Interior Architecture Commons^™

Re-Occupation : Buildings, Ideology And Decolonization In Northeastern China, Ziyu Wei

Masters Theses

Buildings often survive longer than a single human generation, and many witness significant transitions from generation to generation. When we approach varied eras that have washed over an unchangeable building like tides eroding a bank repeatedly, how can we distinguish the building’s primary identity and judge its fate?

In Northeastern China, a Japanese dormitory survives as a witness of Manchurian colonization, early socialism and the economic recession that caused its abandonment until today. The city also suffers a swiftly aging population and brain drain as the brightest of the youth move away. How can an intervention build dialogue and revive …

Living And Alive : Homeless Shelter Design, Zixu Wang

Masters Theses

Homelessness is a major social problem in the United States. The number of people who are living without a decent shelter is rising daily throughout the country. The problem of homelessness affects various groups in society, including the elderly, children, youths, and middle-aged adults. Recent studies have shown that the percentage of teens and youths who are experiencing homelessness has reached an alarming rate. The homeless adolescent group is defined as teens aged between 13 and 19 years. This rise in homelessness in this population group demands immediate attention, particularly older teens from 15 to 18 years of age. This …

Envisioning Work : An Autism Friendly And Anxiety Free Office, Naixin Ren

Masters Theses

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) refers to a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication. It is estimated that worldwide 1 in 160 children has ASD, and in China, about 1 in 69 children has ASD.

There are many successful educational environments specially designed for people on the spectrum to support learning, understanding, and behaving. However, after graduating, it is usually very hard for people on the spectrum to move toward independence because there is a huge difference between school environments and office environments.

Most office environments are designed to meet the …

Exploration And Autonomy : Wild Children In The City, Xiaojie Li

Masters Theses

From 1980 to 2000, China adopted a teacher-centered kindergarten model with the main purpose of imparting knowledge, leaving children in a passive learning environment. Since 2001, this system’s adverse impact on child development has become clear to preschool educators. As a result, teachers have begun to consider kid friendly environments and games. However, even these games were arranged with a top-down, teacher-centered structure.

An education revolution has emerged that aims to release the freedom of children by prioritizing their needs, paying respect and trust to exploration, as well as giving children choice. One pioneering philosophy applying this principle is Anji …

Lived-In Grassland : Nomadic Architecture In The Nomadic Community Of Mongolia, Linxi Wang

Masters Theses

Traditional modes of living and production on the Mongolian grassland are quietly changing under the impact of modern civilization, and a higher demand for a comfortable life is on the way. Shifts in career and lifestyle have changed expectations Mongolians have for housing, and traditional dwellings have not adapted to these new demands in the modern era. Fortunately, thousands of years of constant transition in nomadic life have prepared Mongolians to adapt to the new mode of survival and living in the process of constructing their residential buildings. The process of improvement of living conditions is bound to mean traditions …

Re-Source : Re-Source Your Resources, Raquel Swartz

Masters Theses

Humans are using all of the earth’s natural resources and releasing unprecedented levels of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, endangering the planet’s viability. The implementation of sustainable design is no longer a luxury, and though eco-conscious construction and architecture have gained traction and have proven to reduce the built world’s contribution to the carbon footprint, interior design lags behind, even though it too, can reduce the industry’s negative impact. If architects and interior designers further consider the interaction between humans and objects with interior space through the awareness of sustainable practices, materials, and finishes, the built world’s contribution to the …

Reactivating Street Life : Fostering More Communal Interaction In Longtang, Ziyang Qiu

Masters Theses

The public life that develops between buildings in neighborhoods is undergoing a significant change in the process of growth and modernization, which reflects shifts in residents’ social behaviors and community structure. Traditionally, the presence of people, activities and events define the life of neighborhoods, constituting one of the essential qualities of public space; the mix of outdoor activities is influenced by many conditions, including the architectural framework. When those activities are missing, is it an inevitable result of the reliance on electronic products for entertainment, or unreasonable urban planning under insufficient public policy?

The Longtang, as a unique community form …

Reality Behind Beauty : Hayao Miyazaki's Perspective Of Human And Nature, Tianyang Wu

Masters Theses

When people look at beautiful artworks, they tend to ignore and forget the ugly truth that inspired the creation. Hayao Miyazaki is an artist who grew aware of an “ugly truth” and has been trying to propose beautiful possibilities. Economic pressures lead to environmental destruction, which breaks the relationship between humankind and nature. He argues that humankind is the product of nature, and must always depend on nature. This is a fact that no power, including modern science and technology, can change. This has long been the main subject of Miyazaki’s unique perspective in his animated films.

This thesis proposes …

Getting Closer : Exploring Re-Contextualization In Exhibition, Yiran Mu

Masters Theses

Due to the rise of globalization, the circulation of exhibits born in different cultural backgrounds to alien places all over the world has dramatically increased. Cultural contents are re-contextualized and shaped in a way to adapt to new environments where they lose their essence of place and risk stereotypes of distant cultures. The looming question over every exhibition is how, and to what extent, the original context of the objects on display will be acknowledged or reproduced. Should an effort be made to place pieces in a convincing approximation of their culture of origin? Or should objects be returned to …

Practicing A Senior Living, Siyu Shuai

Masters Theses

Implementation of China’s family planning policy fundamentally changed the traditional core family structure. The family size has become ever smaller, breaking the traditional family model in which three-generation or even four-generation cohabitate. The 4-2-1 family structure (4 grandparents, 2 parents, and 1 child) has become mainstream. This has caused an explosion of senior family and elderly living alone, which now represents a significant social issue in China.

