School of Architecture + Design

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Adventures in Radon and Moisture Mitigation
Grant, Elizabeth J. (2014-07-01)
The Application Of Bio-inspiration To Human-centered Product Design
Kennedy, B. (WIT Press, 2014)
Biologically inspired design is an emerging practice based on the premise that nature holds a vast library of strategies, processes and technologies that can lead to innovative, sustainable solutions to human problems. Around the globe, scientific and engineering research efforts in Bio-inspiration have made astonishing discoveries that have impacted future possibilities in the fields of robotics, biomedical technology and material science, amongst many other examples. Yet, despite rising evidence about Biology’s relevance to innovative design, examples demonstrating specifics about how it can be applied in the near term in consumer product design are limited. This paper presents a case study wherein Bio-inspired design was used successfully as a tool to help develop novel, viable and product concepts for a packaged-goods industry client. Specifically, emphasis will be placed on how the method of ‘biologizing the problem’ contributed to redefining the parameters of the challenge, which ultimately drove the project’s success. After receiving a focused brief for reinventing the generally unpleasant experience of bathroom shower cleaning, the first round of creative ideation yielded incremental solutions based on the goal of ‘mildew removal and extermination.’ During the second round of creative ideation, after the problem had been redefined in terms of biological strategies, an entirely different set of solutions resulted from a revised goal of ‘mildew prevention.’ Such examples of problem redefinition can be propelled by a growing number of free databases like Asknature.org, which enable designers to find useful analogies between their design goals and Biological strategies. As these databases mature, product design efforts will be able to augment their creative output with improved results.
Application of Comprehensive Evaluation in New-Product-Development Evaluation: The Case of Landscape-Architectural Outdoor Wooden Furnishing
Cui, Xiaolei; Ge, Mengting; Shen, Xiwei (MDPI, 2022-09-23)
Successful new product development (NPD) is critical for modern outdoor wooden furnishing (OWF) manufacturing companies to achieve competitive success, since current users have the serious requirements of aesthetics, materials and environmental quality. Identifying the competitive performance of a product in development is an effective means to minimize the risk of failure. However, the literature reviews of the comprehensive evaluation (CE) model for OWF NPD are very rare. In this study, the CE method that applies three steps, which include constructing evaluation criteria, establishing a trapezoidal fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and proposing a CE model is applied to assess the performance of a product in development and to minimize the risk of product failure in the market. The study aims to propose a CE approach for OWF NDP, which utilizes multiple methods that incorporate a literature review, questionnaire, Delphi method and fuzzy trapezoidal AHP. Finally, an integrated CE model is proposed to measure the competitive performance of NPD. A case study of a series of OWF in Harbin Pingfang Park, China is presented to illustrate the feasibility of the model. The result demonstrates that the proposed method predicts the performance of a product in development objectively and comprehensively. This evaluation method, being an assessment tool, can help designers and decision makers make better decisions and will predict the competitive performance of a product so as to reduce the risk of economic losses, not merely depending on previous experience and personal expectation.
Attitudes and Perceptions of Community Gardens: Making a Place for Them in Our Neighborhoods
Kordon, Sinan; Miller, Patrick A.; Bohannon, C. L. (MDPI, 2022-10-11)
Although community gardens provide numerous economic, environmental, and social benefits, some have been lost to other land uses due to the lack of organized and effective public support. Knowledge about people’s attitudes and perceptions towards these landscapes is important to achieve greater public support. This study used a scene rating survey to investigate attitudes and perceptions of four different groups (community gardeners, community and home gardeners, home gardeners, and non-gardeners) in Roanoke, Virginia. Content analysis, factor analysis, descriptive statistics, customized Kruskal- Wallis test (ANOVA) and content identifying method (CIM) procedures were used. All statistical analyses were completed at a 95% significance level using SPSS version 21. Results showed that there are seven dimensions important to participants’ preferences in community gardens including “Gathering and Seating”, “Plots with Boundaries”, “Focal Points”, “Plots without Boundaries”, Garden Entrance”, Untidy Space”, and “Composting Structures”. Excluding the “Gathering and Seating” dimension, a significant difference was detected between participant groups. Based on these dimensions, this study provides design recommendations for community garden projects to minimize possible opposition between gardeners and non-gardeners and to develop more successful community garden programs for the long-term survival of these landscapes in cities.
