Architecture Commons^™

In The Projects: Rebuilding Social Housing In New York City, Ruo Piao Chen

Honors Capstone Projects - All

"The most logical solution to the affordable housing crisis in New York City is to redevelop the city’s public housing stock. However, Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s administration is far more concerned with incentivizing private deve"

For The Love Of Concrete, Steve Carlson

Honors Capstone Projects - All

For the Love of Concrete celebrates the beauty, versatility, durable sustainability and authenticity of concrete in architectural design. This capstone is born out of the contentious debate around the mid twentieth century architectural style “Brutalism”. I acknowledge the shortcomings of concrete as a material (chiefly its carbon-intensive manufacturing process), but forefront its positive attributes. This in the face of increasing demolitions of concrete structures, and the trend toward superficiality in architectural design as architects more than ever focus too much on the design of the skin or facades of buildings, rather than focusing on designing good bones.

Adaptive Typologies For Permanent Crises: Options For Rehabilitating Aleppo, Katherine Barymow

Honors Capstone Projects - All

There is little doubt that the Syrian civil war has catalyzed what experts and onlookers now consider the greatest humanitarian crisis in the 21st century. Per the UNHCR, the UN Refugee relief agency supporting refugee camps across the globe, roughly half of Syria’s 22 million pre-war population has been displaced, most which have fled to neighboring countries of Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and beyond to seek refuge. 13.5 million of these people, whether unable to leave their homes or awaiting permission to do so, are in dire need of international support from non-for-profit relief agencies struggling to provide basic necessities of …

@The_New_House: An Online-Offline Manifesto, Ana Paola Hernandez Derbez

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The house, as one of the most fundamental architectural archetypes, has long been used as unbuilt or built manifestos to declare the avant-garde of the discipline. Formally they are likely to offer the most intimate scale at which to work and symbolically they have always maintained a potent force, both as vivid representation of lives lived inside their walls and as a powerful influence over the changing course of architecture over the centuries (Rapoport). Iconic houses have become part of an essential language and shorthand of architecture itself.

Follow me as I investigate a return to the design of a …

Method Meditation: An Experimental Demonstration Of Systemization In Architecture, Armand Damari

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Method Meditation is an architectural design method developed during my exploration of systemization in the design process. Systems have been used throughout architectural history in an attempt to create space that can affect an occupant exactly the way the architect intended. However, these attempts have had inconsistent outcomes. This inconsistency has been attributed to several factors, from the variety to individual experiences that skew an observer’s viewpoint, to the lack of provable, causal relationships between environment and behavior. Due to these obstacles, other designers have used systems not to create perfect results, but to push their designs to new extents, …

Mausoleums And Mortuary Architecture, Nicholas Kronauer

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This paper addresses the relationship between the organization, structure, and location of three types of cemeteries; the churchyard, the rational, and the garden cemetery, to understand one’s relationship to death. The research of these cemeteries explores the sociological and emotional perceptions of the cemetery and how they have evolved over time to produce new readings of funerary space and its place in the urban context.

Rural Retreat / Urban Myth, Celeste Pomputius

Honors Capstone Projects - All

In his recent publication describing the evolution of the American campground, Martin Hogue explains: “this fundamental displacement—from the city to nature, from the indoors to outdoors—forms the basis of a defining experience.” Today, that displacement and distance has evolved into a disassociation between the experience of city and nature. However, the strategic pairing of architecture and policy can mend that disassociation to bridge the divide between city and nature that makes camping, or simply spending time outdoors, such a foreign concept to urban residents who have grown so accustomed to their urban setting.

This thesis proposes a destination for recreation …

Engaging With Craft: Concepts For Today's Architect, Stanislav Nedzelskyi

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This thesis proposes a solution to the disconnect between today’s designers and makers. Specifically geared towards the profession of architecture, these discussions should be applied in any process of making. After providing a historical reading of the crafted object and the people involved in making it, the paper proposes a new way to perceive craft in today’s world. When defined as an indexical quality, both in the mathematical and in the pointing sense described by Charles S. Pierce, the craft of an object becomes an accessible and efficient tool for the analysis and comparison of artifice.

