Art and Design Commons^™

Unity In Design: Life As An Immigrant In The Built Environment, Julia Sainz

Interior Design Capstones

In the United States, Latinx immigrant communities often face social and systemic challenges that contribute to heightened levels of stress, anxiety, and displacement. While the built environment plays a critical role in shaping emotional and social well-being, architectural and interior design practices frequently overlook the lived experiences and cultural identities of these populations. This study explores how culturally responsive and participatory design strategies can foster safety, access, and empowerment for Latinx immigrants. By examining the intersection of migration, identity, and the built environment, this project proposes design as a tool for community resilience, cultural expression, and holistic well-being.

Where Do We Go: Rethinking Public Libraries, Emma Jouppi

Interior Design Capstones

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors contributing to the decline in public library visits and to identify practical strategies for increasing community engagement with library spaces. Public libraries have long served as accessible, inclusive environments for learning, technology access, and social connection. However, recent years have shown a decline in visitation, raising important questions about public perception, awareness, and accessibility. This research seeks to better understand how these factors intersect and what can be done to strengthen the role of libraries as vital third spaces within their communities.

This study aims to bridge the gap between …

Spring 2026 Title Of Blueprints For The Mind: How The Design Of Public Built Environment Impacts The Mental Health Of Youth, Faith Holton

Interior Design Capstones

Blueprints for the Mind investigates how public built environments influence the mental health of youth, with attention to rising rates of anxiety, depression. Through a multidisciplinary approach bridging environmental psychology, public health, interior architecture, and usercentered design, this project identifies the environmental factors shaping young people’s emotional well-being. Findings reveal that sensory conditions such as lighting, acoustics, layout, materiality, and predictability directly affect youth comfort, focus, and emotional regulation. Field research with students (ages 13–15) and an expert interview with licensed social worker Carmen Ortega-Cline further demonstrate that overstimulating, crowded, or unclear environments heighten stress, while semi-private, naturally lit, and …

Through The Lens Of Zoology, Madalyn Haun

Interior Design Capstones

Current zoo and sanctuary models often fail to meet the complex psychological, behavioral, and spatial needs of endangered and rehabilitated wildlife, resulting in chronic stress and welfare compromises. Beyond the Cage presents a transformation approach to zoological design, shifting the paradigm from entertainment-based displays to a “welfare-first” philosophy. This book argues that effective captive care requires expansive, species-appropriate habitats that facilitate natural behaviors, rather than merely simulating natural aesthetics. Through the lens of modern zoology, this work explores the implementation of groundbreaking exhibit re-creation, focusing on habitat enlargement, precise climate change control, and innovative environmental enrichment. A central pillar of …

Designing Across Generations: Bridging The Gap Through Ecclesiastical Architecture, Aurora Thompson

Interior Design Capstones

The purpose of this capstone project is to develop an intergenerational worship environment that reinforces a sense of unity and harmony among the generations through intentional design strategies. This work addresses the widening generational gap within religious communities and responds to the growing departure of younger generations who often feel unseen or disconnected within traditional church settings. By integrating generational preferences into the architectural and experiential components of the worship space, the project seeks to create an environment where all age groups feel represented, valued, and spiritually engaged. Situated within the context of increasing religious disaffiliation, this project highlights the …

Adaptability From Tv & Film Into Theatre | The Subversion Inspiration In Celia’S Identity Versatility Throughout William Shakespeare’S As You Like It, Emani White

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the inspiration of adaptability skills, pivoting from television and film into theatre, and the potential of unconventional pathways as a catalyst for reconciling anti-traditionalism within the mediums. It offers insight into the obstacles, segues, and adversities faced during the journey of a former athlete turned television and film actor, and into a theatre actor. It illuminates agency as a subversive identity (the disguise), the sacrifice of status, and the need for an emotional anchor of resilience—acknowledging the systemic transitional barriers in performance, career, and education. The paper also discusses the understandings gained from my journey as an …

