The project evolved from a series of questions regarding the possibilities/interactions between building and site. The project consists of housing, a chapel and the relationship to the land they occupy. / Master of Architecture

Poster exhibited at GPSC Student Showcase, February 24th, 2016, University of Arizona. 2nd Place Winner of the Creativity Undergraduate Award. / Architecture has the power to create an inclusive society where everyone feels as if they have a voice and responsibility to a sustainable future. With collaboration and dedication, architectural design can have a huge impact on the living conditions of underrepresented communities. Working through the Drachman Design Build Coalition, the scope of the project involves designing and constructing an affordable dwelling for a low-income family in the city of Tucson, Arizona. The overall mission of building affordable housing is to provide under-served families with housing opportunities that would not be otherwise. The house will be designed as a 2-3 bedroom dwelling with 2 bathrooms, and indoor living space, outdoor living area, and a carport. Through research and physical observation, potential sites were explored, sustainable strategies were learned, and affordable housing techniques were studied. Many iterations of housing models were developed based on information gained from local books and journals written on traditional southwestern housing designs. The Notch House starts to develop as a sustainable affordable housing project designed in response to underrepresented families in Tucson.

The design project is an exploration of a design methodology, which builds upon the importance of human behavior in sustainable design, and materializes ideas and theories in spatial forms. The project focus on low income children between ages 6-15 in Meredith Learning Center, built in M Station Apartments, one of the properties of Foundation Communities, Austin. The project aims to foster sustainability education to minimize consumption and waste through interior design elements, make children active recipients of sustainability knowledge and help them to adopt daily sustainable habits by providing access for environmentally friendly choices, and motivating engaging, continuous, and appropriate acts. / text

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Education is often viewed as a catalyst of change. Arguably, the future of our Planet is dependent on education that nurtures sustainable ways of thinking and living in our environment. This thesis seeks to argue that in order for abstract principles of sustainability to be understood, individuals need to have opportunities to explore and be a part of designing and experiencing their own places. Specifically, my thesis suggests that high school students in public schools should take an active part of this educational process. To test this theory, I investigated three high school sustainability programs in Austin, Texas that utilize place-based pedagogy. What was realized is that each program envisions sustainability programming that is integrative and experiential, but due to the current mechanistic education system the daily programming can be difficult. This result has led me to theorize that the entire educational system needs to be transformed in order for sustainability education to exist. However, I finally propose a more practical approach, and thus offer twelve generalized heuristic questions for sustainable design educators to consider and assist them in building social capital between themselves and the public school system. / text

Sustainable Built Environments Senior Capstone Project / There has been a nationwide movement which has promoted urban agriculture. The locale, seasonality, and methods of cultivation, have all entered the spotlight of public consciousness. While farmer’s markets, and co-ops may sometimes have limited accessibility with respect to cost another community gardens are branch of the urban agriculture movement which are highly accessible. The surge in popularity of community gardens came with the 2008 market crash, which created many foreclosures, and accordingly vacant lots. Where vacant lots are reclaimed by citizens, they create a sense of ownership within a community, they become physical manifestations of neighborhood rally cries, elbows rub, and community connections are made. With a relatively small amount of initial input, and continued care, there are tangible outputs, and literal fruits of labor. The popularity of these gardens extends to schools, and a whole branch of pedagogy which emphasizes place based learning. The benefits to these schools is tremendous; students are offered the opportunity to be academically engaged in a space other than the traditional classroom. Community gardens show the potential to create value from little input. With the benefit of a structured design process, there is potential to make school gardens learning space, in addition to growing space. The intent of this study is to explore the value created for these spaces by a formalized design process.

Application of sustainable design is growing rapidly as companies face increasing pressure to address the environmental impacts of their products. In response, a great deal of research has been directed at the development of sustainable design methods, as early design intervention has the potential to generate radical improvements. At present however, sustainability is often considered as an afterthought, only yielding incremental improvements. As such there is a clear need to redesign our design processes, and promote embedded consideration of sustainability throughout from the earliest stages. This thesis reports on research investigating how sustainability considerations could be systematically incorporated into product design processes through the definition of a framework and the development of a methodology for evaluating established design processes and identifying and prioritising stages for sustainability considerations to be embedded into design activity. The primary objective of this research is to develop an understanding of the challenges and opportunities for the implementation of sustainable design approaches in order to move towards a situation in the future where sustainability considerations are an inherent and embedded part of product design processes or Ubiquitous Sustainability in design.

