Architecture Commons^™

Communion Composed: Fostering Unity Through A Nourished Architecture, David Acevedo

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis looks to utilize food and its inherent social properties as a medium in which architecture can have greater agency in the unification of people, more specifically, distraught communities. Guatemala, a pillar of Central American culture, will be the chosen zone of exploration where such a collaboration can be implemented at a ceremonial scale, utilizing techniques and methods found in ecologically efficient urban food production, intimate domestic food consumption, and marrying them to methods of engaging ceremonial food preparation to create a new edible landscape of socially sustaining architecture.

Regenerative Refugee Housing: Creating Temporary Housing With Low Environmental Impact, Erika Guldner

Architecture Thesis Prep

Refugee settlements often have a negative environ­mental impact; by promoting options for sustainable development from the outset, this can be avoided. A plan for a refugee settlement was made, along with a plan for the individual residential units. To expedite the construction process, units were divided into compo­nents. These components could be easily assembled on site. Once the refugee settlement is no longer needed, components can be used for other purposes, such as, affordable housing or the components themselves can be broken down to be either recycled or used for other purposes.

The Public Sky-Spacer, Piotr Jankowski

Architecture Thesis Prep

We have reached an era where architecture has to prepare for the alarming changes affecting our modern society. Predicted urbanization will lead to cities becoming denser and taller to facilitate the needs of housing and workspace for the growing world population. High costs of rent and scarcity of real state land in city centers will force developers to build skyscrapers. Taking into account the impact of larger populations, skyscrapers will have to offer more efficient spaces and follow strict environmental regulations while contributing to the production of energy and necessary resources. Focus on human comfort and sustainability will play an …

Food Function Form, Travis J. Telemaque

Architecture Thesis Prep

This study suggests that solar design strategies can influence a more sustainable approach to food production, focusing on New York City to determine a potential site in which an urban farm can be integrated. Specific case studies are presented to determine whether urban agriculture can be developed in an economical and sustainable manner. Additionally, Several factors were analyzed including solar exposure, renewable resources, site accessibility, and development potential. This prototype urban farm will expose people to three categories of food production; controlled environment agriculture, productive vegetated facades, and rooftop agriculture.

Integrating food production into dense urban areas can reconnect us …

As Above, So Below: Tapping Into The Latent Energy Of Abandoned Underground Infrastructure, Alexandra N. Ramirez

Architecture Thesis Prep

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Abandoned underground infrastructure is an example of an untapped surplus in energy that an architect has the opportunity to reappropriate. Tunnels in particular, can be used as systems to heat or cool a network of buildings above ground to create more sustainable urban environments. In addition to greater energy efficiency, the system could also have beneficial social implications within segregated cities by providing fluid connections between divided neighborhoods.

This thesis will establish a framework for repurposing underground infrastructures. The strategy operates under an umbrella of sustainability and urban improvement which are two concepts applicable to sites far beyond the …

(Urban) Waste Producing (Urban) Space, Mrunmai Fulambarkar

Architecture Thesis Prep

Although heat is the primary waste produced by industrial processes, designers can transform this by-product into energy that can allow for the creation of new public amenity and data center hybrids that integrate, celebrate and provide benefits to the urban realm.

The Poetry Of Sustainability: Inhabiting The Landscape Through Sustainable Design, Sarahjo Bellissimo

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Our society is a dependent of the inevitably doomed industry of fossil fuels. We rely heavily on nonrenewable resources to maintain our lifestyles. Ethically, our relationship to the earth is unbalanced. In order to balance the scales of our future in architecture we must look toward sustainability through technology."

Sparsification And The Reconsideration Of Contemporary Rural Living, Eric Murphy

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis asserts that architecture and agriculture must form a symbiotic relationship united by sustainability to redefine contemporary rural living. By challenging outdated traditions, idyllic visions, and preconceived notions of the rural paradigm, it is also possible to reprove a diminishing agrarian lifestyle. Rural architecture must become as productive as the ground it replaces, and as integrated as the crop to the soil. A new model needs to be established to facilitate these assertions and reconsider contemporary rural living."

Crossection: An Exploration Into Assembling Sustainability, Brian Goehle

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The field of architecture sits at a crossroad today, we have an opportunity to rethink the way we design using new materials and building techniques to reduce the negative impact architecture has on the wider environment. As architects, we must critically look at our constructions methods and question whether they are appropriate and the best choices we could be making for the environment. My thesis has generated a framework that used a set of sustainable materials that outperform their conventional alternatives, to produce affordable and highly efficiently built homes that leave a neutral impact on the environment."

Building A Sustainable Housing Environment, Shanna Telesco

Architecture Thesis Prep

"There are three major factors being studied throughout this exploration: sustainability, housing, and the environment. Each factor can be carefully examined separately under its own terms, but ultimately, the goal of this thesis is to gain a better understanding of their possible integration within the processes of architecture.

My housing project seeks to integrate and improve the existing methods of sustainability that have evolved in architecture by carefully considering renewable resources found in nature, especially the sun, air, and water."

A Sustainable Foundation, Mark K. Wizeman

Architecture Thesis Prep

"My intentions of this project are to investigate the potential of architecture to augment its efforts of sustainable strategies with aspirations of achieving a socially sustainable foundation in the urban setting. Within the context of Trenton, the understanding of the local communities, the capital and business districts, the education system, and the areas of renewal efforts can reveal solutions to the rebuilding of the city's community by way of reconnecting these now divided forces. What makes architecture critical in this application is its ability to effectively address the very tangible aspects of sustainable practice and the potential for it to …

Green Reintroducing Nature To The City, Andrew Cunneen

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The architecture of present day America reflects the way in which we give little consideration to the impact that built forms have on the environment. American cities are expanding beyond their former limits into the natural environment previously untouched by built form. It is important for us to foster a sense of environmental concerns in an age of increasing development and advancements. While technology continues to progress it seems that these advancements are applied to everything but architecture. We have designed ways to get more mileage out of a tank of gas, and created appliances that reduce our electric consumption, …

Analyzing The Sustainability Of Puppets To Create A Puppet Theater, Emily Buttrick

Architecture Thesis Prep

'The revitalization of an urban community can begin with a public building and can incorporate sustainable design. Sustainable architecture is not only ecologically sound but programmatically flexible and utilizes the resources of the neighborhood. Sustainable design can therefore incorporate ideas of future use of a building. It can also be used in a way to inspire the people using the building so that their own lives become subsistent.

"This thesis contends that through the analysis of the sustainability of puppets, the construction of a community theater building can be fashioned. A puppet's flexibility, layers, scale, structure, and joints make it …

Nature And Architecture, Peter Fx Mattis

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Given all the concern about the environment, my intervention will be dedicated to the ocean and surrounding aquatic habitats. It will act as a place of education, informing the viewer of the river, streams, ponds, lakes, marshes, and their inhabitants, which all are linked in some way, to the big blue underwater world of the sea."