In This World: A Scalable Methodology For Scenic Design, Michael W. D. Francis

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This thesis examines how strong scenic design emerges not from how something looks, but from a clear understanding of how its world works. Rather than starting from aesthetic preference or visual trends, it outlines a process that identifies a central idea within a story and uses that idea to shape a cohesive spatial environment. By focusing on how a world behaves - what drives it, what resists change, and how its internal logic operates - design decisions begin to align, creating work that feels intentional rather than assembled. Through a series of production case studies, it evaluates how that process …

Selected Projects In Scenic Design And Theatre Technologies, Daniel T. Simons

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

This Plan B Report documents the development, execution, and evolution of my scenic design practice during my MFA at Utah State University, using four major productions—You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, Xanadu, Annie, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory—as case studies in innovation, sustainability, and ethical design. Beginning with Charlie Brown, the report examines how a concept-driven approach rooted in research, simplicity, and technological integration established a foundation for sustainable scenic practices. Through detailed analysis of venue constraints, projection mapping, modular construction, and collaborative workflows, the project demonstrates how visual storytelling can emerge from …

City, Janina Butz

Theses and Dissertations

Janina Butz observes the improvised support structures holding New York City together at its edges. Looking at the found, cheap materials, spray painted, rusty, drilled, sawed, and haphazardly welded together on the sidewalk. The hard clashes of cheap material and expensive real estate lead Butz to draw a bigger picture of the fraud seams our society is tied together with.

Real-Time Adaptable Residential Kitchen: A Plug-In Standard, Rachel Fuelberth

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

This thesis looks at how a real-time adaptable standard could be put in place within the modern kitchen to allow for equitable use of the space by numerous members of the household and their differing physical characteristics. The residential kitchen is a fundamentally exclusionary architectural construction designed around able-bodied, average-height adults. This excludes children, the elderly, anyone outside of the average height, and people with mobility differences. The kitchen has never been a place of equity. It has been designed to be used by an average-height female, and it does not account for the discomfort of those outside this norm. …

Forget-Me-Not: Facilitating Social Vibrancy In Spaces Designed For Alzheimer's Disease, Torilyn Mossner

Honors Theses

The objective of this capstone project is to create a foundation for vibrant community interactions and connections that support those living with Alzheimer’s disease, their loved ones, and the broader members of the community through interior design. This work is relevant because Alzheimer’s disease affects 1 in 9 people over the age of sixty-five worldwide. Without a cure, as people continue to age, there is going to be a constant need for development of care. Additionally, design should go a step further than healthy living and begin to prioritize creating a vibrant life and community integration for those living with …

From The Pit, Joshua C. Goering

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

Clay retains histories; the memory of each action it experiences is depicted on its surface and in its form.  I am a potter focused on making objects that capture these moments. Pinching, scraping, trimming, throwing, and carving expose tooth and excavate form, revealing the qualities of the material and showing the marks of handwork. As a potter, I am interested in participating in a history of vessel making and understanding making through an interpretation of the historic object. The work acts as an archive, accumulating information about process, materials, and a greater context of elder objects. Integrating these vocabularies creates …

Edra 57: Bibliography, Tamara Karr

Bibliographies

edra 57: Embracing Regional Sustainability: Networks for People and Places

Interiority And Resilience, Paramita Atmodiwirjo, Yandi Andri Yatmo

Interiority

The disciplines of interior architecture and interior design operate within a world characterised by constant changes. Projecting the future of the interior requires an understanding of how the discipline and practice can manoeuvre exquisitely within such complexities. It calls for design scholarship that promotes resilience as a key condition for responding to constant changes. The interior demonstrates resilience through its capacity to sustain culture, humanistic values, and local sociospatial practices, allowing it to navigate the dynamics of global flux. A call for interior resilience presents an opportunity for interior practices grounded in humanistic and cultural approaches to address uncertainties, instability, …

