Deployable polyhedral structures offer significant potential for emergency shelter systems in post-disaster contexts, where rapid deployment, compact transportability, and scalable spatial coverage are critical for protective infrastructure. Disaster risk is increasing globally, with hazard events becoming more intense and frequent. However, existing design approaches for deployable emergency shelters lack systematic computational frameworks for generating and controlling tetrahedral-octahedral configurations with telescopic actuation, thereby limiting the exploration of deployment strategies for emergency response applications. This research develops a parametric framework for the automated design of deployable tetrahedral-octahedral systems that transform from compact stowed configurations to expanded operational states through the adjustment of telescopic elements. The Rhino/Grasshopper computational framework automates both geometric generation and telescopic rod length control throughout deployment sequences, validating three deployment strategies through differential telescopic control where octahedral members deploy to shorter lengths than tetrahedral members for arch configurations. This research establishes a systematic foundation for exploring deployment behaviors and scalability in emergency shelters and other rapidly deployed structural applications.

The escalating demand for high-performance buildings necessitates the rigorous integration of interdependent systems, including structure, envelope, and environmental services. However, the Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) industry continues to rely on fragmented, sequential workflows that fail to manage complex interdisciplinary trade-offs. This disconnect creates a critical barrier to achieving aggressive sustainability goals, as ad-hoc communication cannot substitute for mathematical system coordination. This paper proposes a formal systems engineering framework based on Analytical Target Cascading (ATC) to bridge the gap between architectural intent and engineering optimization. ATC is a hierarchical, decentralized optimization method that decomposes complex systems into manageable subsystems (System → Subsystem → Component). Unlike traditional "All-at-Once" (AAO) centralized optimization, which seeks a global optimum by solving all variables simultaneously, ATC allows subsystems to optimize locally while negotiating targets and responses to ensure system-level consistency. We validate this framework through a computational pilot study involving the structural optimization of a steel frame. The study benchmarks a sequential ATC workflow against a centralized AAO Genetic Algo-rithm. The results demonstrate a fundamental trade-off: while the AAO method theoretically identifies the global optimum, it is computationally prohibitive and prone to constraint violations in high-dimensional spaces. In contrast, the ATC framework converged on a fully feasible solution with a 98% reduction in computational cost. Although the sequential implementation of ATC introduced path dependencies that led to a local optimum (a slightly heavier structure), the method’s superior efficiency and robustness confirm its potential for scaling. The paper concludes that ATC provides a viable alternative to the industry’s disjointed design processes, paving the way for future parallelized coordination strategies that integrate structure, energy, and life-cycle costs.

This paper presents Plastic Reimagined: Material Agency and Circular Design, a graduate design–research studio and public exhibition that situates post-consumer plastics as both architectural substrate and epistemic medium. Responding to the ARCC–EAAE theme “Local Solutions for Global Issues,” the project asks how campus waste streams can serve as testbeds for circular design, infrastructural literacy, and public ecological engagement.

Methodologically, the studio mobilized Georgia Tech’s institutional network—Office of Sustainability, campus makerspaces, materials scientists, local recyclers, and NGOs—to source, sort, and reprocess HDPE and PLA from residence halls, fabrication labs, and municipal waste flows. Students combined waste audits and polymer characterization with voxel-based modeling and iterative thermoplastic forming (sheet-pressing, extrusion, lamination) to develop environmental criteria for fabrication: single-polymer purity, minimized microplastic generation, and future disassembly or re-recyclability. Circularity was framed, following Latour’s compositionism, not as a closed loop but as situated re-routing of damaged materials.

The outcomes include thirteen full-scale seating prototypes that operate as civic micro-infrastructures rather than isolated objects. Installed at the Atlanta Contemporary, the Goat Farm Arts Center, and Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the work functioned as what Manzini calls “localized platforms,” where diverse publics encounter campus plastics as vivid, chromatic artifacts of global crisis and local experimentation. These exhibitions extended the studio’s pedagogy into urban space, activating what Mattern terms epistemic infrastructures—material systems that make ecological knowledge legible and discussable.

The paper argues that such institutionally embedded circular practices offer a replicable framework for architectural education. By treating plastics as anthro-materials that archive planetary crisis, the studio cultivates designers capable of reading and reconfiguring material flows, forging links between design pedagogy, campus infrastructures, and broader debates on environmental justice and circular economies.