Architecture Commons^™

Leap Collaborative: A Demonstration Of Sustainable Practices, Sierra Rose Jensen, David Keith Berry

EURēCA: Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement

Located on in the heart of downtown Knoxville along West Church Avenue, the LEAP Collaborative is imagined as a collection of landscape architects, engineers, architects, and planners who contract projects with an emphasis on sustainable design. Therefore, for the design of their headquarters, we wanted to express that commitment to sustainable design and display some of those practices clearly to the pedestrian and passer-by. One of the main goals was the clarity of programmatic pieces. The retail comes out to the street edge to invite shoppers. The laboratory, highly visible, pushes forward towards the street edge but is less accessible …

Equal Standing, Benjamin Thomas Dance

Masters Theses

My goal in this thesis is to challenge the social issues that can arise from current downtown redevelopment plans throughout the United States. This proposal seeks to break down physical, spatial, and social barriers that can result from commercial development by creating a design intervention that is economically beneficial for the city while remaining inclusive to the community as a whole. This particular thesis will focus on the current downtown development in Muskegon, Michigan.

The challenge is to create a design and program that is as central to the community as industry once was. This will come in the form …

Emergent Opportunities: Urban Design In Small Town Appalachia, Phillip Geiman

Masters Theses

This thesis looks at urban design within small town Appalachia and its role in low density and low resource communities.

Small towns are facing a critical juncture in this point in their history. As most areas transition from a heavy depend acne on industrial based economy to an uncertain post-industrial, they face challenges unique to rural areas. Specifically, this thesis looks at “urban design” in distinctly non-urban areas and seeks to answer the question of what is the function and what is the role of design at such a large (urban) scale.

The idea is that what distinguishes small towns …

Refocusing Roles ...A Look At Refocusing Programmatic Emphasis From Living Units To Amenity Spaces In Apartment Living, Laura Mae Kneebone

Masters Theses

As growth within cities increase, so does the demand for living options within the city context. A cultural shift is drawing more individuals and families back into the heart of cities instead of fleeing to the outskirts of surrounding highway towns.

This increase in desire for city living has raised issues surrounding the lack of living options within the city that may accommodate those needing and/or seeking affordable living options. Micro-unit apartment housing has become the trending answer to this need, providing compact affordable living spaces within the core of a city. Micro-unit apartments can be currently found in most …

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 …

Interactions Between The Urban Environment And “The Homelessness”: Observations And Responses, Jeffrey Charles Stahl

Masters Theses

Homelessness and people living on the streets is a phenomenon that is facing every major urban center in the United States. These people are a commonality in the urban landscape and are often seen a problem to be fi xed. Due to the interactions between the urban environment and persons experiencing homelessness, there needs to be a paradigm shift in how policy is written and how we design an intervention for these forgotten people. The goal of this thesis is to gain a clearer understanding to what it is like to survive on the streets: how dose someone fi nd …

The Vestiges Of The Sacred, Benjamin James Wathen

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

High Thought – Low Tech, Samuel Luiken Bouck, Forrest Jackson Reynolds

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Coalescing Memory, Michael Christopher Housley

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Off-Ramp: An Architecture Of Deceleration, Samuel Craig Adkisson

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Architecture As Pedagogy: Designing Sustainable Schools As Three-Dimensional Textbooks, Ester Ehrlich Schwartz

Masters Theses

The importance of school buildings has been recognized as a fundamental element of modern society. Today, roughly a quarter of America’s population, including our youngest citizens, spend the majority of their days in school buildings. Still, many of our nation’s schools are in disrepair, with systems in need of repair or replacement.

Over the years, strong evidence and research have shown that school building impact student’s health and their ability to learn. Green schools mean healthier environments for students and staff. Pragmatically, we also know that that green schools save money. Energy-efficient buildings help reduce energy costs, which in turn …

Aging In Urbanity, Brantley Farron Bass

Masters Theses

As the number of Americans over the age of fifty continues to rise, there are growing concerns over the quality of health care facilities and their availability and affordability. There are those who prefer the idea of growing older in a sprawling, suburban landscape, surrounded by nature, and history has proven this to be a normative response to retirement living. Yet, there could be other ways of introducing this type of living in a more accessible, lively and urban environment. There are many different options of living for younger generations and families, so the potential for providing similar options for …

Omakuva, A Self Portrait, Haley Rose Allen

EURēCA: Exhibition of Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement

A Study Abroad Design Studio was held for the duration of one month in the summer of 2012. Helsinki, Finland was the headquarters for operations and Suomenlinna Sea Fortress Island was the site of focus. Eighteen students dissected and reassembled a site rich in memory, history, and narrative to create a chapel-museum representative of themselves and what they learned from their study abroad experience.

Perform + Function: A Proposal For A Healthy Public Housing Community, Brandon M. Harvey

Masters Theses

PERFORM+FUNCTION: Proposal for A Healthy Public Housing Community

Architecture exists in Place, the integrated context of both the built and natural environments, including socio-economic, cultural, and political climates that influence our growth, development, and survival. As architecture necessitates around human purposes, it is important that architecture is built for and sited in an environment compatible for human well-being. My thesis focuses on human habitation and its immediate relationship with human health, assessing the performance and functionality of Place that have an impact on human health. Using public housing as the vehicle of my investigation, I will seek the appropriate application …

Wasteland: A Manifesto For Resurrection Via The Fringe, Logan W. Newton

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Reclaiming Identity: White Street Pier, Key West, Adam H. Richards

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Re-Covery, Mark Christopher Manis

