Architecture Commons^™

Mapping Stratcom: The Architecture Of Offutt, The U.S. Military, And Strategic Command, Anna Miles

Honors Theses

Architecture and the military have always been intertwined. The built environment both on and off U.S. military installations responds to the events, history, and influences of the military. This project explores one example of this by investigating the history of the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM), headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, through the lens of architecture.

When exploring USSTRATCOM, this project aims to understand not only its history, but also its impact: on Offutt, on the world, and most importantly, on architecture. Firstly, the project explores the history of the military in the state of Nebraska and …

Photography, Architecture, And Environment: An Architectural Analysis Of Edward Ruscha’S 26 Gasoline Stations, Rebecca Tonguis

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

This presentation explores Edward Ruscha’s photobook 26 Gasoline Stations through an architectural lens. Specifically, it treats Ruscha’s work as historic evidence of how consumption, industry, and commodity have infiltrated all kinds of environmental contexts through architectural manifestations. Known for being the first artist’s book, 26 Gasoline Stations ambiguously exists as both fine art and documentation of everyday conditions, with the overall graphic character highlighting its perceived focus on overarching narrative. Since gasoline stations are the primary subject of each of the 26 photographs, the subject of this work is arguably architecture, suggesting that the historic relationship between mass gas consumption—or …

Designing The American Dreamscape: Suburbs Of Worship And The American Dream, Rebecca Virgl

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

This thesis explores suburbia as the physical manifestation of the American Dream as a pseudo-religious system. This religious system and contemporary suburban ideology are explained and disseminated through a historical review and analysis of suburban media. Pop culture serves as a signpost that directs public opinion and cultural value; much of media today wrestles with the ideas of the American Dream, fore fronting these cultural values in our collective identity. Once the baseline of socio-economic religious ideology has been established in the American Dream, the extremes of these beliefs were explored in three suburban environments: home, labor, and retail. Each …

A Stereotomic Struggle, Jim Roche

Articles

Stone in architecture has “territorial and political implications” as its use and designation impact the human rights of the indigenous population. The craft of stereotomy is not just bequeathed from the Crusaders or more recent imperial colonists but has a diverse blended history that is deeply ingrained in Palestinian built culture. Such theses inform the experimental work of Elial and Yusef Anastas, two brother architects who operate from Bethlehem what they term a counter hegemonic practice with the stated aim of “decolonising architecture”.

Ritual, Spectacle, And Theatre In Late Medieval Seville (Chapter 1), Christopher B. Swift

Publications and Research

From the fall of Islamic Išbīliya in 1248 to the conquest of the New World, Seville was a nexus of economic and religious power where interconfessional living among Christians, Jews, and Muslims was negotiated on public stages. From out of seemingly irreconcilable ideologies of faith, hybrid performance culture emerged in spectacles of miraculous transformation, disciplinary processionals, and representations of religious identity. Ritual, Spectacle, and Theatre in Late Medieval Seville reinvigorates the study of medieval Iberian theater by revealing the ways in which public expressions of devotion, penance, and power fostered cultural reciprocity, rehearsed religious difference, and ultimately helped establish Seville …

Lincoln Income Life Insurance Company - Louisville, Kentucky (Sc 3666), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid only for Manuscripts Small Collection 3666. Magazine-style supplement to the Louisville Courier-Journal, 13 March 1966, profiling the personnel and operations of the Lincoln Income Life Insurance Company. The well-illustrated publication highlights the company’s new home office building, the Lincoln Tower, designed by Taliesin Associated Architects, and includes a color rendering of the building on the cover.

Michael’S Mouth, Peter Olshavsky

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

“Michael’s Mouth” examines the virtuoso performance of small mouth sounds (“um,” “ah,” etc.) in MOS’ 2006 video, Alternate Ending 1: The Glimmering Noise. In this performance, “Michael” deftly uses non-words to advance a non-discursive argument about architecture as a form of attention in the post-critical imaginary.

