Traci Rider

The built environment is associated with both physical activity behaviors and health outcomes such as obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and cancers. This association spans live, work, play, and learning environments. We propose to build upon groundwork already established for a community-based assessment to optimize community development, health behaviors and outcomes with the under-resourced Southeast Raleigh neighborhood. By looking at a unique joint elementary school (Southeast Raleigh Elementary School; SERES) and YMCA environment through lenses of public health and built environment, using a hybrid Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) and Health Impact Assessment (HIA), our partnership has established the mutual interest of understanding how this facility may impact the health of residents of an adjacent affordable housing development. “Understanding the relationship between how population groups experience “place” and the impact of “place” on health is fundamental to the social determinants of health-including both social and physical determinants.” Previous funding through the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (RWJF) Interdisciplinary Research Leaders (IRL) Program has supported exploring the health impacts of this joint facility on staff, students, and families of the elementary school. The present proposal outlines an extension of this actionable project – identified as an interest of the community and stakeholders – to explore differences between adjacent affordable housing residents with immediate access to this facility versus a matched affordable housing project three miles away without immediate access to a similar facility. The research question for this proposal is: How does the hybrid YMCA/SERES, and associated programming, support the wellbeing of Beacon Ridge affordable housing residents compared to Washington Terrace affordable housing residents?

The Interdisciplinary Research Leaders program is a 3-year partnership between two researchers and one community engagement entity with an intent to work toward new perspectives on building a culture of health. This project addresses a new school/ YMCA facility, exploring both the operations of the facility as well as its potential for being a catalyst for health within the specific vulnerable community.

Dense urban environments present significant challenges for access to natural light. Over the last 4 decades, the proposing research team has been extensively involved in: • Conceptualizing daylighting systems for buildings. • Measuring illuminance and luminance distributions in daylit spaces. • Assessing visual comfort in daylit spaces. • Assessing the energy implications of using natural light to illuminate buildings interiors. This proposal is to substantially extend our research into the areas of human perception and health, with an emphasis on the impact of urban density on access to daylight and views. The project aims to establish an interdisciplinary team and state-of-the-art facilities having the capability to assess advanced building glazing technologies in terms of light quantity, visual acuity, visual comfort, spatial perception, sense of well-being, and other health issues. The human factors associated with natural light can only be properly assessed experimentally, i.e., by allowing human beings to occupy, contemplate, and assess the luminous environment. A full-scale, experimental module will be constructed as the primary assessment tool. The facility would be used extensively in conjunction with an ongoing studio course at the NCSU School of Architecture: ARC 503—Advanced Architectural Design—Tall Building Design, which is in its seventh semester of being co-taught by Professor Place and key personnel from Skidmore Owings and Merrill. The research and design explorations of the students in that class can be further supplemented by taking the seminar class: ARC 521—Daylighting and Passive Energy Systems for Architecture (taught by Co-PI Professor Jianxin Hu).

The overall goal of the project is to develop a systematic framework and reusable education modules to teach undergraduate and graduate students about various standards and standards-based analytical tools related to green buildings and sustainable materials. Modules will be integrated into existing courses in the College of Natural Resources and the College of Design at NCSU. We will focus on maximizing the replicability of those modules in both traditional classroom environments as well as online learning so that they can be adapted by universities nation-wide. Webinars and workshops in conferences will be offered to broaden the impacts and promote the modules. Real-world case studies will be critical parts of the modules and developed through the PI’s research projects and support from project collaborators.

Multifamily developers in the United States have been slow to engage community health initiatives. This proposal explores methods of financial investments in community health through the perspectives of private multifamily development in the Southeast U.S. While connections between housing and health have long been recognized, there is a need for empirical evidence to inform private investment decisions within the real estate industry. To understand the complexity of this decision-making process, it is important to study specific cases in depth focusing on the questions of How and Why. This case study approach will use qualitative and quantitative data to inform the business case for leaders in multifamily real estate to invest in a culture of health across geographic markets. Two multifamily developers engaged in establishing healthy communities have agreed to be partners: Crescent Communities (NC) and LIFT Orlando. Data gathering methods will consist of participant interviews with decision makers in the selected cases, as well as assessments of construction costs, overviews of investment history, pro formas, etc. Quantitative metrics such as percent of construction costs, dollars invested, and metrics of targeted benefits, will be supported with thick descriptions from qualitative strategies, including interviews and document review. In addition, we have partnered with Trulia to obtain data on health marketing, rental pricing, vacancy rates, and rental tenure for all multifamily developments within the largest 58 cities in the Southeast. This project will establish a business case to encourage private multifamily developers to invest in community health. From this, developers can understand the relevant pros, cons, and context of private-sector investment decisions. Findings will further inform public policies addressing community health strategies included in new multifamily developments, as well as engage financial industry funders.

