Profs. Aki Ishida, Brook Kennedy, and Margarita McGrath, assisted by rising fourth-year architecture student Alex Bala and recent architecture graduate Forrest Bibeau, are part of a team formed to identify, test, and evaluate all-weather and Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant solutions to enhance the green-space aesthetic and multi-use purpose of Virginia Tech’s Drillfield. The research team, which also includes faculty members from the College of Engineering, has received $96,000 in funding from the Division of Administrative Services, the Office of the Vice President for Research, the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS), the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology (ICAT), and the Student Engineer’s Council. The Drillfield Paths effort is part of a broader initiative supported by the Board of Visitors to develop a new master plan for the Drillfield that will preserve the beauty of the area while making it a more usable space.

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