Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone Project / Increasing demand for new construction has made the building sector responsible for approximately 43 percent of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the United States. Building conservation, an intervention strategy that refurbishes an existing building without compromising its architectural integrity, is a response to the population’s current infatuation with the new and now that has desensitized modern culture to the past, while surfacing one’s responsibilities to future generations. The focus of this study will be on the University of Arizona’s Bear Down Gym. Through a historical and architectural evaluation, this report makes a case for the rehabilitation of Bear Down Gym in respect to the Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation.

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Brent Chamberlain / The physical environment influences mental health and inevitably well-being. While exposure to natural environments shows salubrious health benefits among those who maintain a consistent connection, little is known about how urban environments impact mental health. As urbanization increases worldwide, it is essential to understand the linkages between urbanized environments and public health. This project is guided by the research question: How do different environmental characteristics affect stress-related responses in users? The study will guide individual subjects (n > 30) to walk a designated route, exposing them to different architectural and environmental elements in downtown Manhattan, Kansas. Physiological biofeedback sensors, including electrodermal activity (EDA) and heart rate sensors, will be used monitor physiological behavioral changes; GPS will provide spatial location; and a GoPro camera will provide real-time first-person experience. Data from these sensors will be integrated into a temporal-spatial analysis to ascertain correlations between architectural and environmental elements in space and associated stress responses. Upon completing the walk, participants will take a brief survey asking for their perceptions, both quantitatively and qualitatively, of the different environments they encounter on the walk. Raw data collected from the biofeedback devices will be refined and analyzed spatially using GIS mapping software. This will allow us to visualize any associations between design characteristics and the elicited behavioral responses in order to determine the environmental characteristics that may illicit heightened stress responses. Analysis of the survey data will seek to identify any correlations between physiological and perception-based responses. The intent of the research is to provide a foundation for further studies into how public policy can be better informed and augmented to mitigate potential public health issues caused by urban design. Results will also inform architectural and engineering decision-making processes to further improve urban design by identifying characteristics that may improve or decrease mental health of those living and/or frequenting urban environments.

The purpose of this study was to identify barriers that contribute to a disparity in utilization across different segments of an urban trail. To achieve this aim, subjective ratings of trail characteristics for high-use areas (western sections of the trail) were compared to subjective ratings of lower-use areas (eastern sections of the trail). These ratings were compared between those who reported primarily traveling the western, high-use sections vs. those who primarily travel the eastern, low-use sections. Data were collected through self-report and a cross-sectional analysis based on sections of primary use. Ratings for each trail characteristic from an online survey were compared for different trail segments as a function of these groups. Comparisons were conducted through ANOVA and showed that perceptions of trail characteristics varied strongly as a function of which sections of the trail were used most by the respondents. Users of the high-traffic, western sections held significantly more negative views of the eastern sections. In contrast, users of the low-traffic, eastern sections held similar views of the eastern and western sections. Objective measurements of trail characteristics were conducted on all six segments of trail to compare to user perceptions. A trail count and researcher evaluation/audit of all trail characteristics provided data for comparison. A descriptive analysis of the differences between trail user perceptions and objective measures was reported. The trail count and survey results showed similar patterns of usage. The western sections exhibited the highest number of trail users representing 80% of the people on the trail. The central sections contained 14% and the eastern sections 6%. Mode of travel observed was 94% walking or running and 6% cycling. In addition, these numbers are similar to those of the earlier, pilot study (TEMBA, 2011). Given the similarities between the online survey, and both the objective trail count for usage and the earlier TEMBA study, it is hoped that the online sample is representative of the population of regular trail users. A comparison of subjective and objective ratings revealed different patterns of agreement depending on east vs. west group membership. Overall, west users are misinformed about crime and amenities on the east side but are in general agreement on other characteristics. This suggests that their concerns about trail continuity, directional clarity, and loop options may be warranted. Overall, east users showed general agreement with objective measures on the west side except for exposure to traffic, which they rated more poorly than objective measures. / text

This thesis explores the way in which interior decorating developed as a practice during the interwar period in Britain and seeks to address broader contexts of gender, class, taste and styles. While traditional design histories have tracked the development of the interior design model through a direct sequence of movements and ideologies through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this thesis addresses issues which have been problematic within the context of art and design history. It acknowledges the more linear dimension of the original strand and seeks to offer a complementary appraisal which considers and appreciates the role of class, wealth and privilege and deconstructs boundaries which have marginalized gender and obscured certain important influences. The study examines the way in which decorators, many of whom were female, negotiated a design agenda which engaged with modernity without fully renouncing hard-fought signifiers of their class, taste and individuality. It argues that in the development of its practices, significant alliances were formed with fashion and that the vital role performed by media representation and social commentary underpinned its commercial profile and provided the public locus of its discourse. The nature of professional decorating is explored against a background of emerging practices in the first decades of the twentieth-century which included the antiques trade; grand scale establishments such as Lenygon & Morant, White Allom, Thornton-Smith and Keebles; department-store studios including those at Heal’s, Waring & Gillow and Fortnum & Mason; and individual practitioners and designers including Syrie Maugham, Sibyl Colefax, Dolly Mann and Ronald Fleming. In a period rife with social and political upheavals and conflicting ideologies as well as technological advancement and life-style changes, the study’s analysis aims to provide a broader understanding of the way in which decorators proactively negotiated such conditions and presented a cultural and aesthetic response to modernity through the diversity of their styles.

