The Northeast Georgia Inland Port and Carbon Emissions due to Ground Transportation in Georgia: An Ode to Rail Transportation

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2024-04) McDonald, Asha

This applied research paper examines the projected difference in carbon emissions caused by the construction of the Northeast Georgia Inland Port in Gainesville, GA.
An explorative study of mobile buildings' impact on resilience: A case study of outdoor and indoor thermal comfort simulation for an underserved community

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12-18) Doersam, Max

As temperatures are predicted to soar by 2.5°C by 2050 due to the advance of climate change, the provision of shaded spaces becomes increasingly vital for the well-being of communities and the environment. This thesis aims to investigate the potential impact of optimizing shaded and covered outdoor spaces on indoor thermal comfort, while also quantifying the benefits of creating movable building spaces that promote outdoor social interactions in underperforming communities. This research is focusing on a mobile learning lab which is part of a design build research project at Georgia Tech. The study will explore how this intervention can contribute to urban sustainability and improved social well-being, with a focus on communities and resilience. A simulation-based approach is employed to investigate direct sunlight, beneath the canopy, and inside the mobile structure to evaluate varying environmental conditions and the effectiveness of each in shelter provision and daylight exposure reduction. This methodology aims to enhance resilience by comprehensively understanding and assessing thermal comfort conditions. Critical metrics of outdoor and indoor thermal comfort are examined such as, Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) analysis, to investigate airspeed, and natural ventilation alongside adaptive thermal comfort iterations to provide guidelines when it comes to mobile structures and its shading performance in the near future. It undertakes an investigation using TMY and "morphed" weather files to assess current and future thermal conditions.
Empowering breast self-awareness: integrating augmented reality for comprehensive breast self-examination

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12-13) Wang, Yijing

In recent years, Augmented Reality (AR) has seen a growing application in the healthcare industry, revolutionizing patient care, medical training, and diagnostics. In alignment with this technological trend, this thesis explores the development and evaluation of an innovative mobile application that harnesses the power of AR to enhance breast self-examinations. This application offers real-time, step-by-step instructions projected onto the user's body to ensure precise self-examinations, supplemented by personalized feedback and guidance for follow-up actions. Through this research, we have gained valuable insights into the fundamental pain points users encounter in breast self-examination, user attitudes toward the application of AR technology in this domain, and their reactions to the newly designed experience. These findings provide a wealth of information and assistance in shaping the future of breast self-examination, offering a more informed and enhanced user experience.
Designing an Interactive Experience for Local Elections Information to Increase Civic Participation Amongst Young Adults

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12-13) Park, Chaeeun

Americans are uniquely situated in that they have more opportunities than people in other countries to vote due to the combination of municipal, state, and national elections. However out of these elections, local elections suffer from the lowest voter turnout despite the fact that these elections hold major influence in the daily lives of local residents. Paired with this, young, voting-aged adults (aged 18-29) have different frameworks for understanding and engaging with politics from previous generations. This divergence is rooted in their reliance on trusted personal networks in a vast sea of political information as well as their interest in specific social causes as opposed to the mechanisms of traditional political institutions. This study examines how young, voting-aged adults (ages 18-29) are both motivated and demoralized from civic engagement. Through design intervention, it explores how interactive games can help motivate young adults to become more civically engaged in their local elections through demystifying the perceived complex hostility of politics by utilizing roleplaying and gamification, helping young adults learn more about what is happening in their local environment, and fostering a cooperative model of civic engagement based on guided discussion. Finally, a tabletop game, Denizen, was developed in order to help facilitate political discussions amongst young adults and also help them learn more about local issues. The outcomes of this study underscore the importance of utilizing new engagement methods for young adults, especially for re-engaging young adults into traditional electoral duties. It also highlights the importance of knowledge-building and political expertise in improving overall civic motivation.
UX guide to microinteractions : Establishing a classification system to enable microinteraction design literacy among novice UX designers

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12-11) Shankar, Abhishek

This study explores how identifying and classifying various animated microinteractions can help improve design literacy among UX/UI designers by integrating motion design elements. Microinteractions are small, task-specific actions that a user can trigger or experience within a user interface, such as liking a post, setting a status, or receiving a notification. They play a crucial role in providing feedback, guiding users, and adding an element of delight to the user experience. In this thesis, the focus is on the importance of microinteractions in enhancing the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) design. To better understand how designers work with microinteractions and motion in product design, subject matter experts (SMEs) were interviewed who revealed that non-motion designers often need help understanding microinteraction design language. To address this, a classification system was developed and hosted online, which permits UX/UI designers to access microinteraction design language. Microinteractions are classified into a visual design system based on triggers, functions, and principles of motion. This classification system was validated by UX/UI designers using interviews and questionnaires. The results showed that the system promotes cross-disciplinary communication and collaboration among design team members by introducing motion design language and terminologies through an organized classification system.
Breaking Myths behind "Bikelash": Empirical analyses on the role of protected bike lanes on creating a sustainable, equitable, and safer transportation environment

