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Psychologies of public interiority expand upon the characteristics of human perception and emotion. It considers the relationship between interiority and perception by beginning at the scale of the body, expanding into the near built environment, and continuing into the city as a whole. By fusing psychologies and body-space interactions, we understand interiority as a psychological condition, not just a space inside a building. Sympathetic interactions and energies between two people (or between a person and the environment) generate public interiority. These relational forces encounter and shape our perception of “inside-feeling” places. Psychological public interiorities are one part formal, one part perceptive.

Forms of public interiority study building characteristics that contribute to interiority in the public realm, amongst urban morphology, geography, and interior architectural theory. Form-based interiorities are not merely loosely arranged voids and surfaces. To experience an interior, we must perceive an internal spatial volume. Are we experiencing interiority when on a city sidewalk, sitting under an overhang? Or when walking between a snow berm and a building façade?

Atmospheres of interiority address various spectacles, ambiances, and impermanent conditions that produce transient forms of public interiority. Understanding the conception of the interior as a contingent situation, this work interprets phenomenological experiences and contextualizes meteorological forms of interiority. It tests ways that experiences, energies, atmospheres, microclimates, and senses demarcate interiority in the urban outdoors.

Public exteriors rely on usage and program to define interiority. What activities regularly occur only in the interior? If these uses move to the exterior, does the exterior realm automatically become a condition of public interiority, or does it need additional ingredients like obscured views, acoustic regulation, and shading devices to fulfil this classification? Activities like sleeping, toilet use, and intimacy are socially acceptable in private interiors. Other interior-typical activities frequently occur indoors but are socially acceptable outside—cooking, studying, watching TV, reading, working, or playing.

The politics of design in public interiority considers any type of societal institution that enacts rules or encourages specific ways of being in groups and individuals- any policy, network, association, or mode of production. These political acts involving design operate at the periphery of our ordinary conception of interiors and interiority. While the limits of politics forever unfold, public interiority is bounded by lived experience and place. This work is oriented toward the everyday human condition, sustainability, and the need for safe, healthy spaces in urban exterior-interior settings.

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At its core, the project supports users in designing with aging in mind—not only for older adults today but for our collective future selves. Rather than directly challenging ageist assumptions, the curated body of work within the site offers tools, frameworks, and examples that invite users to reflect on and expand their understanding of age-inclusive design. The resources aim to foster more equitable, joyful, and imaginative approaches to designing across the lifespan, where aging is recognized as a valuable and ongoing human experience.��

Importantly, the project reframes aging not as a design problem to be solved, but as a design opportunity to be embraced—one that allows us to imagine and build futures that are inclusive, beautiful, and responsive to who we are and who we are becoming.��

The Design for Aging Resources website was made possible through the support of the James Johnson Dudley Faculty Scholar Award. This funding enabled national travel to leading interdisciplinary aging labs across the country—spaces where design, health, engineering, and gerontology intersect to support innovation in aging. Through conversations with key stakeholders and observations of these forward-thinking environments, it became clear that while many resources for designing for older adults exist, they are often difficult to find, scattered across disciplines, and not always accessible to those outside specific fields. Inspired by websites such as Ethical Design Resources and The People’s Graphic Design Archive, this project responds to that gap—curating, organizing, and showcasing aging-related design resources in a centralized, searchable format.

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The post The Nuclear Chronicles: Design Research on the Landscapes of the U.S. Nuclear Highway appeared first on College of Architecture + Design.

Large scale additive manufacturing in polymer was developed a decade ago by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The UT Institute for Smart Structures has been studying this technology as part of its mission to research the architectural application of emerging materials. Throughout that time the Institute has partnered with regional industry on a series of full-scale, student designed and built projects that explore the opportunities and constraints of 3D-printed polymer. Partners have included Local Motors and Loci Robotics and projects have ranged from a screen wall mimicking the fine structure of bone to a reception desk inspired by the geometry of lace veil mushrooms. Each of these projects contributed to developing insight into the applications of LSAM, the use of computer aided design to apply lessons learned from biological precedents, and to building a regional expertise in the expanding industry of 3D printing with recyclable polymer.

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This project explores agricultural landscapes in the Colombian Andes and the southern Appalachians – two biodiverse hotspots and wildlife migratory nodes – to investigate how landscape planning and design can support both humans and more-than-humans in the face of climate impacts and biodiversity loss. While agriculture and conservation might seem at odds with each other, humans worldwide sustain their families while providing habitat and forage for other species. However, if human developments expand and reduce structural and functional landscape heterogeneity, other species lose critical habitat. As climate risks intensify and become increasingly unpredictable, areas with microhabitats and cooler elevations – such as the Appalachians and Colombian Andes – will serve as climate refugia for many species. The ways in which humans shape these landscapes will play a crucial role in fostering resilience for people, plants, and wildlife alike.����

Project Description:����

My research focuses particularly on neotropical migrating birds that breed in the southern Appalachia region and head to Colombia during their non-breeding season. Historically, these birds’ relationships to their non-breeding grounds have been understudied and are still not widely understood. However, the scientific community does acknowledge that these birds can be widely found in certain agricultural lands, such as Smithsonian Bird Friendly certified coffee and cocoa farms. To be certified, farms need to be certified organic, have an average of ten shade tree species per hectare, have 60% or more native trees, have an average canopy cover of at least 30% for cocoa and 40% for coffee. Additionally, it is recommended that farmers allow leaves to accumulate on the ground as they nourish soils and support structural canopy diversity. Different canopy zones allow birds to create habitat and find forage. In return, birds eat the coffee borer beetle, an insect that can wreak havoc on coffee crops. Birds don’t eat the coffee berry as it is astringent and fruit trees are already present for their gastronomic delight.��

In the fall of 2024, I traveled to Smithsonian Bird Friendly certified coffee farms in Colombia and was mesmerized by the sights, sounds, and scents of the landscape. While traveling, I learned that some farmers struggle to obtain certification as they live in cloudy areas where additional shade would obstruct much-needed sunlight for their crops. In response, the Smithsonian Bird Friendly program adapted its certification criteria, allowing farmers who cannot grow trees within their coffee parcels to instead retain nearby native forest patches within the landscape. Next fall, I plan to return to Colombia and visit farms in high cloud cover regions where farmers integrate a spectrum of bird and biodiversity friendly practices.��

This summer, I plan to speak with farmers across southern Appalachia who are collaborating with regional conservancies to integrate bird habitat. I’m especially looking forward to observing birds like the golden-winged warbler during their breeding season. Studying Appalachian and Colombian central Andes landscapes will help me better understand spatial parameters and conditions that can support both working lands and bird habitat. In turn, I aim to make drawings that clarify these complex relationships, making them more accessible to designers, policy makers, and farmers. These drawings will foreground the need to frame working landscapes not merely as high-production machines, but as intelligent and nuanced systems with the potential to sustain a rich diversity of life.����

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