Richmond, Virginia has, through recent design proposals and projects, sought reconciliation with the countries in West Africa that were once the source for slave trade in which the city was such an active participant. These admirable works address the nations’ shared history, perhaps at the expense of understanding modern cultures. This thesis seeks to create this understanding through the development of an educational facility that would interact with Richmond’s current landscape. In pursuit of respectful relationship, I address the ways in which design can authentically teach about place. The study begins with the creation of a personal understanding of site through diagrammatic analysis. The research continues with case studies that relate to either the context, program or process of this project. The concepts this research generated led to a proposed design solution for the Southern Railway Freight building in Richmond’s Shockhoe Slip. Both design processes and the proposed solution are documented herein.

One of the most exciting aspects of traveling is the ability to, for a short time, experience what life is like in a different part of the world. Whether traveling fifty miles away from home or to another continent, cultures, landscapes, and the many nuances of day-to-day life change. The beauty of travel comes from curiosity, exploration, and discovery. It’s that moment when your heart skips a beat and your mind fills with pure delight because you’ve just discovered something new about the world that you never knew before. Another part of the traveling experience is having a place to stay at night. While there are many options, over the past decade, the boutique hotel has grown in popularity. Boutique hotels are known for being small and they distinguish themselves as luxurious and unique in addition to providing premium services and amenities for their guests. This thesis begs the question; can design be used in such a way that an establishment, such as a boutique hotel, can begin to signify more than just a collection decorated rooms so that it contributes to the story being told with respect to place? Through research and personal experience I have found that most small hotels that fit the definition of a boutique hotel do not market themselves as such while large, chain hotels that do not fit the same definition, do. This can be misleading. Many boutique hotels can offer a unique experience for their guests by differentiating room decor so that every room is different or by creating an elegant and intimate lobby or dining experience, however, none have demonstrated a direct connection between the hotel and the context in which it resides. The Power Plant at Lucky Strike, located at 2700 East Cary Street, will serve as the building for this project. The building was originally constructed in 1930 for the purpose of providing power to the neighboring Lucky Strike building which was used as a cigarette factory. The building is in a prime location and situated at the end of the historic and popular Shockoe Bottom strip with Church Hill to the north and the James River just south. With the building’s original shell still intact, my goal is to create a hotel experience that is unique in the sense that it too, will help to continue to tell Richmond’s story.

How might interior environments play a role in promoting life long well being? According to Passarino, et al., genetic variety only accounts for about 25% of the variation of human longevity. A combination of diet, environment and exercise comprise the greatest factors. The amount of time Americans spend indoors presents a challenge to increasing physical activity: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) states that Americans spend 93% of their lives indoors (Roberts, 2016). Therefore, if physical activity is crucial to living longer, the design of interior environments could logically be a critical factor in promoting natural movement and sustaining lifelong well-being. National Geographic fellow Dan Buettner identified five “Blue Zones” throughout the world where people naturally live longer: Ikaria, Greece; Okinawa, Japan; Oligastra Region, Sardinia; Loma Linda, California; and Nicoya Peninsula, Costa Rica. These regions have unusually high concentrations of centenarians who had grown old without noticeable signs of heart disease, obesity, cancer or diabetes (Buettner, 2015). Buettner identified nine common principles that universally characterize well-being in the Blue Zones. The first, and most crucial to design in the built environment, is to “move naturally.” Healthy centenarians, Buettner says, “live in environments that constantly nudge them into moving” (Buettner, 2015). This research will seek to translate Blue Zone principles aimed at promoting continued well-being through natural movement that can inform principles for the creation of interior environments. RESEARCH METHODOLOGIES Further analysis of Blue Zones principles will address specific conditions and behaviors that encourage natural movement. A literature review and case studies will be presented that show a correlation between natural movement within the built environment and measurable increases in healthy outcomes. The example projects include La Maison de Verre, Paris, France; L’Unité d’Habitation à Marseille, France; and Tea House, Bethesda, Maryland. Interior design that encourages regular natural movement occurs primarily in the design of a building’s major circulation systems and its program (Center for Active Design, 2010). Corridors, elevators and lobbies that connect other spaces in the program encourage walking. Elements like stairs, bicycle storage and furniture that produces micro-movement promote activity when they are visible, safe and attractive. Programmed spaces that encourage physical activity like dance/movement studios and those that promote healthy diets also lead to increases in healthy behaviors, which ultimately lead to increased longevity. Using these guides, a building in Richmond, Virginia will be redesigned as a micro-Blue Zone that could be used as a model for promoting increased life long well being. This two-level adaptive reuse, mixed use commercial project will address vertical transitions, social spaces and outdoor relationships that encourage residents and visitors to move throughout the day.

