Organizational Unit:
School of Architecture

Permanent Link
https://hdl.handle.net/1853/70770
Research Organization Registry ID
Description
Previous Names
Parent Organization
Parent Organization
Organizational Unit
Includes Organization(s)
ArchiveSpace Name Record
https://finding-aids.library.gatech.edu/agents/corporate_entities/1120

Filters

2020 26
21 5
26
26
Reset filters

Settings
End date: 2020 × Start date: 2020 ×

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 10 of 26
Thumbnail Image
Item

A FRAMEWORK TO SIMULATE THE NON-VISUAL EFFECTS OF DAYLIGHT ON THE COGNITIVE HEALTH OF ELDERLY INDIVIDUALS

2020-12-10 , Elsayed, Nourhan Gamal

Human health and well-being concerns have been brought to the forefront of building performance assessment through contemporary practices of sustainability design. Within the bounds of sustainability, daylighting plays a critical role in human well-being, specifically non-visual effects such as regulating circadian health, which contributes to alertness and sleep cycles of individuals. Accordingly, interior spatial investigations have been developed through simulation-based workflows, including several modeling tools such as Adaptive Lighting for Alertness (ALFA) (Solemma, 2019). However, research did not yet address challenges in vulnerable communities such as elders and individuals with dementia, focusing specifically on the impact of the non- visual effects of light on their overall health and well-being. This thesis aims to identify the daylighting requirements and metrics that are needed to design a space for elderly individuals that could entrain their circadian rhythms, promote their health, and well-being while providing an overall enhanced environment. The objectives are: 1) Explain several types of disability challenges facing the elderly population and its relationship to daylighting and circadian rhythms. 2) Define daylighting thresholds and metrics that entrain circadian rhythms and target vulnerable groups such as elderly individuals with certain disabilities. 3) Present a case study of a standard nursing home that showcases simulation techniques that focus on daylighting and health modelling for this vulnerable population, with recommendations for future work validation by deploying an ecologically valid experimental design. 4) Propose a design framework and recommendation guidelines to assist designers when designing for vulnerable groups to promote their health and well-being. A standard nursing home model is referenced from the Neuferts Architects Data 3rd edition Architectural Standards and was used as an example model. A simulation experiment is implemented using DIVA for Rhino and Climate Studio to analyze annual point in time illuminance with a threshold divided into three parts: 1500-2000 lux (minimum), 2000-2500 lux (most efficient threshold), 2500-3000 lux (maximum). The hours meeting these thresholds are analyzed into useful daylight hours. Also, Daylight Glare Probability (DGP) is simulated to understand the challenges accompanying high illuminance values that entrain circadian rhythms. The goal of the experiment is to ensure that a standard bedroom includes interior locations that can maintain a threshold of 1 to 2 hours per day with these illuminance values with minimal to non-existent glare. The results of the simulations are divided into: 1) Baseline with the standard bedroom facing north, south, east, and west orientations and 2) Design alterations of the north and south orientations to meet the threshold and increase the number of hours annually that entrain the circadian rhythm for the elderly and individuals with dementia. The simulations are run using the Atlanta, GA, TMY3 climate file. The baseline case demonstrates that the north orientation hardly receives any adequate daylight throughout the entire year at the head of the bed in the middle of the room. The annual daylight glare probability showcases an average of 17.8% disturbing and intolerable glare annually. On the other hand, the baseline results of the south orientation present an average of 62.8% disturbing and intolerable annual DGP. The south orientation functions slightly better meeting the minimum, required, and maximum lighting thresholds for almost 30% of analyzed daylight hours/ month. The east, and west orientations function better in terms of percentage of daylight hours/ month meeting the threshold, along with less annual DGP. Therefore, the south and north orientations only are expanded and investigated further in the design alterations. Both the north and south orientations in the design case show increased percentage of hours meeting the threshold in the analyzed locations. This shows the need for design enhancement and improvement to adapt to the needs of the users. Results presented difficulty in circadian entrainment in baseline case orientations due to either higher or lower annual point-in-time illuminance values rather than the required threshold, in addition to increased glare issues at the south, east, and west orientations. Overall, the results indicate that 1) Design alterations are needed for current standard nursing home designs. And 2) Thresholds that entrain the circadian rhythm for elders should be taken into consideration rather than relying on standards that do not focus on such elderly experiences. This thesis provides an overview of a simulation-workflow to create a framework for designers proposing recommendations for enhanced design options that promote the health and well-being of dementia and elderly individuals.

