Architecture Commons^™

Exploring Potentials Of Leftover Spaces Using Urban Metamorphosis, Huda Maatouk, Marwan Halabi, Hiba Mohsen, Maged Youssef

BAU Journal - Society, Culture and Human Behavior

In a dynamic world, the challenge behind reaching utopia is a result of the continuity of change and the metamorphosis. Metamorphosis, from the Greek meta signifying the change and morphe referring to the form, is a change and adaptation of the form or nature of something into a different one through time. However, when it comes to urban metamorphosis, it is a tension between the traditional living and the raise of technology through history, and this adaptation is affecting cities, buildings, identity, and environment. Urban metamorphosis of undeveloped non-organized cities had created urban and social fragmentation; unorganized cities are broken …

El Croquis Night: Excursus Into Nocturnal Obliteration In Architectural Media, Javier Fernández Contreras

Interiority

El Croquis is one of the most prestigious architectural magazines in the world. Founded in 1982 by Richard Levene and Fernando Marquez, it publishes five monographs every year. The volumes dedicated to established Pritzker Prize names like OMA Rem Koolhaas, SANAA Sejima & Nishizawa, Herzog & de Meuron, Alvaro Siza or Rafael Moneo, are considered their respective oeuvre complète. The journal almost never publishes nocturnal photographs of interior spaces. The same goes for other major architecture magazines. In February 2020, HEAD – Genève invited Richard Levene to create a night edition of El Croquis. The workshop focused on the …

New Territories: Reimagined Interiorities, Lucy Marlor

Interiority

At a time where boundaries within society, culture, and technology are continually challenged and redefined, even the commonly understood binary oppositions within areas such as gender, age, and digitality (Negroponte, 1995) are becoming less visible, measurable, and socially accepted. In this new realm where even physical reality is encroached upon by the digital, are the tangible and perceived distinctions between interior and architecture also becoming extinct? The emergence of more flexible and transitional space appears to not only blur the boundaries of inside and outside, interior and architecture, but also the previous distinctions of function. Space is no longer solely …

Web-Based Ives For User Experience Evaluation In The Architecture Studio, Faithful Oladeji

Frameless

Research on the use of immersive virtual environments (IVEs) in architectural design has rapidly permeated the practice for the last few decades, largely driven by a single prospect: the possibility of sufficiently simulating the genuine interactions and experiences of a design well before it is actually built. The implications of this achievement when fully realized would revolutionize the profession, effectively igniting a new period of David Harvey’s space-time compression in the industry, such that IVEs would enable designers to, symbolically, cross temporal distances, and bring a legitimate experience of their final products to the present, at any point in their …

Blunk, Robert And Katie, Collection, 1890-1930, 1951, Special Collections, Leonard H. Axe Library

Finding Aids

A collection of magazines from the 1890s and 1900s.

Robert Blunk was born in Salyard, Kansas on December 14, 1923. He attended multiple colleges but received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the Kansas City Institute of Arts in 1950 and a Masters of Fine Arts in Sculpture at the Kansas Teacher’s College of Pittsburg (now Pittsburg State University) in 1952. Robert worked as an art professor at colleges for 40 years and taught at Pittsburg State University from 1962 until his retirement. While teaching, Robert painted and sculpted many works, taking inspiration from landscapes, seascapes, Egyptology and art, and …

Continuous Extremes: Architecture Of Uncertainty In Poland, 1945—, Cayce Davis

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

In this thesis, architecture situates between extremes. The dichotomies of destruction and construction, mobility and fixity, performance and reality, inside and outside, and form and time frame architecture and the processes through which it is made. The context is Poland in the fallout of the year 1945, when Warsaw’s unique, nearly total destruction and the ascendance of a new communist regime raised the political stakes of architecture. The thesis focuses on a cast of characters in architecture and related artistic disciplines—individuals haunted by the traumas of their own pasts, negotiating a Polish state that created oppressive limitations through artistic mandates …

“Don’T Make Fun Of The Residents!” Revisiting The Sunbelt’S Vanishing Communities: Mobility And Suburban Development, 1900-1990, Jerry D. Wallace

History ETDs

“Don’t Make Fun of the Residents” examines home ownership and suburban development over the last one hundred years in the borderlands, American West, and Sunbelt regions. In this dissertation I argue that mobility shaped urban planning, neighborhood design, and architectural identity in the Sunbelt over the course of the twentieth century. “Don’t Make Fun of the Residents” places architectural identity at the center of this dissertation discussion to understand the origins of the Sunbelt as a geographic and intellectual space. I focus in particular on smaller cities in the intermountain West---New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Arizona, and California---an area that has …

The Adobe Frontier, Christopher J. Gauthier

Theses and Dissertations

The Adobe Frontier is a documentary film about Ronald Rael and Virginia San Fratello—together known as “Studio Rael San Fratello” —and their work connecting contemporary technology with the legacy of pottery making and adobe architecture in the Southwest United States.

