Architecture Commons^™

Mapping The Theaters Of Brooklyn's Past (1825-1925): A Gis Project, Elena Shefsky

Publications and Research

Despite its rich performance culture, Brooklyn remains underrepresented in theater history, eclipsed in fame by the well-known theaters of Manhattan. One of the most populous areas in America, Brooklyn has been an artistic home to actors, playwrights, directors, and impresarios for centuries. That said, there is a dearth of accessible information and scholarship on Brooklyn theaters. My objective was to update an ongoing mapping project, The City Performs, to include information and images of theater buildings from Brooklyn. The project is an interactive, open-source digital map that uses ArcGIS software to georeference data about NYC theaters. I collected data …

A Return To State-Led Integrated Regional Planning? Emerging Approaches From Three U.S. States, Timothy Green, Donovan Finn

School of Marine & Atmospheric Sciences Faculty Publications

After decades of neglect, several U.S. states have increased support for regional development planning, creating new programs, organizations, and funding streams to support it. Analysis of programs in three states (New York, Michigan, and Indiana) shows similarities among them as well as contrasts with prior episodes of state-led regional planning. The new programs deliberately sidestep older regional planning organizations like COGs and RPCs in favor of new organizations with larger roles for the private sector and greater access to public funds. The resulting plans focus on individual projects within a pro-development agenda, but still have potential to coordinate action at …

Folie A Cinq: Performative Systems Exhibited Through Theatrical Means., Madison Cannella

Architecture Senior Theses

Performative Systems Exhibited through Theatrical Means

Alternative Shelters, Sukhmann Kaur Aneja

Architecture Senior Theses

In the spring of 2018, a small group of homeless people took shelter underneath the scaffolding at 1441 Broadway in Times Square after a massive rainstorm made its way through New York City. They hung their wet clothes on the steel bracing and slept on unfolded cardboard boxes. This makeshift encampment lasted for a few days before the police officially kicked everyone out.1 Two years before that, homeless New Yorkers set up a similar camp underneath the scaffolding in NoHo. Residents of NoHo blamed a surge of local construction for the implementation of sheds under which people could hide out.2 …

Losing Its Way: The Landmarks Preservation Commission In Eclipse, Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Publications and Research

New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission has an admirable history of protecting the city's historic character. Increasingly in recent years, the commission has backed away from proactively designated sites of historical, architectural, or cultural significance as city landmarks. At the same time, the commission has shown greater deference to the owner of a property when deciding whether to designate, and to the wishes of the owners of designated properties in matters of regulation, notwithstanding that owner consent is nowhere in the landmarks law. At the same time, the commission has introduced new definitions, such as “period of significance,” contributing/non-contributing, and …

The Economic Impact Of Failing Infrastructure In The New York Metropolitan Area, Nicholas Travis

Honors College Theses

Infrastructure in the New York Metropolitan Area has been seriously underfunded due to a failure of public investment on the local, state and federal level. Prior research has presented concrete reasoning that the now crumbling infrastructure will seriously affect economic growth and worker productivity. This research seeks to quantify the economic effects as a result of this failing infrastructure. My research asks: what are the concrete, additional economic expenditures, due to failing infrastructure, that drivers spend each year? How much do these economic costs decrease our economic productivity, and how do the economic costs compare with proposed infrastructure improvements? From …

The Preservation Moment: Gentrification Saved New York, Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Publications and Research

In the 1960s and 1970s, New York City was in decline. Crime was rising, jobs were leaving, and the population was falling. At the same time, much of the historic city was being lost and replaced by less distinctive architecture. But the declining city offered an opening for recovery and re-imagining. New residents moved into old, declining neighborhoods. Gentrification stabilized sections of the Bronx, Manhattan, and Brooklyn. Between 1965 and 1989 the city designated more than fifty historic districts, and those areas prevented further decay and anchored the recovery. Unlike other older cities, New York continues to grow. The previous …

Review: Saving Place: 50 Years Of New York City Landmarks, Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Publications and Research

This piece is a review of "Saving Place: 50 Years of New York City Landmarks" at the Museum of the City of New York from April 2015 to January 2016. It discusses the presentation of the history of preservation in New York City and how the landmarks law has been implemented and challenged over its first half century.

