Architecture Commons^™

It's Not Easy Being Whole | Reevaluating The Relationship Of Part Whole In Pursuit Of A New High-Rise Vernacular, Josh Bransky

Architecture Senior Theses

Architecture has the power to structure societal relationships. Specifically, architecture's form can bring the balanced relationship between community and individual identity, as exhibited in vernacular single-family homes, to the housing tower. This thesis plans to achieve such a social orchestration through a nuanced understanding of formal part-to-whole relationships, or "differentiated" parts within the whole, exhibited in a 300' housing tower in Seattle, WA.

By carefully balancing the relation, material, scale, and form of each part, this project will achieve this difficult whole (of differentiated parts). Mining this middle ground will produce a housing tower in Seattle, which actively balances the …

Hijacked | Reclaiming Legislative Loopholes, Lara Moock

Architecture Senior Theses

ARTICLE 1: GENERAL PROVISIONS.

SEC. 100. PURPOSES.

San Francisco’s current political legislation has critical loopholes that have constructed a predominant shift in the city’s identity and urban fabric, as well as an obvious neglect of the public realm and social agenda. The recent move of the Silicon Valley tech headquarters to the city’s center has dramatically changed the architectural landscape as well as reinforced a growing push for corporate privatization. This thesis aims to expose and confront the hidden political and social dynamics of the constructed environment and reclaim the existing loopholes in order to propose a project without major …

Architectural Bridge Consequence, Jennifer Gaiko

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

The architectural significance of bridges is indisputable. Often bridges are accredited to engineers for their transportation and functional needs; however, bridges are so much more than fundamental. The cultural significance and identity of bridges, iconic historic perspectives, influences of composition and function, style and architectural relevance and so much more are all elements that begin to shift the perspective and purpose of architectural bridges to that of a meaningful architectural symbol. Bridges impact the world, the countries they represent and the communities they inhabit. The relationship between bridges and architectural consequence is proven by the idea of iconography and practical …

Resistance: Contemporary Architecture:Sustaining Identity 2, Jim Roche

Articles

Economic globalisation has facilitated a glut of ‘spectacle’ works of architecture worldwide that often fail to celebrate the genius loci of places or the divergence of human culture. With the current crisis in world capitalism causing a meltdown in the mad rush to overbuild our physical environment it is pertinent to consider once again that architecture can actually contribute to a broader existential understanding.

A recent one-day conference at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London posited such a proposition. Curated by the Finnish writer and theorist, Juhani Pallasmaa and moderated by Jonathan Glancy, the Architecture and Design Editor of …

Resolution Through Pixelation: A Lifestyle Application For Rochester, New York, Therese Mutter

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The requirement of cities is to take on multiple personalities as a responsive strategy towards the various lifestyle existences while maintaining a fulfillment of necessary and desirable aspects in order to attain an ideal state."

"Objective: To create a cohesive program which allows for the simultaneous existence of multiple lifestyles in a singular instance in order to recreate a sense of multiple personalities within a city."

Suburban Adaptability: Urban Context, Joshua Seidner

Architecture Senior Theses

The urban environment historically fosters anonymity among urbanites denying individual expression, user flexibility, and family adaptability. The result is the draw to the suburban house model which inherently concedes ones' expression of individual identity. The urban landscape has historically formed with the core and periphery. Over the last sixty years the periphery has harbored the creation of suburbia. Traditionally, the urban landscape has, and continues to suppress individualism and flexibility to create uniformity and homogeneity[...] Arguably by default, suburbia creates a basic template which the end-user can customize. On the contrary, the urban environment does not foster the ability to …

The Providence Renaissance Center, Dante J. Boffi

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The intent of this thesis is to create an urban gateway through the architectural manipulation of a city's edge. Physical and visual linkages will be carried from an urban center to the surrounding context by using a specific piece of architecture as the focal point. Issues such as the pedestrian/city relationship and the notion of architecture as a cultural symbol will help to inform and direct the thesis."