Scholarly Works, School of Architecture + Design

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https://hdl.handle.net/10919/24310

Research articles, presentations, and other scholarship

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 133

"I WANT": Agency and Accessibility in the Age of AI
Borunda Monsivais, Luis; Gipe-Lazarou, Andrew; Meng, Na (2024-06)
"I WANT access to public buildings and technologies"; "I WANT all stairs to have railings"; "I WANT there to be a talking pedestrian sign"; "I WANT curbs to be more noticeable"; "I WANT technology that is dedicated to the blind". Young, vision-impaired learners from across the world, participating in our team’s human-centered research and participatory design initiatives, express an impassioned desire for agency and inclusive space making. Utilizing these statements as a foundational element of the participatory design process, our work continues to explore the intersection of AI and inclusive space-making, the methods employed through human-centered research and computational techniques such as machine learning and app development, and the potential contributions of these interventions to a more accessible future. This paper presents a two-part investigation into the role of advanced technological interventions and participatory design in shaping the future of architecture and design. Part 1 explores the outcomes of AI assistive device research centered on the voices of future professionals. This phase involved interviews and focus group discussions with blind and visually impaired individuals, designers, and computer scientists in an ongoing human subject research, leading to the creation of an AI-driven navigation app. Part 2 anticipates the deployment of working prototypes derived from these participatory design processes during [Affiliation Placeholder]'s annual Blind Design Workshop, in which more than a dozen young people with vision-impairment participate each spring. Its itinerary includes analog exercises in drawing and model-making (using material samples and wax sticks on Braille graph paper), guided tours of multi-sensory learning spaces across [Location Placeholder], accessible training in the production of 3D-prints and embossed drawings, and mentorship from practicing design professionals of the vision-impaired community, culminating in a final presentation and group critique of accessible design proposals. The workshop is a unique career exploration experience in architecture for individuals with vision impairment, designed to empower them with the understanding that they can have agency in the space-making process by giving them a voice and teaching them to architect their ambitions for the future. The synergy of AI and architecture presents profound opportunities to propel young, vision-impaired individuals from passive observers to active participants in crafting inclusive environments. Our paper discusses how innovative approaches to research and learning can seed future generations with the goal of harnessing AI for social impact in design and substantiating their role as the vanguards of a more accessible world. The outcomes of this study hold the potential to shape pedagogical strategies and industry standards, contributing to a profound reimagining of inclusive design education and practice.
The Effects of Low-Impact Development Best Management Practices on Reducing Stormwater Caused by Land Use Changes in Urban Areas: A Case Study of Tehran City, Iran
Rostamzadeh, Sajedeh; Malekmohammadi, Bahram; Mashhadimohammadzadehvazifeh, Fatemeh; Arsanjani, Jamal Jokar (MDPI, 2024-12-27)
Urbanization growth and climate change have increased the frequency and severity of floods in urban areas. One of the effective methods for reducing stormwater volume and managing urban floods is the low-impact development best management practice (LID-BMP). This study aims to mitigate flood volume and peak discharge caused by land use changes in the Darabad basin located in Tehran, Iran, using LID-BMPs. For this purpose, land use maps were extracted for a period of 23 years from 2000 to 2022 using Landsat satellite images. Then, by using a combination of geographic information system-based multi-criteria decision analysis (GIS-MCDA) method and spatial criteria, four types of LID-BMPs, including bioretention basin, green roof, grass swale, and porous pavement, were located in the study area. Next, rainfall–runoff modeling was applied to calculate the changes in the mentioned criteria due to land use changes and the application of LID-BMPs in the area using soil conservation service curve number (SCS-CN) method. The simulation results showed that the rise in built-up land use from 43.49 to 56.51 percent between the period has increased the flood volume and peak discharge of 25-year return period by approximately 60 percent. The simulation results also indicated that the combined use of the four selected types of LID-BMPs will lead to a greater decrease in stormwater volume and peak discharge. According to the results, LID-BMPs perform better in shorter return periods in a way that the average percentage of flood volume and peak discharge reduction in a 2-year return period were 36.75 and 34.96 percent, while they were 31.37 and 26.5 percent in a 100-year return period.
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.
Understanding product hibernation periods with children’s products and exploring motivations and barriers for product care to encourage their reuse
Choi, Yoon Jung; Kennedy, Brook (Elsevier, 2024-06-07)
Product hibernation, where end-of-life products are kept but no longer used, poses a significant barrier to prolonging product lifespans within a circular economy. Obsolete products challenge users' decision-making process for the after-use phase and are often discarded despite being perfectly functional. This is especially common in households with growing children, where children's products are outgrown but not discarded. This paper presents the survey findings of 157 hibernating children's products, and interviews with five UK families, exploring reasons for product hibernation, and related reuse barriers. An idea generation workshop further explored the owners’ reuse experience with their children's products and identified fourteen factors that suggest opportunities to shift users' perception of end-of-life product value, care and reuse for these products, ultimately reducing product hibernation. This paper makes an original contribution to product reuse knowledge with the development of a framework for understanding reuse motivations and barriers through the lens of care.