The History Of Uofsc's Gibbes Green, Lydia M. Brandt, Samantha Clark, Morgan Edlin, Lauren N. Eleazer, Francis Hampton, Mason Joiner, Hannah Macdonald, Ellis Mcclure, Emmah M. Muema, Madeline Owens, Graciela D. Perez, Noah Safari, Anna Spaschak, Sarah Helen Vandevender, David Walls, Grant Wong, Christian Anderson

Faculty Publications

The following report is a culmination of papers from the Spring 2022 students of Dr. Christian Anderson’s Evolution of Higher Education and Dr. Lydia Brandt’s History of American Architecture courses. The report contains research conducted on the creation of Gibbes Green on the University of South Carolina’s campus. Gibbes Green was the first major expansion made by the university, and signifies an era of development and growth for both the school and Higher Education as a whole.

Parafiction And The Architectural Imagination, Ashley Glesinger

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

I observe current architecture practice to be too reality-driven. As a response to this issue, this thesis demonstrates parafiction as one productive method of exercising architectural imagination. I define parafiction as a type of fiction that begins with a fact and is presented as a fact in order to demonstrate what the world could be. To create parafictions, I have used multi-medium techniques of representation. Through the representations, this thesis strives to “make present” one person’s imagination.

I see parafiction and architecture both as projective activities. Specifically, that both redefine relationships to what already exists and create tension between the …

Making Connections In The Evolution Of Panamanian Architecture, Cheriyah Wilmot

Publications and Research

Panama is an isthmus in Central America that has been influenced by a multitude of cultures ever since its Spanish colonization. This diversity is reflected in its architectural forms. The modern form seen in Panamanian architecture will be investigated to find its historical roots. Common themes were extracted that link to the past vernacular: Indigenous and Colonial. Building case studies will be looked at to develop an architectural vocabulary that summarizes recurring architectural elements

A Vernacular For Lincoln, Nebraska, Austin Riggins

Honors Theses

The contemporary vernacular architecture in the United States is a product of industrialization and globalization. One homogenous, mass produced vernacular has dominated nationwide and overshadowed the unique, contextual, and regional designs of the past. While the contemporary, industrialized vernacular has led to increases in the quality of life for many in the developed world, it has also left in its wake a homogenous and placeless environment devoid of environmental sensitivity or cultural references. There is a need for a set of new vernaculars that embrace modern building technologies while simultaneously responding more directly to local climatic needs and facilitating a …

Review: Environmental Design: Architecture, Politics, And Science In Postwar America, Robert Wojtowicz

Art Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Bundesgartenschau Mannheim (1975): Sustainable Urban Development Through A Horticultural Festival, Aubrey Sofia Bader

Haslam Scholars Projects

The purpose of this research was to analyze the success of the 1975 Mannheim Bundesgartenschau (BUGA-MA), a highly visible and popular BUGA then and now, in achieving sustainable development. A BUGA is a German Federal Horticulture Show, but it is not simply a one-time exhibition; it is a full-time commitment to sustainable development in German cities and regions. BUGAs are complex undertakings, involving national and regional players, and they are fine-tuned to the sustainable needs of their respective location and culture. This presentation will outline the key tenets of sustainability addressed by BUGAs and analyze the degree of their success …

At Home In The World — The Architecture And Life Of Frank Lloyd Wright, Anthony Romeo, Dale Laurin

Publications and Research

This article shows how the enduring admiration people have for the architecture of
Frank Lloyd Wright (1867–1959) is explained by this principle of Aesthetic Realism, stated by the founder of this philosophy, the great American poet and critic, Eli Siegel: “All beauty is a making one of opposites, and the making one of opposites is what we are going after in ourselves.” Scholars have written of Wright’s contradictions: his charm and his arrogance, the warmth of his interior designs and his coldness to persons near to him. The authors show that like people everywhere, Wright was trying in his life …

The Zimmerman Library Mural In The National Register Of Historic Places: A Working Paper And Timeline, Samuel E. Sisneros

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Working paper and timeline about the nomination and listing process of the UNM Zimmerman Library “Three Peoples” paintings to the National Register of Historic Places.