Awareness and Attitude of College Students Majoring in Landscape Architecture towards the Sustainable Development
Han, Soyoung; Kwon, Yoonku (MDPI, 2019-10-02)
Reflecting the interest in sustainable development (SD), researches on the attitude toward SD have been steadily conducted for various groups. To explore the characteristics of awareness and attitude of college students majoring in landscape architecture towards the concept of SD, this study has two research questions; to analysis latent classes according to the learning participation pattern (research question 1), and to explore student characteristics that influence the classification of each classes (research question 2). The latent class analysis (LCA) was used to identify the combination of relationships found in the classes based on similar patterns among the characteristics of people rather than the relationship between observed variables. A total of 495 students majoring in landscape architecture, 222 males and 275 females, are participated in this study. The results of this study are as follows. First, six latent classes were extracted in relation to attitudes toward SD. Second, college students majoring in landscape architecture tend to view the concept of SD from an ‘environmental’ and ‘environmental and economic harmony’ point of view rather than from an ‘environmental, social, and economic’ point of view. Third, grades and educational experiences were found to have a significant effect on the probability of belonging to a specific latent class for SD. Finally, based on these results, we suggest a method for organizing interdisciplinary courses to comprehensively access the ‘environmental, social and economic’ areas of the curriculum.
Basement Whodunit
Grant, Elizabeth J. (2015-07-01)
Comparative Analysis of Restorative Interior Design Elements: Screen-Based Versus Virtual Reality Evaluations for Future Medical Treatment Prospects
Tural, Alp; Tural, Elif (MDPI, 2024-12-31)
Given the increasing prevalence of anxiety and depression, this research aims to identify design features that enhance the sense of restoration, with the goal of supporting mental and behavioral healthcare facility design. This study employed both screen-based and virtual reality (VR) stimuli to evaluate the perceived restorativeness of different interior settings. The key variables analyzed included window view access, view content, materiality, and room geometry. Thirty-five undergraduate and graduate students assessed 16 distinct interior environments. Findings indicate that the VR presentations generally produced higher restorativeness scores compared with screen-based presentations, though this effect varied across stimuli. Repeated-measures ANOVA revealed that larger windows consistently correlated with higher restorativeness scores in both presentation modes. Views of water were rated as most restorative, followed by wooded areas. Natural materials were perceived as significantly more restorative than other materials, particularly in VR presentations. Varied ceiling designs, especially vaulted ceilings, were associated with evaluations of higher restorativeness compared with flat ceiling designs, with this effect more pronounced in VR. This research underscores the potential of VR technology to simulate and assess interior design interventions, offering insights into creating more effective and personalized restorative environments in mental health treatment facilities. The findings can inform evidence-based design strategies for healthcare spaces, supporting treatment processes and patient well-being.
Comparison between Daytime and Nighttime Scenery Focusing on Restorative and Recovery Effect
Cheon, SangHyun; Han, Soyoung; Kim, Mintai; Kwon, Yoonku (MDPI, 2019-06-16)
The overall purpose of this study was to investigate psycho-physiological variations in human bodies by observing visual images of daytime and nighttime scenery to focus on restorative and recovery effects. Unlike previous studies that have focused on the natural versus built environments, this study aims to compare restorative and recovery potentials between daytime and nighttime. The experiment was conducted by showing a total of 12 images to 60 participants in order to measure the brain response with an electroencephalogram (EEG). As measures of the psychological impact of the images, perceived restorative and recovery scales were used. The self-reported data indicates that daytime sceneries are rated more positively than nighttime sceneries in terms of restorative and recovery effects. According to the EEG results, restorative and recovery feelings have negative relationships with the relative theta band, while positive relationships are shown with the relative alpha band. The correlation analysis between EEG bands and brain regions showed a significant correlation (p < 0.05) with 46 pairs for the daytime scenery stimuli and 52 pairs for the nighttime scenery stimuli. Through the results of the study, we conclude that daytime and nighttime scenery affect restorative feelings and the human brain response through both verbal and non-verbal methods.