Masters Theses

This thesis concerns itself with the recovery of the history of Las Vegas, the effects of historic knowledge upon the cities present identity, and how focus on its past can effect individuals in its community and visitors from afar at present. Further it concerns itself with the quality of living, or lack thereof, in the surrounding neighborhoods of the thesis’ design site, The Old Mormon Fort, and seeks to make a healthy contribution to its community. The Old Mormon fort is the earliest site of modern day human settlement in Las Vegas, and in many ways has been the foundation …

Inhabiting The Periphery: A Dialogue Between Individual And Site, Robert Oliver Kown

Masters Theses

What is a periphery? We can think about this word in more than one way. First off, peripheries are places that exist as spatial conditions in cities, They indicate edges and places that have been left behind. Spaces that have lost their meaning. But in this thesis I will use the word in another way as well. What does the periphery mean for us today? What are those parts of our lives that have been marginalized, and how can we begin to reclaim what has been lost? It is the aim of this thesis to address these issues of the …

The Genesis Project: The Synthesis Of Man, Environment, And Technology, Omar Sidney Bakeer

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

Univercity Living Room, Stephen Townsend

Chancellor’s Honors Program Projects

No abstract provided.

An Architecture Of Amelioration, Geoffrey Russell Plagemann

Masters Theses

Scar: A lingering sign of damage or injury, either mental or physical.

Technological advancement scars the landscape. It has been our practice to ignore, or worse, hide these marks that have been made as society continues to advance. Industries past left us relics and ruins of bygone eras of promise and production. The time we live in has recognized the untenable failures of past generations, however there are methods of industry that continue to injure the landscape. We will leave our scars.

In this time we must rethink the scar, define it, and recognize its beauty. The first step of …

Rethinking Greenways Design In Context Of Sustainable Development: Towards Landscape Synergism, Archana Sharma

Architecture Publications and Other Works

Greenways design and planning has been largely framed as a multi-functional, multi-objective approach to address socio-cultural and ecological concerns (Fabos,2004; Hough 2004, Steiner, 2002; Fabos, 1995, Ahern, 1995; Ndubisi, 1995; Forman,1995). Social well-being, identity and memory have been predominant socio-cultural concerns while biodiversity preservation and natural resources conservation have been key ecological concerns. These concerns have now been superseded by the more urgent concerns of sustainable development such as availability of energy resources, both food and fuel. Whether and how the design and practice of greenways meets these sustainable development challenges is the primary question raised through this paper.

The …

Contemporary Practices In Sustainable Design: Appraisal And Articulation Of Emerging Trend, Archana Sharma

Architecture Publications and Other Works

Sustainable design is a phrase commonly used in the realms of design practice and yet the definition of the same remains quite fuzzy, thus providing the motivation for this research. The paper looks at contemporary sustainable design practices in the area of architecture design, building construction and landscape architecture. The objective is to understand what the term “sustainable design” really means as used in practice and what strategies are being employed towards the goal of sustainable development. The practices are assessed for their empathies as per the currently defined social, ecological, economical well-being goals of sustainable development. The paper concludes …

Community Collaboration And Communication In The Design Studio, Noam Austerlitz, Avigail Sachs

Architecture Publications and Other Works

Based on the authors teaching experience, this essay presents an example of how the traditional design studio might be modified so as to foster democratic participation and egalitarian communication between the participating students and instructors. Open communication in the studio is seen as the key to incorporating important values such as collaboration, community and respect for the every day environment into the studio's hidden curriculum. The essay begins by discussing the potentials for and obstacles to meaningful communication in the studio. This discussion is followed by a description of a modified studio project that included continuous role-playing on the part …

Green-Switch: Reducing The Conflict Between The Industrial And The Residential Interface, Archana Sharma

Architecture Publications and Other Works

The dilemma of co-existence of human-industry has been a constant topic of debate among the realms of landscape planning, many times without being clearly articulated as such. This paper examines the conflict through the study of industrial-residential domain. Natural resources such as water and land are primary reasons of conflict. The paper explores the potential of landscape design to address this conflict. The proposed landscape design strategy green-switch combines the landscape planning concept of “greenways” and applied ecological engineering concept of “constructed wetland” to address the conflict.

Weaving: Redesigning The Post Colonial Town Through African Cultural Traditions, Henry Walela Musangi

Masters Theses

“They [Africans] look upon their native arts and crafts primarily as the ‘locus’ of their national consciousness. In spite of a violent urge for the new, for progress and for high living standards, more and more of their valuable, innate culture and customs now are being reflected upon in new light, finding their own voice in the form of a new, healthy and surprisingly expressive art.”

“The ‘new’ is cleansed from any cliché imitating a style.

The ‘new’ does not evolve from cheap modernism.

The ‘new’ functions according to the climate and the situation.

The ‘new’ proves to have an …

The Decline Of Log House Construction In Blount County, Tennessee, John T. Morgan

Doctoral Dissertations

The log house is an important element of architectural heritage of much of the eastern United States. In some areas, such as East Tennessee, log construction was not replaced by frame construction until the late nineteenth century.

Several reasons have been presented in the literature for the decline of log house construction, but none of them had been tested empirically. This study determined to what extent the reasons given for the decline of the log house construction explain the decline of log dwelling construction in Blount County, Tennessee. The study analyzed the influence of five factors: (1) relative affluence of …

The Cantilever Barn In East Tennessee (Exhibition Catalogue), Marian Moffett, Lawrence Wodehouse

Ewing Gallery of Art & Architecture

This catalogue is an exploration of the only building type indigenous to East Tennessee. This publication, and the exhibition which it accompanies, represent a preliminary report on the cantilever barn in East Tennessee, based upon field studies conducted over a five-month period in early 1984.