Seven faculty members from the divisions of Regional and City Planning, Architecture and Interior Design were recently awarded funding through Gibbs College’s Program for Research Enhancement. These grants of up to $6,500 are available to full-time faculty members of Gibbs College to support their research and creative activities. Read on to learn more about the funded proposals.
Evaluating Community Engagement Strategies in Innovation Districts: A Case Study of Oklahoma City Innovation District (OKC-ID)
Principal Investigators: Ladan Mozaffarian, assistant professor of Regional and City Planning, and John Harris, director and graduate liaison of Regional and City Planning.
Cities have been trying to promote innovation and creativity in their economies by adopting different urban development models in recent years. One of the most common and fast-growing models is the “Innovation District,” which is a topic of interest for scholars, policymakers and urban planners. However, Innovation Districts may also have some negative impacts on society, such as increasing inequality, gentrification, displacement and exclusion among different groups. These impacts have been mentioned in literature, but not from the perspective of the communities themselves. This study aims to address two questions: 1) How and to what extent are communities engaged in the different phases of ID development and operation? 2) How do policymakers respond to the adverse social consequences of IDs on local communities? This study uses qualitative methods, including document retrieval, content analysis and surveying community members, and examines these questions in the Oklahoma City Innovation District. Moreover, this study conducts socio-spatial analysis to evaluate how the OKC-ID has affected the marginalized communities within the Innovation District boundaries. This study can provide policymakers with insights on how to address the possible negative effects of IDs on communities.
Outré West: The American School of Architecture from Oklahoma to California
Principal Investigators: Christopher Loofs, Robert L. Wesley Teaching Fellow, and Amber Sarmiento, Violeta Autumn Teaching Fellow
The American School Project aims to celebrate the long-overlooked history of the truly original design pedagogy and practices that emerged at the University of Oklahoma in the 1940s, which continues to inspire architectural practice around the world today. Outré West: The American School of Architecture from Oklahoma to California is a collaborative effort between six faculty spanning the disciplines of Interior Design and Architecture that aims to study and showcase the diverse range of work by seven American School architects: Bruce Goff, Violetta Autumn, Herb Greene, Mickey Muennig, John Marsh Davis, Donald MacDonald, and Arthur Dyson. This exhibition will be the first-ever Architecture-themed exhibition to be hosted by Oklahoma’s premiere contemporary art museum, the Oklahoma Contemporary Arts Center. Outré West will make the team’s scholarly work available to the Oklahoma Contemporary’s thousands of visitors, beginning in August 2024 and running for five months. Thereafter, the exhibition will travel to the Center for Architecture + Design in San Francisco. This PRE grant will support research and travel to meet with Dyson and MacDonald, two of the most prolific architects of the seven selected, and visit their works in California in preparation for this exhibition.
Convergence of Architecture, Material Science and Mechanical Engineering: Hybrid Responsive Facade System
Principal Investigator: Negar Matin, assistant professor of Interior Design
This study focuses on simulating, fabricating and evaluating a designed hybrid-responsive facade to improve visual comfort and, consequently, energy efficiency of the buildings. The system comprises hybrid facade modules constructed from transparent materials coated with smart photochromic coatings, complemented by mechatronic components, including sensors and actuators, that enable individual module movement in response to light conditions. Two types of control technology could be utilized to manage the movement of facade modules: cluster control technology and individual control technology. Supported by PRE grants received in the 2021-2022 academic year, OU HIPA fabricated the hybrid-responsive facade using CCT technology, which is under consideration for a US patent. Considering the drawbacks of CCT technology, HIPA proposed a new hybrid facade system developed using ICT technology to control each facade module individually. The proposed ICT technology can improve the facade’s visual performance, since each model is equipped with its own sensor, actuator and controller. As a result, maximum movement efficiency would be expected for facade modules in response to possible in-point changes in light intensity. This proposal will assist the HIPA lab in designing, simulating, fabricating and testing the proposed responsive facade with its smart-coated modules. The final prototype with ICT technology can facilitate the HIPA lab’s path to file its second patent. Zhina Rashidzadeh, a third-year PhD student at Gibbs College and a member of the HPIA lab, will also be involved in this project under the supervision of Matin, her Ph.D. advisor.
Anne Tyng’s Child Architecture: Play Modules for Building Spaces
Principal Investigator: Tamar Zinguer, assistant professor of Architecture
Sensory Psychophysics applied to the Perception of Architectural Proportion
Principal Investigator: Tiziana Proietti, assistant professor of Interior Design and Architecture
The project is an interdisciplinary research endeavor that bridges the fields of Architecture and neuroscience. We engage in authentic scientific research with Architecture as our focal point. Built on my decades-long research on architectural proportion, we reexamine architectural proportion from a groundbreaking perspective. Our focus is on understanding how people experience architectural proportion in real-life situations and how modern advancements in the sciences of human perception and behavior can shed light on these experiences. We have developed a program of experimental studies that aim to investigate how humans discriminate and perceive proportions of 3D objects under conditions of movement and perspective distortion. In addition to conducting experiments, we are concurrently developing a teaching format titled “Vision Training for Designers.” Informed by our scientific findings, this program equips students with the skills to discern proportion and apply it effectively in their design work. The PRE grant will support the hiring of undergraduate research assistants to contribute to the research conducted at Sense|Base Lab.
Controlling and Repairing Concrete Cracks
Principal Investigator: Shideh Shadravan, associate director and associate professor of Architecture
One of the major issues with concrete is cracking, which is caused by shrinkage, expansion and overloading. The most common cause of concrete cracking is shrinkage, which is caused by the evaporation of water in the concrete mix. If these cracks are not controlled and repaired, they can significantly reduce the strength, resilience, durability, productivity and performance of concrete. This study focuses on techniques that utilize materials like Calcium Sulfoaluminate Cement to control cracks as well as new materials and techniques of self-healing concrete. This research is based on a test program that characterizes cracks, tests selected concrete materials and evaluates their strength and performance. The program includes compression tests (ASTM C39), drying shrinkage tests (ASTM C157), shrinkage tests for compensating cement concrete (C878) and flexural strength of concrete tests (ASTM C78). This research will provide unique data due to the combination of ASTM standard tests and the use of new materials and techniques of self-healing concrete.
Featured Image: Top row (left to right): John Harris, Ladan Mozaffarian, Tamar Zinguer and Shideh Shadravan. Bottom row (left to right): Christopher Loofs, Amber Sarmiento, Negar Matin and Tiziana Proietti.