The number of buildings seeking LEED certification has been growing steadily over the past few years. In this study, three academic buildings which were designed and built to LEED certification standards were targeted in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Their electricity consumption and cost effectiveness were examined and compared with predesigned LEED efficiency models of those three buildings. This research directly examined cost effectiveness of LEED buildings in terms of electricity usage. Three case studies were completed to find the initial and on-going electricity costs of LEED buildings and to verify the LEED standard results. LEED aspects of these buildings were discussed with contractors, architects, project managers, and building maintenance personnel who participated in LEED projects and non-LEED sustainable projects.

With the rapid development of automation technology in automotive manufacturing processes, massive and efficient production is a current trend. Therefore, measurement systems with accurate and automated measuring instruments are sought by automotive companies and suppliers. However, the problematic measuring instruments with unreliable accuracy and stability lead to erroneous measurements and wrong quality decisions that cause manufacturers huge profit losses. An effective method called “measurement system analysis” can be applied to define and eliminate erroneous measurements to ensure adequate reliability. An automotive transmission die casting parts supplier called company T was suffering a serious profit loss due to the erroneous measurements from one type of their product’s measurement system. These erroneous measurements caused the company to deliver nonconforming products to their customers. The researcher conducted a study applying Six Sigma methodology to find out the root cause of the erroneous measurements and eliminate the erroneous measurements to retain adequate reliability. The researcher used DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analysis, Improve, and Control) process as framework to conduct the study and the measurement system analysis, Gage R&R method, to process several experiments for data collection and analysis. Through processing the experiments and analyzing the results, the researcher was able to detect the source of variation and find the root cause that caused the erroneous measurements. Based on the findings, the researcher then corrected the erroneous measurements and improved the problematic measurement system’s performance.

This thesis investigates architectural design with a focus on technology and parametric, or computational, design strategies in relation to environmental simulation and sustainability. While numerous studies of new digital and parametric design technologies have been undertaken, few discuss their potential application or synergy with sustainable or environmentally focused design. However, there is increasing interest in bridging the perceived gap between these areas of focus in architectural design, as will be discussed in a section on recent symposia related to performance and design technologies. The research project seeks to apply insight gained from these studies to a design project to be located in the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. The project type is a library and research center which would serve as a knowledge base and community hub for the study and discussion of environmental protection, sustainability, and conservation. As a hybrid archive, learning center, forum, and repository of information, it would aim to serve as a catalyst for the ongoing attempts to remediate the environmental conditions of nearby Newtown Creek and adjacent land, which has been subjected to severe environmental degradation as a result of a century and half of industrial activities related to oil refining and storage. The eastern portion of Greenpoint along Newtown Creek has been designated a superfund site as a result of millions of gallons of oil spillage occurring over an uncertain length of time, much of which remains below ground today. Additionally, the surrounding water bodies have been polluted from the discharge of excess wastewater due to overflow of the city’s combined sewer system during large storms. Thus the community and city face numerous environmental challenges and would be well served by a facility which would provide a research base and meeting place. The project also engages with an additional set of conditions related to the site. Recent zoning changes have been approved which will convert the formerly industrial East River waterfront to a dense residential zone. While the zoning aims to establish a public space along the waterfront, it will also likely result in residential towers vastly out of scale and context with adjacent neighborhood, which includes an important historic district, and a diverse population. The project seeks to place instead, at the tip of the peninsula which was once named for its greenness, a public space dedicated to its restoration.

The primary goals of this project were to examine the amount of lateral force resisted by a single-bay mortise-tenon connected timber moment frame, and to introduce ductile behavior into the mortise-tenon connections by adding a steel sleeve around a traditional wood peg. This research aimed to provide proof that traditional timber frames are capable of ductile racking while reliably complying with ASCE 7-10 building code drift speci! cations, implying an increase in the ASCE 7-10 ductility factor (R) for wood frames when used as lateral force resisting elements. A secondary goal was to promote traditional heavy timber framing as a main structural system. Modern structural framing is dominated by light-wood, steel, and concrete framing. The exploration in this project aspires to demonstrate that heavy timber frames can achieve comparable lateral performance and frame behavior to other current lateral systems, reassuring the reliability of traditional timber frames.

Today there are more cities localized on our coastlines than ever before. Unfortunately, this fact poses an immediate danger due to the rising tides of our oceans. Together with the increase in global population and coastal erosion, the world will increasingly become a more difficult place to live. With our overcrowding cities, mercurial changes in weather and over three quarters of the earth's surface being uninhabited oceans; we need cities that are mobile, seaworthy and capable of avoiding natural disasters. Thus, by creating these types of cities, architects will lead the way to ensure the safety of the public and ultimately civilization itself. I believe the most feasible solution to these problems is for us to advance our civilizations onto the oceans. Moreover, the concept of designing static cities and buildings must evolve with the changing world or we as architects will be at fault for failing to design a survivable future. Within the last decade we have seen cities become the tombs of the innocent. From September 11th, New Orleans, tsunami's and earthquakes, we have witnessed destruction on a scale never before seen in modern history. Therefore, the aim of this research is the creation of a self contained, independent and divergent architectural system capable of being entirely self-sustained within a mobile seafaring environment. Moreover, through the creation of a closed-loop mobile civilization, both our dependence on land and the impending crisis awaiting static structures will be significantly diminished. Ultimately, the aim of Divergence is fourfold: 1. Development of a mobile civilization. 2. Development of Closed-Loop technologies. 3. Enable long term survivability and independence. 4. Bring architectural sensibilities to the creation of an ocean city.

