Scholarly Works, School of Design

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Research articles, presentations, and other scholarship

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Residential Mobility, Housing Instability, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and the Moderating Role of Neighborhood Contexts
Yoo, Jaeyong; Fisher, Satya; Kim, Jaehwan (MDPI, 2026-03-06)
Housing instability, particularly frequent residential moves, has been associated with poor developmental outcomes, yet its relationship with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) remains insufficiently understood at the national level. This study addresses this gap by investigating how frequent moves shape children’s exposure to ACEs, and whether community and household contexts influence these effects. Using the 2020–2021 National Survey of Children’s Health data, we ask two questions: (1) Do children who experience frequent moves face greater risk of ACEs? and (2) Do neighborhood and metropolitan contexts mitigate or exacerbate this association? Our contribution is twofold. First, we examine both directions of the relationship: how ACEs predict frequent moves and how frequent moves increase ACE exposure. Second, we incorporate contextual moderators, including supportive neighborhoods, safety, amenities, and urban residence, to provide a more nuanced account of how environments shape resilience or vulnerability. Using logistic and negative binomial regression models, we find that all ACEs significantly predict frequent moves, with parental divorce/separation showing the largest effect. Economic hardship is also a strong predictor of frequent residential mobility, and while food or cash assistance is associated with higher mobility, it moderates the hardship-mobility association. Supportive neighborhoods are associated with lower odds of moving. In turn, frequent moves more than double children’s risk of ACEs. Supportive and safe neighborhoods provide protective benefits, while detracting elements exacerbate adversity. We conclude that reducing frequent moves and strengthening neighborhood supports are critical strategies for mitigating childhood adversity.
Residential Mobility, Housing Instability, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and the Moderating Role of Neighborhood Contexts
Yoo, Jaeyong; Fisher, Satya; Kim, Jaehwan (MDPI, 2026-03-06)
Housing instability, particularly frequent residential moves, has been associated with poor developmental outcomes, yet its relationship with adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) remains insufficiently understood at the national level. This study addresses this gap by investigating how frequent moves shape children’s exposure to ACEs, and whether community and household contexts influence these effects. Using the 2020–2021 National Survey of Children’s Health data, we ask two questions: (1) Do children who experience frequent moves face greater risk of ACEs? and (2) Do neighborhood and metropolitan contexts mitigate or exacerbate this association? Our contribution is twofold. First, we examine both directions of the relationship: how ACEs predict frequent moves and how frequent moves increase ACE exposure. Second, we incorporate contextual moderators, including supportive neighborhoods, safety, amenities, and urban residence, to provide a more nuanced account of how environments shape resilience or vulnerability. Using logistic and negative binomial regression models, we find that all ACEs significantly predict frequent moves, with parental divorce/separation showing the largest effect. Economic hardship is also a strong predictor of frequent residential mobility, and while food or cash assistance is associated with higher mobility, it moderates the hardship-mobility association. Supportive neighborhoods are associated with lower odds of moving. In turn, frequent moves more than double children’s risk of ACEs. Supportive and safe neighborhoods provide protective benefits, while detracting elements exacerbate adversity. We conclude that reducing frequent moves and strengthening neighborhood supports are critical strategies for mitigating childhood adversity.
Building as common property: examining Ostrom's model in an innovative university residence hall
Baird, Timothy D.; Tural, Elif; Kniola, David J.; Pingel, Thomas J.; Abaid, Nicole (Routledge, 2025-10-18)
Buildings are not only physical infrastructures but also socially and institutionally produced environments that structure access to space, resources and community life. This study draws from human–environment geography, common property theory and scholarship on built environments to conceptualize buildings as shared indoor environments that function as common pool resources and can be governed as common property regimes. Using an ethnographic approach, we examine a large, mixed-use academic–residential building at a U.S. research university to better understand how it was produced and governed as a shared resource. Data from stakeholder interviews, institutional documents and participant observation reveal governance dynamics that align closely with Ostrom’s design principles, including clear boundaries, collective choice, monitoring and sanctions. We identify both the institutional mechanisms and spatial strategies that contribute to sustainable, cooperative use of shared indoor resources. We also propose a conceptual framework that links building governance to broader national design trends, institutional mental models, and localized scarcities and abundances. Our findings offer practical insights for designers, campus planners and institutional decision-makers seeking to foster more inclusive, adaptive and sustainable building use.