Urban Geologics / Topographic Spectres
Rosier, Shaun (2024-08)
The conditions of everyday modernity are saturated by an oft-unrecognised relation to mineral life and memory. The vital energies of various urbanisms are in a double bind where it is at once parasitically devouring subterranean material to fuel its growth whilst obscuring these feeding patterns. Geologic strata crushed and sifted to form concrete, aggregate, and sand. The forces of contemporary development and capitalism seek to extract material from a constructed notion of sub terra nullius. This paper argues for a return to the aesthetics of geologic material in the effort to avoid pure commodification of strata in the construction of everyday urban fields and encounters. It does so through graphic and textual accounts of two urban landscapes of extraction; Horokiwi in New Zealand, and Twin Creeks in Virginia, USA; highlighting the role of material in their surrounding built environments and potential as portals to the affective force of the underworld. We no longer understand where the material invested in concrete, benchtops, beams and columns was taken from. Revisiting the aesthetic force of strata and geologic material provides us an opportunity to re-situate our sociocultural relationships to longue durée inherent to the places in which we live, work, relax, and stand.
Problematising the Sublime: Affective Archives in Landscape Design
Rosier, Shaun (2024-10-12)
This paper brings forth the problem of bodily, affective, intelligence and its role within landscape architectural design processes. Specifically, how might landscape designers draw on their internal memory-archives of body-environment affects to help shape design decisions? Despite sustained interest in phenomenology and other theories of environmental aesthetics, the operations of spatial affective experience have remained ambiguous within design discourse. This has led to the design of spatial experience being viewed with suspicion due to claims of ‘mere subjectivity’ or a lack of rigor compared to recent trends towards universality and positivism. To counter this, this paper argues that the concreteness of affect can be made present through Deleuze and Guattari’s aesthetics of affect and assemblages. More specifically, experiences of the [landscape]sublime can be understood as an ecological encounter with intensity that disrupts our being’s ability to reference it against one’s bodily archive of affects. This disruption shocks us into determining a creative solution to the spatial and sensory problem at hand, which at first may manifest as a sense of terror. Still, as the processes of experimentation unfold, we find ourselves reveling in the joy of the creation of a new self through the processes of individuation and actualization. Through this aesthetics of affect, this paper argues that although the sublime is an ‘experiential limit case’, it reveals how other forms of landscape experience can be deciphered and made concrete through and for design.
Scenic Assessment Methodology for Preserving Scenic Viewsheds of Virginia, USA
Miller, Patrick A.; Sim, Jisoo; Powell, Leighton; Crump, Lynn (MDPI, 2024-07-08)
The non-profit organization Scenic Virginia is dedicated to identifying and showcasing the state’s scenic landscapes. Recently, the state incorporated a “scenic” element into its new Conserve Virginia land conservation strategy. Consequently, there is a need for a standardized assessment tool that both citizens and professionals can use to identify and evaluate the scenic value of publicly accessible viewsheds in Virginia. This paper outlines the rationale behind developing a scientifically robust protocol, which is based on an extensive literature review and photographs from Scenic Virginia’s annual photo contest. The protocol serves as a scenic assessment tool designed to encourage local citizen participation in identifying significant scenic resources in Virginia. Local communities will utilize this new tool to help them identify and evaluate their scenic assets. The protocol was reviewed by a panel of experts, and its implementation is currently underway.
Transforming food waste into natural pigments: Raising community school awareness of food waste recycling opportunities through co-design methods
Choi, Jung Yoon; Okumura, Hiromi; Kennedy, Brook; Lee, Chang Hee; Gendell, Avery (DRS Digital Library, 2024-06)
In a world grappling with ongoing food scarcity, the issue of food waste in US school cafeterias remains a pressing concern, often without sufficient attention given to recycling. School communities play a pivotal role in shaping behaviors, as individuals are significantly influenced by their peers' actions and opinions, making them more open to positive reinforcement. This research explores design opportunity to raise awareness and encourage food waste recycling behaviors through a co-design approach. Students are invited to participate in the interactive exhibitions, where they learn and provide feedback about the pigment-making process from food waste using a toolkit for art painting. Through sharing their experiences, students help spread awareness and foster a commitment to recycling behaviors among their peers. Engaging students as active participants in these activities shows promise as a strategy to increase awareness of food waste recycling opportunities and empower school communities to support circular food systems.
