Department of Apparel, Housing, and Resource Management
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Browsing Department of Apparel, Housing, and Resource Management by Author "Galford, Gregory"
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- Arthurdale Reviewed: Sustainable New Deal Housing in AppalachiaGalford, Gregory; Tucker, Lisa M. (2021-05-21)This work in progress is connected to Eleanor Roosevelt’s passion to provide residents of an Appalachian coal-mining town an opportunity to live in a community based on principles of sustainability and social justice. Arthurdale, West Virginia was designed as an ideal community with each family receiving a new home and a plot of land with sufficient acreage to produce their own needs for food. Each home had its own above-ground root cellar and was designed to make the family as independent as possible. Local artisan workshops provided wage-earning jobs and community functions were housed in a town center building. This work in progress revisits that town to learn from the residents how the models have transformed with time. Most houses are still in existence, but with alterations to suit changing needs. The goal of this study is to see what insights of sustainable design can be gleaned from the lived experience of its residents over time. A mixed methods approach will be used, with both surveys and interviews used as tools within both a quantitative and qualitative framework. Expected results will find that longitudinal differences in family lifestyle are reflected in home renovations, and the demographic changes in family makeup have had a strong influence on home adaptations. As new generations of homeowners seek innovations in housing models, the historical lessons of Arthurdale can provide relevance.
- Data Cities: How Satellites are Transforming Architecture and Design [Book review]Galford, Gregory (SAGE, 2022-01-03)
- Doing time: Perceptions of time within correctional environmentsGalford, Gregory (2021-05-19)Time as an environmental factor has been felt differently this past year as everyone has had to remain in close quarters and in isolation from others. The infringement on our movement has led us to have different perceptions of our immediate environment. We know that the passage of time has largely seemed both slow and fast (Levine, 2008). The purpose of this study is to investigate how people sense time within environments that control them. This research addresses the question of whether we can learn about our own time perceptions when inhabiting physically controlling environments for a long period (Bauman & Lyon, 2013). The literature for this review relies heavily on philosophy, surveillance studies, and criminology. Philosophical writings by Merleau-Ponty, Husserl, Freud, and Heidegger act as conceptual frames for the research, and identify gaps in design literature that connect perceptions of space to time (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). The design of this work is qualitative in methodology with grounded theory used as a method to code the data for emergent themes. The data was collected within two prisons in a large northeastern state where stakeholders had direct experience with solitary confinement environments. Interviews, observations, document analysis, and photographic analysis were used as research tools. Findings are that mental well-being is connected to a personal ability to positively engage time in restricted housing environments (Rapoport, 1982). Inmates use a variety of tools including faith, family support, personal artifacts connected to memory, views to nature beyond, and personal meditation.
- How our homes control our behaviorGalford, Gregory (2021-01-11)Presentation sponsored by the Virginia Tech Center for the Humanities focused on behavioral effects of environmental controls within residential environments, with a special focus on correctional living spaces.
- Lessons in New Deal Housing: Historic Rural PrototypesGalford, Gregory (2021-11-01)The purpose of this presentation is to illustrate historic experiments in Appalachian New Deal government planned housing to glean lessons for future prototypes. This research is significant as housing in the region is often viewed through perspectives that reflect private company towns but not governmentally planned ones. This presentation will focus on Depression era housing developments in West Virginia. A particular focus will be a town that was a project of Eleanor Roosevelt and had her support throughout her husband’s administration. It had a goal of providing a sustainable lifestyle to its residents, with a focus on food production and storage. This presentation will utilize relevant literature to examine both issues and policies that act as a framework around the topic, and as a foundation for future research that will rely on a mixed methods approach. Those future research tools will include observation, analysis of historic documents, and interviews and surveys with current residents. This presentation will focus on the contextual setting for decisions and actions related to the construction of the town and will solicit questions from the audience to aid with the shape of the future work. A goal of the work is to highlight both the successes and failures of these centrally planned towns, and an aim of the next phase of research is to obtain findings that will aid planners and policymakers regarding the future of Appalachian housing.
- Resilient Experiences in Appalachian Housing: Architectural Experiments in Planned HousingGalford, Gregory (2021-03-11)The purpose of this presentation is to illustrate research regarding historic experiments in Appalachian social housing to glean lessons for future successful housing models. This research is significant as housing in the region if often viewed through conventional lenses that do not reflect the rich histories of different experiments in Appalachian housing. This presentation will focus on two Depression era housing developments in West Virginia. This presentation and paper will highlight some of these historic endeavors to make the housing of Appalachia’s residents an important topic within studies of the region. This presentation will rely on a mixed methods approach that will utilize observation, analysis of historic documents and potential interviews with current residents. The presentation will rely heavily on a review of the literature around the topic to frame and solicit questions. Expected findings include a disconnect between planning of ideal housing systems and the actual user, problems with technology regarding construction standards, and adaptation of homes over time to reflect changing demographics within the region. This will highlight both successes and failures of these centrally planned housing systems. This work will inform future planners and policymakers in the region by providing a template to aid in the planning of the next iteration of housing infrastructure in the region.
- Resilient Experiments in Rural Housing: Architectural Experiments in Planned HousingGalford, Gregory; Tucker, Lisa M. (2021-11-18)Single family houses contribute substantially to climate change in the US and other parts of the world. In the US specifically, most housing has been designed by builders and developers. The motivation has not been sustainability and a knowledge of how to design net zero energy and net zero water dwelling is not commonly understood. This paper seeks to use a historical model as viewed through the lens of the Living Building Challenge to demonstrate how an architect designed historic example might provide a way of implementing a cutting-edge approach to sustainable housing today. Arthurdale was an early 20th century housing experiment that was conceptualized to provide for sustainable living in rural Appalachia. This paper presents the history of the region, an overview of the houses and the Living Building Challenge and then analyses how this historic prototype might model a sustainable housing development today using the Living Building Challenge system.
- Sustainable Arthurdale: A Reevalution of a 1930s Planned CommunityGalford, Gregory; Tucker, Lisa M.; Martin, Lou (University of Illinois Press, 2023-05-05)The Great Depression affected Appalachian towns with severe economic distress and dislocation. This research focuses on a New Deal experiment in sustainable housing initiated by Eleanor Roosevelt. Early in her husband’s administration, she championed the design and construction of the planned community of Arthurdale, West Virginia. Composed of single-family homes built during three phases with a central complex of shared services, the planned town of Arthurdale has retained connections to several original residents and maintains a strong sense of community and belonging. This research explores the community design components—particularly the innovative education system—of Arthurdale, coupled with the sustainable features inherent in the houses and its approach to sustenance farming, and considers the impact on the long-term success of the residents. For this work, a mixed-methods approach was used with an initial quantitative survey and a subsequent focus group. Survey results indicated that themes of sustainability, community, and education were values that were uniquely shared by original town residents and subsequent generations. These values can affect contemporary models of sustainable community development.