Digital Commons Network^™

Boston City Hall: Rediscovering The Civic Center, Joshua Simoneau

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Architecture can restore the civic center as the symbolic and intrinsic heart of the contemporary city through the integration of government and market centers."

Mall | Memory | Morphology : Fragmenting / Adapting An Obsolete Building Type, Jonathan Danho

Architecture Thesis Prep

"facing contemporary retail trends, the age of the shopping mall is on the verge of obsolescence. An icon of late twentieth century economy and society, the mall holds significant importance to both individual and collective memory. In order to preserve its iconic presence, the type must be fragmented and adapted to a completely different program to avoid total demolition. Doing so will preserve the memory of its presence and experience while introducing a new layer of program and memory in its fabric."

Building A Sustainable Housing Environment, Shanna Telesco

Architecture Thesis Prep

"There are three major factors being studied throughout this exploration: sustainability, housing, and the environment. Each factor can be carefully examined separately under its own terms, but ultimately, the goal of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of their possible integration within the processes of architecture.

My housing project seeks to integrate and improve the existing methods of sustainability that have evolved in architecture by carefully considering renewable resources found in nature, especially the sun, air, and water."

Rethinking Cultural Institutions In Relation To The City, Monica Rodarmor

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Rather than trying to distribute culture to the masses, the cultural institution shall be a place where the masses educate one another about culture. Thinking about institutions as 'arenas for cultures of the world' better serves urban life than an institution that is simply a dusty bank of memories. The aim of the institution should be to stimulate cultural dialogue which will better serve the American City. By changing the purpose, the end result is now attainable. Education and inspiration of the masses is achieved through a new urban condition: one that promotes interaction and understanding between cultural spheres."

From Peripheral To Central: An Urban Reintegration Of The Elderly Community, Anne Mcgee

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Throughout time, suburban sprawl has nullified the town center through the creation of satellite centers which cater to specific architectural typologies, programs, and demographic groups. The contention of this project is that the lost city center is an integral part of urban life, both architecturally and socially. A center shall be reestablished through combining typologically unrelated programs and urban conditions, while also bringing together otherwise isolated social groups."

Civic Architecture's New Setting In The Post-Industrial City, Donnie Garrity

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis argues that with a changing population and climate of a city comes the need to re-think how civic institutions engage themselves with their people. I contend that in order for civic architecture to regain its prominence in the city it needs to adapt itself to contemporary society and respond to its needs. The way in which this can happen is through program; if civic architecture can change its stigma by adopting new forms of program that respond to what its community needs, then the civic architecture will become more proactive in its community. Through a new way of …

Connective Ecology: Reclaiming The Postindustrial Urban Landscape, Thomas Smith

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis contends that by considering the urban landscape as an evolving, interconnected network, much like an ecosystem, architecture can create flexible, accessible public space as part of a larger scale system which affects as well as responds to specific physical and social forces of the contemporary postindustrial city."

Transitioning Society For An Elderly Care Community Within The City, John Budesa

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Instead of isolating senior citizens form the community, my desire is to actively engage them with it; to facilitate the outside community to want to engage with the senior citizens. By combining the typology of the mall as an extremely public and interactive space with the typology of the monastery as the epitome of private living on a secluded site, one could imagine a community of commercial and residential spaces as opposed to the current model for elderly care."

Rural Iowa And The Transgenic Railroad, Wilson Day

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Using an understanding of transgenics and recombinant SNA technology as an analogue for exploring the architectural possibilities within a rail line in Clinton, Iowa, and its directly adjacent modes of transportation, I propose to create an intervention which bridges all modes and establishes a connection between a large portion of Eastern Iowa and the city of Clinton, which will act as an interface for the transfer of architectural goods as well as the transfer of people from various parts of rural Iowa to larger urban areas."

Filmed Architecture: The Nature Of Vision, Theodore C. Grothe

Architecture Thesis Prep

"By researching the methods, technologies, theories, and criticism of motion film, one can begin to gain an understanding of these phenomena. Tha language of film becomes apparent, and can then be used in architectural discourse.