Neuroscience And Humanism In Norman Foster's Architecture, Francisco Javier Lahuerta Ferris, Bartolomé Serra Soriano

Interiority

The work of Norman Foster, often labelled as 'high-tech,' is renowned for its structural expressionism and technological rationalism. However, it is grounded in the conception of a unified whole in which science, technology, and the humanities are inseparable facets that shape both human beings and the spaces they design and inhabit. This article analyses the correlations between the new paradigms established by neuroscience and the design principles of Foster's architecture: the integral conception of reality, optimisation, and energy balance (homeostasis) as survival factors guiding decisions, and the role of perception, emotions, and feelings in the creation and evaluation of architectural …

Reading The Vernacular Interior: A Pattern Language For Reuse, Nusrat Kamal Ritu, Aslı Ciçek, Bie Plevoets

Interiority

Historic interiors are unique repositories of memory, yet conventional reuse practices often fail to grasp their cultural complexity, prioritising formal interventions over lived experience. Dominant strategy-based frameworks for reuse struggle to capture the incremental, user-led adaptations that define these lived interiors. This paper addresses these limitations through a case study of the community-led revival of Harat al-Aqr, Oman. Methodologically, it reframes Alexander et al.'s (1977) pattern language as an interpretive lens for analysing the incremental evolution and embedded cultural intelligence of lived interiors. The research synthesises subjective narrative writing with analytical patterns, revealing that the significance of such spaces lies …

Architecturally Be Kind: Exploring The Effect Of Prison Interiors On Autistic Inmates, Julie E. N. Irish, Gregory Galford

Interiority

How the interior environment affects autistic people has been studied in settings such as education and healthcare. However, significant work has not been done in evaluating the effect of prison interiors on autistic inmates who may be hypersensitive, especially to light and sound. The purpose of this study was to determine how autistic inmates cope in a noisy, crowded environment that is not designed for them and that they cannot control. This qualitative research used grounded theory to interview five autistic inmates at a medium-security state prison for men in the US to find out their lived experience in prison. …

Embodied Interiority In The Shishinden: Ritual Space, Political Symbolism, And Interior Experience In Japanese Imperial Architecture, İlknur Yüksel Schwamborn

Interiority

This study investigates the Shishinden, the principal ceremonial hall of the Kyoto Imperial Palace, as a site where spatial hierarchy, ritual movement, and material atmosphere converge to construct a unique form of interiority. Rather than treating the hall merely as a stylistic or historical artifact, the paper analyses how interior experience is actively produced through embodied ritual practices, symbolic spatial organisation, and sensory orchestration. By focusing on the interaction between architecture, politics, and cultural cosmology, the study demonstrates how the Shishinden functions as an affective interior that communicates imperial authority and sacred order. The findings contribute to contemporary interiority discourse …

Kajian Arsitektur Lumbung Padi, Lolo Gedang, Kerinci, Romario Lubis

Multikultura

Rice barns are agrarian vernacular architecture that reflects local knowledge, environmental adaptation, and the socio-cultural values of the supporting community. This study aims to examine the architectural characteristics of traditional rice barns in Lolo Gedang Village, Kerinci, through analysis of form, construction techniques, and cultural context. The method used is descriptive qualitative with inductive reasoning based on literature studies and analysis of the architectural elements of the barn as a cultural artifact. The results show that the Lolo Gedang rice barn is designed adaptively to highland climate conditions, especially in maintaining the quality of grain from humidity and pests, through …

Cultivating The Creative Ecosystem Amid The Disruption Of Ai, Sarah Oconnell

Tradition Innovations in Arts, Design, and Media Higher Education

Can humanity’s creativity, our artistic intelligence, thrive in symbiosis with the disruptive forces of technology’s Artificial Intelligence in work, media and education? “Who is responsible?” may be the more important question as we face a future infused with AI. Impacted individuals and industries cannot wait for ambiguous political powers to determine AI regulatory policy. They must develop strategies for critique and discernment in real time to prevent the technology’s disruption in society from devolving into oppressive dysfunction.