In February of 2012, alternative rock band OK Go released a music video for their song “Needing/Getting”. The video explores a creative way of playing music, by driving a car through a constructed, choreographed environment. A driving track was set up as a large musical instrument which was “played” by a car. Architects, musicians, and artist are looking for innovative ways to develop active relationships between people, music, and architecture. The traditional passive relationship of these three is static, a design that does not promote interaction or participation. If we consider, behind a performance, there is a great deal of emotion, movement, and energy. The experience of the performance is static; the audience is stationary. My intention with this thesis is to explore strategies of utilizing music in the design to encourage active participation in the sound performing arts.

Off-grid houses in the United States are often connoted with mostly non-professional, home-made structures and isolated, hippie living in remote rural areas. These off-grid homeowners may also complete their consumer-independent commitment with a minimal-waste, land-dependent lifestyle that includes methodical harnessing and recycling of resources and materials, raising livestock, and productive gardening on the property. This research paper explores the background, methods and kinds of typical off-grid living structures, their ability to harness natural resources for function and performance, and the ability of its occupants to remain resilient in the face of depleting fuel resources, extreme weather patterns, and rising costs of living. The goal of this research is to propose modern and resilient off-grid housing design to exist as normalized, micro-communities within typical suburban communities in the United States. The housing prototype, sited in Dudley, Massachusetts, optimizes passive resources for heating and cooling thermal comfort, prefabricated materials for construction, and modern technology for inhabitation. Its hyper-local design incorporates building science that integrates researched techniques and philosophies from current movements of sustainable design in the United States and Canada, such as Passive House, Net Zero, LEED, and the Living Building Challenge.

This design thesis is an assessment of the tectonic capabilities and applications of large format 3D printing, given the current available and practiced technologies. This review consists of an analysis of the technical specifications and limitations of the various forms and methods of 3D printing at all scales, followed by an in-depth analysis of technologies that have been adopted and employed at an architectural scale. A number of case studies are assessed to create a typology of tectonic types created by employing 3D printing technologies. These tectonic types: Holistic/Homogenous, Complementary/Integrative, Structural, and Sculptural are then tested to see how they can be incorporated into the design process. This study culminates in a design project that utilizes these technologies and tectonic types in a higher educational facility focused on fabrication and continued research into 3D printed construction. The design acts as a prototypical model for the implementation of 3D printed technologies into the design and construction process, specifically focused on educational institutions on existing campuses. Advancements in this technology and strategies of application have yielded enough capabilities for this design assessment to be formed.

Many plant species, including Barrel Cacti, have developed long-term evolutionary adaptable traits to survive in extreme climates. The most important trait of cacti in extreme hot dry climates is to reduce water evaporation and increase water storage. The exterior skin of a cactus plays an important role in preventing water evaporation through heat transmission. On the other hand, there have been many passive design strategies applied to the space planning and building design of architecture in hot dry climates. The goal of these passive design strategies is to regulate the penetration of heat into building spaces while creating a strong ventilation system to help bring cool air inside the building. In this paper, adaptations of the Barrel Cactus' exterior skin, along with architectural passive design strategies for hot dry climates (in this caseYazd, Iran) will be discussed and integrated with one another through the concept of Biomimicry. The goal is to design an exterior building skin that is attuned to the environmental conditions of a hot dry climate, based on the successful applicable behaviors demonstrated in the Barrel Cactus. Key architectural features such as natural ventilation and daylight will be informed by the evolutionary cacti adaptations and passive architectural strategies in the design of the building skin in order to increase the possibility of consistent comfort for users of an office building.

Housing is one aspect of architecture and urban planning that has constantly been improved and redefined to suit the needs of people during the time periods they have been living in. People have taken significant steps in establishing how they want to live in retrospect to the times, according to their values and needs. Today, more architectural research may address the understanding and production of a healthy way of living than any other aspect of placemaking. It is no surprise that so much effort supports this spatial concern, which contributes to a fundamental building block of shared cultural definitions. The COVID-19 pandemic has simply underscored the importance of this movement. In human terms, these times have indicated that when the going gets tough, people turn to their own cocoons for shelter, safety, and storage, while this so-called place of safety becomes a focal point around which they can develop their life and subsequently their communication to the outside world. With the growing challenges in everyday urbanism, and the population of the world reaching new peaks every year, one must question if the issues of the past such as the scale and speed of construction can coordinate with the critical timelines that society now faces. On top of that, disasters and climate change simply heightens these challenges. Providing housing for all may not be a viable solution in the long term. People often see housing as a product or the result of the process, and this idea needs to be given significant thought so that the discourse of housing and eventually urban living reflect a world of comfort and social utopia. The thesis also narrowly touches on the fact that housing is a form of architecture that is ever changing. Once this idea has been accepted, urbanism can begin to address things that affect the environment, health, and other aspects of value which are now loosely attached to one’s living conditions. This thesis explores the various ways of establishing comfortable living space, in particular the notion of “Hygge” and its parallels across the world, and identifies “incrementalism” as a common framework to support health, facilitate safety, and build comfort for a large audience.