CADC Seed Grants

These funds serve to advance faculty work that has the potential to secure external funding or yield visibility to the faculty and college through resulting work, including publications, exhibitions and fellowships. The application cycle typically opens in late Fall.

2024 Awardees

Christian Ayala Lopez, Jennifer Pindyck + Ryan Thomson
Family-Owned Rural Cooperative Housing

This research addresses the need for scalable generational housing models rooted in family-owned land, focusing on the Alabama Blackbelt and other rural areas. Building on Rural Studio and Front Porch Initiative’s work, it explores the challenges of Heirs Property and the social dynamics within kinship networks to inform a new architectural typology. This proposal seeks to focus on cooperative housing models as an instrument in addressing legal and financial frameworks, integrating expertise from architecture and rural sociology to inform policy and design.

Salman Azhar
AI-Driven Concrete Testing: Designing a Deep Learning Model for Accurate Workability (Slump) Assessment

The concrete slump test is essential for assessing the workability and consistency of a concrete mix before it is used on-site. This study aims to provide an alternative to the traditional slump test by developing a deep learning model that could predict concrete workability (or slump) without requiring a formal slump test. This approach could significantly decrease the time and labor involved in traditional slump testing, thus improving efficiency on construction sites.

Gwen Cohen
Soil Stories

Soil is memory. When we touch the soil or pick up a pebble, we connect to place. Soil holds human stories and the stories of our planet. Soil is alive. This close look at soil reveals the stories within a handful of soil.

Sarah Coleman + Isaac Cohen
Generative Care: Developing a Culturally Appropriate Maintenance Plan for Florence Indian Mound

In 2023, the city of Florence notified the Florence Indian Mound Museum that they would no longer provide maintenance services to the 1st century earthwork, citing the complexity and expense of mowing the Mound’s grass surface, which required maintenance workers to operate gas-powered equipment on its steep slopes. This challenge has afforded an opportunity to reconsider what the most culturally appropriate and generative approach to care for the Mound might be, inclusive of long-alienated descendant communities. Thus, four aims guide the development of a symposium and workshop that responds to this need: First, to develop a framework for convening conversations about site management that are inclusive of and shaped by descendant indigenous communities, for whom these sites are particularly meaningful. Second, to develop a culturally appropriate and sustainable maintenance plan for the Florence Indian Mound that will provide guidance to other managers of similar sites across the region. Third, to provide a venue that welcomes the public and reframes the site’s history as one that is ongoing, as an important public space with living cultural connections. Finally, we will establish a network of regional expertise through which evolving approaches will be shared.

Jake Elbrecht
Design for Disassembly: Exploring RFID and Blockchain Technology to Extend the Life of Mass Timber through Material Reuse

The built environment accounts for 49% of global carbon dioxide emissions, with 21% stemming from material manufacturing. Extending the lifespan of building materials through reuse is a key solution to reducing these emissions. A current challenge is ensuring manufacturer information can be shared with stakeholders decades later. Embedding RFID tags in mass timber products can store detailed manufacturing data, facilitating future building disassembly and material reuse.

Robert Finkel + Ellijah Gaddis
The Datcher Family of Shelby County: Six Generations of Black Landownership

This project will audit, curate, and develop exhibit materials and an interpretive experience at the Wallace Center for Art and Reconciliation in Harpersville, Alabama featuring the collection of local historian, Peter Datcher. Over the last twenty-five years, Mr. Datcher has assembled a remarkable collection of artifacts relating to the African American history of Shelby County, Alabama. Farm and store ledgers, family, slave schedules and census records, land deeds, and a dizzying array of other materials currently crowd the makeshift museum that he’s made in his family home. This collection sits on the same land that Mr. Datcher’s family has farmed for two hundred years, first as enslaved people, and since 1879, as its owners. This collection is the most comprehensive record of a single Black rural family in Alabama, and perhaps the South as a whole.

Aurelie Frolet + Emily McGlohn
Imaging Underground: Visually Illustrating Wastewater Systems to Inform and Empower Black Belt Communities

“Imaging Underground” centers on producing new, clear, and educational visualizations illuminating health, environmental, and monetary challenges of standard septic systems in the Black Belt. Drawings will also show alternative, healthier, on-site solutions, like the decentralized cluster system operation. Our team will translate this “science information” into clear visuals and explanations to empower individuals to advocate for themselves, contribute to their communities through civic engagement, and drive political change. We will disseminate and communicate this information via the Rural Studio website, an online paper through ACES, and an exhibition at the Hale County Library.

David Hill
Cypress Nature Preserve

Students from the Landscape Architecture Program at Auburn University are working to transform an existing 250-acre parcel of land in Montgomery into a public nature preserve. Students will first identify and design the installation, which is intentionally described as a plant-based intervention, meaning that it would predominantly be focused on weeding, thinning, removing particular species in the current mix while seeding and planting new plants. The intervention will also intentionally focus on the location and establishment of a trail network through the site, making it possible for the larger public to experience this incredible “urban wild.” The proposed intervention will together increase the preserve’s capacity to 1.) improve community health, 2.) provide ecological education, and 3.) offer nature-based play opportunities. This particular grant proposal is intended to help advance this initiative by providing funding for a tool trailer.

Il Kim
Early Rural Studio Archival Project

This research and archival project will collect, documents, and saves oral histories of early Rural Studio participants and preserves Rural Studio project-related drawings and artifacts at the newly established Early Rural Studio Archive of Auburn University Library.