The Chinese government has recognized and responded to the lonely elder problem by creating the so-called Senior Citizen University. The SCU serves as a welcome place in the community, for elder entertainment, study …

Banoo-Serai : An All Women Sanctuary, Kimia Rahnavardi

Masters Theses

When it comes to architecture, the layout and concept of most residential designs have remained the same as centuries ago. There has been this unspoken rule that there’s always someone, the woman, who is staying home to take care of children and the house while the man is outside providing for his family.

While this practice has been outdated for many decades in most countries, most societies lack suitable housing and childcare support for single women or widows. When these women cannot find a space that allows them to do both affordably, many women have no other option than stay …

Re-Connect, Xin Ren

Masters Theses

We live in an era of contradiction: the order of the external world always stands in an ambiguous relationship to individual autonomy. In this time of high industrialization and fast paced efficiency, the development of technology has not only greatly reduced the distance between space and time, but also causes the over-coupling effect in social division: institutions are formed with a dangerously strong and stable dependence on each other. This excessive reliance on one another weakens their independence and resilience. Meanwhile, in this hyper-connected society, access to instant satisfaction through consumption and fragmented entertainment is the norm. Similar to the …

The Ultimate Task Of Public Libraries : Introducing Architecture As Pedestal, Elaine Wu

Masters Theses

Most cultural institutions are housed in one of two kinds of architecture: either to show off the structure or building style or to appreciate the preciousness and identity of the object(s) it contains. The first kind focuses more on the architecture itself, and its function is not defined by the outside appearance. For the second kind, the architecture aims to serve as a support or pedestal, where the form is a result of needs based on different objects contained.

For libraries, architecture should never be the protagonist. Libraries should champion the aura of books, just as museums exhibit their collections. …

Behind Appearance : Hidden Dimensions In The Work Of Wassily Kandinsky And Paul Klee, Ning Ding

Masters Theses

What is the feel like to be a successful artist?

Works being appreciated,being valuable,become famous all over the world?

But what is under? What is behind? The audience seems never to know the story as well as the artworks.

Take an example. When you look at The Scream of Edward Munch, what do you see?

A melting image, a disgusting face, or the derived emoji, which is so popular on the SNS?

What's really behind the painting is Edward Munch's illness, and decades of struggling under sickness, madness, and death.

Most times, when the audience enjoys painting, the imagination can …

Living Under Surveillance, Fan Jia

Masters Theses

Our first impression about surveillance will always likely relates to with advanced technology. However, advanced technology is the means that only awakens our consciousness of surveillance but is not the birth of surveillance. It has been embedded in our lives in our lives all the time for generations. Before the age of technology blooming, surveillance was carried out by the human eye, and this mode continues always. My thesis starts from our daily relationships, and analyzes how surveillance happens around us within those relationships and people interactions.

This thesis proposes a surveillance system in a specific city: —Washington D.C., which …

Generating Tension : Memorial Of Sexual Slavery, Mary Park

Masters Theses

War crimes, such as slavery and rape can lead to hatred between countries of perpetrators and victims, souring political relationships for generations. Memorials of these atrocities are the physical indication of an effort, however nascent, to continue the dialogue and keep questioning the tragic history. The memorial as a reminder of a specific incident, not only changes the relationship of surrounding spaces within the site but also between different groups that are engaged in that specific history.

In South Korea, the history of sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II has been a major cause of …

Dialogue Across Time : Atlanta, 1996 And 2020, Qianyu Liu

Masters Theses

In the opening ceremony of the Atlanta Centennial Olympic Games of 1996, millions of people watched Muhammad Ali as a cultural icon carried the Olympic flame torch to light the cauldron. He was shaking from his Parkinson’s, and it was an emotional moment for many people. Atlanta Cauldron Tower was designed by a pioneer contemporary artist, Siah Armajani, who produced a monolithic uninhabited sculpture you cannot climb. The tower of 106ft is still prominent when we look back to the historic photographs today.

However, the tower lost the context it relied upon along with the partial demolition of Centennial Stadium …

Creating A Safe Haven : A Study On Coastal Resilience In A Time Of Climate Change & Sea-Level Rise In The Philippines, Maria Carla Victoria M. Sebastian

Masters Theses

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan struck the southern part of the Philippines with a five to six meter storm surge; in just three days it took more than 7,360 lives in one city alone, displaced four million citizens, and affected around 16 million Filipinos nationwide. Coastal resiliency in relation to climate change is a particularly urgent issue for city planners and government leaders in an archipelago of 7,641 islands, where 80% of the population dwells in coastal areas. This thesis aims to challenge the existing paradigm of coastal provincial architecture in the Philippines by proposing a more integrated evacuation center that …

Unite The Divided : The Transition Between Death And Life, Qing Shi

Masters Theses

The modern era has marginalized death by professionalizing the care of the dying in hospitals and the dead in funeral homes. Today a growing number of families reject de-personalized, alienating funeral experiences and instead, seek rituals that are more related to pre-modern practices. Past practices developed when death was still omnipresent, and people performed their own authentic expression of the individual self and interpersonal relations. Bringing spatial, physical experiences of rituals back by personalizing a previously institutionalized occasion, the freedom of being able to choose the way we live has been extended to self expression in death and mourning.

By …

Individuality : Enhance Living In Shenzhen's Urban Village, Lanting Zhong

Masters Theses

Millions coming to Shenzhen,China will first live within urban villages: self-generated dense dwelling conditions within the urban context. These urban villages offer an inexpensive first-stop home to newcomers arriving in the city. With the government unable to reclaim the land from the villages where people have lived long before the establishment of Shenzhen, the villages, evolved within the city into urban villages. As the land prices fly rocket high and demand increased for low-cost housing, villagers started to build higher, scrambling for every inch of available space. Despite appearing chaotic and disorderly, life thrives within.

Rather than bulldozing urban villages …