Architecture Commons^™

Utilizing Biomimicry To Design Sustainable Architecture, Virginia Hammond

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Nature has an integral relationship with architecture and serves as a sustainable role model and inspiration for designers. The process of biomimicry in architecture has the potential to produce more sustainable design solutions and foster a connection between humans and nature. Existing biomimetic design projects have varying strengths and weaknesses as examples of the process. Utilizing guidelines and references from key leaders in biomimetic design consultancy (Biomimicry 3.8), selected case studies are assessed for their ability to demonstrate the benefits of this design strategy. Using these evaluations, the case studies are diagrammed and critiqued to determine how new projects could …

The Art Of Detailing: An Exploration Of Watercolor, Torrey Tracy

TFSC Publications and Presentations

Second Annual University of Arkansas Teaching and Learning Symposium: Sharing Teaching Ideas

Department of Interior Architecture and Design, Fay Jones School of Architecture

Special thanks to Cat Wallack, Architectural Records Archivist, Mullins Library and Reagan Walters, Bachelor of Interior Design, 2021

Subterraneans: A Regional Earth Dwelling For Comfort And Beauty, Isaak Benchoff

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Subterraneans is a study of an affordable, self-sufficient, sustainable, and dignified housing prototype for the region of Northwest Arkansas. It is a design process investigation based on the ideas of turning a local, sustainable material into affordable homes that can be built within a community of people sharing land and resources. The homes would utilize as many natural materials as possible to minimize the impact on the Earth and the cost to the owners.

Research looked at many different vernacular building precedents as well as the work done by contemporary design firms in the area of economical, low-impact, and passively …

Early Childhood Educational Toys Through An Architectural Perspective, Anindhitha Sudhakaran

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This capstone explores the overlaps between architectural training and early childhood education, and how architectural design can inform the design process of creating educational toys for young children. Through an analysis of pedagogies used throughout history in early childhood education and my own personal experiences of architecture school, an understanding of how an architectural perspective can influence activities for three- to five-year-olds is developed. Precedent studies of open-ended educational toys designed by educators and designers introduced the design thinking mindset necessary to create an effectively enriching toy. The next phase of this project involves designing an educational toy for the …

Tactical Urbanism On A University Campus: A Case Study Of Crossroads On Dickson, Noah Berg

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Tactical Urbanism is a method of creating temporary, low-cost interventions in a city’s built environment, aiming to test new ideas, gather community feedback, and create momentum for larger-scale changes. The approach is characterized by its focus on quick, iterative projects that can be easily implemented and adjusted, rather than large, expensive initiatives that take years to complete. Examples of Tactical Urbanism projects include pop-up bike lanes, parklets, and community gardens. The goal is to encourage community participation, foster a sense of ownership, and create a safer, more livable, and inclusive city. In spring 2022, a class called “Walk, Bike, Link” …

Designing For Mass Customization Housing Through Generative Design, Tania Salgueiro

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research proposal aims to investigate computational design strategies for sustainable, affordable, and more equitable housing. The study will focus on the use of generative design tools, such as parametric modeling, rule-based modeling, and optimization, to aid architects and designers in creating custom housing complexes for single families in small and medium urban lots. The goal is to develop a computational method that considers sustainability, affordability, and long-term usage parameters to create housing designs that meet the desired spatial qualities. The research question asks how generative design tools can support designers in approaching affordable housing given the increasing demand for …

Environmental Injustice In Fayetteville, Arkansas: Investigating Unjust And Racist Conditions In Fayetteville's Industrial Park, Chloe Devecsery

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Environmental racism refers to how minority neighborhoods are burdened with a disproportionate number of environmental hazards and pollution that lower the quality of life and create health disparities. Despite the growing awareness of the national and global problem, environmental injustice and racism can be found in nearly every place. There is little being done regarding policy, public awareness, and government action. The fight for environmental justice is still needed across America, in Arkansas, and in our community. This disciplinary-oriented capstone gives a brief overview of the environmental justice movement and uses publicly available maps and statistics from government and academic …

Plastic Bottles In Architecture: A How To Guide On Life-Cycle Through Reuse, Crystallyne Landram

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This booklet is a collection of 6 case studies that utilize reused plastic bottles significantly within their design. Prior to working with the case studies, much time was dedicated to research that justified the need for such a project. In-depth research on the environmental crisis, waste management trends, stewardship, sustainability, and ethics was conducted and recorded in the introduction to contextualize the need for an accessible how-to guide such as this one. Time was also given to establishing background information on bottles, reprocessing, and architecture to elaborate further on each piece of the content matter. It is curated as a …

The Hot Springs Creekway & The Rediscovery Of The Water That Made Hot Springs Famous, Zane Colvin

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Arkansas’s Hot Springs National Park was the first natural reservation in the United States and is the oldest park in the National Park System. In Hot Springs, 47 springs release almost a million gallons of potable 143° water every day - the problem is, almost all of this water is hidden from sight, funneled directly into an 1884-constructed tunnel underground, where no person (or other life) can experience it.