The NCSU School of Architecture’s LEED Lab course will be hosted in partnership with the University Sustainability Office and the University Facilities Division, with hands-on experiences for interdisciplinary students, as well as actionable benefits for operations of NC State’s campus. The overarching goals are to: (1) help NC State’s campus move toward greater efficiency in operations and maintenance; (2) provide generalizable efficiency strategies that can be implemented across the University’s building portfolio and possibly the region; and (3) engage interdisciplinary student teams in meaningful hands-on applications to explore and solve real-world problems. These goals have a dual focus to enrich campus operations while supporting students interested in entering built environment fields with skills, knowledge and expertise to be effective critical thinkers, engaged leaders, and team players. The course is unique in that it is hosted in partnership between academics and facilities, and that it is strategically interdisciplinary between engineering, architecture, and environmental sciences students. Representatives from the University Facilities Division engage actively in the course as guest speakers whenever possible, which is beneficial to both students and staff. This innovative and transformational approach to sustainability education greatly benefits both academic and operations sides of the University, and is generalizable.

The primary objective of this exercise is to engage citizens in the creation of an evidence-based concept plan to guide future development for the identified site. This process will connect citizens, town officials, and current and future user groups with the creation of a design roadmap for the property, to be assessed by the town to guide future construction, program expansion, and processes. The final deliverables will serve the town by providing both direction and support for fundraising, while the process itself facilitates the engagement of citizens.

The goal of the Building Energy Toolkit Program is to engage rural middle school students who are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) majors and careers in investigations related to energy use and their building environments. The Building Energy (BE) Toolkit Program delivers building science equipment, concepts, and engineering practices to high poverty middle school classrooms and then launches a school-wide Science & Engineering Fair in three of the district’s middle schools. The top 10 teams from each school’s Science & Engineering Fairs will compete at a district-wide Science & Engineering Fair, which will be attended by district administrators and judged by industry professionals, STEM faculty, and college students. This project will enhance middle school student comprehension and retention of important crosscutting science & engineering concepts through relevant investigations situated in the students’ local environments.

NCSU has yet to tap existing on-campus resources to build our capacity to be a leader in urban sustainability. Capitalizing on NCSU’s present strengths in the College of Design, the College of Natural Resources, the College of Engineering, and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences,this funding will establish a Sustainable Cities Consortium to allow the scattered expertise and interest at NCSU to become more relevant and powerful, solidifying NCSU’s position as a leader to address the growing emphasis on both opportunities and challenges in urbanized and rapidly urbanizing areas. A series of workshops at NCSU, engaging 30-50 NCSU faculty and staff, will be focused on establishing a well-documented network to address funding opportunities, as well as determining interdisciplinary topics for white papers and proposals. A collaborative project site will also be established through a reputable online tool to more quickly identify appropriate collaborators through their expertise areas to streamline collaborative responses to funding opportunities.

Lenoir County, located approximately half way between the capital city of Raleigh, North Carolina, and the Atlantic Coast, is poised to launch a regional revitalization effort based on the existing, underutilized, Kinston Global Transpark facility. This effort, focusing on increasing economic development opportunities through adaptive reuse of the airfield and its property, has the ultimate goal of job creation for both North Carolina citizens and returning military troops to nearby Fort Bragg. NCSU’s College of Design will collaborate with Lenoir County, surrounding counties, partners and stakeholders to strategically plan to increase capacity for tech training and manufacturing. By enabling the community to participate in the development of a conceptual regional infrastructure to support a flexible manufacturing hub, increased job growth, training, and community security, rural N.C. communities can better visualize, and execute, revitalization plans to support job creation and small business incubation in response to growing target markets. As North Carolina continues to grow its portfolios of agriculture, industry and manufacturing, there is incredible opportunity for Eastern North Carolina to position itself as a unique venue of opportunity.