Using Anthropometric Measurements to Design Ergonomic Infant and Toddler Gear

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-12-05) Pardue, Emily Louisa

Infants grow so quickly that gear can have a shockingly short life span. Parents often do a quick calculation before purchases: divide the cost by how many months it will be used. Thus, products that are meant to “grow-with-me” or last for multiple infant stages are extremely desirable. Infant-to-toddler rockers are an example of this type of product. However, the researchers have found that the current infant-to-toddler rocker models on the market could be improved. The goal of this project was to use anthropometric data of children to design an ergonomic infant-to-toddler rocker. Anthropometric data was collected on 58 children in order to properly size a new design for a rocker which lasts from 0 to 36 months old. Researchers also found based on parent interviews, a survey, and child interactions, that the needs of infants are very different from the needs of toddlers. Infants are still developing muscle tone, and it is important for them to be supported in a semi-reclined position. Toddlers are extremely active and need a device which allows them to ingress and egress independently. Concepts were developed, and prototypes built to demonstrate the new concepts. These prototypes were then tested with parents and children to gather feedback and improve designs. The final design is an ergonomic rocker which adjusts in size and recline angle to serve the infants that need to be secure and reclined, as well as the ambulatory toddlers.
Backstage Staff Communication: The Effects of Different Levels of Visual Exposure to Patients

( 2019-11-21) Lim, Lisa ; Kanfer, Ruth ; Stroebel, Robert J. ; Zimring, Craig

Objective: This article examines how visual exposure to patients predicts patient-related communication among staff members. Background: Communication among healthcare professionals private from patients, or backstage communication, is critical for staff teamwork and patient care. While patients and visitors are a core group of users in healthcare settings, not much attention has been given to how patients' presence impacts staff communication. Furthermore, many healthcare facilities provide team spaces for improved staff teamwork, but the privacy levels of team areas significantly vary. Method: This article presents an empirical study of four team-based primary care clinics where staff communication and teamwork are important. Visual exposure levels of the clinics were analyzed, and their relationships to staff members' concerns for having backstage communication, including preferred and nonpreferred locations for backstage communication, were investigated. Results: Staff members in clinics with less visual exposure to patients reported lower concerns about having backstage communication. Staff members preferred talking in team areas that were visually less exposed to patients in the clinic, but, within team areas, the level of visual exposure did not matter. On the other hand, staff members did not prefer talking in visually exposed areas such as corridors in the clinic and visually exposed areas within team spaces. Conclusions: Staff members preferred talking in team areas, and they did not prefer talking in visually exposed areas. These findings identified visually exposed team areas as a potentially uncomfortable environment, with a lack of agreement between staff members' preferences toward where they had patient-related communication.
A methodological assessment of extreme heat mortality modeling and heat vulnerability mapping in Atlanta, Detroit, and Phoenix

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-11-12) Mallen, Evan Sheppard

Extreme temperatures pose an increasingly high risk to human health and are projected to worsen in a warming climate with increased intensity, duration and frequency of heat waves, further amplified by the urban heat island, in the coming decades. To mitigate heat exposure and protect sensitive populations, urban planners are increasingly using decision support tools like heat vulnerability indices (HVIs) to identify high priority areas for intervention and investment. However, HVIs often capture only proxy heat exposure indicators at the land surface level, not air temperatures that humans experience, and are highly subjective in their construction methodology. This gap can be filled using regional climate models like the Weather Research & Forecasting (WRF) model to simulate air temperatures comprehensively over a city, coupled with a heat exposure-response function to objectively estimate mortality attributable to heat. But this method is often beyond the capabilities of local planning departments due to limitations in funding or technical expertise to run the model. Careful consideration of decision support tool selection will be an important factor in determining the future resilience of urban populations in a changing climate. Through a comparative analysis, this study investigates the relationship and utility of HVIs and spatial statistical attribution models with a focus on 1) the extent to which HVI methods can replicate spatial prioritization from a WRF-driven mortality model; 2) the relative significance of place-based vulnerabilities used in the HVI; and 3) the potential to reliably replicate a WRF-driven mortality model using publicly available datasets. This information can help urban planners and public health officials improve their emergency response plans and communication strategies for heat mitigation by specifically targeting short and long-term responses where there is greatest need. These techniques equip planners with a useful and accessible tool to protect vulnerable populations effectively and efficiently with minimal public funds and could advance the policies we use to adapt to a changing climate.
Building Equity: Lessons in Sustainability from Community to College Campuses

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-11-08) Hernández, Diana

Buildings represent a middle ground between high-level and small-scale infrastructure. For this reason, they embody specific factors at the intersection of equity and opportunity. For example, recent studies show a correlation between energy efficiency upgrades, usually of interest only to the landlord; and the likelihood of tenant financial burdens and disconnection notices for energy bills. Correlations such as these at the building scale can help reveal otherwise unseen implications of transitions to less environmentally impactful energy technologies. The idea of “just transitions” will be explored in this context, as will comparative approaches from different segments of the US population from college campuses to community settings.
Introducing New Voices in Design Research, Fall 2019

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-11-08) Oh, HyunJoo ; Raymond, Elora ; Roark, Ryan

