Architecture Commons^™

Public Space With Character: A Late, Late Entry To The Chicago Central Public Library Competition, Kokeith Perry Ii

Architecture Thesis Prep

The city of Chicago has a complex relationship with the aesthetics of civic monuments and infrastructures. The cities most canonical projects validate its apparent biases - an oscillation between iconic modern and postmodern figures proliferate the urban fabric. The dynamic between these two paradigms creates a complex relationship between architecture, urban space, and the public mirroring the cities longstanding and complex history of segregated urban space and peoples. This project draws precedent from the format of the 1980 Stanley Tigerman exhibition Late entries to the Chicago Tribune Tower Competition, a then-radical competition set to reinvigorate the discipline the way the …

Crude Urbanism, Ahnaf Chowdhury, Anuradha Desai

Architecture Thesis Prep

Mumbai’s formal and informal components operate in interdependence. Matter from the formal is absorbed by the informal, where it is hacked, recycled and repurposed. The output, now lucrative, is spat back into the formal. For example, the city’s trash is collected, sorted and prepared by the informal as a commodity that is sold back into the formal. This cycle creates crucial nodes, where the formal relies heavily on the informal for its flexible and resilient systems.

Though these systems may be independent and engrained in Mumbai’s economy, the worker’s relation to the system’s matter reveals needs that the informal sector …

The Cultural Mosaic: Knowledge, Conflict And The Power Of Place, Shanaya Girdharlal

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis explores how contemporary architecture can recreate the authentic experience of a historical site by intervening in a historical context such that both historical continuity and contemporary additions manifest in a symbiotic and didactic way.

The project examines how the history of a place is represented and reflected logistically, and how it materially manifests in its built form. In the context of Rajasthan, identification means to acknowledge the ruling past, to embrace its traditions, crafts, and architecture, and to create a contemporary language for the site based on past evidence. The thesis tries to establish a historical continuum using …

Surfaces Of Exchange: Formulating Connections And Experiences In The Physical And Digital Landscape, Brooke Calhoun, Ross Hanson

Architecture Thesis Prep

The means and modes through which people and places have connected has drastically altered within the recent past. At the global scale, as recent as the mid 1800’s, the cross-cultural exchange of information was rare and occurred only through person-to-person connections. Expositions such as the Great Exhibition hosted in London at the Crystal Palace in 1851 is a clear example of how cultures communicated in our recent past. Information, machines, animals, plants, all the above, was removed from its natural habitat and placed on display in front of an audience; a one-point perspective through which one culture would understand another. …

Transitional Spaces: Re-Thinking Of Disaster Relief Housing, Evelyn Brooks

Architecture Thesis Prep

Natural disasters such as tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, and hurricanes destroy our infrastructure, civic buildings, public amenities, and homes. These disasters create problems of homelessness, but they also create environments within the city that are unlivable due to a lack of electricity and potable water. People displaced by disasters often find themselves living in a government-or non-profit-run evacuation shelter, at the mercy of bureaucratic organizations for assistance to begin the recovery process. People forced to evacuate neighborhoods where they have perhaps been established for decades often also lose their ability to attend school. These shelter environments are repurposed public buildings like …

Embracing The American Atlantis: Designing For A Post-Disaster New Orleans, Mikayla Beckwith, Katherine Truluck

Architecture Thesis Prep

In the year 2100, New Orleans is flooded and reduced to a fraction of its previous grandeur. The rising sea level has reduced the city to an archipelago settled between the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. Through the implementation of a transportation and program core system, the archipelago of territories is reconnected and the programmatic organization of the land is redistributed. This project combines architectural, infrastructural, and utopian case studies to move beyond the mitigation of water and instead create a new condition that adapts to the water in a more symbiotic fashion. Through this intervention, New Orleans …

Building Translations: Narratives On Bizarre Preservation, Alexandra Allen, Scott Michael Krabath

Architecture Thesis Prep

In today’s globalized society, we’re confronted with a flood of images and data at a speed that strains our ability to fully process the information. This messy network often gives way to misreading’s and poor interpretations. In the architectural discipline, a suspension of critical disbelief is necessary to accommodate the lack of fidelity, clarity or resolution that exists in many of the documents we encounter.

