Architecture Commons^™

Hawaiian Health: Community Health Through Design And Nature, Michael Welch

Architecture Theses

No abstract provided.

Adaptive Reuse Of The Suburban Office Building, Olivia Mora

Architecture Theses

My thesis addresses the current issues of office vacancy and the housing shortage. Living in the Portland, Maine area my entire life, I’ve noticed a lot of gentrification happening in the city downtown, including my dad’s little neighborhood he grew up in. I want to create a space where people of all incomes levels have the opportunity to live in.

After a thorough GIS analysis, the ideal site was determined to be 300 Southborough Drive in South Portland. This is only 10-15 minutes from downtown Portland. When adapting a vacant, standalone suburban office building like this one, there are a …

Jiquilisco Bay Mangrove Restoration Center, Julio Romero

Architecture Theses

Due to advanced degradation of mangroves, local ecosystems and social structures suffer. Non-profit organizations, consisting of community volunteers and researchers from abroad, are on the forefront of these restoration practices. Protecting these forests prevents local families from starving and keeps their homes from flooding. Applying research-based thinking to create a lab and education space for better implementation of restoration policies on a site-by-site basis was crucial, and the result was a low-tech space with serious material considerations based on local construction and best practices based on improvements in relatively low-tech seismic and water impermeable technology. The result is a celebration …

New Visions For Religious Architecture: Religious Architecture Adaptation To Reflect Modern Spiritualism And Wellness, Gabrielle Deschenes

Architecture Theses

Religious Architecture is a typology that is found in all communities around the world, large or small. Despite the differences in architectural design due to religious views, these buildings have something in common: architectural impact. These buildings engage their communities by introducing eye-catching, and unique architectural features that separate them from their surrounding context. These qualities make them valuable pieces of architecture that bring vibrant historic value to their communities.

As designers, we must always be aware of current events and changing beliefs. For the past twenty years, people have been attending religious services less and less, and after the …

Reviving The Plan An Implementation Of Historic Concepts, Jared Mcgowan

Architecture Theses

For my thesis I would like to research historic concepts and ideas of plans, and how they could apply to residential housing layouts today. Through precedent ideas and example projects, I would be able to identify architectural moves made by famous architects of the past that would have real value today, but have since gone unused except in the projects in which they were created. Through projects examined in architectural history classes, to projects suggested by professors, I will research a wide range of styles and ideas to include in a modern project.

I will rely on historic typologies, centered …

Creating A Calm, Natural Healing Hub, Daniel Cusmano

Architecture Theses

The sights of this project are aimed at three main concepts: mental health and treatment, seclusion vs. connection, and nature as a healing device. The three will work to create a mental help campus located in Newbury, Massachusetts to provide occupants help and treatments for a wide variety of ailments or cases, both in the short-term and long-term aspects. Being located in Newbury, Massachusetts allows the project to be secluded in the vast, wooded areas to the western portion of the town while still having connections to the public, through the network of public hiking trails on site and the …

Live, Work, Unite: Housing And Workspaces For Providence Artists, Michael J. Kelly

Architecture Theses

The objective of communal architecture in society is not only to serve people’s basic spatial needs, but also improve their knowledge about the importance of sharing the gift of space itself, even if it is designed for two different purposes. This project focuses on all that stands between the two most basic purposes of a space: living and working. In more ways than one, those two activities are not so different. However, that depends on the occupation. In some fields of work, offices share common spatial features with dwellings. But on the other hand, they are often too different and …

Sowing The Seeds Of Growth: A Study On Schenectady, Ny’S Food Desert, Kelsey M. Ling

Architecture Theses

Humanity, it seems has always struggled to find a balance between human comfort and other factors, such as environmental and political factors. Sometimes even when our intentions are good, they are not enough to meet basic human needs. A common worldview of many living in the United States is that a lack of food is a third-world problem, but this is some- what of a falacy. Food availability varies greatly from one part of the US to another.