Eco-Cultural Greenways: Reclaiming Post-Industrial Sites for Climate-Responsive Cities
Curulli, Irene G. (2025-04-27)
This paper explores eco-cultural greenways as a transformative approach to adaptive reuse of post-industrial sites along urban waterways, focusing on their potential to address climate adaptation while preserving cultural identity.
Balancing Globalization with Environmental Responsibility. The Challenges of Homogenization and Landscape Simplification
Curulli, Irene G. (Firenze University Press, 2025-07-30)
The contemporary world is grappling with tensions between globalization and environmental responsibility, where economic and cultural unification often conflict with the preservation of local ecosystems and identities. Processes like “biotic homogenization” and the spread of universal design aesthetics contribute to landscape simplification, diminishing ecological resilience and cultural distinctiveness. Urban and peri-urban landscapes, particularly in industrialized countries, exemplify these challenges. This paper examines the role of landscape architects in addressing these tensions, drawing on an interview with David Hill, president of Hill Studio. Hill highlights strategies such as promoting diversity, fostering multidisciplinary collaboration, and engaging communities to preserve ecological and cultural uniqueness. By analyzing Hill’s insights alongside global trends, the paper reflects on how landscape architecture can navigate the pressures of globalization while safeguarding biodiversity and cultural identity.
Looking Closer: Cultivating Bio-Inspired Design (BID) with Macro Photography
Kennedy, Brook (Zygote Quarterly, 2025-05-16)
Water Quality Benefits of a Nature-Based Solution: Constructed Floating Wetlands Tested on Two Urban Waterways
Engelke, Jennifer; Thomas, George Jr.; Bowles, Mason; Rottle, Nancy (Elsevier, 2025-11-21)
In urbanized rivers and waterways, Constructed Floating Wetlands (CFWs) offer a nature-based solution for ecosystem restoration, particularly in areas with hardened shorelines and limited space for traditional land-based interventions. This four-year study deployed CFWs in two urban waterways in Seattle, Washington (the Lower Duwamish Waterway and the Lake Washington Ship Canal) to enhance salmon habitat by reintroducing wetland functions. Monitoring data from the organic plant root substrate revealed that CFWs effectively removed heavy metals and nutrients from the water in both freshwater and brackish environments. Importantly, no adverse effects were observed on key water quality parameters such as temperature, dissolved oxygen, or conductivity. While results related to carbon sequestration were mixed, the findings suggest that even small-scale CFW installations can contribute positively to water quality. Although the limited surface area of the CFWs constrained their overall treatment capacity, the study suggests that scaling up deployment could contribute to reducing contaminant and nutrient loading in urban waterways, while also benefiting aquatic organisms. These results offer support for the use of CFWs as a viable nature-based solution for retrofitting hardened shorelines and rehabilitating highly urbanized or industrialized aquatic environments; especially where land-based restoration is impractical due to cost or space constraints.
Measured impacts of engaging community with floating wetlands and eco-art in Seattle, WA, USA
Engelke, Jennifer; Rottle, Nancy (Springer, 2025-09-01)
The Lake Washington Ship Canal in Seattle, Washington has a strong human-dominant history as an industrial landscape. This Sweetgrass Socio-Ecological Study analyzed relationships between people and the environment to understand the role community engagement has in connecting humans to more-than-human elements such as vegetation, water, air, and wildlife. Participatory action research was supported by a landscape biography focusing on the site’s environmental history. Design interventions were then used to create awareness of and help address injustices to more-than-human elements in the landscape. Finally, a post-occupancy evaluation was conducted to examine the landscape literacy, ecological literacy, and place attachment of site users. This study demonstrated the importance of a participatory action process that considers both human and more-than-human elements. Post-occupancy evaluation responses indicated that engaged community members considered more-than-human elements and showed a greater desire for proenvironmental behaviors. They highlighted the role community engagement can play in strengthening relationships between humans and more-than-humans. This study suggests that community engagement in landscape restoration interventions is important in cultivating meaningful connections with the land and is necessary to restore system relationships between humans and more-than-humans. It also suggests that expressing narratives—sometimes called “storytelling”—through design and ecorevelatory practices should be more widely implemented for people to understand and steward landscape systems around them. A holistic lens to design is vital to improving the relationships between people and the environment and to promoting landscape stewardship practices.
