Architecture Commons^™

An Archaeological Perspective On Architectural Evolution At Fort Harrison, Rachel Nicole Bergstresser

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Fort Harrison is a historic home located in Rockingham County, Virginia. Occupation of the site began in 1749, when Daniel Harrison constructed the original limestone dwelling, and today it is protected and interpreted by Fort Harrison, Inc. The Department of Anthropology at James Madison University has performed exploratory archaeological fieldwork to better document change in the way the site has been utilized.

This project has evaluated the hypothesis that the main (front) entrance to the house was relocated from the northerly-facing side to the southerly-facing side, in conjunction with the decision to enlarge the structure. Archaeological findings and architectural evidence …

Surveilled, Rachel Swetnam

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Debord's "Society the Spectacle" and Delouze’s Deleuze's "Society of Control" both imagine a dystopian future for humanity in a world governed by excessive self-advertisement and mass surveillance. This thesis begins with the observation that, sadly, their two visions have become a reality. Current technologies log our movements through GPS satellite data, and photographs taken by closed-circuit security cameras, or by passers-by on a public street, are constantly cross-checked against databanks of previously-compiled biometric profiles. Every movement and transaction is digitized and recorded, accessible to ever-widening networks of information exchange and surveillance. These data-networks are altering the manner by which people …

Adhocracy, Sara Denney

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Adhocracy Sara Denney The Situationists of the 1960’s were cultural revolutionaries critical of passive consumerism and encouraged the reawakening of everyday life. In the spirit of the Situationists, and operating as an “ad-hocing” machine, this project proposes a machine to repurpose objects of everyday life -- reimagining what things might become and transcending limits of their inherent definitions. Why can’t a stroller be a shower head? Categories by default create opposing forces within a situation. Arthur Rimbaud, a French poet who influenced situationist thought, coined the quote “Il faut changer la vie”, “we must change life”. By freeing things from …

Fault, Katharine Fritz

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

3,000 people died, 80% of the city was destroyed. On the morning of April 18, 1906 an estimated 7.9 magnitude earthquake echoed through the city of San Francisco. Waterlines, having been destroyed during the quake, resulted in a fire that engulfed the city and burned for 3 days after.Its epicenter was 3 miles off the coast of city surging waves of destruction from this center, this is the site of the first phased memorials designed along the San Andreas Fault system. This kinetic landscape of the San Andreas Fault stretches the length of californias coast continuously destroying and taking lives, …

Bio-Architecture Feedback Loop, Nicole Samuelu

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Biomimicry is the imitation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems. There is an incredible opportunity for architecture to use biomimicry as a model for design in which a resulting architecture can become an operating part of its environment. While this project will consider the efficiency and beauty of nature, those elements will not be the focus. This thesis will aim to create a more cohesive relationship between architecture and its environment by treating the human-made structures as if they were a participating member of its habitat and part of the …

[Un]Known Lines, Kimberly M. Faber

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

An exploration of the innate changes of the passing of time, was accomplished first by investigating nature’s way of documenting time through layers within ice cores in Antarctica and then through the design of architectural interventions that marked and documented the passing of time through the D.C. area on the National Mall through an exchange of storytelling. Theses interventions began to change + manipulate + document buildings in the D.C. area. The information was sent back to the National Mall and later the information (story) was sent to yet another area.

The Farmacy, Emilie E. Dunnenberger

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The human population has practiced natural, herbal forms of medicine since the beginning of recorded healthcare. Only in the past 150 years have our ideas of healthcare evolved to what we know today, a reactive and immediate response to disease and illness. Using the science of phytotherapy and the processes of herbalism, this network of spaces work together to offer a traditional form of healing in a modernized setting. Prototyped in the city of Philadelphia, The FARMacy works alongside existing buildings to treat patients through an alternative yet instinctive form of medicine.

Building (V.) Gastronomy, Zoe C. George

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Through experimentation and examination of the transformations of food, comes the architecture of food processes.

Food is not just a means of survival, it brings forth colors, textures, smells, and even memories that engage the senses and stimulate our brains.

Three experiments titled Pigment, Ferment, and Leaven examine these transformations, resulting in a series of devices designed to engage the user and invite them to look, touch, smell, taste and create.

Pigment explores how a solid form becomes a liquid that has the ability to dye or avor. The container is designed to observe the jour- ney of the liquid …

Wal-Seum, Maya Chandler

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

Designed as a museum of contemporary American history, Wal-seum proposes a new prototype museum that re-presents the commodities of today’s America as historical and cultural artifacts of our time. The museum’s design also borrows from the spatial and organizational techniques of Wal-mart, a place that so many Americans visit time and time again, and which is truly American architecture.

In the final proposal, each department of Wal-mart becomes redesigned as an exhibit in the museum, showcasing ordinary objects, taking cues from the cultural agendas of those items, and calling into question the values therein (i.e. the endless cycle of comparison …