The thesis inquires into the living value of participatory practices to sustainability. The two problems of lack of recognition of participatory practices and the lack of address of sustainability matters are drawn into one collective inquiry initiative. Twelve Australian participatory practitioners, working in three states, in various aspects of social and environmental sustainability in the public, community and academic sectors voluntarily participated in the initiative for over eighteen months. The author, being the initiating researcher and practising participatory principles from the outset, chose not to facilitate a pre-determined method at any stage so as to let a systemic form of inquiry come into being. Working through three emergent iterations, the Inquiry and its thesis propose that globally, participatory practices are distinguishable in four generic constituents of Governance, Development, Learning and Activism and that incorporating all four of these elements constitutes a participatory practice with transformative qualities at systemic scales. Practically, the co-researchers created participatory practices from an eclectic range of such traditions, modes and disciplines, integrated through dialogic, reflexive, autobiographical and contextual inclusions. The ongoing Inquiry entity resists collapse to a defaulted instrumentalist stance and continues to unfold as a sociological embodiment of the thought it generates. Referring to Polanyi, Bohm, Bourdieu, Foucault, Torbert and Miller the author interprets the Inquiry’s legacy as establishing an articulate, committed and responsive open community within which we freely develop capabilities that are inhibited by our daily life worlds while also crucial for transformation towards participatory sustainability in these same worlds. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The thesis inquires into the living value of participatory practices to sustainability. The two problems of lack of recognition of participatory practices and the lack of address of sustainability matters are drawn into one collective inquiry initiative. Twelve Australian participatory practitioners, working in three states, in various aspects of social and environmental sustainability in the public, community and academic sectors voluntarily participated in the initiative for over eighteen months. The author, being the initiating researcher and practising participatory principles from the outset, chose not to facilitate a pre-determined method at any stage so as to let a systemic form of inquiry come into being. Working through three emergent iterations, the Inquiry and its thesis propose that globally, participatory practices are distinguishable in four generic constituents of Governance, Development, Learning and Activism and that incorporating all four of these elements constitutes a participatory practice with transformative qualities at systemic scales. Practically, the co-researchers created participatory practices from an eclectic range of such traditions, modes and disciplines, integrated through dialogic, reflexive, autobiographical and contextual inclusions. The ongoing Inquiry entity resists collapse to a defaulted instrumentalist stance and continues to unfold as a sociological embodiment of the thought it generates. Referring to Polanyi, Bohm, Bourdieu, Foucault, Torbert and Miller the author interprets the Inquiry’s legacy as establishing an articulate, committed and responsive open community within which we freely develop capabilities that are inhibited by our daily life worlds while also crucial for transformation towards participatory sustainability in these same worlds. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Neighborhood design has a significant impact on environmental and human health and is largely regulated by the codes developed by various professional organizations. While the sustainability movement as a whole has embraced the mutually beneficial goals of improving environmental and human health, the work of professionals in the environmental and public health fields has remained largely segregated over the past century. The purpose of my thesis is to compare the approach of each field in fostering sustainable neighborhoods through the development and implementation of codes and to quantify both the existing degree of collaboration and the latent potential for further collaboration within these codes. For comparison, I selected LEED for Neighborhood Development and the Healthy Development Measurement Tool to be representative of neighborhood codes generated by the environmental and public health movements, respectively, because they are the most fully developed and widely implemented evaluation systems presently available in each field. In order to investigate how the codes generated in each field compare in their approach, structure, and organization, I first performed a comparative analysis between them. I then performed a content analysis on both codes to quantify the overlap in goals between them. My hypothesis was that each field would exhibit a bias towards goals which explicitly support their own field, but that a significant portion of their goals would simultaneously support the other field. This hypothesis proved to be correct, but most interesting was the significant percentage of shared goals that were left unexpressed. Ultimately, 94% of recommended actions in LEED-ND were related to human health, though it was only explicitly referenced in 25% of the code. Similarly, 74% of recommended actions in the HDMT were related to environmental health, though it was only explicitly mentioned in 33% of the code. My thesis demonstrates that, while both fields already recognize that a small portion of their goals are shared, it is actually likely that nearly all of their goals are shared. By actively acknowledging these shared goals, both fields can potentially benefit from the greater amount of support, resources, and expertise that would become available to them through collaboration. / text