Advancing equity and justice through community science programming in design, construction, and research of a nature-based solution: the Duwamish Floating Wetlands Project
Andrews, Leann; Mocorro Powell, Ashley D.; Rottle, Nancy; Engelke, Jennifer (Springer, 2022-12-01)
Dx^wdəw refers to the Black-Green Rivers confluences that made the Duwamish River in Seattle, Washington, USA, prior to the 1910s. Significant industrial activity and human-made diversions to these rivers caused heavy pollution and eliminated 97% of historic wetlands, forever altering the historic river systems, salmon runs and human and aquatic health. Today the Green-Duwamish River and Duwamish Estuary are an industrial and commercial corridor, albeit also a site of cultural significance and fishing rights for urban Indigenous and Coast Salish tribes, and home and workplace to diverse urban populations of sustenance fishers, immigrants and refugees, communities of color, and low-income neighborhoods. Using a socio-ecological and environmental justice perspective within a nature-based solution, the Duwamish Floating Wetlands Project designed and piloted four constructed floating wetland structures for two years on the Duwamish River and researched their feasibility to provide habitat for out-migrating juvenile salmon. A multi-pronged community team (community leaders, liaisons, stewards and scientists) worked alongside academics and professionals. This paper showcases the formulation and adaptation of a two-year citizen/community science program integrated into the project. We outline the frameworks, approach, outcomes, and lessons-learned of the community science and outreach program, and compiled these in a list of guidelines to provide practitioner, researcher and community insight into the value and necessity of prioritizing environmental justice, racial equity, and ecosystem needs in nature-based solutions.
Turning Bio-inspired Ideas into Patents
Kennedy, Brook; Bieri, Anna (ZQ, 2025-12-21)
Establishing the Importance of Housing Policy Content Across Academic Disciplines
Peek, Gina; Carswell, Andrew; Yoo, Jaeyong (Taylor and Francis, 2025-10)
The purpose of this manuscript is to establish and discuss the importance of housing policy coursework in higher education courses in the United States. The framework used in our work is the family and consumer sciences body of knowledge and cultural kaleidoscope. Using literature and limited data analysis, we establish the importance and breadth of the topic in an academic setting. We found that of the top 100 institutions ranked by U.S. News & World Report, a number offered housing policy courses. Housing policy is considered using a variety of lenses and teaching strategies across universities and courses, fitting the body of knowledge and cultural kaleidoscope framework.
Application of self-compassion to communication and conflict resolution in the property management industry
Hopkins, Erin A. (2025-06-04)
As conflict is inevitable in the property management industry, communication and conflict resolution are essential skills for students to possess in order to have a successful career trajectory. However, existing research shows that students struggle with these soft skills thereby creating a gap between expected soft skills and observed soft skills of recent graduates. The purpose of this paper is to share details of a self-compassion intervention that is used in a property management operations course and provide student insights into the exercise to illuminate self-compassion as a concept that can be used to aid in communication and conflict resolution within the property management industry. A questionnaire exercise titled “Letting Go of Our Self-Definitions by Identifying Our Interconnectedness” was administered to students in a property management course. Themes in student self-identified traits were discovered by incorporating the Big-Five personality traits theoretical framework while a general inductive approach was employed to uncover student themes relating to how this questionnaire exercise can relate to communication and conflict resolution in the property management industry. Results show that the majority of students identify with a trait that hinders communication and conflict resolution and also provides student insights on how this self-compassion intervention may help with communication and conflict resolution in the property field. This paper equips faculty and employers with a creative technique to cultivate soft skills that can help with communication and conflict resolution.
