UWSpace
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Recent Submissions
Rethinking Waste(d) Realities
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-16) Jain, Vanshika
Historically marginalized in urban consciousness, waste in the Global South occupies a complex and layered terrain visible in its overwhelming presence, yet systematically excluded from narratives of progress, design, and planning. In New Delhi, this contrast is embodied in Ghazipur’s so-called “trash mountain” - a towering monument to systemic negligence and infrastructural collapse. A measure first conceived as a temporary solution has evolved into a permanent fixture, reflecting the city’s dependence on centralized, extractive waste systems. The precarious and undervalued labor of informal waste pickers, the toxicity of the air, and the stagnation of land without a future all demonstrate how the silence around waste is not only logistical but deeply spatial, ecological, and political.
This thesis reframes waste as a spatial urban condition and explores overlooked opportunities for renewal. It proposes a decentralized, multi-scalar system where linear waste streams become circular and burdened sites become catalysts of transformation. The transformation of the Ghazipur trash mountain is envisioned as a gradual unmaking rather than erasure. Through temporal and ecological interventions, the site shifts from dumpsite to regenerative landscape. Currently a monument to systemic failure, Ghazipur is reimagined through a multi-scalar strategy consisting of citywide zoning and redesigned waste infrastructure with localized material recovery facility, a neighborhood pilot combining waste infrastructure and public commons, and site-specific remediation of the 70-meter-high landfill through bioremediation, phytoremediation, and constructed wetlands. Together, these interventions restore ecology, recover resources, and reinsert the site into public life, while making visible the labor that sustains it.
Rethinking Waste(d) Realities builds on currents already visible in Indian cities beyond Delhi. Biomining initiatives, decentralized collection systems, and growing legal and civic pressure to remediate landfills point to a real appetite for systemic change. This thesis positions design within that momentum, showing how architecture and landscape can help reorganize waste from crisis to resource.
Multisensory Immersion in Architectural Virtual Reality: Effects of Visual and Auditory Cues
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-16) Jeon, Jikyung
The evolution of architectural representation has progressed
from traditional analog methods such as hand-drawing to contemporary
digital technologies like Virtual Reality (VR) which emerges as the
latest architectural representation in spatial visualization and client
communication. However, current implementations of architectural VR
heavily focus on visual presentation, potentially underutilizing the capacity
for comprehensive multisensory experiences that could significantly
enhance users to have comprehensive understanding and more
engagement within proposed space.
This paper investigates the role of spatial auditory effects in
enhancing architectural VR experiences and examines how multisensory
(particularly visual and auditory cues) design approaches can improve
user engagement and spatial communication effectively. Through a
comprehensive three-part methodology, this research addresses critical
gaps in current architectural VR representations which visual-only
approaches represent partial utilization of the contemporary potential of
technology.
In PART 1, through trend extrapolation from historical evolution,
‘what’s the next?’ was predicted that architects should utilize architectural
VR representation to prepare for emerging technological paradigms. The
analysis of various contemporary precedents in the architectural field
shows that current architectural VR implementations primarily focus
on providing better visualization and virtual experiences to clients and
stakeholders, while insufficient attention is on multisensory architectural
VR applications.
PART 2 introduces the cognitive foundation for sound integration in
architectural representation and explains the necessity of applying spatial
audio to architectural VR presentations for enhanced communication. This
part outlines specific acoustic properties such as attenuation, overlapping,
and diffraction and shows their potential applications in architectural
design visualization. This foundation demonstrates how these properties
can enhance the awareness of relationships in spatial hierarchy, active
zones, and connectivity.
PART 3 presents experimental validation through repeated measures
with 38 participants experiencing three conditions: PC-based non-VR,
visual-only VR, and both visual and auditory VR. The results demonstrate
progressive increases in participants’ voluntary engagement, with
multisensory VR achieving 198.1% improvement in play time compared to
traditional PC-based presentation.
These findings provide architects experiment results based on
numerical evidence and encourage them utilizing multisensory integration
as fundamental to effective VR representations rather than optional
enhancement. This research contributes to architectural practice by
providing measurable advantages of comprehensive sensory experience in
VR-based communication and spatial understanding.
Visual Standards in Aviation: Implications for Safety, Performance, and Training Assessment
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-16) Lynch, Allison
Objectives: The goal of this thesis was to provide evidence to either support the current aviation visual medical standards or to begin to define new ones. Two aspects of vision (visual acuity and contrast sensitivity) were intentionally degraded to assess their effects on flight performance. Four experiments were conducted that examined this topic. Experiment one assessed the flight performance of novice pilots during two simulated flight scenarios: approach to landing or a short flight circuit and landing during clear and calm weather conditions with vision degraded with scattering lenses. Experiment two built on this by having novice and intermediate pilots completed a simulated flight circuit and landing during three adverse weather conditions (high wind, heavy rain or high wind and heavy rain) with their vision degraded by scattering lenses or by defocusing lenses. Experiment three examined whether vision could be used as a probe to evaluate flight instructors. This study had pilot participants complete a simulated flight circuit and landing scenario with their vision degraded using both scattering lenses and defocusing lenses while two flight instructors subjectively assessed their flight performance. The fourth and final experiment expanded on these studies by assessing both the flight performance and stress responses of pilot participants during a simulated flight circuit and landing while their vision was degraded either by scattering lenses or defocusing lenses.