Many issues can contribute to a lack of food. For example, out west water shortages sometimes create crop shortages. Cities such as …

School: A Community And Environmental Resource, Samantha M. Kelley

Architecture Theses

Schools play an important role in the lives of children, and can play a larger role in the broader community. Throughout history, schools have existed that have been connected to the environment, whether it was to simply provide children with the opportunity to spend time outside, or to teach students about the natural world. With the state of climate change that exists today, connecting students to the environment is of utmost importance. Students must understand the environment, in order to appropriately understand the threat of climate change, and ultimately take action to combat it.

Schools are an ideal location to …

Improving Learning Environments: Integration Of Nature In Education, K-6, Joseph M. Hanson

Architecture Theses

Schools are one of the most crucial atmospheres for children as they begin to learn and grow into the people they are going to become. The average student will be in school for twelve years, and then four years of college. This makes up a significant amount of their young lives.

School is where students go to develop the basic foundations of education. School provides chances for children to acquire knowledge on various fields of study, such as literature, history, mathematics, social sciences and physical sciences. Attending school allows for opportunities to meet and form relationships with peers in the …

Filling The Gaps, Robert Monahan

Architecture Theses

No abstract provided.

Dissolving Boundaries: Revitalizing A Forgotten Neighborhood In Los Angeles, Dominic Cirillo

Architecture Theses

Studying great American Cities and their development also gives us insight into the problems many cities have faced during industrialization and urban growth. Los Angeles, California is at the forefront of these issues caused by its age old paradigm of progression and innovation above all in order to reach prosperity. From Bulldozing entire historic districts to constructing over its former rail system in order to accommodate for its rapid growth (twice that of an average city). In this process of urbanizing, the city had almost forgotten about its community identity and neighborhoods. Urban sprawl has caused a weaker city center …

An Adaptive Mission: Seeking A New Life For Boston's Lost Breweries, Stephania M. Dakoyannis

Architecture Theses

The housing crisis across America is becoming increasingly worse by the year. Today, millions of people across the country struggle to keep a steady job and major cities struggle to effectively house their people at an affordable price. Across the country, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of unused or abandoned buildings with no purpose that could transform into possible solutions to solve these nationwide issues. Unfortunately, many of the buildings designed in the past rendered ineffective in use and design therefore, we as architects must delve into design that citizens can holistically enjoy and benefit from. Also, adaptively reusing …

A Community Complex: The Role Of Stadia In The Urban Fabric, Deanna Vecchio

Architecture Theses

Sports are a natural and necessary part of life and culture. It is to be expected that stadia, symbols of identity and community, hold such reverence in society. However, stadia are nothing but buildings to any non-sports goer. When stadia combine to form a complex with parking, they become essentially detached from the rest of the community entirely.

This thesis aims to address the stadium complex and its discontinuity with the surrounding urban fabric. The research focuses on revitalizing a portion of the existing sports complex in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania into a mixeduse complex to increase occupancy of the 10 million …

The Renaissance Of Worcester’S Canal District: A Post Industrial Revitalization, Vincent Pacifico

Architecture Theses

If we carefully analyze what exists currently in our industrial neighborhoods, we see that they all have very close proximity to our existing transportation systems. What used to be utilized for shipping raw materials and manufactured goods can be now used for commuting to and from other cities on a public transportation system. Many of these 19th and 20th century buildings in these neighborhoods are perfect spaces which we can start to use for modern day working, living and commercial space. By looking at ways in which we can reuse and incorporate these older buildings into a 21st century development, …

Linking Space: A Transit Oriented Design, Jessica Vara

Architecture Theses

I propose to impact change for people and planet by architecting a community within a dense living space that is sustainable by means of public transportation that would enable travel to all essential activities as well as many leisurely places, events, stores, shopping centers and theaters. The carefully planned and architected ecosystem would blend commodities of life with dense living spaces to provide a self- sustaining community within a city. People who work outside of the ecosystem could utilize it by connecting through branches of the public transportation system. People who live within the ecosystem could depend on various means …