New faculty members in the College of Design share their research.
Building the Carbon Positive City: Architectural Experiments in Mass Timber and Bio-Diversity

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-11) Marble, Scott ; Organschi, Alan ; Yocum, David ; Dortdivanlioglu, Hayri

This book documents the architectural projects produced in the Portman Prize Studio in the Spring 2019. 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.
Lecture by Bast

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-10-23) Bast

BAST is an architecture firm based in Toulouse, who won the 2019 EU Mies "Young Talent, Architecture” award. The firm takes an anonymous approach and a proactive research posture adopted to experiment with the diverse potentialities of each project. BAST will discuss their current work in a lecture.
History Machines: The Deviant Practice of Inhabiting Information

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-10-16) Kallipoliti, Lydia

The tentative term “history machine” is a medium of immersive scholarship lingering between reality and fiction, with which I examine, redesign, and reimagine archives. I see archives, not as static objects that contain historical documents, but as immersive spaces and living collections where existential ideas about world orders migrate though different architectural and spatial typologies. Contrary to a linear text, a reconfigured archive allows multiplicity, simultaneity and disruption. It allows the reader to travel between different times, places and objects of investigation, enabling multiple connections and complex affinities between themes, concepts and ideas that are not limited to a single place, era, author or type. A reconfigured archive can produce new interconnected categories out of archival boxes, a universe of multitudes that does not necessarily need to be transcribed in linear time. I see the use of history as a creative and generative medium for contemporary concerns in design education and practice; one that does not only promote public engagement with historical material, but also makes evident that in the history of ideas, discourses get recycled. Concepts emerge as allegedly new, though ideas undergo long journeys of migration from one epistemological field to another.
Living at the Intersection of Design and Analytics

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-10-02) Greco, Joseph ; Case, James (Jim) W. ; Kingsley, Alissa ; Mowinski, Todd ; Williams, Matthew

The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design was born out of an ambitious partnership between The Kendeda Fund and the Georgia Institute of Technology, focused on making exemplary change in how design and technology are used to create better environmental outcomes. It is the most environmentally advanced education and research building constructed in the Southeast to date- with a specific intent for aspects of the project to be transformative, inspiring- and replicable. Designing a successful Living Building Challenge project is by definition and necessity a challenging, collaborative and integrated endeavor. The highly integrated partnership of the Design Team mirrored the Client relationship. Lord Aeck Sargent and the Miller Hull Partnership along with an innovative and experienced consulting Team developed a Design Process that combined human creativity with technical analytics in virtual lockstep from beginning to end. The lecture will chronical the process and path used to design the facility where Georgia Tech will lead, educate and transform thought in the area of ecology and regenerative buildings. Further, the building itself is designed to inspire research and create aspects of replicability for other building owners, designers and constructors in the Southeast. The design process itself can serve as a roadmap for future Living Buildings. The Kendeda Building is designed for place, climate, culture and the diverse programmatic needs of a broad interdisciplinary set of users. It is designed to seamlessly integrate into and enhance the Eco Commons. The process of design for site and landscape, daylighting, waste water treatment strategies, active/passive approaches to solar, urban agriculture, integrated building mechanical systems, building structure, interior materials and cladding choices- with embodied carbon, health, equity and the human condition all as considerations- will be chronicled.
Decision Analytics in Design and Construction

(Georgia Institute of Technology, 2019-09-26) Aflatoony, Leila ; Ashuri, Baabak ; Bartlett, Chris M. ; Rakha, Tarek

Decision analytics stands to have a profound impact on how design and construction disciplines are woven together to solve today's most complex problems. Rigorous data collection and analysis are core to design and construction decision making. The nature of analysis is to study complexity and deduce a reasonable summary that will then inform design and construction decisions. Decision analytics is distinguished from analysis by the emphasis on causality and prediction. The proliferation of computing power and access to rich data sets has driven innovation in the analytics tools market, lowering the barrier for entry to powerful analytics tools for designers and constructors. This means that decision-makers can more accurately identify causality and leverage the predictive power of analytics to inform design and construction decisions that anticipate and solve for problems much further into the future. Opportunities are growing to align decision analytics across multiple disciplines to minimize economic waste, maximize energy efficiencies, and enhance the lives of individuals and communities. An intuitive example of this opportunity lies in new building design and construction. Construction Analytics is a distinctive discipline, bridging the fields of building construction, civil and environmental engineering, economics, and operations research. Designers and decision-makers use descriptive analytics to identify indicators to cost overruns, diagnostic analytics to predict construction market resiliency after natural disasters, predictive analytics to identify future building trends, and prescriptive analytics to optimize resource allocation during construction projects. Building performance analytics explores various performance measures linked to building energy investigations, including measuring existing building performance through detailed audits to achieve substantial energy savings in deteriorating infrastructures, as well as simulating and visualizing new building and urban energy-flows to formulate informed design decisions empowered by data analytics for a sustainable and energy efficient future. In the example of new hospital construction, human-centered analytics can produce powerful insights and unlock empathy for the people (pediatric doctors, nurses, patients) who actively use the hospital space. Merging and visualizing several sources of quantitative and qualitative data draws out causality and enables predictive decision making aimed at improving the experience and performance of the people using the space.