From the City to the Shopping Mall and Back Again: Design and Control in the Memphis Mid-America Pedestrian Mall
Keslacy, Elizabeth M. (2024-07-03)
Victor Gruen viewed the shopping centre as a perfected form of the city, one which brought together commercial, civic, and social activities without the undesirable aspects of the downtown central business district. The privately owned shopping centre offered an alternative to congestion and scarce parking, its highly regulated spaces omitted panhandlers, protestors and unruly youth. In response to the loss of business effected by suburban shopping malls, cities across America transformed their downtowns by installing pedestrian malls that closed streets to vehicular traffic and instead provided landscaping, fountains, and benches to create a more pleasant shopping environment. While the urban designers of pedestrian malls often cite historic European cities as their dominant influence, this paper investigates the extent to which their design and regulation was in fact shaped by the suburban shopping mall itself. Examining the Memphis Mid-America Mall designed by Gassner, Nathan and Browne and constructed in the mid-1970s, I reveal how the city sought to impose the spatial order, aesthetic regulation, and behavioural restrictions first developed in the shopping mall on the urban pedestrian mall in an attempt to curtail the freedoms associated with public space in favour of the restrictions of what legal scholars describe as quasior pseudo-public space.
Eye-Tracking and Visual Preference: Maybe Beauty Is in the Eye of the Beholder?
Miller, Patrick A. (MDPI, 2024-04-29)
The “Content-Identifying Methodology”, or CIM, is an approach developed by environmental psychologists Rachel and Stephen Kaplan to understand the landscape characteristics that people find visually attractive. The Kaplans did this by surveying people’s landscape preferences and then analyzing the preferences to develop sets of landscape scenes to which people reacted in a similar pattern. The underlying assumption is that a common stimulus or content exists in the photographs of a set responsible for the preference. However, identifying the common stimulus or content in each set or grouping of scenes and how it affects preference can still be challenging. Eye-tracking is a tool that can identify what the survey participants were looking at when indicating their preference for a landscape. This paper demonstrates how eye-tracking was used in two different landscape preference studies to identify the content important to people’s preferences and provide insights into how the content affected preference. Eye-tracking can help identify a common stimulus, help determine if the stimulus is a physical or spatial characteristic of the landscape, and show how the stimulus varies in different landscape contexts.
Reclamation through Extraction
Rosier, Shaun (2024-03-21)
Human-Centric Lighting Design: A Framework for Supporting Healthy Circadian Rhythm Grounded in Established Knowledge in Interior Spaces
Jalali, Mansoureh Sadat; Jones, James R.; Tural, Elif; Gibbons, Ronald B. (MDPI, 2024-04-17)
Over the past 300 years, scientific observations have revealed the significant influence of circadian rhythms on various human functions, including sleep, digestion, and immune system regulation. Access to natural daylight is crucial for maintaining these rhythms, but modern lifestyles often limit its availability. Despite its importance, there is a lack of a comprehensive design framework to assist designers. This study proposes an architectural design framework based on the review of literature, lighting-related codes and standards, and available design and analysis tools that guides the creation of lighting systems supporting healthy circadian rhythms. The framework outlines key decision-making stages, incorporates relevant knowledge, and promotes the integration of dynamic lighting techniques into building design. The proposed framework was presented to a group of design professionals as a focus group and their feedback on the relevance and usability of the tool was obtained through a survey (n = 10). By empowering designers with practical tools and processes, this research bridges the gap between scientific understanding and design implementation, ensuring informed decisions that positively impact human health. This research contributes to the ongoing pursuit of creating lighting environments that support healthy circadian rhythms and promote human well-being.
Finding the Potential in Lines: Faults, Horizons, and the City
Rosier, Shaun (2024-02-24)
Presentation of scholarly research at Virginia Tech's inaugural "Landscape First Symposium".
Encapsulated Masculine Dreams: The Cultural and Material Impermanence of the Nakagin Capsule Tower
Ishida, Aki ("Ion Mincu" University Press, Bucharest, 2023-03-15)
Work Activity Pattern and Collaboration Network: New Drivers for Workplace Space Planning and Design
Tagliaro, Chiara; Zhou, Yaoyi; Hua, Ying (Wiley, 2022-07-17)
Information about the users’ work activity patterns is essential for office space planning and the design of organizations. However, it is not clear yet what factors can be used for predicting work activities, especially at the group level. In this study, we found that work activity patterns of groups are associated with the workgroup’s job function and their location in the organizational collaboration networks. Two hypotheses were tested through a survey conducted on a sample of 188 managers from an Italian utility company. The participants were asked about (1) the percentage of time different groups (based on job function and demographic composition) spent doing individual, collaborative, and mobile work; and (2) how network connectivity affected individual versus group work. The results showed that workgroups with different job functions spent different percentages of time on individual, mobile, and teamwork. Communication network connectivity is not significantly correlated with the amount of time spent on individual work, but statistical evidence confirmed that it plays an essential role for the assessment of the amount of work time spent on teamwork, even more than job functions. By investigating the factors affecting collaborations between groups, we advanced the research on work activity in large companies in order to complement existing studies that mostly addressed work activity patterns at the individual level. How information about collaboration networks can be utilized for space planning and flexible work arrangement policy-making is also discussed, in light of the changes that the COVID-19 pandemic has triggered.