Junshan Liu + Danielle Willkens
Field Work for Digital Documentation and Heritage Tourism Management of the Historic Nigua Sugar Mill, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

This project aims to conduct an advanced digital documentation and heritage management initiative for the historic Nigua Sugar Mill (Boca de Nigua), Dominican Republic, using Reality Capture (RC), including Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS), Matterport 3D system, drone-based photogrammetry, Heritage Building Information Modeling (HBIM). This project will build on the previous successful collaborations between the PI with researchers from Georgia Tech and the Polytechnic University of Valencia (UPV) in Valencia, Spain. This Seed Grant funding will help the team secure external funding from sources such as USAID and local agencies in the Dominican Republic.

Emily Knox, William Shivers and Kiel Moe
Auburn Forest First Futures

This grant will support three forest and timber-focused faculty representing the departments of architecture and landscape architecture to begin developing a forest-first, non-extractive approach to the future of Alabama forests, timber products and timber buildings. The forest-first studies will document Alabama’s forest types, their natural and managed histories, physiological dynamics, risks and projected futures, ultimately taking the form of a series of drawings and models. The grantwork will culminate with the production of an exhibit and workshop, using these initial forest-first studies to more publicly consider the role of landscape architecture in thinking around timber futures.

Junshan Liu
Data Collection and Analysis for the Sustainable Preservation of Cultural Heritage Sites in Petra, Jordan

This proposal presents a collaborative research endeavor between the CADC and Georgia Tech, focused on assessing tourism and environmental impacts on UNESCO World Heritage sites in Petra, Jordan. The study uses advanced survey techniques, including 3D LiDAR scanning and photogrammetry to provide a comprehensive understanding of Petra’s vulnerabilities to inform future preservation efforts. The initiative advances research and scholarship in building science and architecture and leverages established partnerships for larger grant opportunities from agencies such as US AID and UNESCO.

Ben Marshall + Emily McGlohn
Particulate Matter Exposure Due to Kitchen Fume Hood Use Patterns

We request funding to develop a post-occupancy study to measure how cooking fumes affect indoor air quality in small homes, especially focusing on understanding the barriers to proper fume hood use. This research is important because particulate matter has been shown to negatively affect occupant health especially in low-income communities. We will share our findings with participants, Rural Studio, Front Porch Initiative, and ACES along with the International Society of Indoor Air Quality both at their conference and through their journal (Indoor Environments).

Cait McCarthy
Micro Micro: The Microenvironments and Microclimates of Birmingham

Micro Micro aims to develop a methodology for measuring and visualizing the microenvironments and microclimates of Birmingham, Alabama in order to provide a site-specific understanding of local conditions. While citywide environmental data is readily accessible, it lacks important nuances that can have significant social, political, economic, and health implications for diverse neighborhoods and communities. This project will involve designing, prototyping, and testing a device to gather site-specific climate data, along with producing a series of geo-spatial drawings that reinterpret the collected information.

Verena Paepcke-Hjeltness
Human Factors for Industrial Designers

Human factors for Industrial Designers Development of illustrations for a book taking a new point of view on: The Measure of Men & Women by Henry Dreyfuss Associates, authored by Prof. Dr. Isabel Prochner

Jennifer Pindyck, Rusty Smith + Margaret Fletcher
Rural Studio, Front Porch; a full length documentary

The request for SEED funding is for the initial stages of the development of a full-length in-depth documentary about the work of Rural Studio and Front Porch Initiative, along with external partners. The film will highlight the challenges in rural America, the systems we operate in, and the teams’ response.

Amna Salman
Research Framework Development for Affordable Housing Initiatives: Exploring Modular Home Construction Through Site Visits to Onx Homes (Florida) and MiTek Homes (Maryland)

A need for rapid, resilient housing solutions is becoming increasingly urgent in the face of natural disasters. Offsite modular construction offers a promising alternative, with its ability to streamline the building process, ensuring faster deployment of durable homes in disaster-stricken areas. This proposal outlines a framework development approach for affordable housing initiatives by exploring modular home construction through site visits to Onx Homes in Florida and MiTek Homes in Maryland. . This exploration will lay the groundwork for an extramural research proposal development for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) under the “Increasing the Supply of Affordable Housing through Off-Site Construction and Pro-Housing Reforms Research” grant program.

Ken Sands, Anoop Sattineni + Ayodele Fasoyinu
Assessing the Efficacy and Worker Perceptions of Wearable Interventions for Heat Safety in High-Risk Construction Trades: A Pilot Investigation

This project investigates the use of wearable technologies to mitigate heat stress among construction workers, a critical yet often overlooked hazard. Through pilot testing and structured feedback, the study will assess the usability, comfort, and effectiveness of a variety of wearable devices in high-risk trades. Findings will provide actionable insights to enhance safety protocols, reduce heat-related risks, and inform the design of future wearable technologies. The research team plans to disseminate results through peer-reviewed publications and conferences, while using this insight toward future grant opportunities with agencies such as the CPWR.

Devon Ward
Visualizing The Future of Environmental Stewardship: Integrating AI, smart contracts and remote sensing technologies.

The aim of this research proposal is to support the development of new creative works that seeks to visualize and embody the concept of environmental personhood—a legal innovation that grants rights and responsibilities to natural entities such as rivers and forest. By utilizing experimental illustrations, collages, and printmaking techniques, this new body of work will showcase design scenarios that reimagine the future of environmental stewardship using methods from Speculative Design.

Eric Wetzel + Ken Sands
Onsite Detection and Alert Security System

Construction site security is a critical issue, as sites are highly vulnerable to theft, vandalism, and unauthorized access due to their lack of physical security – often just a site fence and signage. The need for easily repositionable, inexpensive, off-line, and reliable preventative security would serve a wide population of project sites. This proposal will attempt to build an onsite detection and alert security system using a “monitoring system,” Raspberry Pi, two infrared (IR) cameras, a speaker, and a custom rectangular housing.