Using Ecorevelatory Design and Landscape Biography to Promote Ecological Literacy in Menomonee Valley, Milwaukee, WI, USA
Engelke, Jennifer Ann (2025-12-10)
Menomonee Valley in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA, has undergone a remarkable transformation from a defunct brownfield site into a vibrant landscape of community parks within a revitalized industrial corridor. This change was driven by ecological restoration, stormwater management, and renewed connections to the Menomonee River. Central to this transformation was the use of ecorevelatory design, which draws on historical narratives and site-specific stories to highlight the presence and importance of more-than-human elements such as water, vegetation, and wildlife. To assess how contemporary users engage with these ecological features, the study employed stakeholder interviews, intercept surveys, and site observations. These methods explored whether visitors recognize and connect with the ecological systems embedded in the landscape. Survey data were used to evaluate ecological literacy, offering insights into how design and storytelling can foster meaningful relationships between human and more-than-human communities. The Urban Ecology Center, located adjacent to the site, plays a pivotal role in bridging these relationships through education and stewardship. This study demonstrates that ecorevelatory design can be a powerful tool in cultivating ecological awareness and care, helping communities move toward a more holistic understanding of landscape. Menomonee Valley is emerging as a model for integrated urban ecology and sustainability; where people care for one another and the broader environment as part of a shared system.
Students’ Perceptions of Generative AI Image Tools in Design Education: Insights from Architectural Education
Huh, Michelle Boyoung; Miri, Marjan; Tracy, Torrey (MDPI, 2025-09-05)
The rapid emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has sparked growing interest across educational disciplines, reshaping how knowledge is produced, represented, and assessed. While recent research has increasingly explored the implications of text-based tools such as ChatGPT in education, far less attention has been paid to image-based GenAI tools—despite their particular relevance to fields grounded in visual communication and creative exploration, such as architecture and design. These disciplines raise distinct pedagogical and ethical questions, given their reliance on iteration, authorship, and visual representation as core elements of learning and practice. This exploratory study investigates how architecture and interior architecture students perceive the use of AI-generated images, focusing on ethical responsibility, educational relevance, and career implications. To ensure participants had sufficient exposure to visual GenAI tools, we conducted a series of workshops before surveying 42 students familiar with image generation processes. Findings indicate strong enthusiasm for GenAI image tools, which students viewed as supportive during early-stage design processes and beneficial to their creativity and potential future professional competitiveness. Participants regarded AI use as ethically acceptable when accompanied by transparent acknowledgment. However, acceptance declined in later design stages, where originality and critical judgment were perceived as more central. While limited in scope, this exploratory study foregrounds student voices to offer preliminary insights into evolving conversations about AI in creative education and to inform future reflection on developing ethically and pedagogically responsive curricula across the design disciplines.
Linking Visual–Auditory Cues to Restoration: The Mediating Role of Perceived Biodiversity
Ha, Jaeyoung; Kim, Hyung Jin; Lekhon Alam, M. M. (MDPI, 2025-08-13)
Due to rapid urbanization over the past five decades, there has been growing interest in the role of biodiversity in supporting human well-being. While previous research highlights the role of landscape biodiversity in psychological restoration, the pathway linking visual and auditory cues to perceived biodiversity—and subsequently to restorative outcomes—remains poorly understood. This study explores how visual and auditory stimuli influence human perception, including perceived biodiversity, preference, and restorative effects, within environments that maintain a consistent level of ecological biodiversity. This study constructed 16 hypothetical environments by combining three visual factors (species evenness, vegetation height, and plant color) with one auditory factor (presence or absence of natural sound), holding actual biodiversity constant. By comparing results from ANOVA and mixed-effect modeling, our analysis revealed important contrasts between the direct and indirect effects of visual and auditory features on perceived biodiversity and restoration. Plant height and natural sound consistently demonstrated direct positive effects on restorative outcomes. In contrast, plant color and species evenness influenced restoration indirectly, mediated through perceived biodiversity. The mixed-effect model indicated a partial mediation pathway between landscape features and restorative effects—an effect not observed in the ANOVA analysis. Surprisingly, species evenness was not directly associated with restorative outcomes, but was indirectly linked via perceived biodiversity. Similarly, while color enhanced biodiversity perception, it did not directly improve mental restoration and, under some conditions, may even contribute to overstimulation. These findings suggest that the restorative benefits of nature arise not only from the ecological composition of landscapes but also from how biodiversity is perceived. Designers and planners should consider not only biodiversity itself, but also how it is presented and perceived through multisensory experiences.
