Architecture Commons^™

Sustainable Roots: Utilizing Historic Technologies For Modern Housing, Abigail Yeagley

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Viewed through a post-humanist lens, this thesis explores the reconciliation of indigenous, historic, and contemporary climate technologies to design housing that exists in harmony with the environment. Addressing the dual crises of housing scarcity and climate change, the project challenges Western post-industrial approaches, embracing Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) as a sustainable alternative. This thesis uses the AIA Framework for Design Excellence as a foundational guide but simultaneously critiques its scope, seeking to adapt and extend its principles to better align with Posthumanist housing principles. The design responds to specific climate conditions, analyzed using the Koppen-Geiger model, to ensure resilience, community …

Foster Grandparents, Claire M. Bunnell, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

A connection between independent living homes and foster care homes will result in an increase of companionship, physical and mental health of the lives of older adults as well the foster care children. Children between the ages of 6-15 make up 44% of the children in the foster care system in the United States. Providing older adults the opportunity to have a mentoring role in the foster children's lives will give them a sense of purpose and give the foster children an advisor. This thesis strives to focus on improving the physical and mental health of older adults and foster …

Understanding The Effect Of Intercity Roads On The Evolution Of Urban Form, Fiona Duvall, Ermal Shpuza

Symposium of Student Scholars

Cities are key to sustainability, social cohesion, public health, and energy use. Successful urban planning relies on understanding the effect of the roads that connect the city with the neighboring settlements, which act as a scaffold for urban growth. The project develops representations and analytical tools for understanding urban evolution.

The research is based on the following analytical methods: 1) Digitally drawing the arterial roads for twenty Adriatic coastal cities in Italy based on historical maps surveyed in 1819; 2) Categorizing the cities into two main groups: those whose arterials have remained mostly unchanged and those whose arterials have been …

Weaving Of Spaces: “Designing Spaces That Create Opportunities For Communication And Freedom Though Ease Of Access”, Fiona Duvall, Ehsan Sheikplharam Mashhadi

Symposium of Student Scholars

The Kennesaw State University campus has much to offer its students and the community, but it has a periphery, disconnecting it from neighboring communities. Marietta square has amazing opportunities for food and community. The main problem here is that the only way to access the square and Kennesaw State University is by car and that these two locations are isolated.

Through the research of the psychological aspects of space, cast studies and psychological research articles. I've found the main problems found in these urban areas are the low walkability, lack traffic safety and lack access to anyone regardless of Finacial …

Pathways To Possibilities: Crafting A Montessori School For Economically Disadvantaged Children, Melanie Nin, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

This thesis analyzes the correlation that exists between Montessori educational methods and low-income students. To answer this question, I researched 15 different sources, which included case studies, surveys, and interviews that gave me detailed information on my topic. The results of my research showed there was a positive correlation on the effects of low-income students in Montessori Education, but a negative correlation to the number of low-income students who attend Montessori schools. There are around 15,000 Montessori schools around the world, but only 570 Of them are public. This creates a lot of barriers for low-income students, denying them access …

Reimagining Recovery: Architecture's Role In Sobriety, Teagan Littleton, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

Alcoholism recovery housing, such as a sober living house, often overlooks the profound impact that architecture and the environment created from the built world can have on the therapeutic process of rehabilitation. The physical space where individuals receive mental health treatment plays a crucial role in their recovery journey, yet many facilities fail to consider how design elements can support or hinder the healing process. A well-designed sober living house should provide a safe, comforting, and inspiring environment that promotes continued recovery and therefore enhances the effectiveness of therapy and other treatments. There is a large gap between the physical …

Reviving Humanity Towards Rehuminizing Prisons, Ana Gomez, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

The surge in female incarceration rates in the United States has heightened concerns about the mental health challenges faced by women within correctional facilities. This thesis research explores the intersection of women's incarceration, mental health, and sustainable architectural design aimed at improving outcomes for female inmates. Factors contributing to the increase in female incarceration rates, including changes in sentencing policies and socioeconomic disparities, are discussed. Research indicates a high prevalence of mental health disorders among female inmates, often linked to past trauma and exacerbated by the prison environment. Despite this, the prison system often fails to adequately address the mental …

Locally Stranded - Addressing Rural Cases Of Domestic Violence, Owen Phillips, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

Domestic violence is a nationwide crisis affecting millions of women each year and saw an increase in severity during the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2022). In Georgia, 37.4% of women report experiencing physical violence by an intimate partner. The situation is especially dire in rural areas, where women experience 150% more incidents at a more intense level than their urban counterparts and must travel three times farther to access resources. Rural women are also nearly twice as likely to be turned away from services due to a lack of space, staffing, and resources. Existing shelters often fail to meet victims' needs because …