Article of record is at http://jsah.ucpress.edu/content/75/1/119.abstract

A Floating Community: A ‘Platform’ For Future Sustainable Development, Christopher M. Rossi

Architecture Theses

With the environment of our planet changing for the worse, there is a need for an economical and sustainable solution. As we become more aware of the effects our actions have on our ecosystem, we have the opportunity to implement ways to alleviate some of stress we are causing on our planet. The population is growing exponentially and, with climate change being felt around the world, sea levels are rising at a faster rate than ever before. With these two situations alone, we are faced with an extreme complication; where do ‘we’ put all of these people and how do …

The City As Palimpsest, Jeffrey A. Kroessler

Publications and Research

“Palimpsest preservation” suggest the necessity of keeping the successive layers of urban form alive rather than simply effacing and rebuilding, for that keeps a city’s history alive. No city without a tangible, tactile history, without the capacity for denizens and visitors to reach into the past while experiencing the present, can be truly vital. But this is a contested approach. George Orwell’s 1984 offers a warning in the guise of a party slogan: “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Preservationists may advocate on historical, architectural, or cultural grounds, but the final decision …

Redefining Transportation Culture: A New Union Station For Los Angeles, Pawel Honc

Architecture Theses

From iconic stations like Grand Central in New York City to the small suburban commuter rail station, the architecture of transportation can have a large effect on the perception of a transportation system. Architecture can also play a large part in encouraging a changeover to more of a public transportation oriented culture. The planning of transit hubs and stations should be transitoriented so that it can reach the most amounts of people. However, a changeover to a transit-oriented society would require a city like Los Angeles to overhaul their current transportation system by adding more lines, connections, and increasing station …

Community Commons: Public Libraries In Digital Age, Chao Dou

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis will identify the programs for the Onondaga County Public Library in Downtown Syracuse based on the needs of the surrounding neighborhoods and organize the programs based on the navigational organization of digital information exchange platforms to connect the digital divide between improverish neighorhoods with the affluent neighborhoods of Syracuse, NY.

The articulation of the space will manifest as a commons for the demographics to access, create and exchange information in the community

Epistemology: It’S Elementary! An Architectonically Constructivist Elementary School In Syracuse, Ny-- Part 2, Tyler Ferrusi

Architecture Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Youngs, Benjamin Seth, 1774-1855 (Sc 730), Manuscripts & Folklife Archives

MSS Finding Aids

Finding aid and scan (Click on "additional files" below) for Manuscripts Small collection 730. Copies of a letter written by Benjamin Seth Youngs, South Union, Kentucky to the Ministry, New Lebanon, New York, concerning the design and construction of buildings at South Union.

01 / Stack: Framework For Social Stuff, Stephen Wesley Nowak

Architecture Senior Theses

"This project calls for the tactical realignment of the library as no longer being exclusively dedicated to its collection, but rather the environment it provides as a catalyst for study, research, and exploration."

American Home: Shelter Optimized For Climate, Karen Kentile

Architecture Senior Theses

"Architecture attuned to building form and energy production and consumption can, in turn, suggest an alternate landscape for the country...

This book addresses architecture's role in the energy crisis, recognizing that residential buildings account for 53.7% of the built environment and their gridded energy produces over 21% of the United States' carbon emissions. This thesis begins to implement a process for design which can essentially optimize shelter based on climate, and further develop a local context for dwelling."

New York : Mount Morris

Kansas: Saline River Valley, Smokey Hills

Arizona: Salt River

Florida: Moonshine Bay

Cultural Landscapes Of Rochester New York, Joanne Rapone

Historic Preservation Final Projects

No abstract provided.

Performative Design: Investigating Form In The Natural And Capitalist Environment, John M. Santoro

Architecture Senior Theses

"Rethinking the design process from conception and allowing natural forces, such as wind, solar exposure, and rainfall to drive the initial design will generate a structurally and environmentally efficient form."