Germania: The Nazi Party And The Third Reich Through The Lens Of Classical Architecture, Maggie L. Smith

Honors Theses

This thesis examines the influence of classical architectural styles and principles on architectural projects in Germany during the Third Reich. My research focuses on major projects completed by the state and does not delve into private buildings or other structures. All of the data was gathered from scholarly publications of repute and photographs to determine how Adolf Hitler’s regime utilized Greek and Roman stylistic elements in an attempt to revive the power and culture of Germany during a time of strife, as well as how Nazi architecture reflected Hitler’s personal ambition as dictator. Additionally, the thesis doubles as an expansion …

Space-Praxis: Towards A Feminist Politics Of Design, Mary C. Overholt

Masters of Environmental Design Theses

Outside of the academy and professionalized practice, design has long been central to the production of feminist, political projects. Taking what I have termed space-praxis as its central analytic, this project explores a suite of feminist interventions into the built environment—ranging from the late 1960s to present day.

Formulated in response to Michel de Certeau’s theory of spatial practices, space-praxis collapses formerly bifurcated definitions of ‘tactic’/‘strategy’ and ‘theory’/‘practice.’ It gestures towards those unruly, situated undertakings that are embedded in an ever-evolving, liberative politics. In turning outwards, away from the so-called masters of architecture, this thesis orients itself toward everyday practitioners …

Constructing Spaces, Deconstructing Meaning: An Examination Of Architecture And Labor At A 17th-Century New Mexican Ranch, Katherine A. Albert

Graduate Masters Theses

There are few archaeological studies of the architecture of 17th-century New Mexican ranches (estancias) due to the paucity of surviving examples. Even fewer archaeological treatments of architecture from 17th-century New Mexico consider the cost of constructing estancias in terms of resource and labor extraction. Using a variety of methods to analyze archaeological evidence from LA 20,000, as well as comparative research of reports from other 17th-century colonial sites, this study presents a hypothetical reconstruction of the three main structures at LA 20,000—the house, the barn, and the corral—and provides estimates of the total quantity of materials and labor needed to …

Exploring The Qualities Of Child-Friendly Outdoor Spaces: A Field Study In Low Income Neighbourhoods - Case Study: Sabra, Beirut, Lebanon, Farah Ahmad Mefleh, Hiba Mohsen, Baher Farahat

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

Children’s play areas are from the past an indispensable right for children, in which it allows children to build their physical environment and assess it cognitive thinking. But today, the city, especially in low-income population suffers from a clear shortage of open spaces, where the leftover spaces are left empty used for garbage, old tanks car parts, and many other bad issues. This has negatively affected society, mainly children, where they become vulnerable to many social ills and problems that threaten their lives and behaviour. This paper tries to ameliorate and presents adequate children’s play areas, for the low-income population, …

Architecture Of Utopian Social Battery In The Neoliberal Cities, Al Hadi Taha, Marwan Halabi, Hiba Mohsen, Bahaa El Dine Abou El Khoudoud

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

During the span of the recorded history, there has been always a continual eagerness to reach what is seen as a perfect place, this perfection has been later called utopia or the ‘non-existent place’ in Greek. Eventually, the perception of utopia differs between people, groups, eras, and many other factors, it’s a simultaneous desire of improving the current conditions. One of these perceived utopias was Neo-liberalism, which is an economic philosophy with ideas linked with free-market, economic liberalism, and capitalism. Indeed, this utopia has turned into a dystopia in which this philosophy became a prevalent mode of producing cities that …

The Eight Grids: A New Method To Enhance Students’ Sketching Skills In The Schools Of Architecture, Mohamad Tohme

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

Sketching is one of the required courses for architecture and design students in higher education since it is considered a necessary skill for architects and designers. However, the lack of visualization skills and practice, students were met with difficulties in grasping the complex concepts of this course, concurrent with the teachers’ lack of familiarity with the various methods. The aim of this paper is to find a new method that allows students to carry out their sketches by examining the problems faced by first-year undergraduate students at the Faculty of Architecture, Design & Built Environment in BAU, Lebanon. To achieve …

Manuscript For Aesthetic/Design Guidelines For Campus Master Planning Bethel University, Wayne Roosa, Eugene Johnson

Art and Design Faculty Works

This document is the manuscript version before graphic design and copyediting. Follow this link to see the final version.