Thresholds Of Healing: Rethinking Inpatient Mental Health Facility Design, Emily Simms, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

Along Martha Berry Boulevard in the City of Rome, Georgia, is the proposed Tax Allocation District (TAD), which slates redevelopment for blighted areas, including motels that have been a hot spot for criminal activity in the area. Coupled with this blighted area is the need for mental health facilities to serve the needs of the community, specifically long-term facilities for patients with depression and/or self-harm concerns. Suicide is the 2^nd leading cause of death for those aged 10-24 in Georgia according to the Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD). A new long-term facility is proposed within the …

Reviving Neurodivergent Workplace, Nayeli Gonzalez, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

The post-pandemic era has left the United States with nearly one billion square feet of vacant office space, creating significant economic and social challenges. Alongside this, many employees continue to work from home, often experiencing adverse effects on their physical and mental well-being due to environments that are not conducive to long-term productivity. Addressing these issues, this thesis explores how outdated and underutilized office spaces can be revived, reinvented, and renovated to not only attract employees back to the workplace but also to accommodate the unique needs of neurodivergent individuals. Neurodivergent people, representing millions globally, often encounter sensory overstimulation and …

Roots Of Resilience: Designing Culturally Informed Healing Spaces For Asylum Seekers, Michelle Guzman, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

This thesis explores the role of culturally sensitive architectural design in immigration asylum centers, focusing on how these spaces can better support the well-being, dignity, and cultural identity of Hispanic/Latino asylum seekers. Current asylum centers often prioritize efficiency and functionality over the emotional and psychological needs of their occupants, resulting in environments that feel institutional, impersonal, and disconnected from the cultural identities of displaced individuals. This lack of consideration for the cultural background and emotional recovery of asylum seekers exacerbates the challenges they face, including isolation, trauma, and disorientation.

The research in this thesis seeks to address these issues by …

Engaging Our Elders: Reprograming The Architecture Of Continued Care Facilities To Engage The Community, Mercy Koehler, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

The elderly are one of the most overlooked groups in our population. The poor attention to the design of their living spaces is a sad testament to this reality. Designed like hospitals and prisons, nursing homes are sterile environments, uninviting to guests and suffocating to residents. The person-centered care of new assisted living communities is an improvement, but often the design of these institutions is governed by economic factors and architectural code requirements that continue to create isolated environments. To create truly inclusive spaces for our growing elderly population, care-centered design must go a step further and find programmatic ways …

Variant Minds - Designing For Neurodiversity In Offices, Maya Schiltz, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

High-functioning adults with cognitive disorders such as ADHD, Autism, and Anxiety are often overlooked when considering solutions to help neurodiverse individuals thrive. While low-functioning neurodiverse adults often receive support through specialized programs and care facilities, high-functioning neurodiverse individuals are expected to integrate into traditional work environments, which can severely impede their ability to succeed. Despite growing awareness around creating neurodivergent-friendly workplaces, many office designs continue to follow a “one-size-fits-all” approach, typically featuring open desk arrays, a few private offices, and meeting rooms. This setup fails to provide adequate separation from distractions such as noise, smells, visual glare, and other sensory …

2024 - The Fifth Annual Fall Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Fall 2024 Symposium of Student Scholars, held in November 2024. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

Daylighting In Buildings: Investigating The Relationship Between Daylight Levels And Building Compactness In Various Contemporary Architectural Types. [Efficient Typology Classification], Andrew Welch, Ermal Shpuza Phd

Symposium of Student Scholars

One of the key ways of improving the energy efficiency of a building is to enhance the daylight levels and reduce the need for artificial lighting. Good daylight levels are also associated with increased productivity and the well-being of a building's occupants. Daylight levels are often a direct function of the floorplate depth, where locations near the windows receive more daylight, and those deep inside the buildings receive less. As a result, shallow floorplates and elongated buildings are usually related to higher daylight levels. However, shallow buildings that have more natural light are also associated with greater construction costs due …

Architecture Of The Second Sense: Inclusive Educational Spaces For Students Who Are Deaf Or Hard Of Hearing, Lizzy Johnson, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

Educational settings in the United States are primarily geared towards hearing individuals, posing challenges for those with hearing impairments. In 2020, 95% of school-age students with hearing loss attended conventional schools, while only 47 schools nationwide catered specifically to the deaf or hard of hearing. This oversight in design leads to issues such as inadequate spatial acoustics and limited sign language space in classrooms. My thesis proposes "Architecture of the Second Sense," advocating for a holistic approach to educational design, particularly targeting pre-kindergarten through 5th-grade schools. Drawing from phenomenological principles and the five key DeafSpace design elements—Proximity, Sensory Reach, Light, …