Hot Springs Creek should be daylighted and connected with the surrounding National Park, creating thermal 'pools' for public use, and restoring its banks to pre-settlement ecologically rich conditions. My plan to …

Hurricanes And Housing: Highlighting The Ongoing Impact Of Hurricane Michael And The Post-Disaster Housing Problem, Mary Beth Barr

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Hurricanes impact individuals and communities on many levels - emotional, physical, mental, financial - to name a few. Every time a hurricane occurs, lives are drastically altered forever. One of the ways that hurricanes impact individuals and communities most powerfully is through the effect that they have on housing. Unleashing uncontrollable damage to infrastructure and the built environment, hurricanes exacerbate housing problems that exist and create new ones where they did not exist before. Hurricane Michael, which catastrophically impacted the Florida Panhandle in 2018, is a case study in which the impact that hurricanes have on housing is prevalent.

By …

Collage, Perspective, And Space: The Consequences Of The Method Of Mies Van Der Rohe, Daniel Barker

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

The method in which architects design space has the capacity to shape the manifestation of the built work. Architect Mies van der Rohe is one of the most noteworthy designers to exhibit this in his method of design: collage. This inquiry investigates the connection between the collages and the architecture of Mies van der Rohe, and how his use of collage defined the language of the architecture he created.

The investigation studied the collages and architecture of Mies van der Rohe through a design process investigation. Collages were made in the same language as Mies and used as a …

Americanization Of Islamic Cultural Design: Erasure, Orientalism/Exoticism, And Americanization, Peter L. Stanley

Landscape Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Islam arrived in North America primarily through the importation of Muslim African slaves. Subsequent suppression of the slaves, and by extension their religion and places of worship, generated a lack of understanding and misunderstanding about Islam. Over time, this misunderstanding evolved into xenophobic and orientalist representations of the religion. This Capstone project researches Islam’s roots in colonial America through the period before the Columbian Exposition of 1893, and its evolution after the Columbian Exposition, with defining time periods expressed as Erasure, Orientalism/Exoticism, and Americanization. With the help of cultural trust organizations such as the Aga Khan Foundation, the contemporary Americanization …

Walkability Of Suburban Retrofits Of The Washington Dc Area: Immersion Into Qualitative Constructs, David Sweere

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

The majority of the United States population is living in the suburbs, and yet the suburban built fabric has developed with spatial conditions that have failed to prove their efficacy on environmental, social or economic terms. Most contemporary architectural and urban theorists agree that the suburban condition is inherently problematic. In a 2010 Ted Talk, architect and urban designer Ellen Dunham-Jones discusses the problematic state of the suburban built condition, citing dependence on the vehicle, sparseness of built form, environmental costs, transportation costs, and even increased obesity rates (Dunham-Jones 2010). Because the suburbs comprise the majority of our “urbanized” areas …

A Functional Escape, Zachary Spero

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Over the past two decades, the tree house has outgrown its more recent traditional role as a child’s place to play and has served many new functions. I intend to conduct research that questions how the tree house has evolved over the last twenty years based upon changes in program, technology, and relation to the tree itself. As a result of this research, I will deliver a clear understanding of tree house design best practices in the form of a manual.

Solar Power In Architecture, Meagan Leeth

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper investigates the barriers and solutions to the use of solar power in architecture. It examines the emergence of solar power and its history. It looks into social, political, economic, and design issues surrounding solar panels in architecture.