Contemporary Spatial Publicness: Its New Characteristics and Democratic Possibilities
Han, Soyoung; Kim, Joong Won; Kwon, Yoonku (MDPI, 2019-08-29)
In this study, we explore the recognition of publicness as understood by everyday users of public space. By analyzing news articles in South Korea selected from 1 January 2010, to 31 December 2018, this study examines a discourse which is largely missing in the existing studies—the subjective experience and framing of contemporary spatial publicness by its end-users. After analyzing the contents from a total of 583 articles in the KINDS database, we develop a general typology of how contemporary spatial publicness is represented in South Korea. Although the scope and background of questions surrounding South Korea’s recognition of contemporary spatial publicness are different from that of Western countries, a similar debate has emerged about what publicness means in the context of the architecture and urban space around the globe. By developing different thematic dimensions in the representations of contemporary spatial publicness, we further discuss the implications for future research to examine the pragmatic sensibilities of individuals and utility of semi-public/private space.
Counteracting high winds with low pressure: Development and testing of a new roof vent system
Grant, Elizabeth J.; Jones, James R. (College Publishing, 2011-01-01)
Roof system failures are common during high wind events. In locations subject to high wind conditions, membrane roofing systems must typically be either physically attached or fully adhered to the substrate or ballast may be added to weigh down the membrane. An alternative to these installation approaches could be to use aerodynamics principles such as the Bernoulli and Venturi effects to create a low-pressure region beneath the membrane roof that is lower than the ambient pressure and thus counteracts the uplifting force. A new omnidirectional vent has been designed and tested that takes advantage of these aerodynamics principles to induce low pressure under the membrane layer. This new vent operates with no moving parts and was tested in the high-speed stability wind tunnel at Virginia Tech to wind speeds up to 233 km/h. The results demonstrate that this new vent generates pressures lower than the ambient when subjected to high wind conditions. This paper presents the design principles and performance test results for this new roof vent system and other applications for roof vent technologies.
The De Mestral Project: Using Macro Photo-journaling To Stimulate Interest In Bio-inspired Design And Science, Technology, Engineering And Mathematics Disciplines
Kennedy, Brook S. (WIT Press, 2017)
Bio-inspired design (BID) and its many variants (biomimetics, biomimicry etc.) continues to be a promising innovation methodology in which practitioners from industry and academia search nature’s evolutionary diversity for meaningful design opportunities. However, despite BID’s potential to contribute greater value to society, it remains an obscure field. In this paper, we present a case demonstrating how a novel educational exercise could play an important role in advancing the field by stimulating student interest in BID and the more broadly associated Science Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields which drive it. Specifically, we discuss a cross-disciplinary university seminar that uses an experimental photo journaling exercise called the “de Mestral Project” which aims to recreate the successful invention process of Velcro by Engineer Georges de Mestral. This exercise cultivates observation skills, or the ability to look closer at the natural world as a foundation for uncovering new opportunities for design. Critical to the activity is the use of macro photography to help facilitate this discovery process. The outcome of this project has led to early stage BID concepts that have been explored more deeply in subsequent funded research efforts and in capstone Industrial Design studio projects. The development of the de Mestral project in ongoing; the purpose of this paper is to describe its methods and preliminary outcomes.
A Decision-Making Framework for Vegetated Roofing System Selection
Grant, Elizabeth J.; Jones, James R. (2008-04-01)
Design frequently involves making tradeoffs to obtain the “optimal” solution to a design problem, often using intuition or past experience as a guide. Since vegetated roofing is a relatively complex and comparatively new technology to many practitioners, a rational, explicit method to help organize and rank the tradeoffs made during the design process is needed. This research comprises the creation of a framework diagramming the decision process involved in the selection of vegetated roofing systems. Through literature review, case studies and interviews with experts, the available knowledge is captured and organized to determine the critical parameters affecting design decisions. Six important evaluative categories are identified and parameters within these categories are addressed in the context of a decision support system for green roof designers. A summation of the total importance of the advantages represented by each alternative is used to determine the most feasible green roof system for a particular project. The framework is demonstrated and compared with green roof designers’ decisionmaking processes and conclusions are drawn regarding its effectiveness.