We contend that there’s a productive tension between the object and its mediated representation and that the translations that occur between the two are embedded within the way that architects communicate with one another.

Robin …

Speculative Spoliation: Spolia As An Instrument Of Locus Making & Identity Mediation, Amelia Gan Wen Jiun

Architecture Thesis Prep

In this thesis, spolia is defined as the repurposing of found artifacts or material with ingrained place identities to new building matter in novel contexts. This includes architecture remnants or fragments from sites of historical ruins, urban derelicts and artifacts currently displayed in museums.

Architecture's impermanence results in demolishment, reconstruction, or exhibition of its fragments in museums or ruin parks. Attempts at preservation often only look at the surface-level significance of these artifacts without allowing for the addition of meanings over time. While displaying an artifact in a museum or turning ruins into tourist parks directly addresses the history of …

City Of Brick: Spatial And Material Explorations In 21st Century Urbanism, William Collins

Architecture Thesis Prep

The project I’m proposing, City of Brick: Spatial and Material Explorations in 21st Century Urbanism, will analyze the problem of and propose an alternative to the supertall residential tower in the contemporary city. Th ere is a trend in American cites toward the construction of ‘prestige’ projects, namely, skyscrapers of luxury apartments purchased as investments. Th is phenomenon is well-documented in the spacious floorplans of these towers; for example, 432 Park Avenue in New York City, though it is the tallest residential building in North America, only contains 104 units. My proposal seeks to provide a counter to the ultraluxury …

Relink Tangible And Intangible, Weibin Lao, Xiaobai Zhao

Architecture Thesis Prep

Syracuse, as part of the Upstate New York used to be an essential economic center of the United States. This not only was resulting from its once influential salt industry and its easily accessed canal infrastructure, but also was heavily influenced by the industrial innovation. Without trained engineers, the people in Syracuse designed machines for excavating the earth and building the Erie Canal. And with easy transportation, goods and industrial products created and produced from Syracuse were shipped and transported. This brought prosper and wealth to the Syracuse. With new transportation technology development including the railways for trains and highways …

Political Archipelago: Repoliticizing Post-Umbrella Revolution Hong Kong, Dora Yui Kei Lo

Architecture Thesis Prep

This project aims to re-politicize the public sphere of post-Umbrella Revolution Hong Kong. Umbrella Revolution was one of the latest defining events of democratic struggles in Hong Kong. Like other protests, civil disobedience, and revolutions, the Umbrella Revolution was more than just “organized public dissents”; it was an experiment of an alternative democratic sphere for agonistic struggles. The occupation temporarily altered, reoriented, disoriented or debilitated the existing boundaries and thresholds in the city; it resisted the logic of the city to create a space of exception. However, these temporary alterations did not leave significant permanent imprints to the city. In …

Political Archipelago: Repoliticizing Post-Umbrella Revolution Hong Kong, Dora Yui Kei Lo

Architecture Thesis Prep

This project aims to re-politicize the public sphere of post-Umbrella Revolution Hong Kong. Umbrella Revolution was one of the latest defining events of democratic struggles in Hong Kong. Like other protests, civil disobedience and revolutions, Umbrella Revolution was more than just “organized public dissents”; it was an experiment of an alternative democratic sphere for agonistic struggles. The occupation temporarily altered, reoriented, disoriented or debilitated the existing boundaries and thresholds in the city; it resisted the logic of the city to create a space of exception. However, these temporary alterations did not leave significant permanent imprints to the city. At the …

Volcano: Tools + Projections, Sang Ha Jung, Young Joon Yun

Architecture Thesis Prep

The core of this project is the idea of humankind as a geological force. By imagining the active ground in relation to the creation of new ground and environment, this thesis seeks to reclaim the formal language of the geological through volcanism. As we create a series of spaces within this new ground, using lava as our natural tool for architecture, the goal is to create architecture and landscape that reconciles the geological and the biological, merging the natural and the artificial. Architecture can be formed naturally, like a stone built over time, through sedimentation and erosion. This idea of …

Architecture Amidst Smog, Hui Sheng

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis is an investigation on smog and architecture.