Re-Live Downtown Pine Bluff, Community Design Center

Project Reports

Once a prosperous cultural urban center in the Mississippi River delta, but now the nation’s second fastest shrinking city, Pine Bluff (population: 42,700) is Arkansas’ Detroit. Indeed, a study of black wealth conducted by famed sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois in 1899 found that Pine Bluff had the fourth highest rate of black wealth in the nation behind Charleston, Richmond, and New York City. The school’s community design center prepared a downtown revitalization plan, Re-Live Downtown Pine Bluff, a housing-first initiative focused on building neighborhoods around downtown “centers of strength”. While the revitalization approach is triaged around a …

Center For Farm And Food System Entrepreneurship, Community Design Center

Project Reports

The average age of the American farmer is 58. Since communities are not reproducing the next generation of farmers, universities are establishing training centers to model new concepts and technologies in farming. The Farmers Training Center is both an immersive program in the rhythms of farm life and a public facility for hosting gatherings that celebrate value-added food products. Part of the University of Arkansas’ farm operations near campus, the center is the public face of agriculture where farmers and the public meet. Student farmers learn by farming, from organic vegetable production in fields and greenhouses, to machine repair, marketing, …

Willow Heights Livability Improvement Plan, Community Design Center

Project Reports

Willow Heights is a 43-year old public housing complex owned by the Fayetteville Housing Authority (FHA) within the federal public housing portfolio administered by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The school’s design center was commissioned by a local foundation to study an alternative to the FHA’s plan to sell the downtown Willow Heights complex to a developer of high-income housing, necessitating relocation of low-income residents to another complex outside of downtown. Using equity as a driver of decision making, the studio introduced scenario planning to organize reluctant stakeholders in considering transformations to the five-acre complex.

New Beginnings Homeless Transition Village, Community Design Center

Project Reports

More than three million Americans experience homelessness annually. Emergency shelter capacity is limited while local governments are unable to provide even temporary housing. Informal housing involving interim self-help solutions are now popular adaptive actions for obtaining shelter despite nonconformance with city codes. Unfortunately, most informal solutions have resulted in objectionable tent cities and squatter campgrounds where the local response has simply been to move the problem around. Our homeless transition village plan prototypes a shelter-first solution using a kit-of-parts that can be replicated in other communities. Village design reconciles key gaps between informal building practices and formal sector regulations, creating …

The Delamination Of Manhattan: Living In The Layers Of A Post-Land Society, Dylan Hursley

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Rising water levels threaten the existence of many coastal cities throughout the world, including Lower Manhattan, which is in danger of sea level rise by as much as six feet by the end of the century! Higher sea levels mean that larger storms will occur with greater frequency. Assuming that humanity does not reverse its current ecological contribution, barriers to stop rising waters will not be adequate.

Manhattan is covered by 50 feet of water, transforming New York into a new Venice. The substantial bedrock of the city provides a hefty foundation capable of supporting Manhattan’s structures for many years …

The Freeman Performing Arts Center, Community Design Center

Project Reports

The Freeman Performing Arts Center marks the threshold between prairie and civic life. This small agricultural community of 1,300 has an outsized Anabaptist music tradition recognized nationally. The 37,000 sf hall-type building unifies a miscellaneous collection of public buildings and landscapes at the southwest corner of the town’s one-mile grid. The center’s massing projects an ascending system of familiar gable roofs, which absorb the fly tower into a composition reflective of pragmatic building forms. The principal face of the building is a translucent curtain wall that illuminates interior massing—a beacon on the prairie. A thru-Porch celebrates transitions between the prairie’s …

How Do Designers Of The Built Environment Attempt To Make Ecological Sustainability Sensory Legible?, Carly L. Bartow

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper attempts to provide a theoretical framework for making ecosystem function and ecologically sustainable design more perceptible or sensible to people through architecture and the built environment. Design features of the Bertschi School Science Wing and the Bullitt Center in Seattle, Washington are incorporated to illustrate the sensory legibility of ecological sustainability criteria.The criteria are available to designers to help educate a building's occupants on environmentally sustainable design and motivate more sustainable behavior.

Rebuilding After A Natural Disaster: Housing Strategies For Minority Communities In Post-Tsunami Sri Lanka, Katherine E. Dombek

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

On December 26, 2004, an earthquake measuring 9.0 on the Richter scale caused one of the most catastrophic disasters in recent history: the Indian Ocean Tsunami. Also called the Boxing Day Tsunami, this event devastated communities along the coast of the Indian Ocean killing around 230,000 people and displacing around 1.7 million. One of the worst affected countries was Sri Lanka which suffered the greatest loss in relative terms. In Sri Lanka 36,000 people were killed and about 500,000 were displaced by the tsunami with five percent of the population being directly affected. The initial relief activities were relatively successful …