The situation that inspired and drove these aesthetic guidelines for campus master planning were unique to the history Bethel University and Seminary. By the early 1960s, Bethel was outgrowing its site on Snelling Avenue in St. Paul. The opportunity to purchase 160 acres in Arden Hills arose and the leap of faith was taken to buy this land and relocate. But it was not that simple. More was involved than mere practical problems of too-little space solved by an abundance …

Aesthetic/Design Guidelines For Campus Master Planning Bethel University, Wayne Roosa, Eugene Johnson

Art and Design Faculty Works

Table of Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3

The Need for Aesthetic Guidelines for Campus Master Planning The Purpose and Use of this Document

Aesthetic Guidelines: “Suggestions Concerning the Character of the New Campus,” by Eugene Johnson (1963) (original version without annotations) . . . . . . . 5

Eugene Johnson’s, “Suggestions Concerning the Character of the New Campus” (with annotations, a history of interpretation and use) Annotations …

Architectural Filth And The Heroic Passivism Of Farhadi's Salesman, Vahid Vahdat

Interiority

Architecture in Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman (2016) is not a mere passive backdrop to an otherwise unaffected narrative; it is an autonomous agent that takes part in the events that unfold, complicates the narrative, and even occasionally defies the ideological position of the film. By analysing interior spaces, architectural elements, urban infrastructure, and maintenance practices, I suggest that 1) the fluid visual boundaries of Farhadi’s spatial settings are instrumental in blurring the borders of truth and morality—themes that are central to his film; 2) the ontological study of architecture, from the moment of excavation to its ultimate fracture/failure serves as …

Integrative Sonic Urbanism: Artist-Led Strategies For Urban Sound Design In The Contemporary City, Sven Anderson

Doctoral

This doctoral research advances the fields of urban sound design and acoustic planning, presenting new ways of exploring the interrelationship between individual and collective sonic experience, the dynamic potential of the urban sound environment and the complex evolution of the contemporary cityscape. It links urban sound art practices with larger urban design processes, revealing how sound contributes to the production of urban space. The research progresses by crafting a dynamic, integrative methodology that activates contrasting sonic perspectives to critically reassess the role of sound in the public realm. As it discloses this methodology, the research navigates the tension between new …

Milliken (Cooper) Papers And Plans, 1956-1994, Special Collections, Raymond H. Fogler Library, University Of Maine

Finding Aids

The Collection is composed of correspondence, financial records, photographs, and plans that were created by Cooper Milliken and his firm, for various clients. The subject of the collection is almost entirely based on his work and is geographically focused around the State of Maine with some outliers in New York and Massachusetts. Some prominent projects included the renovations of Alumni Hall, Fernald Hall and Carnegie Hall at the University of Maine. As well as the designs for the City of Old Town, the Old Town Airport, Old Town Canoe Company, the James W. Sewall Company, the Penobscot County Court House, …

Reimagining Abandoned Community Space In A Post-Pandemic Environment, Julia Drooff

Scripps Senior Theses

Earlier this year, the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the demise of the Great American Mall by forcing temporary and permanent closures across the country. The low-end malls that remain are dealing with crippling debt and the closing of key department stores like JC Penney and Neiman Marcus[1]. With only super-luxury malls thriving, many of the standard malls set up in the eighties are just abandoned parts of a community. So, what should happen to these abandoned malls? And what role does that space now play in the post-pandemic community? Since malls began to shut-down pre-Covid-19 did the need for …

A Rejection Of Nature? Or The Natural World? An Objectless Inquiry Into The Writings Of Kazimir Malevich, Aidan Edward Galloway

Senior Projects Spring 2021

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Social Studies of Bard College.

Captives & Spoils In Chicago: Examining The Columbian Exposition’S Triumphal Procession Of 1893, Kazandra Zelaya

CMC Senior Theses

Daniel Burnham’s vision of a classical revival in the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893 brought ancient Roman triumph with its captives and spoils to Chicago, Illinois. Burnham’s restorative urban utopia used Beaux-Arts architecture in the exposition’s White City that evoked the image of Roman triumphal processions. Beaux-Arts architecture did not extend into the Midway Plaisance, however, the model of Roman triumph extended into the ethnographic exhibits. By examining the ethnographic exhibits of the Midway as a version of a Roman triumphal procession, the exhibits highlighted novel types of captivity through sponsorships, wages, and erasure. Illustrations of American imperialism in the …

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 …