Sky-Field: A Vertical Farming Solution For Urban New York, Justin White

Architecture Theses

Farming has not changed significantly in thousands of years. We still go about blanketing the ground with acres and acres of crops far away from the people who eat it. “We now have to talk and bring the green movement into our food supply. We will find a place in NY to do this,” states Scott Stringer, Manhattan Borough President. The concept is to design a vertical farm tower which will feed thousands of local residents, allowing them cheaper, organic, disease-free crops. The supply structure of the agricultural industry needs a big change. It is no longer becoming economical due …

[Re]-Establishing Connection: Integrating People Through Movement And Culture In Nyc, Justin Leung

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis proposes to test and re-establish how architecture can make connections between people. Through freedom of movement, transportation creates many opportunities for the congregation of people and social interaction. This thesis aims to create spaces for mixing and awareness through movement, and program."

Spatial Reconfigurations: Bodily Terrains And Their Suppression On The New York Waterfront: The Greenwich Village Piers 40-53 1936-1998, Mark Curley

Masters

There has been seismic change on the New York waterfront since World War II. The shipping industry of longshoremen on the rough docks, has given way to mothers with babies in a bucolic landscape. The former condition existed within Kristeva's theories of abjection (1982), and today we have a suppression of that abjection through the municipal authority of the Hudson River Park Act (1998). This control of space is integral to gentrification. The abject condition existed as a changing zone of spatial occupiers and colonies, who demarcated their territories as bodily terrains on the edge of the city. Due to …

Three State-Run Green Building Programs: A Comparative Case Study Analysis And Assessment, Haidee N. Janak

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

This thesis explores three state-run green building programs (California, Minnesota and New York) through comparative case-study analysis. Main topics discussed include cost benefits, health benefits, certification (i.e. LEED or other), and lessons learned from direct interviews with program staff.

Soundview Center For Acceptance: Youths Learning From Each Other, Amanda Cerqueira

Architecture Theses

This project is one that is designed to the needs of the children using it. Children seem to learn better and quicker from each other, so my building will be a space where they can get together after school and keep learning while staying safe. This building is designed to be environmentally friendly and take advantage of its open site. Any land removed from the site during construction will be reused somewhere within the site as well as adding a green roof to make up for the grass removed for the footprint of the building. Since it was previously a …

Transitioning Society For An Elderly Care Community Within The City, John Budesa

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Instead of isolating senior citizens form the community, my desire is to actively engage them with it; to facilitate the outside community to want to engage with the senior citizens. By combining the typology of the mall as an extremely public and interactive space with the typology of the monastery as the epitome of private living on a secluded site, one could imagine a community of commercial and residential spaces as opposed to the current model for elderly care."

Intertwined Boundaries, Naomi Susman

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis will explore ways in which a narrative experience influenced by tradition and cultural exchange serves to stimulate and depict one's understanding of the collaborative product of technique, design, and social movement."

Intertwined Boundaries, Naomi Susman

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis will explore ways in which a narrative experience influenced by tradition and cultural exchange serves to stimulate and depict one's understanding of the collaborative product of technique, design, and social movement."

Hybrid Different Media: Music And Architecture, Kiho Choi

Architecture Thesis Prep

Reuse of Highline

Hudson Yard in Manhatten, New York, NY

"In my thesis approach to the music and architecture, I am not evoking the classical Pythagoras and Palladio. I am more dealing with architecture and music as new ground of present architecture and new hybrid media between them."

In Defense Of Preservation, Jeffrey A. Kroessler, Eric W. Allison, Dorothy Minor, Anthony C. Wood

Publications and Research

"In Defense of Preservation" is the transcript of a presentation at the Gotham History Festival at the CUNY Graduate Center, October 6, 2001. The discussants argued that historic preservation is vital to New York City's economic and cultural health, and countered arguments that preservation was elitist and hindered the city's growth. Dorothy Minor discussed the legal basis for preservation and reviewed the Penn Central decision and other court cases. Anthony C. Wood discussed the history of historic preservation in New York. And Eric W. Allison presented the intersection of preservation with the liveable cities movement.

Space/Surface/Body: Surface As Device Between Inside And Outside, Samantha Whitney

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The understanding of spatial boundaries belonging to a taxonomy of fashion design tested in architecture."

Narrative Architecture, Leah E. Cohen

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Architecture reveals narrative through the facilitation of sequence and the expression of ritual. Ritual is based on archetypal actions."