Social Network Analysis: Studying Social Interactions and Relations in the Workplace
Zhou, Yaoyi (Routledge, 2023-09-14)
Sensation and the Sublime: Revisiting the physiological basis of aesthetic encounter
Rosier, Shaun (University of Wisconsin Press, 2024)
The sublime has always been a part of Western landscape architectural discourse and design technique. Both emerged in tandem as entwined forms of experimentation with the world in 18th and 19th-century Europe. Encounters with the sublime were subjects of intense interrogation through oration, prose, poetry, philosophical inquiry, and design itself. Even though landscape architecture is deeply enmeshed with the sublime and other aesthetic encounters, the overall understanding and engagement with these notions have become hindered by cliché, generalities, and a socio-cultural trend toward the technoscientific. The reliance on Immanuel Kant’s theories of the ‘mathematical’ and ‘dynamic’ sublime has reduced the sublime to little more than Reason rescuing the subject from a failure in aesthetic synthesis or an expression of natural power. Here, aesthetic encounters are relegated to an interior subjectivity reinforced by Descartes’ dualism. This is problematic in the sense that it relegates the sublime to something that can be written off as ‘merely subjective'. Yet this is not how it was understood by the early writers on the matter, some of whom developed their thoughts from designing. This paper argues that the sublime is a physiological force as opposed to the generally held, and clichéd, psychological modality. By returning to the work of Edmund Burke, Thomas Whately, Uvedale Price, and Frederick Law Olmsted we can see that those looking at this problem afresh saw it markedly different than the contemporary canon. Here we will see that the sublime affirms the power of landscape illuminating what escapes reason’s grasp.
Understanding product hibernation periods with children's products and exploring motivations for product care to encourage their reuse
Choi, Yoon Jung; Kennedy, Brook (Aalto University, 2023-10-02)
The phenomenon of product hibernation, namely the process by which end-of-use products are kept but no longer used is a common and significant barrier to prolonging product lifespans within a circular economy. Obsolete products challenge users' decision-making process for the after-use phase and are often discarded despite being perfectly functional. Especially in households with growing children, where children’s products are outgrown but not discarded, product hibernation is the result. This paper presents the survey findings of 157 hibernating children’s products, and interviews with ten families with growing children in the UK who have moved house, exploring product ownership, reasons for product hibernation, and the various barriers for their reuse. Understanding owners’ product care motivation for re-recognizing their value and providing choices to reuse the children’s products is vital to reduce product hibernation. Further, a workshop was conducted to explore the owners’ reuse experience of with their children’s products and the factors affecting their consistent caring process which aim to encourage people to reuse these products more. Through an idea generation process, nine influential factors were identified that suggest opportunities to change users' perception of the value of the end-of-use and care for these products. This paper makes an original contribution to product reuse knowledge with the development of a framework for understanding reuse motivations and barriers through the lens of care.
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.
Quantifying Sustainability and Landscape Performance: A Smart Devices Assisted Alternative Framework
Shen, Zhongzhe; Peng, Xingjian; Du, Chenlong; Kim, Mintai (MDPI, 2023-09-04)
This research investigates gaps in current methods and tools in landscape performance research and presents a smart device-assisted alternative framework for performance assessment. Against the background of increasing attention to sustainability, landscape performance has emerged as a novel research focus on sustainability, with the objective of precisely quantifying sustainable performance. However, certain shortcomings persist within this field. This research conducts a comprehensive review of pertinent literature and analyzes deeply the performance metrics and case studies cataloged by the Landscape Performance Series (LPS). Additionally, an examination of quantitative tools is undertaken by surveys. The study finds several issues in current landscape performance research: imbalance development, inconsistent methods, one-time measurement, insufficient tools, and inaccurate and unreliable quantified results. Based on the advantages of smart devices in gathering sustainable data and previous research results, this research presents an alternate framework for conducting landscape performance research, which incorporates smart devices. In addition, it presents a set of recommendations for advancing research on landscape performance. This study could contribute to improving the diversity and accuracy of landscape performance quantification and contribute to future performance research. It assists in the refinement of landscape performance research and the achievement of sustainable development goals.

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