The community of Old Town Manchester lies across from downtown Richmond on the south side of the James River. Annexed in 1910, Manchester was the industrial hub of the city and home to the Chesterfield Railroad, the first railway in Virginia and used to transport coal. These industrial roots are still evident today in the warehouses and manufacturing facilities that continue to operate or have been repurposed. The building of focus is located on the corner of bustling Hull Street and quiet 7th Avenue. Distinctive in its stone masonry exterior, 616 Hull was constructed in the 1920s as a Chevrolet showroom and manufacturing facility. Both the proximity to downtown and the historic character of Manchester made it seem an ideal location for a hotel and restaurant. Considering the hotel as a source of stability for the community because it provides jobs, and the restaurant as an entity within the hotel that simultaneously serves the guests as well as the local residents, the concept of discovery and experience of place emerged. With the belief that locals share a sense of pride in the city in which they live, thus making Richmonders the city’s best advocates, this thesis was an exploration of how design can encourage interaction between two groups of people- visitors and locals.

Informed by research that connects transitional issues with assimilation, this practicum project focuses on how culturally-relevant education and service-based interior environments support the transition of urban Indigenous peoples. Eagle Urban Transition Centre (EUTC) in Winnipeg is studied as the client, providing specific examples of Indigenous service and educational frameworks employed to mitigate transitional issues. Spatial criteria for the adaptive reuse of 601 Aikins Street on Treaty One Territory in Winnipeg, Manitoba, were developed through a photo-elicitation interview process, and a theoretical framework that connected urban Indigenous identity, Indigenous education, transition and resistance with interior environments. Representing and recognizing the diverse Indigenous cultures of the users of EUTC in the design required a formal analysis of examples of Indigenous cultural production, such as the eight-pointed star blanket and Métis beadwork, as well as precedents of Indigenous spaces. The interior design for EUTC supports their organization, facilitating transition and creating opportunities for resistance through spaces that respect and emphasize cultural (re)connection. / October 2015

<p> </p> <p>There are several challenges that occur when creating extraterrestrial structures that are not relevant to terrestrial applications. The Resilient Extra-Terrestrial Habitat Institute is a NASA funded research project focused on developing resilient lunar habitats. In order to develop these deep-space structures, many considerations have to be made to account for scenarios that are not relevant to Earth. Such scenarios include meteorite impacts, moonquakes, radiation, and moon dust accumulation. To observe possible consequences of these disruptions, RETHi established a modular coupled virtual testbed to monitor the effects of different deep-space related situations. MCVT is a computer model of a lunar habitat that uses a system-of-systems approach to examine the impacts of these scenarios. Currently, MCVT is developing methods to confront these extraterrestrial situations by utilizing robotic agents and expanding upon a variety of safety responses to increase resiliency.  RETHi also utilizes a cyber physical testbed to run cyber-physical experiments to validate the approaches used in MCVT. </p> <p><br></p> <p>One of the numerous models in MCVT is the Habitat Interior Environment Model. HIEM monitors the interior environment of the lunar structure using physics-based calculations and inputs from its surroundings. There are three main disturbances that directly affect the interior environment—fire within the dome, meteorite impacts, and airlock failure. Such scenarios either increase or decrease the temperature and pressure. This data is then forwarded to other subsystems for further evaluation. HIEM can be remodeled to fit the pressure box in the cyber physical testbed. By doing so, it is then possible to validate the pressure leakage calculations used in HIEM using experimental data. HIEM is specifically designed to the lunar habitat currently in development; however, the model can be refitted to a variety of applications such as terrestrial, aerospace, space, and marine. </p>