Dinner Parti, Evangeline Soileau

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This capstone is a body of work that investigates the architectural relationships among event, documentation, material production, and user interaction through the lens of social dining. A Picnic, Thanksgiving, and Solo dining are the three dining scenarios that are the subject of these analytical and design investigations. The architectural design process is a part of the creative nonfiction narrative through the design of three corresponding artifacts that perform as the events’ spatial and material analogs: The Picnic Mound, The Thanksgiving Tables, and the Solo Couch. These artifacts aim to create new readings of user interactions with the social dining event …

The Sacrifice Of Space: Transgressive Tactics For Micro-Apartments, Matthew Steven Stewart Honig

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The following Capstone Project is an architectural thesis on today’s prevalence of microapartments. After identifying a contention, the project created a design solution in an attempt to mitigate the problem. The result was a semester of research, as well as a semester of design iteration. This was represented in multiple ways, such as through drawings, models, and books. With the help of a primary advisor, in addition to a committee, the thesis was developed through a series of presentations and meetings. The following is a culmination of that effort, resulting in over one hundred pages of work in architectural education.

Algorithmic Settlements, Benjamin Anderson-Nelson

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The position of the architect when designing is to arbitrate which information is relevant and which is not, and to do so across a broad spectrum of fields. Considering this, Christopher Alexander claimed as long ago as 1964, that “design problems are reaching insoluble levels of complexity.” This thesis focuses on informal settlement growth and how architects can investigate growth as a part of master-planning new housing. Drawing on case studies of settlements, video game logics, and existing architectural tools, a tool was developed to study the growth of settlements. This tool is based on cellular automata, a spatial and …

Activating Communities: A Space For Inclusive Recreation In Central New York, Cassandra Pettinati

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The concept is to design a specialized sports and recreation facility for adults and children with physical disabilities. Located in the Near West Side neighborhood of Syracuse New York, this facility serves as a healthy alternative to destructive behavior that is common in this low-income area. It also becomes a fun destination for members within the community. The space facilitates current and future adapted sports teams by providing a venue for practices and tournaments. It also offers the necessary support and resources for families who are new to adapted recreation. Ultimately, this space serves as an outlet for those with …

All Work & No Play, Zachary Port

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This project follows the format of an undergraduate thesis typical to the Syracuse University Industrial and Interaction Design program. It was conducted over two semesters, one focusing on research, and the other on the execution of an idea from the data gained during this research. The project in its entirety has been entitled “All Work & No Play” in order to illustrate the current state that exists in many offices: that play and toys are both looked down upon and discouraged. In order to address this situation, the project birthed a solution called Puck, a desk unit that can be …

A New Suburban Elysium: A Headstone For The Dying Periphery, Samuel David Chertock

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The proposed “cemetery” and retail center for the Idora neighborhood of Youngstown, Ohio is the result of one research semester and one design semester. The design proposal arose from dissatisfaction with the architectural community’s propensity for using jargon and clichés when describing the contemporary suburban condition. Many critics and commentators understand suburbia through the lens of the postwar period. It has been suggested that suburbia was developed for use as a media weapon – and thus, at the conclusion of the Cold War, should have been rendered architecturally irrelevant. However, suburbia has remained stagnant. Design standards employed by developers continue …

Making By Taking: An Investigation Of Architectural Appropriation, Victoria Lee

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The project contends that explicit appropriation can be a legitimate method of architectural production. The scope encompasses four canonical works of architecture: Villa Rotonda, Villa Savoye, Fallingwater, and the Farnsworth House. These works are appropriated as the basis of a retrospective analysis and as the foundation for a speculative, generative design strategy. Following the height of postmodernism, the notion of explicit formal appropriation was characterized in a negative light, seen as inauthentic imitation. However, an increasing number of contemporary artists and architects are utilizing explicit appropriation and historical reference as a primary method of production. This mode of thinking can …

Representing Rurality, Carolina Esther Jimenez

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Architecture is a system of representation. Architecture’s power is that through representation we may change previously constructed conceptions and misperceptions, and ultimately it can transform patterns of spatial inhabitation. Through words, images, drawings, and built work, we define modes of experiencing space. This project seeks to redefine Nebraska as a territory of critical social, political, economic, and physical importance through architectural representations.