Who is responsible for cultivating the balance that sustains humanity? Scholars and practitioners with artistic intelligence are adaptive catalysts for collaborative problem solving …

Las Representaciones Figurativas Del Sitio Arqueológico Cuidad Del Jaguar (Honduras): Espacio Sagrado, Conceptos Compartidos Y Diálogo Entre Mesoamérica Y La Zona Andina, Geydy Rodríguez Wood

Actas seleccionadas del SIMPOSIO ARTE 4.2: Migraciones en la imagen prehispánica: transitando territorios del pasado al presente. 58º Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Novi Sad, Serbia, 2025.

El sitio arqueológico Ciudad del Jaguar-T1, se encuentra ubicado en el noroeste de Honduras. Pertenece al Área Intermedia, considerada zona de frontera y paso entre Mesoamérica y la Zona Andina. Esta ubicación facilitó que, durante la época prehispánica, fuese un sitio de migraciones e interacción constante entre culturas del norte y del sur del continente, que dio origen a una civilización hasta ahora desconocida, que se formó, desarrolló y tuvo una significativa producción artística. En el presente trabajo propongo el estudio y la lectura e interpretación de las imágenes figurativas representadas en los objetos excavados, como también su utilidad y …

Aves, Felinos Y Ofidios En Los Templos Montaña Amerindios, Sarai Ramos Muñoz

Actas seleccionadas del SIMPOSIO ARTE 4.2: Migraciones en la imagen prehispánica: transitando territorios del pasado al presente. 58º Congreso Internacional de Americanistas, Novi Sad, Serbia, 2025.

El siguiente estudio se centra en la comparación de las representaciones pictóricas de aves, felinos y ofidios de algunos de los principales Templos Montaña, tanto de la zona andina, como de Mesoamérica. Dentro de él se pueden apreciar las similitudes y diferencias arquitectónicas y escultóricas simbólicas de estas imágenes. El análisis comparativo se realiza a través de un estudio iconográfico e iconológico de la arquitectura escultórica de dichos templos y de cada una de las representaciones zoomorfas relacionadas con el concepto del Axis Mundi prehispánico, centrándose en el águila, el jaguar y la serpiente. Al mismo tiempo se analiza la …

Sociolooking: A Theory Of Looking Together And Choreographing Looking Experiences, Avigail Shimshoni

Educational Studies Dissertations

Abstract

This dissertation addresses gaps in understandings of looking in research and practice by creating and defining sociolooking. Sociolooking is a theory of looking together and choreographing looking experiences. Researchers, educators, and practitioners across many fields value close looking and have offered step-by-step strategies for facilitating looking. While these strategies and related research are instrumental in understanding discrete aspects of looking and learning to look, they do not fully acknowledge or explore the underlying social and dynamic ways people engage in looking in everyday situations. This leads to the creation of one-dimensional, potentially inaccessible, or ineffective experiences. On the …

Built Different: Place, Identity, And The Holistic Well-Being Of Female Student Athletes, Jaye Mack

Theses and Dissertations

This research furthers the conversation surrounding holistic female student-athlete wellness, recognizing that their experiences can be inequitable – influenced by the intersectionality of race, gender, and athletic identity (Armstrong et al., 2018; Druckman et al., 2018; Neeley et al., 2021). This research accredits the physical environments where athletes train, recover, and connect as an underexplored factor in holistic well-being.