Research from multiple domains has provided insights into how neighborhood design can be improved to have a more favorable effect on physical activity, a concept known as walkability. The relevant research findings/hypotheses have been integrated into a Walkability Framework, which organizes the design elements into nine walkability categories. The purpose of this study was to test whether this conceptual framework can be used as a model to measure the interactions between the built environment and physical activity. We explored correlations between the walkability categories and physical activity reported through a survey of residents of Tucson, Arizona (n=486). The results include significant correlations between the walkability categories and physical activity as well as between the walkability categories and the two motivations for walking (recreation and transportation). To our knowledge, this is the first study that reports links between walkability and walking for recreation. Additionally, the use of the Walkability Framework allowed us to identify the walkability categories most strongly correlated with the two motivations for walking. The results of this study support the use of the Walkability Framework as a model to measure the built environment in relation to its ability to promote physical activity. (C) 2017 The Authors.

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone Project / This paper provides a study on the configuration of Stirling engines and the effect using a solar dish as a heat source on efficiency. The Stirling engine was based on the MIT 2.670 design - a Gamma configuration, low temperature differential Stirling engine. Temperature and speed were measured for the base model Stirling engine to determine the initial efficiency. Modifications were planned to add a parabolic mirror as a solar dish and compare the efficiency to the initial design, however, the completed solar Stirling engine testing and data collection is to be performed in the following summer. The work performed by the engine was to be calculated using the Schmidt formula to then find the power output. Results from the completion of this study would indicate how the solar dish effects the power output of the Stirling engine.

The ‘Avant-Garde’ in architecture seems a challenging subject: first, because the term has not yet clearly defined, despite the ubiquity of its use; second, because through that ubiquity it has become a buzz-word that is empty of precise meaning; third, because although this use includes the history of modern architecture, its application to this field has been largely unreflective and often unconsidered, as this thesis demonstrates. There is ambivalence as to which architectures are ‘Avant-Garde’ or should be regarded as ‘Avant-Garde.’ Therefore, there is a challenge in any question such as: what is the Avant-Garde in architecture? How can the architectural Avant-Garde be defined? What is the concept of the Avant-Garde in architecture? My thesis is a sociological conceptualization of the Avant-Garde in architecture. It is based on the mapping of the use the‘ term ‘Avant-Garde’ in architectural history, theory and criticism and its analytical tools are sociological. While it belongs to the above fields, it is informed by art theory and history, cultural studies, and the sociology of the professions, and includes sociological, cultural and political analyses. I suggest that the Avant-Garde is an Operation internal to architecture; a mechanism that does not only describe it but formulates it, motivates it, or else, influences our perception of it. I propose that the Avant-Garde is directed by prominent elements of its internal domain. It includes a filtering process, a rough selection process, and a selection process, by which one or more architectures internal conditions - are introduced to the discipline to renew the profession toward the desired and necessary, for the element who directs the operation, direction (see fig. 2, appendix). The end result of the selection process is what we commonly understand as ‘Avant-Garde’ architecture, e.g. Russian Constructivism or Bauhaus. I also propose that the Avant-Garde lies in and operates within the socio-ideological sphere of architecture and that renewal of the architecture's internal domain is necessary, thus the Avant-Garde is necessary, so as to make architecture respond to each time new external conditions and so endure, as a profession, over time. The Avant-Garde is for me an operation of renewal, a driver of difference and change in architecture (see fig. 1, appendix). The methodology adopted is as follows: I first introduce my analytical tools, some key sociological concepts, and concepts from the ‘Avant-Garde’ discourse (chapter 1). I then examine the filtering process and rough selection process in architectural history: I map the usage of the term in a historiographic corpus and arrive at the more frequently and the less frequently named ‘Avant-Garde’ architectures, which become my two case studies. These are Russian Revolutionary Architecture and Italian Rationalism (chapter 2). The third step is to arrive, through the comparison of my case studies, at those parameters that are crucial in being selected as ‘Avant-Garde,’ i.e. their ‘Avantgardification’ - this occurs after 1960 when the term starts being used describing architectures (part 2). The fourth step is to examine the period of the extended 19605 when the term starts appearing as a means of describing architectures and thus the selection process begins (chapter 6). As a fifth step I research the selection process in the discourse of architectural theory and criticism: I investigate in a particular corpus of writings which architectures, by whom they are chosen as ‘Avant-Garde,’ and the reason why, as Well as which are the concomitant effects of the usage of the term on architecture. In other words, beyond concentrating on which architectures or architectural movements are ‘Avant-Garde' in these writings, I focus on the effects of this selection and denomination (chapter 7). As a sixth step, I examine the selection process of my two case studies in architectural theory and criticism, i.e the Avantgardification of Russian Revolutionary Architecture and less of Italian Rationalism. I investigate when, by whom, and the reason why the first architecture is mostly selected as ‘Avant- Garde,’ as well as which are the concomitant effects on architecture (chapter 8, see also fig. 3, appendix). As a final step I examine the Avant-Garde as a sociological concept based on the key-concepts introduced in chapter 1 (Conclusions). A sociological conceptualization of the Avant-Garde is important for shedding light on issues beyond those of ‘Avant-Garde’ architectures. Through such a concept of the Avant-Garde we recognize issues of the profession, issues which are wider than questions which are directly connected to those architectures selected as such. Looking through the ‘Avant-Garde’ we understand the ways by which architecture is being renewed and Operated. By recognizing the conditions, in which the ‘Avant-Garde’ architectures have been created, and the way and time in which the term was employed to describe them, we understand the mode in which architecture, as a discipline, functions. My thesis is a hermeneutics of the architectural profession through the term ‘Avant-Garde.’