View
Thumbnail Image
Item

The Role of Positive Distraction in the Patient’s Experience in Healthcare Setting: A Literature Review of the Impacts of Representation of Nature, Sound, Visual Art, and Light

2020-12-08 , Dabrowska, Maria Anna

Background One of the key strategies to help patients reduce stress and anxiety in healthcare settings is positive distraction defined as “an environmental feature that elicits positive feelings and holds attention without taxing or stressing the individual, thereby blocking worrisome thoughts” (Ulrich, 1991, p. 102). While several studies found the impact of positive distraction on health-related outcomes, few studies have categorized the distractors and collected the evidence from experiments. Despite the common use in design and broadly accepted assumption that positive distraction brings psychophysiological benefits, there has not been a comprehensive evaluation of research on positive distraction. Methods The present literature review examined 40 peer-reviewed articles from the last 20 years on nature, artwork, music, and light to describe the phenomenon of positive distraction, review the evidence on the impact of interventions on outcomes, and investigate the quality of the research. This paper explored historic background, definitions, and organized the key information from articles into a table. Based on the similarities of themes, I categorized and described the interventions. This paper presents a framework that links the categories to healthcare settings, outcomes, and measures which were used to assess each outcome. Finally, I marked the number of studies in each category that indicated the beneficial influence of interventions for each outcome. The significance of this study lies in collecting and analyzing the studies, describing the crucial aspects that need to be considered when designing positive distractions, and pointing out the directions for future research. Results I organized interventions into the following seven categories: Real and artificial nature, Visual representation of nature, Music and Sound, Light, Illuminated projection, Audiovisual, and Audiovisual with light. The most common interventions were plants placed in a patient room as well as Illuminated projection and Audiovisual interventions with light in diagnostic imaging rooms. Pain and anxiety were the most studied outcomes. While 16 out of 22 studies found a statistically significant improvement in perceived pain, only 10 out of 24 articles found this effect for anxiety. More than 60% of studies that measured the impact of interventions on pain, satisfaction, environmental satisfaction, reduction in restlessness and calm behavior, and perceived attractiveness found statistically significant positive results. Although the positive distraction was initially recognized for its potential to reduce stress, only eight articles investigated stress and distress, but more than half of those studies found a beneficial effect. Interventions in Real and Artificial Nature, and Music and Sound, and Audiovisual with Light showed a beneficial impact on more than six outcomes and emerged as the most promising. Conclusions Despite the 40-years tradition, the field of positive distraction is still in an exploratory phase. This analysis confirmed that there is a positive correlation between positive distraction and outcomes and strong evidence that positive distraction helps reduce perceived pain. Future work should consider the division of the term positive distraction into more precise sub-terms to account for different characteristics of interventions categorized as a positive distraction as well as focus on defining the beneficial features of the distractors, explaining the underlying mechanisms, determining the effect size of interventions, and improving both aesthetics of interventions and the methodological quality of studies.

View
Thumbnail Image
Item

A critical review and simulation-based evaluation of green roof’s energy savings

2020-12-07 , Saini, Deva Shree

Green roofs are often identified as energy-efficient techniques which, through their various mechanisms, contribute to a comfortable indoor environment. A significant number of published literature has investigated the thermal performance of a green roof under various climatic conditions and building parameters. A comprehensive literature review carried out in this research shows significant energy saving figures ranging from 12-60%. On the contrary, a simulation study on green roofs conducted in this research presents marginal energy-saving figures. The results of this research give a major insight into the thermal performance of the green roof based on the insulation thickness. It was observed that the insignificant results were due to comparable R-values of the original roof with the installed green roof assembly. This study, therefore, performs optimization to obtain the best set of design variables that could maximize the energy savings by green roofs on a well-insulated conventional roof. But the optimization was only able to achieve maximum energy savings ranging from -0.17-5.77%. With marginal energy savings figures, green roofs might look like a costly investment with high installation & operation costs. However, a cost-benefit analysis of green roofs shows that the other numerous benefits of green roofs such as carbon sequestration, improved air quality, reduction of noise pollution, pleasing views & aesthetics, increase in property value, etc. contribute significantly to the less known economic benefits. These several benefits of green roofs can outweigh the initial investment cost by approximately 110 million USD over its life cycle for a case-specific study undertaken in this thesis. This research thus presents the other more beneficial aspects of green roofs as key factors in establishing it as a sustainable measure. It discusses an outlook beyond the cost comparison, as green roofs can outperform conventional roofs from an ecological and social point of view.