Methods: Twenty participants were recruited for study 1. Pilot participants completed either an approach to landing flight simulation or a short flight circuit and landing simulation in clear, calm weather conditions with their vision degraded with scattering lenses to either 6 or 8 levels of degradation respectively. Twenty-six pilot participants were recruited for study 2 where they completed a short flight circuit and landing simulated flight in three weather conditions (wind, rain, wind and rain) with 5 levels of vision degradation. Vision was degraded by either scattering lenses or defocusing lenses. Study three examined using vision as a probe to assess flight instructor agreement and repeatability. Twenty pilot participants completed a simulated short flight circuit with their vision degraded using both scattering and defocusing lenses to 8 different visual acuity levels. There was a total of five flight instructors recruited for study three in which two instructors were present to assess the performance of a single pilot participant. This was repeated on a second day with the same pilot participant and the same flight instructors. Study four examined the effect of vision degradation (either scatter or defocus) on both the flight performance and on pilot stress levels (which were monitored via eye-tracking and heart rate sensors) in thirty-seven pilot participants. These participants were tasked with completing a short flight circuit and landing and some of the participants had randomized minor (increased oil pressure) or major (engine failure) emergency scenarios introduced.
Results: Results from all four studies showed that flight performance (vertical speed, airspeed, altitude, pitch, roll, landing hardness, landing accuracy) was not significantly impacted by mild and moderate visual degradation. Only severe degradation had an impact on performance. These studies also show that pilot participant contrast sensitivity may be a better indicator of performance than visual acuity, as declines in performance with milder vision degradation when using defocusing lenses compared to scattering lenses were seen. Studies two through four highlighted the importance of using both objective and subjective grading when assessing pilot performance as it was identified that there was a difference in when objective flight performance metrics (significant at 6/18 with scattering lenses and 6/60 with defocusing lenses) were affected and when flight instructors perceived a change in performance (significant at 6/18 with scattering lenses and 6/120 with defocusing lenses). The final study showed that while at several of the vision degradation levels flight performance was unaffected, pilot participant heart rate and eye-tracking metrics were affected. With heart rate variability and eye tracking metrics (saccade amplitude and saccade velocity) being affected at a degradation level of 6/18.
Conclusions: These findings challenge the strict reliance on the use of just visual acuity in the current aviation medical standards. Across four experiments, results showed that flight performance remained largely unaffected when defocus lenses were used but was affected at a much lower visual acuity degradation when scattering lenses were used, suggesting contrast sensitivity may be a more relevant predictor of pilot performance. The studies suggest that current visual medical standards may be unnecessarily strict, thereby restricting the pool of eligible pilots. This work also highlighted the need for a more standardized and evidence-based approach to pilot evaluation. The final experiment further underscored the role of stress in flight safety, as physiological stress responses were observed even when flight performance remained stable. Taken together, these findings suggest that a more comprehensive approach – incorporating contrast sensitivity, objective performance measures, and stress responses – may lead to a more effective and fair pilot vision standard.
Artificial Intelligence as a Social Innovation for Advancing Sustainable Finance During the COVID-19 Pandemic
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-16) Pashang, Sep
Social innovations have played an increasingly prominent role in responding to climate change and systemic crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Among these, artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged within the field of sustainable finance, offering novel capabilities for deriving insights, informing decisions, and addressing complex socio-ecological concerns. This dissertation explores whether and how AI, as a social innovation, can contribute meaningfully to sustainable development. Grounded in social innovation theory, this research critically examines both the promise and limitations of AI in addressing the sustainable development goals (SDGs). In parallel, this dissertation engages with environment, social, governance (ESG) practices as an adjacent social innovation, deeply institutionalized but often constrained in their responsiveness to crisis. Through a comparative and critical analysis, this dissertation explores how AI intersects with ESG in supporting firm-level resilience, assessing their respective and combined capacities to support firms navigate periods of crisis. Findings reveal that during the COVID-19 pandemic, AI-generated public sentiment data more strongly correlated with financial returns and market volatility during this crisis than conventional ESG ratings. Moreover, financial interventions (e.g., economic stimulus) proved more effective in stabilizing firm performance than ESG performance. By advancing the theoretical understanding of AI and ESG as distinct yet interreacting social innovations, this research offers new insights into their strategic roles in enhancing organizational resilience and promoting sustainable development. It contributes both academically and practically, bridging sustainability management with emerging technologies, and laying the foundation for future scholarship in a field increasingly shaped by complexity, uncertainty, and techno-solutionist narratives.
Translocation-Induced Shape Transitions in Vesicles using a Neural Network-Based Solver for the Helfrich Model
(University of Waterloo, 2025-10-16) Choheili, Soorna
This thesis discusses our efforts to model the translocation of an enclosed lipid bilayer membrane (vesicle) through a circular pore. First, we will discuss the study of lipid bilayers, introduce the standard model for representing the energy of a membrane, and provide background on the many theoretical and experimental efforts in the field of membrane modeling. We then review the relevant theoretical and practical considerations
regarding the simulation of vesicles and translocation, and implement a neural network-based solver for a scalar phase field. We will proceed to detail our efforts to characterize each constraint imposed on the vesicle throughout the translocation and model them within the context of the solver. Following this, we provide a variety of visual snapshots of the translocation process showing different classes of translocation and the resulting behavior of each. Equally important is the quantitative analysis of the energy landscape traversed by the vesicle, where we chart the induced bending energy imposed upon it by the narrow pore. Additionally, we introduce two types of external effects that modify the energy landscape and illustrate their impact on the total vesicle energy throughout its passage. We then map the results out onto the relevant parameter space to give a picture of where the thresholds between qualitatively different behaviors lie. As a final demonstration of our model’s capabilities, we estimate the time of passage of the vesicle by modeling it diffusively using the energy landscape to calculate the effect of narrower pores on the time to translocate. This model successfully demonstrates explicit phase transitions between stable vesicle states and maps out the energy landscape throughout the unstable regime under the effects of translocation.