needs of those suffering from trauma and mental disorders, particularly war veterans and children. This research applies to the emotional needs of refugees settling in new countries (Murray, et al., 2010). For the displaced, creating meaning in their new environment is an essential part of the adjustment process (Brabec, 2018). This thesis draws upon documented research about how landscape experiences can mitigate the effects of trauma in …

New York After 9/11 [Chapter: Conflict And Change], Zachary Baron Shemtob, Patrick Sweeney, Susan Opotow

New York State City & Regional

An estimated 2 billion people around the world watched the catastrophic destruction of the World Trade Center. The enormity of the moment was immediately understood, and both news coverage and history of the catastrophe quickly took on global proportions—less understood has been the effect on the locus of the attacks, New York City, not as a seat of political or economic power, but as a community; not in the days and weeks afterward, but in the months and years. This period of tumultuous change offers important insights about New York today and holds important lessons for the future. New York …

Purpose After Tragedy, Elena Tepavac

Masters Theses

Psychological trauma arises through the experience of conflict, such as war, fire, and terrorism. People exposed carry fragments with them throughout their lifetime. Buildings hold a great significance in the fabric of the cities they inhabit, and can also become vessels for trauma. They carry the gift of keeping memories alive even as they succumb to ruins.

One such building is the RTS- Radio Television of Serbia, located in the center of Belgrade, Serbia. During the Kosovo War of the late 1990’s, NATO saw this media center as a target because of its communication ties to the Yugoslav Armed Forces …

Memory + Architecture | The Act Of Forgetting, Mariel Mora Llorens

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis proposes the activation and repurposing of buildings associated with traumatic memories as a means of studying the ways in which architecture embodies memories and aids in the process of forgetting. Architecture and the built environment are linked to the creation and recollection of memories because they trigger four of the senses that are related to memory.

To forget is an active, not passive endeavor. Conscious forgetting is not an act of erasing memories, but transforming them by removing the emotional responses that are produced by our recollection of these memories. Like memories in our brains, buildings that have …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …