Architecture Commons^™

Architectural Constructions Of Memory & The Ruin In Post-1989 Berlin, Gilda Hanna Gross

Senior Projects Spring 2016

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Arts of Bard College.

Developing Maker Economies In Post-Industrial Cities: Applying Commons Based Peer Production To Mycelium Biomaterials, Grant R. Rocco

Masters Theses

Our current system of research and production is no longer suitable for solving the problems we face today. As climate change threatens our cities and livelihoods, the global economic system preys on the weak. A more responsive, equitable, and resilient system needs to be implemented. Our post industrial cities are both products and victims of the boom-bust economies employed for the last few centuries.
While some communities have survived by converting to retail and services based economies, others have not been so fortunate and have become run-down husks of their former bustling selves. The key to revitalizing these cities is …

On The Periphery: A Survey Of Nineteenth-Century Asylums In The United States, Lauren Hoopes

All Theses

State and federal government purpose-built asylums constructed in the 'moral treatment' era of mental healthcare, here defined as 1835 to 1900, mark a period of great change in the nation. Establishment of moral treatment asylums occurred between two very different eras. The eighteenth century, in which mental illness was seen as a punishment from God, precedes the moral treatment asylums. Twentieth-century thinking favored a medical view in which mental illness can be treated or controlled with medical drugs. Asylums built in the nineteenth century relied on 'moral' treatments--treatments that utilized no restraints unless absolutely necessary and used the environment and …

"Nine Mahogany Table…Two Marble Slabbs And Stands…And A Cow": The First Generation Furniture Of Drayton Hall, Shannon Marie Devlin

All Theses

When the National Trust for Historic Preservation purchased Drayton Hall in 1974, they made a groundbreaking decision. The Trust took a conservation approach to the house, preserving Drayton Hall as found and presenting it to the public unfurnished. The decision proved to have significant ramifications and as a direct result, interpreting the material culture at the site slid to the side. Drayton Hall has over a million objects in its collections ranging from archaeological sherds to pieces of furniture, yet the collections play little to no role in site interpretation to the public. The first generation furniture (ca. 1738-1779), at …

Dwell: Reinhabiting Elkmont, Joseph Wessels

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

A Hazard Assessment And Proposed Risk Index For Art, Architecture, Archive And Artifact Protection: Case Studies For Assorted International Museums, Clara Jeanene Kirk

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study proposes a hazard/risk index for environmental, technological, and social hazards that may threaten a museum or other place of cultural storage and accession. This index can be utilized and implemented to measure the risk at the locations of these storage facilities in relationship to their geologic, geographic, environmental, and social settings. A model case study of the 1966 flood of the Arno River and its impact on the city of Florence and the Uffizi Gallery was used as the index focus. From this focus an additional eleven museums and their related risk were assessed. Each index addressed a …

Utopia In The Apocalypse: Creating A Framework Of Survival Systems, Bryan E. Toepfer

Masters Theses

As medicines continue to evolve, as well as our tendency to misuse and abuse them, viruses become more and more resilient. While the flu is largely an inconvenience which at its worst may result in a missed day of work, it bears the risk of returning to the days of old when it was a terminal disease. With the imminent risk of resistant super viruses emerging,New York Cityhas taken precautions to prepare for the worst case scenario. If deemed necessaryNew Yorkhas plans to completely quarantine and isolate the city from the world. This provides us with the perfect opportunity to …

Working At The Water's Edge: Reconnecting The People Of Charleston With The Water, Maria Ann Fox

Masters Theses

Water is a chemical compound fundamental to life. When many people first think of water, it is the water used for everyday activities and drinking that may come to mind. What is frequently overlooked is the fact that 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with water and 96.5% of Earth’s water is found in oceans and seas (U.S. Geological Survey). What may not be as clear is the importance of these bodies of water to the surrounding towns and cities.

Since it’s founding in 1670, Charleston, South Carolina has always had a strong relationship with the water. One could …

Agri[Culture]: An Alternate Paradigm For The American Landscape, Melissa Erin Morris

Masters Theses

Throughout the Appalachian region, one can experience the vast disappearance of the American landscape as we know it. Whether driving through the rugged coal mining towns of Virginia, or the suburban sprawl taking over the rural farmland of Tennessee, it becomes clear that this is a spreading epidemic. Without an appropriate balance of urban, suburban, and rural areas, we begin to loose the landscape which has always been so closely linked to this country’s cultural and physical identity.

This thesis focuses on the agrarian Appalachian culture with a proposal for a project rooted heavily in cultural identity. With programs based …

Block 271, Reviving An Industrial Artifact, Jared Thomas Pohl

Masters Theses

Vacant industrial sites are scattered throughout our cities all across the country. These sites, these remnants of industry, are occupied by a very interesting category of buildings. They are artifacts from an industrial era that served very unique and specific functions. These service buildings suffered programmatic failure and have lost their vitality. They have entered a form of hibernation, waiting for the post-industrial epoch to wake them up.

