Date of Submission
Spring 5-6-2021
Degree Type
Undergraduate Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Architecture
Department
Architecture
Committee Chair/First Advisor
Saleh Uddin, Ph.D
Secondary Advisor
Zamilia Karimi
Abstract
On February 14th, 2014 we witnessed one of the most horrific tragedies in American history.16 year old Nikolas Cruz walked freely through the doors of Stoneman Douglas High school, armed with an AR-15 semi- automatic rifle, and ruthlessly shot 34 and killed 17 individuals. This including 3 teachers and 14 students. In the past 10 years there have been at least 239 School shootings nationwide. Of those shootings, 438 were shot, and 138 were killed. Being appalled by these number I began to ask myself why? Why so many?. Some statistics have linked school shootings with the mental trauma of bullying. A recent random study pulled 37 incidents of school shootings. Out of the 37, nearly 75% of the shooters had reports of being bullied, persecuted, threatened, attacked, or injured before the incident. So now I must question-How do we prevent violence in schools? And if not, how can we limit the amount of incidents. Many have debated over the rules and restrictions of gun control and have even tried implementing new security features such as Locking doors, More security officers, Security cameras, and even Metal Detector. Which instead of making a student more comfortable could possibly create an even bigger apprehension. However very few have looked in another direction such as school design. After further researching the topic I began to observe that a majority school designs today lack the harmony of safety features, innovative design, and great aesthetics. This Thesis Project seeks to zoom in on a specific school with a high rate of violent incidents or a recent mass shooting. The goal will be to redesign the school create a safe and fun learning environment in order to reduce the number violent incidents such as bullying. By taking this preemptive design approach, we can infer that this will in turn reduce the number of school shootings.