Saving Face: Adaptive Reuse Of A Twentieth-Century Psychiatric Center, Taylor M. Hughes

Architecture Theses

As humans, architects have their own prejudices and beliefs, and often times, those can affect their work, particularly when designing such facilities that were historically stigmatized. My thesis looks at one typology in particular - psychiatric centers, formerly known as asylums and mental hospitals. The life cycles of their architecture can be looked at in three parts: their uses, their abandonment and their futures.

The psychiatric centers of the nineteenth century were designed to be comfortable and humane, offering fresh air and sunlight to all residents, sometimes even teaching skills and trades to the residents. However, the layout of such …

Hope For Paws New York: Rescue, Rehabilitation And Veterinary Hospital, Jasmine Arndt

Architecture Theses

Hope for Paws has made it their mission to rescue any and all animals, no matter the size, shape, breed or species. Their goal is to rehabilitate them, foster them out, and get them adopted into loving forever homes, where they will never know the abuse and neglect that they had previously known. But is there a better system? Hope for Paws runs the rescue missions, pays for the vet bills, find the fosters, and works with the fosters to find them their forever homes. They accomplish this while they still care for all they rescue and check in on …

Training For The Future: For Autism Spectrum Disorders (Asd), Kerri Noble

Architecture Theses

At the age of 22, people Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASDs), classified as Autism and Asperger Syndrome, age out of the public school system with no real working knowledge of how to provide for themselves, both in jobs and basic life skills. They have to learn how to complete basic life skills as any ordinary person would, however, they are not ordinary and to give them the best chance at being successful, additional training would put them at a greater chance to be self sufficient.

The Pursuit Of The Future: An Investigation Into A Sustainable Office Tower, Clayton R. Daher

Architecture Theses

The City of New York has long been known to be one of the most influential cities in the world for corporations. It is a hotbed for talent and innovation alike. It is a city that never sleeps and often times forces employees, whom are just trying to make a name for themselves, to work 60+ hours a week in cramped conditions.

In surveying the city, it is prevalent that there is a lack of sustainable office buildings which in return has adverse effects on the employees’ health and productivity. Corporations are continuously transform their practices and missions to be …

The Future Living Experience In Vail, Co, Maikao Vang

Architecture Theses

Employee housing has become a struggling issue with the U.S. ski industry due to the fluctuation of climate, location and the industry known to have one of the highest carbon footprint. Today, many ski resorts are resorting ways to reduce their carbon footprint by using more environmental friendly equipments and incorporating all-seasons activities. As ski resorts starts to incorporate more activities into their resorts; the architecture and experience has been re-elevated as well.

This thesis project explores the limit of architecture and experience of putting employees and tourism experiences together. The two programs were developed and the similar program was …

A Vernacular Haven, Karita N. Lipdo

Architecture Theses

This architecture project aims to address issues of livelihood displaced people in Northern Nigeria. Life aftrer a traumtic experience is by no means an easy task to undertake. With a lot of loss, grief and uncertainty towards their respective future as individuals and a people group, my project seeks to aid the situation by providing a halfway settlement to undertake refugees and provide a system that helps them respond more favorably to the tragedy of loss. My architectural project aims to reduce human suffering, give back their sense of dignity and elevate their value as future members of the Nigerian …

Inspiring Youth Cognitive Development, Michael Orlando

Architecture Theses

Through the exploration of cognitive research and development, the understanding of the brains of the youth will help parents, children and educational professionals understand methods for proper educational learning for undeveloped children. The research will guide the design to emulate the atmosphere for encouraging learning, comfort, and collaboration. Through the support programs at Rowan University, the neuroscience center will not only help educate, it will provide a helping hand for communities nearby.

