Building Ecology: Examining Space/Place Dynamics in a Shared Indoor Environment

该项目研究建筑内部，以确定空间如何在不同用户的共享室内环境中成为有意义的地方。它提供了关于设计思维驱动有价值资源分布的方式的地理见解（例如，建筑物内的照明、家具、电子设备等资源的使用方式，不同的居住者如何使用资源并赋予其意义，资源使用如何受其他社会和环境变量的影响，以及这些关系如何受到对破坏的恢复力的影响。该项目建立在地理科学，文化人类学，复杂系统科学，计算机视觉，建筑和数学的理论基础上。它的数据收集系统建立了一个智能和互联的生活实验室，有可能扩展到其他项目。该项目还支持跨学科的本科和研究生教育以及多种形式的公共传播。该项目有助于解决建筑物的社会价值的研究领域不断增长。在美国，人们花大量的时间在室内生活和工作。因此，建筑物越来越多地被设计为促进某些行为，如运动，协作，创造力和社区。空间的设计和建造是希望它们成为对使用它们的人有意义的地方，但对空间到地方过程的概念理解仍然不发达。因此，这个纵向项目探讨了这一过程中的混合住宅/学术建筑，提供不同的功能。使用多种方法，包括基于传感器的技术，访谈和定性民族志，研究人员有多个目标。首先，研究探讨空间和资源是如何概念化，创建和分配的管理员和设计师。此外，研究人员还研究了资源使用的时间和地点，以及与资源使用相关的象征意义。该研究还探讨了与空间相关的使用和意义如何应对使用模式的中断。这项工作的结果可以帮助管理人员和设计师创造更多以人为本的共享室内空间，更有可能促进积极的成果。该项目还有助于学生培训和扩大科学参与。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project examines building interiors to identify how spaces become meaningful places in a shared indoor environment with diverse users. It provides geographic insights on the ways that design thinking drives the distribution of valuable resources (e.g., light, furniture, electronics) within buildings, how diverse occupants use resources and attach meaning to them, how resource use is also determined by other social and environmental variables, and how these relationships are affected by resilience to disruptions. This project builds on theories from geographical sciences, cultural anthropology, complex systems science, computer vision, architecture, and mathematics. Its data collection system establishes a smart and connected living-laboratory with potential to extend to other projects. This project also supports interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate education and multiple forms of public communication. This project contributes to a growing area of research that addresses the social value of buildings. In the United States, individuals spend high amounts of time living and working indoors. As a result, buildings are increasingly designed to promote certain behaviors such as movement, collaboration, creativity, and community. Spaces are designed and built with hopes that they become meaningful places to the people that use them, but conceptual understandings of the space-to-place process remains underdeveloped. Therefore, this longitudinal project examines this process within a mixed residential/academic building that serves diverse functions. Using multiple methods that include sensor-based technologies, interviews, and qualitative ethnography, the researchers have multiple objectives. First, the research examines how spaces and resources are conceptualized, created, and distributed by administrators and designers. In addition, the researchers study when and where resources are used, and what symbolic meanings are associated with their use. The study also examines how the uses and meanings related to spaces respond to disruptions in the patterns of use. The results of this work can help administrators and designers to create more human-centric shared indoor spaces with greater potential to facilitate positive outcomes. The project also contributes to student training and broadening participation in science.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.