Deep Meaning in Scenic Assessment: Seeing around the Bend
Miller, Patrick A. (MDPI, 2022-09-23)
Many of today’s scenic assessment tools were developed initially to preserve the visual quality of public lands and to mitigate the negative visual impacts of large-scale landscape alterations, such as timber harvesting, mineral extraction, and renewable energy production. However, we are beginning to see more interest today in preserving scenic views on non-public lands. This essay makes a case for additional scenic assessment tools that reveal deep meaning in the landscape. Deep meaning is different than the immediately visible attributes of the landscape. It includes things that come to mind when looking at the landscape and are shared by people familiar with that landscape. Understanding the concept of deep meaning can be difficult. The author describes how deep meaning in the landscape was first revealed to him. Two non-landscape examples are then used to demonstrate different aspects of deep meaning. First, the rocks in a rock garden show the personal nature and attachment of deep meaning. Second, the wording on two wine bottle labels illustrates the distinction between surface meaning and deep meaning. Poetry is then examined as a means of conveying deeper landscape meaning. Lastly, four different landscape contents categories that are used in the proposed Virginia Scenic Viewshed Program demonstrate how deep meaning content can be used in the scenic viewshed assessment. The conclusion is that deep meaning would be a valuable addition to the scenic assessment of non-public land viewsheds, particularly if the assessment process involves the public.
Degentrification? Different Aspects of Gentrification before and after the COVID-19 Pandemic
Han, Soyoung; Bohannon, C. L.; Kwon, Yoonku (MDPI, 2021-11-11)
The purpose of this study is to explore the aspects of “gentrification” and “degentrification” other than economic factors. To this end, this study focused on the gentrification situations occurring before and after the COVID-19 pandemic in the Itaewon area, South Korea, by using semantic network analysis. We analyzed news articles on the gentrification phenomenon in the Itaewon area reported in South Korea. As a result, gentrification in the Itaewon area is divided into four stages. The first stage of gentrification (2010~2014) is initial stage of gentrification. Gentrification stage 2 (2015~2017) is the period of commercialization as a gentrification growth stage. The first stage of degentrification (2018~2019) is the maturation period of gentrification. The second stage of degentrification (2019~30 June 2020) is the period of the COVID-19 pandemic. The results confirm the existing theoretical frameworks while building a more nuanced definition through operationalizing gentrification and degentrification. As with the etymology of the term, the degentrification phenomenon can only be revealed when the gentrification phenomenon is prominently displayed. This study has an implication in that it tried to phenomenologically examine the specific phenomenon of the next stage of gentrification through the term “degentrification”.
Democracy, discourse, and design: Cape Town’s (re)turn to public space
Tomer, Sharóne L. (Cambridge University Press, 2020-09)
Public spaces had been central to Cape Town’s colonial planning and spatial order, but became marginalised in the twentieth century under modernist planning and apartheid policy. As apartheid came towards its close, architects and planners began to champion public space as a way of addressing the city’s deficiencies. Books, articles, and policy documents were written celebrating public space as a humanist device and vehicle for democracy. The City of Cape Town’s emerging Urban Design Branch instituted a major public space program: the Dignified Places Programme. This paper traces the history of public space as a terrain through which political aspirations, whether of domination or contestation, have been asserted in Cape Town. The paper will argue that at the end of apartheid, a public space turn occurred which reflected the specificities of post-apartheid democracy, in both its aspirations and limitations.
Demonstration of Geppetteau: Enabling haptic perceptions of virtual fluids in various vessel profiles using a string-driven haptic interface
Sagheb, Shahabedin; Liu, Frank; Vuong, Alex; Dai, Shiling; Wirjadi, Ryan; Bao, Yueming; Likamwa, Robert (ACM, 2022-10-29)
Liquids sloshing around in vessels produce unique unmistakable tactile sensations of handling fluids in daily life, laboratory environments, and industrial contexts. Providing nuanced congruent tactile sensations would enrich interactions of handling fluids in virtual reality (VR). To this end, we introduce Geppetteau, a novel string-driven weight-shifting mechanism capable of providing a continuous spectrum of perceivable tactile sensations of handling virtual liquids in VR vessels. Geppetteau’s weight-shifting actuation system can be housed in 3D-printable shells, adapting to varying vessel shapes and sizes. A variety of different fluid behaviors can be felt using our haptic interface. In this work, Geppetteau assumes the shape of conical, spherical, cylindrical, and cuboid flasks, widening the range of augmentable shapes beyond the state-of-the-art of existing mechanical systems.