The building stock under investigation makes up a large portion of the city’s structures. Identifiable by their heroic scale, clean articulated lines and tendency to be vacant, these service buildings raise arguments …

'Connecticut's Most Auncient Towne': A Brief History Of Homes In Wethersfield, 1634-1934, Emily Sesko

Senior Theses and Projects

This paper aims to delineate the stylistic history of Wethersfield, Connecticut’s domestic architectural culture from the time of its founding in 1634 by Massachusetts adventurer John Oldham through the completion of the Hubbard Community in the mid-1930s by visionary developer and historic home restorer Albert G. Hubbard, originally of Simsbury, Connecticut.

Due to its status as the oldest town in Connecticut, Wethersfield has the advantage of having at least one example of each major style of home building from the mid-seventeenth century age of settlement to the birth of the streetcar suburb and a class of corporate commuters and automobile …

Working With Paul Rudolph To Make Rudolph Work: Reclaiming, Conserving, And Adapting Sarasota High School (1958), Katherine Marie Armstrong

Masters Theses

Sarasota High School, designed by Paul Rudolph in 1958, physically embodies the central ideas of Regional Modernism that developed in Sarasota, Florida in the 1940s and 50s. Covered breezeways, monumental sunshades, deep overhangs, and sliding glass doors promote natural ventilation and sun shading as ways to deal with Florida’s hot climate. As an example of progressive architecture of the time, it is a seminal work of Rudolph’s and significant to Sarasota’s architectural legacy of climatically responsive, modernist buildings that captured international attention.

Sixty years later, Sarasota High School is now unoccupied and in a state of disrepair. The school board …

Encapsulating History Of Place, Ashley Linn Lenentine

Masters Theses

Architecture has the ability to reveal the culture and history of a place, to support the community and educate society. The design becomes the vessel that retains the history of the place and increases cultural appreciation throughout society. This thesis looks to reinterpret how design responds to a historic context and incorporates culture and memory into the method for new design. A place is an accumulation of layers that tell a story of the past and overlay conditions of the present that enhance the experience of the place. The site, context, history, and culture can be identified as various layers …

Revitalization Through Rehabilitation: Enhancing Communities Through Re-Use, Jason Stuart Pimsler

Masters Theses

The densification of an existing community through the implementation of sustainable design principles, such as adaptive reuse, promotes revitalization. The re-inhabitation of the proposed abandoned structure along the BeltLine can lead to further development of the existing arts complex. As part of this revitalization, linkages established along a citywide master-planned path provide nodal connections between the local art district and the artists of the Goat Farm and educate visitors of the significant industrial history of the area. The purpose of this thesis is to investigate the positive impact that sustainable architecture, adaptive reuse and proper planning can have on a …

The Best Brick House In All The Country: Documenting The Structural Evolution Of Medway, Mount Holly, South Carolina, Neale Canter Nickels

All Theses

This thesis represents the assembly of physical architectural analysis, archival investigation, and the study of the work of previous historians on the subject of the main house at Medway Plantation. Medway is a property whose origins can be traced back to the seventeenth century. Since then, it has changed form many times. A great amount of research has been conducted on Medway by historians, both amateur and professional. Few, however, if any have ever been able to study Medway with the stucco removed from the exterior and walls and floors exposed on the inside.
This was the impetus for researching …

The Life And Death Of An American Block: A Dialogue With Entropy, Micah Daniel Antanaitis

Masters Theses

My goal in this thesis is to frame, through design, an existing environment in a manner that fosters the witness and embrace of the reality and beauty of decay—which acts as a marker of the passage of time. My intent is to engage in a careful renewal of a neglected, and largely forgotten, urban landscape, which does not ignore its temporal context. My hope is to explore the full potential of the life cycle of buildings and discover the lesson of mortality in modern American ruins.

Things fall apart. This is a simple truth about the physical world that humanity …

The Fire Houses Of Charleston, South Carolina 1881 - 1943, Rebecca Marie Moffatt

All Theses

From the first Charleston settlement in 1670, fire has posed an ever present threat. For this reason, fire fighting took on an important role even in its earliest forms within the city. As firefighting techniques evolved so did the buildings used to house both the equipment and the men used for such a task.
This thesis studies the architecture of the Charleston Fire Department. From its early beginnings in 1881 when the newly formed department absorbed the former volunteer companies, to the more recent buildings (ending with the structure built in 1943) which were constantly being added as the needs …

Acquiring Islamic Identity Through Architectural Style, Omar Kishk

Archived Theses and Dissertations

[abstract not provided]