Harmony In Nature And Community: The Biophilic Union Of Art, Design, And Well-Being In The Serenbe Art Farm Expansion, Kayla Metts, Denisse Rosa, Steve Cruz Rojas, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

How does the integration of biophilic design principles and the concept of Union contribute to the enhancement of community well-being in the expansion of The Art Farm Campus in the Serenbe Community? Serenbe, located in Georgia, is a renowned biophilic community that fosters connections between individuals, nature, and the community. Within this community, the Art Farm is a unique location that hosts various events, programs, and workshops centered around the celebration and exploration of the arts. This semester, third-year architecture students are collaborating with stakeholders from Serenbe, The Biophilic Institute, and the Art Farm to embark on designing proposals for …

Modernism And National Identity In Architecture, Ahmed Shaker, Ehsan Sheikholharam Mashhadi

Symposium of Student Scholars

This paper discusses a comparative analysis of the architectural views of the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy and the Swiss French architect Le Corbusier in terms of aesthetics, national identity, and materiality. This analysis will be reviewed from various perspectives regarding politics behind their projects, their architectural visions, and an analysis of their main projects: Fathy’s New Gourna Village and Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh Capitol Complex. In the 20^th century, Fathy, emphasized on sustainability, vernacular architecture, social awareness, and the Egyptian identity. However, Le Corbusier worked on modern urbanism, functionalism, and the usage of industrial materials. In terms of aesthetics, Fathy …

Chaos And Order: Translating War Into Spatial Design, Falak Alam

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Wars and occupations happened all over the world throughout history. As Eyal Weizman has demonstrated in “Hollow Land,” architecture actually partakes in wars and occupations (Weizman 11). Architecture facilitates the occupation’s goals of control and dispossession through spatial and formal means. Weizman breaks architecture’s effects on the political environment down into six main categories: anchor point settlements, vertical architecture, uniform design, the dynamic battlefield, the spatial arrangements of settlements, and threshold spaces. These strategies exemplify the way design has been used in an effort to instill fear and erase identities of cultures.

Weizman’s book, along with Lebbeus Woods’ writings and …

Spatial Autonomy: Exploring Industry 4.0/5.0 Trends On Architectural Design, Diana Salamaga

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The rise of Industry 4.0 and 5.0 presents significant opportunities for the architecture industry to incorporate advanced technologies into its design and construction processes. However, the full potential of these technologies in architectural design has yet to be fully explored. This thesis, ‘Spatial Autonomy: Exploring Industry 4.0 and 5.0 Trends in Architectural Design,’ aims to investigate the ability of buildings to function autonomously through the integration of smart technologies. This exploration focuses on how Industry 4.0 and 5.0 trends can optimize building performance, creating more comfortable and enjoyable experiences for users, while also enhancing efficiency and sustainability. It examines the …

Natural Reflection: Reducing The Environmental Impact Of Architecture Through Biomimetic Design, Keenan Doricent

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This project studies how typical building projects contribute to our environmental issues today and possible ways to reduce that contribution moving forward. In my literature review, I discuss the potential of biomimetic design as a possible solution for more environmentally considerate architecture techniques. Building operations and the construction process are two of the leading contributors to energy consumption and our growing ecological footprint as an industry. Everything from sourcing materials, to site preparation, and ultimately building occupation, factor into the effect of a structure’s life on the environment. The embodied and operational energy use of our expanding infrastructure continues to …

Architronics: Utilizing Virtual Reality In Architectural Pedagogy, Constantine Lambros

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This research is about integrating the recent advancements in VR technology as a way to ‘playtest’ and design in architectural pedagogy. To better gauge the interest in VR and prove the need for VR integration, surveys were conducted among students and faculty within KSU’s College of Architecture and Construction Management (CACM).