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12-10) Hwang, Uijeong

While cycling is recognized as an eco-friendly alternative to carbon-emitting vehicles and a facilitator of physical activity, opposition to cyclists and bike lanes—termed “bikelash”—persists. This resistance stems from various concerns, ranging from the belief that bike lanes are underutilized and thus a waste of public space to fears that they may exacerbate traffic congestion or even contribute to urban gentrification. Through three detailed studies, this dissertation aims to provide empirical evidence challenging common perceptions and to reshape the narrative surrounding bike lanes. The first study investigates how bike lanes sway individuals' transportation choices, especially favoring non-automotive travel. It employs a novel approach by conducting a route-level analysis using origin-destination data from household travel surveys to simulate potential cycling routes. This study finds that bike lanes significantly encourage the use of walking, cycling, and public transit, thereby reducing car dependency. Notably, it demonstrates the potential of bike lanes to bridge mobility gaps in diverse socio-economic settings, even in underserved neighborhoods. The second study examines how the perception of streetscapes and different types of bike lanes interact to influence cycling behaviors. Utilizing computer vision to interpret perceptual attributes from crowdsourced street view images, the research reveals that the presence and type of bike lanes significantly influence cycling frequency, moderated by the visual perception of streetscape safety. Protected bike lanes are shown to be more effective in areas perceived as less safe, emphasizing their role in equitable transportation. The final paper delves into the safety impact of bike lanes, particularly focusing on near-miss incidents. It utilizes crowdsourced data to examine the risk of near misses in relation to street design and types of bike lanes. The findings indicate that protected bike lanes significantly reduce the risk of near misses, while striped lanes adjacent to street parking increase safety hazards. This challenges existing assumptions about bike lane safety and calls for a strategic shift towards protected bike lanes. This dissertation contributes to practical applications by providing critical empirical evidence to guide urban infrastructure planning and policymaking. The findings support a shift towards protected bike lanes, emphasizing their role in enhancing safety and increasing cycling frequency. The dissertation advocates for a holistic approach in urban transportation planning, promoting inclusive, sustainable, and safer urban environments.
Connectivity for whom and at what cost: contesting network infrastructure duality in urban planning

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12-10) Liang, Xiaofan

In our increasingly interconnected urban environment, the growth and expansion of network infrastructure play a pivotal role. This infrastructure encompasses transportation systems that facilitate movements and social amenities that foster community bonds, bringing influence and growth to a place. However, network infrastructure can also encode inequality and exclusion: barricaded highways, railways, and airports can replace local social infrastructure and impose physical barriers to local mobility flows; they are also prone to car-oriented urban forms that are unfriendly to pedestrians and bikers. Prior studies often focus on network infrastructure in its own locale or abstract it into spatial social networks, represented as nodes and edges on maps. Such simplification overlooks how network infrastructure sustains spatial and social connections in the built environment and fails to account for the complex and sometimes conflicting functions such infrastructure provides for different demographics and connection types. This dissertation introduces an exploratory framework about network duality, delving into the nuanced yet often contradictory dynamics of urban networks. This framework argues that connectivity is a multifaceted urban phenomenon embedded in network infrastructure that can induce duality, such as connecting one population while excluding the other, exhibiting influence in one system yet causing inequality in another, or co-existing with other infrastructure in some places but not others. Mitigating this duality is important for an inclusive and equitable network society. The critical inquiries are two-fold. First, what types of connectivity are prioritized or supported by urban infrastructure, for whom, at where, and at what cost? Second, what are some strategies (e.g., approaches, toolbox, and practices) that planners can use to mitigate the harmful effects of network infrastructure duality (e.g., exclusion and inequality), especially on marginalized communities? The three papers take different perspectives to answer these big questions. The first paper explores how the AeroATL Greenway Plan reconnects Aerotropolis communities when Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport presents a barrier to local mobility flows. The second paper examines the social costs (such as losing social ties and memories) of demolishing a historic street for a new subway station in Guangzhou, China. The third paper answers where social infrastructure exists near subway stations and what factors influence the degree of their co-existence. All three papers use participatory computational approaches, including participatory GIS, participatory modeling, and volunteered geographic information from OpenStreetMap, to contest the inequality in the existing connectivity scheme.
Sketches Count: The Mies Van Der Rohe’s Dirksen Courthouse Archive Redrawn