View
Thumbnail Image
Item

The Portman Variations: A Critical Approach to Entelechy I Mediated by Shape Machine

2020-10-20 , Ligler, Heather Michelle

John Portman’s work is perplexing and polarizing. Characterized by his atria that captivate the popular imagination and his hybrid practice as architect-developer that redefined skylines throughout the world, but also ambivalently caricatured and dismissed for these same moves, the question of his impact remains blurry. This tension in Portman’s assessment has been described as paradoxical and in fact, a closer look at the scholarship on his work reinforces this as an ongoing condition – one that highlights the challenges of interpreting the work. Yet, Portman’s own imaginative account of his practice emphasizes another perspective. In reflections throughout his life, he referenced his 1964 house, Entelechy I, as the generator informing his entire corpus and the key design to understanding his architectural principles across all scales and programs. The research here takes on the productive myth of Entelechy I – and its presumed adaptable and repetitive logic – as the impetus to develop a shape grammar on the plan of the house. This grammar is then the basis for generating variations that address the transformation of spatial relationships in the house revisited for other design contexts. Significantly, this two-stage procedure is mechanically (and automatically) implemented in Shape Machine for Rhino, a new shape grammar interpreter developed at the Shape Computation Lab (SCL) in the School of Architecture, Georgia Institute of Technology. Subsequently, the implementation of the Entelechy grammar reproduces the design of the original house and a series of new designs too – here proposed as Portm-Inoes to systematically recontextualize the house as a postmodern reinvention of Corbusier’s Dom-Ino. In addition, the corresponding adaptation of parts of the grammar under different predicates yields transformation grammars that generate a series of plans at various scales to interpret Portman’s broader corpus of interior, hospitality, urban, and residential designs. The contributions of the dissertation are: a) a critical compilation of perspectives on John Portman encompassing various interpretations that have remained so far distinct including connections to the Aristotelian and Emersonian philosophical underpinnings of the work; b) a formal approach to interpret Entelechy I in an automated shape grammar; c) a series of implemented transformation grammars that further redescribe Portman’s architectural language in interior, hospitality, urban, and residential designs; d) an assessment of Portman’s work derived by correlating the predicates, transformations, and shape rules in the grammars with fundamental aspects of design including the use of Platonic geometries, self-similarity, figure-ground reversal, boundary ornamentation, offset forms, and their combinations; and e) the setup of a constructive cycle of design propositions and evaluations achieved in Shape Machine to mechanically execute line drawings in an automated environment.

View
Thumbnail Image
Item

CHARACTERIZATION OF URBAN MORPHOLOGY AND ITS EFFECT ON WEATHER UNCERTAINTY IN BUILDING ENERGY SIMULATION

2020-12-08 , Rajput, Mayuri

The application of building simulation serves to assess the performance of a building throughout its lifetime. But the proper use of these applications relies heavily on the boundary conditions under which the behavior of a model is simulated. One of the most important inputs for simulation models is the stimulus by the weather conditions (actual or typical) in which it is supposed to operate. Traditionally, weather data for building simulation is a composed of 8760 hourly values of weather variables (temperature, humidity, solar insolation etc.) derived through statistical means from historical weather data acquired conventionally from remote (usually airport) weather stations. The derived data is taken to represent a typical weather year for a city. However, due to rapid increase in urbanization, weather in city centers with high urban density is significantly different from rural areas, a large part of which is due to localized effects, e.g. urban heat islands, increased albedo of man-made surfaces and anthropogenic emissions. This thesis investigates the relative importance of spatial weather variability in predicted building performance simulation outcomes. Ranking the importance cannot be looked at in isolation but needs to be determined relative to all other sources of uncertainty, predominantly in the parameters of the energy model which in this thesis is EnergyPlus. The latter stem from lack of information or ignorance about many physical and scenario of use parameters. Together they are the ensemble of sources of uncertainties that need to be recognized in any simulation. A sensitivity analysis is conducted to reveal their relative ranking. An inspection of the resulting rank of the effect of spatial weather variability reveals whether the knowledge of local weather, in contrast to the assumption of uniform weather throughout the city, significantly reduces the overall uncertainty in the outcomes of the simulation. It should be recognized that there is only limited availability of localized weather data that reflect variability of urban contexts throughout a city. This recognition leads to the first contribution of this thesis: the development of a high fidelity statistical urban weather model fitted on local urban morphology and recorded weather. This is accomplished with a Multiple Tensor on Tensor (MTOT) regression model. The model can be applied universally and enables building modelers to create synthetic meso scale weather data for their site, essentially putting the individual building in the urban fabric of the city. The resulting model is a new cornerstone in the uncertainty analysis of the building simulation with inclusion of spatial weather variability. It is consequently used to inspect the role of spatially diverse weather in two critical applications. First, at the single building scale it is verified in three applications whether spatially diverse weather plays an important role when the assessment is conducted for a non-specific location in the city. Secondly, the role of spatial variability is tested in a three urban decision making cases where the question is answered whether decisions should be diversified per location. The thesis offers answers to both questions that elevate our understanding of the role of meso scale weather information in building simulation practice.