By altering the outward appearance of the gallery walls, I address the hidden inner temperaments and characteristics of these seemingly benign facades. Architectural rubble impacts with the gallery space in imagined collisions, exposing and distorting its hidden inner workings and structures. Sometimes my walls grow so fat that they need immediate and temporary structural solutions. They may even slump over in a pathetic heap under their own perceived mass.Using everyday wall building materials like 2x4s and drywall, or even harvesting the material directly from the gallery, I anthropomorphize the surface of the space. Rather than the architecture receding into the background in the service of art, the gallery walls break free of the architecture and become the art

Diabetes is a leading cause of premature death and disability in the United States and vulnerable populations may be at increased risk. Racial residential segregation, population density, and other factors influence the built environment, which in turn affects access to health-related facilities. Using the theory of fundamental causes, this study aims to determine whether neighborhood-level sociodemographic factors, the built environment, and subsequent access to health-related facilities are associated with diabetes prevalence in Georgia’s population. A built environment assessment of all health facilities located in the state of Georgia was conducted using health data from the 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and demographic data from the 2010 US Census. Geospatial techniques, including hot-spot analyses and the two-step floating catchment area method were used to determine the effect of racial concentration, socioeconomic status, and population density on access to health-related facilities and thus on diabetes prevalence. Linear and spatial regression analyses were conducted to determine the significance of the association between access to facilities and diabetes prevalence. The results of the geospatial and regression analyses show that socioeconomic factors significantly affect the built environment, which in turn significantly influence diabetes prevalence. This interdisciplinary study contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between sociodemographic factors, the built environment, and diabetes prevalence in a southeastern state. Keywords: Diabetes, Disparities, Access, Racial Segregation, Urban/Rural, Built Environment Diabetes is a leading cause of premature death and disability in the United States and vulnerable populations may be at increased risk. Racial residential segregation, population density, and other factors influence the built environment, which in turn affects access to health-related facilities. Using the theory of fundamental causes, this study aims to determine whether neighborhood-level sociodemographic factors, the built environment, and subsequent access to health-related facilities are associated with diabetes prevalence in Georgia’s population. A built environment assessment of all health facilities located in the state of Georgia was conducted using health data from the 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and demographic data from the 2010 US Census. Geospatial techniques, including hot-spot analyses and the two-step floating catchment area method were used to determine the effect of racial concentration, socioeconomic status, and population density on access to health-related facilities and thus on diabetes prevalence. Linear and spatial regression analyses were conducted to determine the significance of the association between access to facilities and diabetes prevalence. The results of the geospatial and regression analyses show that socioeconomic factors significantly affect the built environment, which in turn significantly influence diabetes prevalence. This interdisciplinary study contributes to the literature by providing a comprehensive analysis of the relationship between sociodemographic factors, the built environment, and diabetes prevalence in a southeastern state.

<div> <div> <div> <p>Building upon and extending a historical narrative composed by Allan Bérubé in 1984, this dissertation interrogates the relationship between physical space and sexual practice by engaging in a historiography of gay bathhouses and by comparing representations of these spaces in the past with contemporary narratives available online. An introduction and conclusion bracket three central chapters, each of which presents findings from a major component of the larger project: The first investigates Bérubé’s sources, methods and underlying political philosophies. The second engages in a case-study of the Bulldog Baths (1979-1982), a popular but short-lived establishment in San Francisco, CA. The third presents findings from a content analysis of contemporary bathhouse websites. Throughout, attention is paid to the active role of physical spaces in sexual encounters taking place in bathhouse settings, as well as to the spatial politics of the urban settings in which these establishments have historically operated. </p> </div> </div> </div>