DEDICATION I dedicate this thesis to my family. Without their patience, understanding, support, and most of all love, the completion of this work would not have been possible. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank the members of my committee for their encouragement, support, guidance, and good humor. Their manageable but rigorous direction has been most appreciated. I have found my coursework throughout the program to be stimulating and challenging, providing me with the tools needed to explore

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... h present and future research. Philip Abbott was particularly helpful in guiding me toward my thesis topic and establishing a qualitative methodology. Sarah Sherman's experience with research and her training in Atlas.ti were elemental to my qualitative content analysis. Finally, I would like to thank my major professor, Janine King. From the beginning, she had confidence in my abilities, was understanding with my responsibilities to the Solar Decathlon, and allowed me to gain teaching experience. v ABSTRACT OF THE THESIS Professor Janine King, Major Professor People's authentic sense of place is being overshadowed by less authentic experiences referred to as placelessness. Consequently, a demand for experiential interior environments has surfaced. Experiential environmental and place attachment theories suggested that the relationships between self, others, and the environment are what encourage users in creating meaningful authentic experiences. This qualitative study explored the roles of the experiential interior architectural features in affording users of hospitality environments higher-level needs, such as meanings of place. For the case study, ten participants stayed at a hotel for two nights. Participants were given a guided list of ten facets of an experience, which was insidiously structured by both experiential environmental and place attachment theories. The participants used photographs to document each of the facets on the guided list. The photos were then used during the photo elicitation interviews, which evoked additional qualitative information. Participants identified specific interior architectural features and described them using the themes associated to place attachment theories. The findings revealed vi that the interior architectural features might enrich the meanings a person associates with a given place. Possibly affording users higher-level needs. As a result, if an experiential interior environment allows users to foster relationships between self, others, and the physical environment, they may experience more authentic experiences and give more meanings to a place.