View
Thumbnail Image
Item

Building a City in the Wilderness:COnstruction Camps of the Alabama Power Company

2020-12-07 , Monaghan, Marietta Coleman

Building a City in the Wilderness: Construction Camps of the Alabama Power Company Marietta Coleman Monaghan 494 pages Directed by Laura H. Hollengreen This dissertation explores how architecture can actively be incorporated into processes of community formation within the Alabama Power Company (APC) worker camps constructed from 1905–1930. Many studies have examined the planning of mill villages and company towns, but this dissertation seeks to examine a subset of those living arrangements regarding a company town that was intended to last only for a single construction project setting the APC camps apart from the more permanent sites such as the mill towns of early New England or the later mining and manufacturing towns of the American South. This is also an investigation of the rehabilitation of a relatively unknown history through the examination of peripheral source materials containing documentation for the conveyance of information too complex to be verbally transmitted. The data are drawn primarily from archival research and literature review of construction drawings, contractor’s progress reports, memoirs, the company newsmagazine, and dedications of new hydraulic power plants and dams where printed events schedules were given as mementos to attendees, that provide additional support data for reconstruction of this history. This dissertation places the APC and its worker camps as one more example in the discussion of corporate welfare programs, issues of race, class, and gendered discrimination in the American South during the first half of the twentieth century. The discrimination is manifested in the architecture and underscores much of what has previously been published; however, the answers to such questions cannot be more than suggestive as the APC archives cannot give us the entire picture. In the end, with Facebook, Amazon, Google, and Apple developing modern-day company towns, this historical examination of the APC camps provides essential background for understanding the developing social role of the corporation and for assessing its future direction.

View
Thumbnail Image
Item

The Cost of Haptics: Measuring Encumbrance in Gloves for Mixed Reality

2020-12-06 , Hallam, James David

Smart gloves are a category of peripherals that promise to transform how people use their hands in computing systems. These gloves are intended to support the use of hand interactions that closely mimic the way hands are used in the real world – allowing for natural object interactions and, through the use of haptic systems extend the sense of touch into the virtual world. The recent availability of affordable consumer-grade Virtual Reality (VR) systems has accelerated the pursuit of smart glove peripherals that incorporate numerous sensors and actuators that enable these interactions. While these gloves present a wide array of new enriching interactions to users, they also bear costs, in the form of various degrees of encumbrance. Encumbrance is felt by the user as a temporary disability that limits their hand function and access to the world around them. This limits the user’s experience in VR, where the focus is on virtual object interaction, and this will be more challenging with the adoption of Mixed Reality (MR), which requires interaction with both virtual and physical objects. Smart gloves for VR are highly complex, as they require the careful integration of numerous computing/sensing systems, soft-goods product development, interaction design, soft-robotics, and haptics. Making gloves for MR will require even more careful design and testing to ensure that the user has unencumbered access to any object or interface they encounter in both virtual and physical space. This research examines the costs and trade-offs that users might encounter while using haptic gloves in Mixed Reality. These encumbrances were measured following a mixed-methods, task performance approach, with the goal of recommending design options for future design development. The methods used were drawn from ergonomic and occupational therapy approaches to measuring hand function, in order to identify clear measures of encumbrance imposed by specific design details of various gloves. This research developed a comprehensive testing protocol which identified 15 key “Costs of Haptics” which encumber the wearer of VR gloves, in exchange for other benefits. These costs are discussed in detail along with the underlying evidence that supports them and will provide a valuable set of design recommendations that should allow design teams to optimize design decisions in the development of the next generation of MR gloves.