How can these methods and techniques begin to translate into the discipline of architecture? What can the discipline gain from them In what capacity can we begin to augment their affects on our perception of architecture, form, reality, and space?"

Connecting Identity And Place: Refugee Relocation Facility, Kathryn Walsh

Architecture Thesis Prep

"architecture's place in the global flow of people, identity, and the city can no longer be taken for granted. Architecture must consider the current conditions, the past histories, and future prospects of its relationship to identity and place within the changing city."

Urban Housing, Fabric, And Flows: New Connections In The Post-Industrial City, Colin Simmer

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The transition from an industrial to a knowledge-based economy in post-industrial American river cities has left extensive tracts of derelict land along urban waterfronts. After years of physical and psychological separation from the rivers, cities are renegotiating the boundaries of post-industrial landscapes and making efforts to reconnect to the riverfront. My thesis aims to generate a new model of urban housing and public spaces that will reconnect historic fabric to the water."

A Sustainable Foundation, Mark K. Wizeman

Architecture Thesis Prep

"My intentions of this project are to investigate the potential of architecture to augment its efforts of sustainable strategies with aspirations of achieving a socially sustainable foundation in the urban setting. Within the context of Trenton, the understanding of the local communities, the capital and business districts, the education system, and the areas of renewal efforts can reveal solutions to the rebuilding of the city's community by way of reconnecting these now divided forces. What makes architecture critical in this application is its ability to effectively address the very tangible aspects of sustainable practice and the potential for it to …

Social Interaction In The Digitally Networked City., Zachary Goldstein

Architecture Thesis Prep

"There is an underlying digital network that exists in our contemporary cities that affects every aspic of urban life. Technology has changed the way we perceive and activate space, and communicate with one another....

Public space will always be critical in city planning because it fosters human interaction. No matter how advanced our technology becomes, nothing will be able to replace talking to someone in person or participating in live events."

Ephemeral Urbanism: Exploring Impermanence In A Static Environment, Lawrence Salviejo

Architecture Thesis Prep

"In a city where hyper-density and permanence are established as the norm, its inhabitants are limited in their opportunity to perform acts of spontaneity. Architecture of monumentality within our cities has taken away form our outspoken temperament due to their static and unchanging nature. These buildings contain the desires and pre-occupations of their time and cannot adapt to changing social dynamics. To counter this rooted and presiding environment, I am proposing the introduction of mobile interventions to the urban environment in order to create opportunities for the city's inhabitants to engage in spontaneous discourse."

Architecture For A Simulated World, Clay Strange

Architecture Thesis Prep

"It is the contention of this thesis that such an architecture should be light and insubstantial, like a simulation. Architecture should appear ambiguous and fleeting."

Hotel Refugee: Temporary Housing Oasis, Leonardo Perez-Alonso

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis aims to generate a "hyper-prototype" that intends to reanimate architecture as a catalyst for social and political invention by exploring its potential to redefine boundaries through its positioning in the urban context."

Rebuild New Orleans, Sean Karns

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The development of a city depends on its ability to rebuild. In many cases planners have been unaware of future threats to their city that may occur. Often times in order to rebuild one must rethink and replan in order to fully utilize while learning and taking away valuable lessons from the past. In the case of a natural disaster, such lessons usually stem from precautions that could have been made to proactively resolve the situation."

The Interface Of Two Extremes: Preserving The Local, Connecting To Global - The Question Of Architecture In A Third World Environment, Ella Scheuer

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Striving for global equality, uniformity and at times, excessive luxury has led to ignorance and neglect of regional character and authenticity.

"Understanding this, I found the need to create an architecture that embraces local heritage as well as global progress. This duality will be expressed through the language of the architecture by studying both equatorial African building techniques and contemporary building technologies of the West.... By maintaining a focus on both local and global constituents, a world awareness can be fostered without losing sight of the sense of community."