Movement Transparency, Lauren Tamburrino

Architecture Theses

Movement in architecture is an important aspect in creating a users experience. Dance, more specifically, is a way in which performers can express their own experiences and tell a story through the movement of their own bodies. This poses the question: in what ways can movement be implemented into the visitors experience? Architects such as Bernard Tschumi and Lawrence Halprin have used this concept of movement throughout their practice as a way to make a space flow and be the most comfortable for the user. Dancers can utilize their body to create aesthetic forms and are able to tell a …

Snacking In Bed: Blending Residential And Agricultural Typologies, Taylor Chin

Architecture Theses

The project will explore the generation of a productive residence in an urban setting. The thesis analyzes the cultural conditions of such a building and how it might fit into the urban fabric of a city. In addition, it will investigate the scaling of such a building and how a plot of land will answer to population density as well as agricultural use. A standardized set of building layers will be clearly defined as a rationale for designing a building that conforms to the site and cultural concerns. The summation of these considerations and intents will be a building that …

New England Pathway To Recovery: Drug And Alcohol Addiction Treatment Center Around Nature In Rocky Hill, Connecticut, Michael P. Lombardi Jr.

Architecture Theses

In the United States, particularly in New England region, there has been an increase in drug overdoses. This drug epidemic includes an escalation in heroin use and rise in the number of opioid deaths each year. In order to improve the situation there needs to be a change in the way individuals with drug and addiction problems receive treatment through counseling and therapy, as well as other programs and activities. This change would create a positive influence and make the world a better place and allow everyone to enjoy life everyday.

The purpose of this project is to create drug …

Designing Efficiently For Natural Disaster Relief: Cultural Integration And Prevention Methods, Bryan Smith

Architecture Theses

Our world is more separated now than it has ever been. We pride ourselves on the technologies that we create, and the feats that we have accomplished, but we seldom stop to think about what the implications are. More than often we design to fit what we think we “need”, however, we need to design and build to a better future.

Natural disasters have become something that designers cannot ignore anymore due to the fact that nearly one tenth of the world’s population lives in low lying coastal areas and the rising sea levels are being seen throughout the world. …

Impermanence Materialized: Exploration Of Temporary Architecture At The Kumbh Mela In Allahabad, India, Taylor Sutherland

Architecture Theses

This thesis project will explore and implement a system of structure and construction that can be assembled and disassembled with extremely efficient labor and production of materials. The design and specifications will engage lightweight, sustainable materials, a system of spaces or buildings can be erected, deconstructed, and transported efficiently. Locally sourced materials contribute to both the constructability and authenticity of the architecture. Especially in projects that can be applied to multiple sites, it is imperative that the context and vernacular are considered and respected.

Bioharvest: Energy Efficient Design For The Standardization Of Biomimetic Technologies At Stanford University In Palo Alto, Ca, Usa, Gabriella Santostefano

Architecture Theses

The thesis serves as an investigation of the possibilities of biomimicry as well as an exploration of harvesting energy from the sun, the wind, the rain, and the earth.

Biomimicry, derived from the Greek words bios meaning “life” and mimesis meaning “imitate,” is the examination of nature in order to create systems that are derived from the natural world and provide sophisticated solutions to human problems.

Biomimicry asks the question. “What in nature has already solved what I am trying to solve?” In the case of this project, nature will inspire the creation of a new building typology, Bio-Inspired Solutions …

Community Connections: Relief Through Athletics, Joshua Arthur

Architecture Theses

A sports based recreation facility can significantly enhance the quality of life in a community. Activities held within these facilities can encourage participation, promote health and well-being, and foster a sense of community and togetherness. Today with crime and obesity being increasingly troublesome in the US a space focused on athletics, health, and wellness would allow for kids to have a plethora of activities to do after school and on weekends. There they can make friends, learn about health, and stay off of the streets. Sports and recreation can demonstrate and contribute to the sustainable use of natural resources. They …