View
Thumbnail Image
Item

Building thermal load control: Potential, Strategy, and Implementation

2020-12-08 , Lu, Di

The HVAC system consumes 30-50% of the energy delivered to a building, providing heating and cooling to maintain suitable thermal conditions for occupants. In recent years, advanced control methods, such as model predictive control (MPC), are being studied to lower building energy cost (e.g., by deferring consumption to low rate hours of the day) while still satisfying comfort requirements to an acceptable degree. Two main research gaps are identified from the literature on MPC and human thermal comfort. First, zonal control flexibility employed by MPC in terms of thermal requirements is not well defined. Second, confusion persists about the contribution of MPC vis a vis other energy conservation methods. These two research gaps weaken the acceptance of existing models and thereby frustrate the real-life application of MPC. The objective of the undertaken research is to analyze the potential, strategy, and implementation of thermal load control with the aim to quantify its ability to minimize the operation cost of HVAC systems. This is achieved in five consecutive steps, 1) understanding zonal control flexibility, 2) evaluating the potential of building thermal load control with zonal control flexibility, 3) analyzing the potential for varying climate zones and construction types, 4) investigating the performance of MPC under scenario uncertainties, and 5) developing a thermal load control strategy that is ready for implementation. In each step, a mathematical formulation of the optimal control problem is formulated and consequently solved by appropriate algorithms. A novel comfort tolerance model for occupant cohorts is developed and implemented as constraints on the control envelope. The research outcomes expand the understanding of the multiple aspects of building thermal load control.

View
Thumbnail Image
Item

Building-integrated Biotic Carbon Sequestration Technioques: Overview and Simulation Workflow

2020-12-07 , Chhabra, Jayati

There is enough scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is a reality of our times. According to a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering 2019, “By mid-century, the world needs to be removing about 10 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide out of the air each year. That’s equivalent of about twice the yearly emissions of the U.S.” To achieve this goal, the act to cease the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) alone is not enough. It is important that the structures which cover a large area of the earth start contributing to Carbon Sequestration (the process of capturing carbon from the atmosphere and storing it securely) at a massive scale. To accomplish that, a thorough understanding of building-integrated Carbon Sequestration techniques, including their mechanism, prerequisites as well as consequences, is essential. This study aims to 1) Provide an overview of building-integrated Carbon Sequestration (CS) techniques focusing on their potential environmental impact and associated costs. CS techniques are classified into three categories: a) Biotic techniques (vertical greenery systems (VGS), Green Roofs, and algae facades); b) Materials (carbon-negative and carbon-absorbing building materials); and c) Equipment (filter towers). 2) Conduct a comparative analysis specifically showing both the CS potential and design factors associated with the Biotic CS techniques to allow architects and designers to evaluate these technologies and analyze their integration potential in architectural practice based on both the factors. 3) Propose a modeling framework to estimate the amount of carbon that can be sequestered by a structure that utilizes biotic elements to enhance environmental performance. The proposed workflow accounts for site and climate-based variations in solar radiation across the globe, as well as different plant types, species, the type of photobioreactors in the case of micro-algae, and their energy conversion efficiency ratios. Preliminary literature review shows that Green Roofs and vertical gardens can capture 150gC/m2 – 650gC/m2, while algae facades go up to 2430gC/m2 - 2970gC/m2. Biomass and filter towers could absorb a relatively high amount of approximately 1 x 1015 g C and 687.5 x 109 g C, respectively (without normalization). By analyzing and summarizing each CS technique based on performance indicators like prerequisites, initial and maintenance costs, and area required, various schematic design considerations and research gaps are laid out. Further, the proposed modeling framework showcases the CS potential of the three biotic techniques in the context of five major Koppen classified climate zones – tropical, dry, moderate, continental, and polar. The workflow for algae facades is validated against measured data from collected information in practice from the BIQ house in Germany and Photo.synth.etica by EcologicStudio. A workflow is formulated specifically for Green Roofs and VGS from previously published literature by (Getter et al. 2009), (Whittinghill et al. 2014), (Pulselli et al. 2014), and (Kuronuma et al. 2018). This thesis presents a framework to employ CS integration in the built environment and discusses advances needed in order for buildings to not just limit the catastrophic effects of climate change, but also mitigate it for a better future for our built environment.

View
Thumbnail Image
Item

Re-Source: Architectural Experiments in Radical Re-Use and Regenerative Building

2020-11 , Marble, Scott , Organschi, Alan , Yocum, David , Dortdivanlioglu, Hayri , Truitt, Bryce

This book documents the architectural projects produced in the Portman Prize Studio in the Spring 2020. Within the M. Arch. professional degree program at Georgia Tech, the Portman Studio is the final in a sequence of five introductory and advanced architectural design studios at the School, and takes the form of a semester-long, integrated building design assignment.

View