Five Rings To Rule Them All / Olympus The Architecture Of The Olympics & Global Media, Harsha Royyuru

Honors Capstone Projects - All

900 million people across the globe tuned in to watch the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony on television. The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) own broadcasting division circulated over 100,000 hours of coverage to respective national networks, extending the breadth of the Olympic telecast into every one of the 204 participating countries. At the conclusion of the Games, more than 1 billion views had been recorded on NBC’s YouTube webpage specifically designed for Olympic coverage. In a time when occupation of space via digital media is the preferred method of experience, what is the agency of the architect? Stadiums once designed …

Guerrilla Tourism|The Anti-Resort In Cuba, Michael Kowalchuk

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Guerrilla Tourism: Between the Resort and the Casa Particular The justification for guerrilla tourism in Havana draws from the political experiences of the urban guerrilla movements of the 1970s which transplanted rural guerrilla strategies to the city. The same basic rules continued to apply: a working knowledge of the terrain and local communities, an ability to strike and retreat quickly and a network form of military-political power. The anti-resort is a collection of micro-hotels in the city that rely on public support programs and fit within communities instead of dominating them. The current tourist infrastructure of Havana is socially unsustainable: …

Empowered Pursuit: A Reflective Essay On Using Creative Learning In The Syracuse City School District, Danielle Mae Lewis

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Within the Syracuse City School District, students have been struggling to thrive in an educational environment that focuses on standardization. In 2012, only 48% of high school seniors graduated with a high school diploma in the city of Syracuse. Numerous theories have been discussed as to why students have failed to succeed, with a large portion of these centered on the problems created by the No Child Left Behind Act.

This reflective essay constructs and deconstructs the research and conceptual work produced surrounding the topic of creative learning within the Syracuse City School District. Initial research, summarized in this paper, …

The Knowledge Accident Situating The Built University Within The Virtual, Alanna Beth Rosenblatt

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Abstract

The increasing un-sustainability of the built university and the rise of the apparent mass democratization or synchronization of higher education through the virtual Massive Open Online Course [MOOC] is occurring concurrently with the mutation of the historically grounded Accident into the Knowledge Accident. The standardization of higher education through the MOOC has created the conditions for the Knowledge Accident, the “integral accident”, of the built university. This is where we find the present state of the university, in a moment of crisis grounded in unconstrained "progress".

The current form of the MOOC, begun in 2011, has expanded and evolved …

The Manifest Narrative, Kelsey Requeña Devries

Honors Capstone Projects - All

I posit that architecture can serve to expose the vital immigration, labor, and consumption processes underlying food production in the United States through a clear narrative made evident by techniques of sequence, mimesis, and composition in a functional monument containing an Immigration Advocacy Center, Community Garden, and Farmer’s Market for the city of Sacramento.

In architecture, narrative is the observation, interpretation, and implementation of ideas developed through stories. The architect formulates an observation about something in a society that exists or should exist in the form of a story, finds a time and place where the narrative is applicable, and …

American Picnickers, Yuxiang Luo

Honors Capstone Projects - All

This thesis investigates the eating practice of American commuters. The issue of food is addressed through a social lens, affected by spatial conditions. The project thus aims to reinvent the operation of roadside food business, through the design of a series of spatial conditions that activate new social relations.