A ‘site analysis’ was then conducted within surrounding firms in the greater Atlanta area, leading to precedent studies of local firms that use VR in their practice. By utilizing the firms advancements, this shed new light into how VR could be implemented into architectural pedagogy, and why it hasn’t …

Rehabilitation Of The Street: Design Strategies To Increase Diversity In Downtown, Atlanta, Abigail Akridge

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Streets in Atlanta have become exclusionary to one or more functions, uses, and communities. Streets dominated by a single demographic or function contribute to urban decline. Such streets lack diversity in activities and uses, leading to increased crime, decreased engagement, and a dying urban fabric. Architects play a crucial role in reversing this trend by designing with a focus on streets’ implications and the needs of diverse communities. By prioritizing diversity and inclusivity in street design, architects can foster a thriving urban environment. The goal of my thesis is to propose an urban design process centered on the street section, …

Sculpting The Senses: Architecture For The Body In Place, Trammel Crowley

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

True architecture has the ability to engage the human body and its senses from a holistic standpoint. However, there is a growing presence of architecture that is created with a bias toward the visual sense, lacking sensuality, and leaving the other senses unstimulated. Negative emotions, like anxiety, experienced by individuals within a particular space can be attributed to various factors, including the sensorial qualities encountered and the memories associated with that space. Within the field of this study, there have been architects who have confronted the issues of contemporary architecture, neglecting the holistic experience of the body within space. An …

Rethinking Shelter: Designing A Home For Atlanta's Homeless Families And Youth, Maddi Dutton

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Homelessness is a devastating experience, and its impacts are suffered by Atlanta’s families and youth who find themselves without stable housing. Family homelessness often results in the separation of families, leading to unaccompanied youth living on the streets or in uncomfortable shelters. Existing shelters do not provide family accommodations. They offer basic services and mostly lack a sense of community and personalized private spaces that are essential for fostering a sense of dignity. As emphasized in House as a Mirror of Self by Clare Cooper Marcus, humans need a ‘home’ not just a dwelling. A physical space becomes a home …

The Revitalization Of Lalibela’S Heritage Site Through The Establishment Of A New Visitor Center, Endale Tesfay

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

ABSTRACT

Revitalizing the heritage site of the rock-hewn church of Lalibela is counted as revitalizing a city because the site is the biggest heritage site. It is found in the Amhara region of north Ethiopia, and the properties were inscribed on the World Heritage List in 1978. Eleven churches were found at the site, and all of them were carved out of the living rock in the 12th century, not constructed traditionally. The churches are grouped into three and connected by a walking trail, tunnel, and trench. Groups of churches have interior and exterior spaces, and their floors, roofs, walls, …

Dynamic Dwellings: A Study In Transformative Spaces, Donovan Mitchell

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis research explores the transformative potential of kinetic architecture in the realm of residential living, focusing on the integration of adaptable interiors and dynamic facades through the use of kinetic elements. In a world with ever-shifting lifestyles and environmental changes, architecture's role in enhancing human experience is paramount. This study will argue that architecture should not remain static; instead, it should evolve, respond, and cater to the changing needs of users and environmental conditions. This research aims to propose solutions that fundamentally redefine the way we inhabit and interact with our built environments.

Decarbonized Design: Investigating Decarbonization Through The Design Of A Mass Timber Campus, Sophie Cronin

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The rise of carbon in our atmosphere is a leading cause of climate change, and one of the biggest threats to our planet. Though not the most toxic greenhouse gas, it is the most durable, therefore lingers much longer in our atmosphere. This leads to higher atmospheric temperatures, causing natural disasters such as melting ice caps, and rising sea levels which leads to displacement of people and loss of biodiversity. According to Architecture 2030 The global building industry emits 42% of the annual carbon emissions. I believe we need to take action as a part of the building industry to …

[Re]Mapping Resilience: Reimagining Urban Waterfronts In The Face Of Climate Change, Brandon Bernard

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

By the year 2100, southern-Florida is projected to experience a 1-2 meter rise in sea level, resulting in the lower portion of the state becoming almost completely submerged under a new watertable.[14] During the 19th and 20th centuries, the city of Miami developed rapidly and the community and economy inevitably became intertwined with the water and its ecology. Due to the growing population and economy, urban developments soared and led to low-lying areas being filled in, open space along waterways were claimed for commercial and residential buildings, and man-made islands such as the venetian islands were constructed. As a result, …

Modulating Recycled Plastic: A Sustainable Solution To Plastic Pollution Through Innovative Recycling, Galo Cruz

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Initially celebrated as a miracle material, modern society’s dependence on plastics has resulted in urgent environmental challenges. The consequences of this dependence are: widespread plastic pollution, an environment grappling with near-indestructible waste, and a health crisis fueled by malignant microplastics. In response to this urgent junction of environmental challenges, this research sets forth to further the transformative approach explored by Janel Sitt’s 2020 thesis and aims to answer the following questions:

1. Why does our dependence on single-use plastic jeopardize our environment, severely impacting food supplies, marine life, and overall quality of life?

2. As designers, are there opportunities for …