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12-06) Park, James

Mies van der Rohe’s Everett McKinley Dirksen United States Courthouse in Chicago built in 1964 is arguably one of the most significant buildings in the history of judicial architecture in the United States and abroad because of its transformative role in the formulation of the conventions underlying contemporary courthouse design. Archived in the Mies van der Rohe Archive at the Museum of Modern Art New York, a significant resource associated with the design of the courthouse is the extensive documentation of the design process at the office of Mies. This body of work consists of 135 sketches, diagrams, and drawings, features alternative solutions, variational schemes, and sectional innovations, and provides an untapped resource to allow a closer look at the expressive range of the architectural language and the technical innovations proposed by one of the most influential architects of the twentieth century. The research takes on the Mies van der Rohe Archive and begins to flesh out the implicit design possibilities that the preliminary representations from the design process of the Dirksen Courthouse present: Are all these possibilities parts of the final scheme that was promoted in the end? If not, are there common themes that pervade each one of them? How important are some design ideas that belong exclusively to some of them but did not appear in the final design? To speculate these in depth, how much effort would it take to complete each of the design variations outlined by the preliminary representations? Can they be completed given the clues in the final design? If not, is it because they are not productive or they are just not compliant with the final scheme? In the end, how significant is this design process to contemporary courthouse design? The work here attempts to address these questions through a formal specification of a shape grammar that foregrounds common characteristics and unique ideas presented in the set of preliminary representations. Ambitiously, the work proposes a formal reconstruction of the final courtroom floor plan of the Dirksen Courthouse and an automated completion of the preliminary representations of key courtroom floor design variations from the design process of the courthouse, materializing the unrealized possibilities embodied in them. More specifically, a generative description of Mies van der Rohe’s courthouse design language is presented in the form of a shape grammar designed and implemented in the Shape Machine, a pioneering recursive shape rewriting technology. The grammar is proposed as an open-ended set of shape rules that can be readily expanded to complete an increasing number of design variations documented in the archive and generate some hypothetical ones that can be, in principle, generated by this dynamic grammar. Significantly, at any moment, new shape rules can be introduced seamlessly, as an intrinsic part of the design process of the grammar, without requiring the reformatting of existing rules or advocating the design of a singular Miesian grammar. The work concludes with a critical assessment of the sequences of the rule applications for the generation of complete courtroom floor plans. The contributions of the dissertation are (a) a generative description of Mies van der Rohe’s courthouse design language in the form of a shape grammar that is designed based on the final design of the Dirksen Courthouse and its design process documented in the Mies van der Rohe Archive at the Museum of Modern Art New York; (b) a formal reconstruction of the final courtroom floor plan of the courthouse; (c) an automated completion of the preliminary representations of key courtroom floor design variations from the design process of the courthouse; (d) a critical account on the significance of the design process of the courthouse in the contemporary courthouse design discourse with an emphasis on the innovative sectional idea of the courtrooms as an unrealized possibility in the making of the final courtroom floor plan, which still remains to be rediscovered in the designing of new courthouses; and (e) some speculations on the significance of the computational method developed for the research in the field of shape computation and on its potential role in bridging the gaps between sketching, diagramming, drafting, and modeling in the digital workflows of architects and designers.
Planning for a Climate Driven Implementation of Mobility Hubs on Georgia Tech’s Campus

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12) Murali, Malavika

Mobility hubs are an efficient and effective transportation solution that promotes connectivity and provides last-mile modal options for commuters and residents through integrating multi-modal transportation infrastructure in one convenient transitional space. In addition to encouraging place-making efforts and transforming cities with innovative technologies, mobility hubs are foundationally a strategy for addressing the climate change crisis, which is substantially driven by transportation related carbon and carbon-equivalent emissions. Therefore, a focus on a climate driven implementation of mobility hubs is pertinent to accomplishing the goal of reducing carbon emissions and creating resilient transportation infrastructure. This paper provides a case study analysis of best practice strategies for implementing mobility hubs from three institutions across the United States, which informs a review of Georgia Tech's plans for improving mobility on campus as outlined by the 2023 Comprehensive Campus Plan (CCP). This analysis is used to determine what elements are critical to creating resilient, sustainable, and accessible mobility hubs and to propose a climate driven approach to implementing the mobility plans of the institution. Through this analysis, 14 locations are identified for potential mobility hubs throughout campus that incorporate 11 sustainability and accessibility elements which are detailed in the paper.
Towards a Safer Atlanta: Identifying High-Priority Intersections for Leading Pedestrian Intervals

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2023-12) Mase, Heather

This study addresses the critical issue of pedestrian safety and the need to prioritize safety interventions in the City of Atlanta. It specifically focuses on leading pedestrian intervals (LPIs), which adjust signal timing to give pedestrians a head start when crossing the street at intersections. While traditional safety analyses rely primarily on historical collision data, this analysis takes a systemic and proactive approach to safety by incorporating risk factors such as roadway characteristics, the surrounding built environment, and socioeconomic characteristics of nearby residents. The primary objective of this research is to determine where LPIs should be implemented in the City of Atlanta by ranking and identifying high-risk intersections. The methods comprise of six major steps: (1) factor selection; (2) data collection; (3) database construction; (4) calculation of factor weights, using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP); (5) factor normalization and aggregation, involving scaled scores and weighting; and (6) determination of the final signalized intersection ranking for LPI implementation, based on a rank-order prioritization process. Results from this analysis reveal that many of the highest risk intersections are primarily concentrated around Downtown Atlanta and West Atlanta. The proposed data-driven framework provides a comprehensive and systematic approach to guide decision-makers and safety advocates in directing resources and support to intersections with the greatest need for pedestrian safety intervention. Overall, this research contributes to the advancement of safety, sustainability, and equity in the City of Atlanta.