The Indivisible Self Model of Wellness (IS-WEL) was used to (1) explore the influence of physical design features on female student athletes' holistic well-being and (2) understand how their identity shapes how they experience and attach meaning to their team environments. …

Preservation Of Architectural-Religious Heritage In Modern Ukraine, Olga Gold, Maksym Vasalatiy, Olga Dobrodum

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

This article examines answers to a number of pressing questions regarding the preservation of architectural heritage in the modern world: what philosophical views underlie the preservation of world heritage; and what is unique about the protection of religious architectural heritage. The architectural philosophy of religious buildings represents a complex of original concepts, both material and spiritual. The hypothesis consists of constructing an algorithm and mechanism for protecting cultural heritage from the perspective of the philosophy of architecture in post-war Ukraine. The preservation of historical and cultural heritage sites is one of the most complex areas of activity in the fields …

Exploring Design Tools, Naomi Torgler

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For my Honors Research Project, I developed skills to 3D model and render using Rhino 8, Tinkercad and Adobe Illustrator. In the process of developing these skills, I created six digital renderings and one model. The works produced using these software programs are to be used in a developing portfolio to seek future opportunities in the field of architecture.

Throughout this project, I explored connections between different programs when designing and building each piece. This project also reflects my focus in the Sculpture program at the Myers School of Art by considering elements of design in a three-dimensional form. In …

Walking And Wondering, Helen T. Tran

Theses and Dissertations

My thesis approaches walking as a form of inquiry and the Flood Wall as a site open to reinterpretation. I believe that the way we walk changes the way we observe and experience the world around us. This contrast between purposeful and leisurely walking reveals how time and intention shape our awareness of space. When walking is no longer dictated by urgency, it invites observations and questions. Slowing our pace allows curiosity to emerge, which aligns with my design ethos of asking questions as a foundation for understanding and creating meaningful experiences.

The Flood Wall’s emphasis on uninterrupted movement prioritizes …

Waxing And Waning: Hidden Interiors Of Grassroots Expression, Asmita Baskar

Theses and Dissertations

Concealed interiors historically emerged from necessity in response to dominant systems around surveillance, control, and visibility. These hidden spaces carefully regulated access, cultivated intimacy, and enabled self-expression within grassroots groups and marginalized communities. Operating free from surveillance and in contrast to surrounding architectural and urban systems, these concealed spaces were not formally “interior designed”, yet they reveal how communities activate the interiors they encounter to retain agency.

Scholarship on grassroots resistance is largely examined through sociology, anthropology, psychology, or political science, with limited literature directly linking interiority, interior design, and resistance within covert spaces. This thesis addresses the gap in …

Untouchable Beauty Of Everyday Aesthetics In Wim Wenders’ Perfect Days, Nindya Galuh Fatmawati, Agni Saraswati

Paradigma: Jurnal Kajian Budaya

Wim Wenders, in his latest film Perfect Days (2023), presents an everyday aesthetic experience conveyed through a visually striking aesthetic characterized by a "peaceful" gaze. This study aims to explore the everyday aesthetics depicted in Perfect Days, which align with traditional Japanese aesthetics, specifically wabi-sabi. The analysis is framed using Todd McGowan's Cinema of Desire theory. The research employs a qualitative descriptive method to examine the subject and utilizes a Psychoanalytic approach for analysis. The findings reveal that object ‘a’ in Perfect Days is highlighted through mise-en-scène and music, as these two cinematic elements facilitate a moment of …

Tiles Of Time And Faith: Pewabic Pottery, Sacred Symbolism, And Gothic Imagery In Religious Architecture, Katie Nabozny

Rushton Journal of Undergraduate Humanities Research

This research explores the presence and significance of Pewabic tiles in sacred spaces in historic churches. It examines the architects, artistic influences behind the tiles, and thematic connections to religious iconography, including Gothic and astrological symbolism. It emphasizes zodiac symbolism in ecclesiastical settings, linking these designs to historical and cultural traditions across Europe and the United States. Additionally, the study highlights Mary Chase Perry Stratton and her research on religious art, which informed her ceramic works. By analyzing archival materials, site visits, and historical sources, this research deepens understanding of the intersection between Pewabic Pottery, religious architecture, and astronomical symbolism.