Industrial Evolution: A Comparative Case Study Of The Transformation Fron Industry To Leisure In The Ports Of San Francisco And Oakland, California., Annie Fulton

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

This case study examined two waterfront sites on the San Francisco Bay – The Piers in San Francisco and Jack London Square in Oakland. The Piers, actually consisting of Piers 1 ½, 3 and 5, was formerly the point of entry for immigrants to the city and today is home to offices and restaurant space. Jack London Square, which covers four city blocks, is a project whose aim is to revitalize an industrial shipping port and warehousing district. Today, it is about halfway through its phased development schedule. Multiple techniques were used to investigate the process by which these two …

Ralph Bunche Agape Neighborhood Vision Plan, Community Design Center

Project Reports

The Ralphe Bunche Neighborhood Vision Plan provides a general design framework to spur reinvestment in this 100-year old historic African-American neighborhood in Benton, AR. The plan aggregates attainable housing (under $100,000/unit) around two neighborhood parks―one existing, and one proposed. Since the city cannot afford comprehensive street and drainage improvements to accommodate redevelopment, the proposal retrofits streets and open space with Low Impact Development (LID) landscapes to remediate urban stormwater runoff. Housing unit types between 1,000 and 1,750 square feet are amassed around these LID landscapes and amenitized with screened rooms, balconies, terraces, and multiple-height living spaces.

Macarthur Park Master Plan, Community Design Center

Project Reports

Like waterfronts and transit stops, parks leverage value in urban areas. While much recent attention has been given to the signature mega-park, the value of the small-scale neighborhood park in reinventing the city has been overlooked. Once connecting neighborhoods of differing character, and sponsoring more than 80 residential structures along its edges, the historic MacArthur Park at the edge of downtown Little Rock is radically underutilized as an urban neighborhood asset. Severed from its neighborhoods along two edges by interstate construction in the 1960s, this moribund 40-acre municipal park is left with only 16 residential structures along its frontage. The …

Porchscapes: Between Neighborhood Watershed And Home, Community Design Center

Project Reports

Located on the Ozark Plateau, this 43-unit housing development is a LEED-ND (Neighborhood Development) pilot project to be built for $60/sf plus $2.3 million in infrastructure costs. The studio objective is to design a demonstration project that combines affordability with best environmental practices as designated by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). Porchscapes is a pioneering Low Impact Development (LID) project funded under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Section 319 Program for Nonpoint Source Pollution. LID manages stormwater runoff through ecological engineering technologies. A contiguous network of rainwater gardens, bioswales, infiltration trenches, sediment filter strips, green streets, and wet meadows …

Habitat Trails . . . A Manual For Affordable Green Neighborhood Development, Community Design Center

Project Reports

Habitat Trails is a green affordable neighborhood development consisting of 17 Habitat for Humanity homes. The site is designed as a sponge to work in accord with existing hydrological drainage, catchment, and recharge patterns. Stormwater runoff is retained and treated through a contiguous network of bioswales, infiltration trenches, stormwater gardens, sediment filter strips, and a constructed wet meadow. The integration of a treatment landscape with open space substitutes an ecologically-based stormwater management system for the expensive curb-gutter-pipe solution in civil infrastructure.

Native Plants: The Preservation And Restoration Of Native Plants In Designed Landscapes In Northwest Arkansas, Janet Coleman

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

A decline in Northwest Arkansas's native plant population has occurred over the past 50 years, as documented by the U.S. Forest Service in the Ozark-Ouachita Highlands Assessment. This decline has been caused by increased human development in natural areas and the replacement of native plants with exotic, non-native plants. As a result, a generation has grown up not knowing what an Ozark wake Robin trillium (Trillium pusillum var. ozarkanum) or Blood root (Sanguinaria canadensis) Look like, because these plants are difficult to find in nature, are not commonly grown in designed landscapes, and are Largely unavailable in garden centers. The …

Marsport Deployable Greenhouse, Iova Dineva

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

To sustain a Mars exploration team, NASA's reference mission IV includes a greenhouse facility requirement to supplement the crew's food supply. This research project explores strategies for building, delivering, deploying, operating, and maintaining a greenhouse as a supplemental structure for the Mars environment. The MarsPort Deployable Greenhouse (MDG) addresses the issues of atmosphere, sunlight, energy, deployment mechanism, water and nutrients, crop collection, modular development for expansion, research module for Mars experimentation, and crew recreation.