America’S Finest Housing Crisis: Racialized Housing & Suburban Development, Vicenta Martinez Govea

McNair Summer Research Program

U.S. Government operations between 1940-1950 brought unprecedented direct and indirect employment opportunities to San Diego, exacerbating an already growing housing shortage. To accommodate the thousands of new defense workers, the government produced the largest defense housing project to date in the small neighborhood of Linda Vista. However, this opportunity and largesse was extended primarily to a select group of white working-class families who had access to defense jobs and, consequently, subsidized housing. Military presence in San Diego during World War II shaped the design of homes and exclusively allocated housing, as both shelter and financial instrument, to white working-class families …

Mapping Urban Performance Culture: A Common Ground For Architecture And Theater, Ting Chin, Christopher B. Swift

Publications and Research

Our co-taught course focuses on theater history, with an emphasis on performance architecture. Assignments are designed to illuminate the ways in which architectural design and technology inform performance practices and audience reception. The pivotal assignment for exploring interdisciplinarity is a three-week module on mapping historical theaters in New York City. Open-source Global Information Systems (GIS) software serves as a common mechanism for students to situate theatrical productions in the context of the built urban environment, deepening their understanding of the social, economic, and artistic forces that contributed to performance culture. Mapping is a shared pedagogy for analyzing and presenting research …

Mapping In The Humanities: Gis Lessons For Poets, Historians, And Scientists, Emily W. Fairey

Open Educational Resources

User-friendly Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is the common thread of this collection of presentations, and activities with full lesson plans. The first section of the site contains an overview of cartography, the art of creating maps, and then looks at historical mapping platforms like Hypercities and Donald Rumsey Historical Mapping Project. In the next section Google Earth Desktop Pro is introduced, with lessons and activities on the basics of GE such as pins, paths, and kml files, as well as a more complex activity on "georeferencing" an historic map over Google Earth imagery. The final section deals with ARCGIS Online …

Type Theory, Paris Mood

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

The concept of type and typology are at the heart of Architecture. Type is the simple act of drawing similarity and difference between a group of artifacts. Typology, on the other hand, is a bit more complicated. When one engages with typology, they are taking the information they gather from observing the artifacts and transposing it into a new context. Most designers and architects refer to this act as type/typology. The distinction between the two terms is necessary for my work. My work looks at the relationship between these two events. As a collective they are Type Theory.

With the …

Dimensions Of Surveillance, Prisoners Of The Planetary Panopticon, Mallory R. Lane

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

This project explores the Prisoners of the Planetary Panopticon. Surveillance no longer exists solely within an architectural scale, but has expanded to the urban, territorial, and planetary scale.

At the beginning of this thesis I began researching the contemporary issues of prisons and found that issues now extend far beyond the walls of the grounds. When comparing the architecture of Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon to today's society, what separates our exposed, surveilled bodies from those within the Panopticon Prison of the 1800's? This subject is relevant at a time when surveillance has taken over the city and created another spatial world …

The Investigation Of The French Curve, Cheriyah Wilmot

Publications and Research

The creation of irregular curves has evolved from employing splines to computer aided design (CAD); with French Curves being an integral part of this evolution. Such curvilinear irregularity can be seen in the curve of the auditorium at the new academic building. This project investigates the origins of the French Curve, in terms of its history, usage, and mathematical components. For centuries, French curves were used to accurately create portions of ellipticals and other curves in schematic drawings. The commonly used Burmester set contains an amalgamation of mathematical equations where the point of inflection is not symmetrical. These are derived …

Counter Institution: Activist Estates Of The Lower East Side [Notes], Nandini Bagchee

New York State City & Regional

In the midst of current debates about the accessibility of public spaces, resurfacing as a result of highly visible demonstrations and occupations, this book illuminates an overlooked domain of civic participation: the office, workshop, or building where activist groups meet to organize and plan acts of political dissent and collective participation. Author Nandini Bagchee examines three re-purposed buildings on the Lower East Side that have been used by activists to launch actions over the past forty years. The Peace Pentagon was the headquarters of the anti-war movement, El Bohio was a metaphoric “hut” that envisioned the Puerto Rican Community as …

Viewing Heaven: Rock Crystal, Reliquaries, And Transparency In Fourteenth-Century Aachen, Claire Kilgore

School of Art, Art History, and Design: Theses and Student Creative Work

This thesis examines reliquaries and objects associated with medieval Christian practice in fourteenth-century Aachen. The city's cathedral and treasury contain prestigious relics, reliquaries, and liturgical items, aided by its status as the Holy Roman Empire's coronation church. During the reign of Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV (r. 1349-1378), reliquaries, pilgrimage, and architecture reflect late medieval interests in vision, optics, and transparency. Two mid-fourteenth century reliquaries from the Aachen Cathedral Treasury, the Reliquary of Charlemagne and the Three-Steepled Reliquary, display relics through rock crystal windows, in contrast to the obscuring characteristics of earlier reliquaries. Not only do the two reliquaries visually …