Underlands(capes) in the Anthropocene
Rosier, Shaun (2025-06-10)
Invited lecture hosted by Victoria University of Wellington's School of Architecture and the Wellington branch of the New Zealand Institute of Landscape Architects.
Encounters with Foreign Lands: developing a sensuous empirical approach to reading depth
Rosier, Shaun (2025-03-28)
Understanding the effects of spatial scaling on the relationship between urban structure and biodiversity
Choi, Dennis Heejoon; Darling, Lindsay; Ha, Jaeyoung; Shao, Jinyuan; Song, Hunsoo; Fei, Songlin; Hardiman, Brady S. (Elsevier, 2025-04)
Consideration of spatial dependence in heterogeneous urban landscapes is crucial for understanding how urban landscapes shape biodiversity. However, understanding the linkage between urban landscape patterns, both vertically and horizontally, and urban-dwelling bird species at various spatial scales remains an unsolved question. Here, we investigated how patterns of vertical and horizontal urban landscape structure influence urban-dwelling bird species at various spatial scales in the Chicago Region. We utilize a high-density Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) dataset to exam ALS-derived metrics (foliage height diversity, canopy openness, and building volume) in relation to bird diversity. Our results show that LiDAR-derived metrics exhibited significant variation across spatial scales. The negative impact of building volume on bird species is greatest at the smallest scale (slope = -0.24 at 50 m radius), but its effect declined as the scale increased (slope = 0.00 at 500 m radius). Foliage height diversity did not influence bird diversity at small spatial scales but shows a positive effect on bird diversity over 150 m radius (slope = 0.05 to 0.11). Canopy openness changed its sign of slope from negative to positive as the buffer radius increased (between 150 and 200 m buffer radii), indicating that openness may have different roles depending on the spatial scale. Based on our findings, a buffer radius of 150–200 m was concluded to be the threshold distinguishing local and landscape-level variables in this study. In general, horizontal landscape patterns have a stronger influence on urban biodiversity than vertical structures. However, our findings suggest that enhancing the vertical complexity of canopy structures in existing green spaces could be an effective strategy for sustaining bird diversity in urban areas, particularly where expanding green spaces is not feasible. Our study enhances the understanding of urban biodiversity dynamics and provides practical implications for urban landscape management and planning.
An urbanistic approach to aggregate quarrying: a case study in Brampton, Ontario
Rosier, Shaun (Taylor & Francis, 2025-02-12)
The reclamation of urban aggregate quarries has been recognised as a serious concern for built environment design and planning fields. However, much of the literature and research centred on this challenge tends to focus on the immediate techno-scientific reclamation practices employed at a site scale often towards the end of extraction. This essay argues for a reversal of this relationship between the designer/planner and the extraction-reclamation timeline. It does so by articulating an approach based upon ‘scenario planning’ that places reclamation planning and design at the beginning of the quarry timeline rather than at the end. Further, an example of this approach in Brampton, Ontario, is analysed to determine the strengths and weaknesses of urbanistic reclamation strategies. If we pivot towards designing reclaimed landscapes from the outset, we can use such sites as the beginning point for structuring cities, rather than leaving them as holes in the urban fabric.
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.

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