Commuters’ eating practice is problematic; the drive-thru as a prevalent building and business typology has created spatial and social isolation for various parties in the society. The social isolation has two implications. On one hand, as drivers eat alone in the car, they are isolated from other eaters, thus degrading the …

2041: A Communal Life, Nathaniel Thomas Danciger

Honors Capstone Projects - All

I posit that an architecture of collective cultural spaces, shared human and animal habitat, and affordable local building techniques, implemented through the design of a co-housing community, would promote a collaborative and communal way of life in harmony with the natural landscape and offer a model for the future development of former agricultural and suburban sites in a manner preferable to the current practices of the American suburb. This project is concerned with redefining the way that people in the United States will occupy rural landscapes in the future. The site for this new co-housing model is a field outside …

Engaging Holistic Health Through Active Design In Public Space, Alec J. Hembree

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The design proposal for a health center and urban network of active pathways in Pittsburgh, PA is the cumulative result of two semesters of research and a partenership between myself and Emily Sholder (non-honors; B. Arch. May 2014). The ideas behind the research and design work included within originated from the pressing need to address physical health issues, educational shortcomings, and community disparagement present in many cities in the United States today. By addressing these issues at the scale of the individual, the school, and the urban environment through design in public space, we feel that architecture can empower people, …

Fun-Ctional Mega-Structure: A Formula For What Is Beyond Necessities In East Asian Cities, Sooji Jung

Honors Capstone Projects - All

No abstract provided.

The Regional Exchange: From Main Street To Shopping Mall To App Market, Chris Depalma

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The heart of our existence lies within regions. Loosely defined, these territories are defined by what we do, not by what we call them. It is where we live, work, shop and socialize, characterized by an infinite multitude of interactions with other people and environments. The concept of “regionalism” is best described as a set of overlapping factors that together characterize the shared interests and dynamics of its people and environment, whether social, cultural, ecological or something else. This dynamic, constantly-changing overlap is most apparent at the center of the region, and least so at its edges.

Regionalism is especially …

Sustainable Ephemeral: Temporary Spaces With Lasting Impact, Jacqueline Armada

Honors Capstone Projects - All

From the Far East to the Western world, architecture has historically strived toward permanence and monumentality. Recent “sustainable” design practice is likewise concerned with preservation, seeking to maintain quality of life for future generations by conserving both built and natural environments. However, in an age of rapid technological advancement, designed objects and buildings are quickly rendered obsolete, and in effect, our culture has become disposable. Buildings are designed to be replaced or updated according to technological progress, and that which is no longer useful or relevant is simply discarded. An ephemeral architecture has the ability to mediate between aspired permanence …

What Do You Call A Place Where Books Are Kept?, Taryn Elizabeth Mcgann

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The public library as a single grand building, gated by massive columns and filled with rows of dusty tomes, is a severely outdated conception. The model of library as a permanent, stable landmark in the city has been debased with the advent of digital technology and a new model is forming that embraces the ephemeralness of modern media. However, the image of a building filled with books still holds power over architects and bibliophiles and continues to wield influence over the design of new libraries. Consequently, the modern library is caught between trying to provide adequate technological and educational resources …

Fast/Fresh Food: Feed Syracuse Communities, Dorothy Ann Buttz

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Industrial agricultural practice coupled with urban planning and infrastructural development over the past century has placed an unfair environmental burden on low income urban communities across the United States of America. As Majora Carter explains in her 2006 TED talk titled “Greening the Ghetto,” race and class correlate directly with the availability of parks, space and quality of public programming, as well as proximity to undesirable things such as highways, dumps, power plants, distribution centers etc. Furthermore, the development of said highways, distribution centers and the like has precipitated the exodus of economic opportunity including healthy food programming from the …

Modus Vivendi: Ecological Intervention In The Future Korean Dmz, Sunchung Christine Min

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The demilitarized zone between North Korea and South Korea has been absent of any human development for 53 years. When the reunification between two divided nations occurs in the future, the land that stands as a buffer zone will become of interest to many as a potential open site for the beginnings of a new urban city, industrial complex, consumerism, and massive infrastructure. In other words, the DMZ is most likely to be consumed by its neighboring urban cities to meet the immediate needs of urban development and growth. However, it would be a shame if the last untouched landscape …