“Mocha: Maritime Architecture On Yemen’S Red Sea Coast.” In ‘Architecture That Fills My Eye’: The Building Heritage Of Yemen. Exh. Cat. Ed. Trevor H.J. Marchand, 60-69. London: Gingko Library, 2017., Nancy Um

Art History Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Shenzhen Activist Program`, Hyunggyu Kim, Jae Hyun Kim

Architecture Senior Theses

There is a gap between being an architecture student in western countries and working as an architect in underrepresented communities. Architect Teddy Cruz defines the role of an activist architect as "expanded mode of practice", and the task of "deigning the protocols or the interfaces between communities and spaces".

This thesis contends that architecture schools need to continue to embrace the widely-accepted norm of studios studying abroad and working in an international studio. Current study abroad programs tend to skew towards being touristic field trips and there is not a curriculum or programmatic investment in cultivating relationships between the visiting …

Across Disciplinary And National Borders: A Pedagogical Tool For Re-Use, Sandra Marques Pereira, Jim Roche

Conference papers

This paper examines the process and results of a multinational, interdisciplinary pedagogical experiment aimed at exploring design options for the reconfiguration of dwellings in Portela: a modern middle-class, high-rise estate in north-east Lisbon.

The experimental workshop entitled “Contemporary Living Patterns in Mass Housing in Europe” occurred in the ISCTE - University Institute of Lisbon in the summer of 2014 under the aegis of OIKONET, a global multidisciplinary network on housing research and learning funded by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme.

Three framing steps preceded the design work of the students. Firstly, a lecture focused in three issues: i) the social …

Friedrichstrasse Skyscraper: Transfiguration Through Glass, Or Vertical And Horizontal Transparencies: Mies Van Der Rohe, Ufuk Ersoy

Publications

Mies van der Rohe’s entry for the Friedrichstrasse Skyscraper Competition of 1921, a project he named the “Wabe” (Honeycomb) construction, not only epitomized the polemics then current about the renovation of Berlin as a modern metropolis, but also represented a radical shift in the architect’s own viewpoint – his views of modern life, modern construction, and modern materials, particularly glass.

Collaborating With Catastrophe | A User's Guide To Post-Apocalyptic Farming, Patricia Cafferky

Architecture Senior Theses

“Collaborating with Catastrophe” contends that architecture has the capacity to visually manifest unseen forces through design’s reaction to them, allowing people to more fully comprehend and engage the intangible. Climate change, arguably the largest threat to modern day humanity, is not visible, existing only as a collection of data and patterns in a statistical construct. Taking stock of the present day failings of society in the face of crisis, this thesis then extrapolates a potential future dystopia precipitated by man-made pollutants in order to engage the problem at its most severe. Architecture is then able to make the toxic visible …

The Foreign Complex | A Cross-Cultural Vernacular, Dexter Cicchinelli

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis investigates transforming a decommissioned military site into a productive part of its host nation’s context. Okinawa consists of a group of islands that make up the southern-most prefecture of Japan. MAP It is situated midway between Tokyo and Manila, and called the “keystone of the Pacific” by military planners because of its strategic location. AERIAL FLIGHT MAP It was the site of the devastating Battle of Okinawa in WWII which prompted an ongoing history of military intervention and occupation. TIMELINE Immediately after the war, displaced Okinawans were put in camps while the military claimed land for bases. Some …

Redefining The Constraint | Designing Control To Support Rehabilitation, Jessica Borri

Architecture Senior Theses

The concrete lined cells of a contemporary prison do not lend themselves well to processes of rehabilitation. This thesis contends that it is time for architects to rethink the architecture of the prison. When an inmate knows he is being watched, he tends to exhibit positive behavior out of fear of the consequences of any action deemed to be negative. This thesis contends that by incorporating the apparatus of surveillance seamlessly into a prison's architecture it may be possible to provide spaces that feel more open and less oppressive.

One way to generate a feeling of openness is to create …