Diagrammatic Practices: The Office of Frederick L. Ackerman and "Architectural Graphic Standards"
Emmons, Paul F. (University of California Press, 2005-03)
The office of Frederick Ackerman (1878-1950) was the source of the first modern architectural handbook, Architectural Graphic Standards (1932), which was intended as a radical manifesto. Basing his practice on the economic critique of "conspicuous consumption" by Thorstein Veblen (1857-1929), Ackerman was a leader of the technocratic movement. Ackerman directed his employees to develop factual architectural data. The authors of Graphic Standards, Charles Ramsey (1884-1963) and Harold Sleeper (1893-1960), worked at Ackerman's firm, and it was for Ackerman's projects that the first versions of the handbook's plates were drawn. Graphic Standards reflected Ackerman's technocratic approach to architecture, whereby he isolated functional facts from appearance, which was understood as self-expression. In its use of diagrams, Graphic Standards reflected the view that such schematic representations were the transparent rendering of facts. Yet, as seen in some of the plates of Graphic Standards, even the most reductive diagrams inevitably include expressive elements. Through many editions, Graphic Standards has been widely hailed as the "bible" of architectural practice, and it is paradoxical that Ackerman's radical practice became the basis of today's normative commercial practices. The attempt to separate functional fact from aesthetic self-expression was an impossible project, but Ackerman's efforts to achieve a modern architecture that was derived from the nature of its use and construction to replace the design of novelties remain a significant achievement.
A Discrete Choice Experiment to Elicit People’s Preferences for Semi-Arid Riparian Corridors: A Multinomial Logit Model
Bogis, Abdulmueen; Kim, Mintai (2023-05)
The aim of this study is to examine public preferences for urban riparian corridors in arid regions using simulation and visual quality analysis scenarios. Ecological landscapes are often subject to trade-offs with aesthetic landscapes that include micro and macro environmental factors such as manicured landscapes. It is suggested that there is a preference for aesthetics in landscape design; however, it is unclear how laypeople prioritize aesthetics over different ecological factors in landscape scenes. This study uses a Discrete Choice Experiment (DCE) to elicit the preferences of current or former residents of Jeddah City, Saudi Arabia, for multiple landscape scenes. The method combines ecological landscape characteristics (adopted from the QBR index) found in the study area in Jeddah and aesthetic characteristics commonly suggested in landscape design projects. Participants in this study were exposed to a set of illustrated landscape scenes, including various aesthetic and ecological elements configurations. Participants’ choices revealed the influence of their ecological and aesthetic values. Results show that people may prefer unmaintained ecological landscapes if minimal design interventions were provided. This will prevent trading off the ecological unmaintained landscape with aesthetically maintained landscapes within the study area. This study will help researchers and landscape architects advance visual preference research further into the domain of empirical studies. It presents a new powerful technique to elicit the preference of an individual element in landscape scenes, which improves the precision of community-based decision-making.
Effects of Air Exchange Rate on VOCs and Odor Emission from PVC Veneered Plywood Used in Indoor Built Environment
Ge, Mengting; Zheng, Yongli; Zhu, Yifanzi; Ge, Jintian; Zhang, Qin (MDPI, 2023-09-14)
As people spend more than 80% of the day in an indoor built environment, indoor air quality pollution caused by volatile organic compounds (VOCs) emitted from wood-based panels has attracted attention. PVC veneered plywood used in the indoor built environment and relevant VOCs and odor emission under different air exchange rates were studied in this research. Microcell thermal extraction technology was used to sample under the conditions of three different air exchange rates and loading factors: 0.2 m³·h⁻¹·m⁻², 0.5 m³·h⁻¹·m⁻², and 1.0 m³·h⁻¹·m⁻², respectively. Gas Chromatography-Olfactometry-Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS-O) was used to analyze VOCs and their odor release characteristics. The key odor characteristic compounds were analyzed by subjective and objective methods, and the main sources of odor release from the board were analyzed. In this experiment, the time-intensity method is mainly used to analyze the mass concentration of VOCs released from plywood. By comparing the mass concentration and odor intensity of VOCs released from plywood and its components under different air exchange rates and loading factors, the influence of the ratio of air exchange rate to loading factor on plywood is judged. The results show that with three different ratios of air exchange rate to loading factor, the VOCs emission concentration and odor intensity of plywood can be affected greatly and are the highest at 0.2 m³·h⁻¹·m⁻². The components released by PVC veneered plywood are mainly aromatic compounds, alkanes and aldehydes. The research findings can guide the indoor built environment design and construction process to control the emission of VOCs by adjusting the air exchange rate, which helps build more healthy and sustainable living environments for humans.
Encapsulated Masculine Dreams: The Cultural and Material Impermanence of the Nakagin Capsule Tower
Ishida, Aki ("Ion Mincu" University Press, Bucharest, 2023-03-15)

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