Challenging The Pattern, Gary Thurston

Architecture Thesis Prep

Christopher Alexander and Yona Friedman suggest the architect is necessarily limited in his or her ability to construct the built environment for all people, or should be limited in favor of participation of the non-architect. While I agree that all parties of the world should take part in design and construction, I assert that architects through their training are better equipped to design and construct our built environment and in this sense, I am directly challenging the claims made by Alexander, et al.

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.

Urban Archtifice: Regenerating Residential Facades Through Acupuncture, Ran Mei

Architecture Thesis Prep

To legitimize and make use of weirdness in the Chinese cultural fascination of symbolism and objectified architecture, I decide to put it in the most function-oriented program in the city _ collective housing, or more specifically, the transformation and regeneration of existing housing types in Chinese megacities. To inject iconicity into the most banal and repetitive structures of Chinese cities, the residential high-rises, I aim to create a human layer that parasites the faceless facades of housing blocks; to take advantage of the novelty value of collectively generated iconicity to legitimize the personal appropriation of “public” space; to bring back …

We Die As We Live, Yücel Güven

Architecture Thesis Prep

Each person is made up of different characters that build his/her complete identity. It is possible to identify these individual personas and design a different mausoleum to each one, specific in architectural language and function. The mausoleum should architecturally be unique to the persona and functionally serve the same purpose.

The "D.A.R." Object, Zhe Wang

Architecture Thesis Prep

The D.A.R. Object discusses a method, which to redesign a selected object through Disassembling - Analyzing - Reconstructing, 3 main process. When the method of "D.A.R." is adopted, the inherent form logic of an object will still be kept. Because designing like this way will make challenge to the original object ideologically. This challenge is embodied in the dramatic conflict between the process, which has a strong relationship with the object's inherent logic, and the result, which will blur the original reality of the object.

And my method of "D.A.R." initially comes from my study of structuralism and deconstruction. More …

Reconstruct The Missing Narrative: Rethinking Contemporary Chinese Architecture Through Ancient Landscape Paintings, Taiming Chen, Yiwei Wu

Architecture Thesis Prep

In this thesis, we will continue to address the issue of self-identity and missing narrative in contemporary context. Differently, we will use landscape paintings as our design source to revive the narrative quality. We will use the methodologies developed from the research to deconstruct the selected landscape paintings, transform them into narratives, and reconstruct the narratives into architecture.

By extracting events, atmosphere, and spirits from original painting narratives, and by borrowing the principles of paintings to transform them into sequences, we will set up architectural narratives in contemporary context for people to experience.

Details Matter: Architecture Is Understood As A Sum Of Its Details, Rajkumar Kadam

Architecture Thesis Prep

Architecture is understood as a product of its details. It is inseparable from its components and the characteristic ways in which they are assembled. The scalar and material consistency of the components is important as to how architecture is read. In this regard, the best detailing is one where each part has the same language and character as the whole as detailing is about the construction of a part to whole relationship. To construct this argument, this thesis looks at Edward Ford’s “55 Door Handles, or What is a Detail?” and the four schools of thought about the relationship of …

The Architecture Of Collapse, Alison Sekerak

Architecture Thesis Prep

The world is changing around us. There is no more denying it. We are running out of resources. We are polluting our air and water. Sea levels are rising, and with it, natural disasters. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, drought. We are killing each other. Economies are collapsing and countries are dissolving. The world is changing. Stories of apocalypse have been prevalent in our society for decades, but they may not be a thing of science fiction anymore. When the world does change, what are architects going to do about it?

An architecture must be designed to enable the survival of …

Paradise In Conflict: Let's Make Europe Great Again!, Rui Bao

Architecture Thesis Prep

What is the role of architecture in a conflict situation? Architecture can act after or during a conflict by providing emergency aid, for example, refugee camps. This kind of emergency remedy measure brings a large amount of displaced people to other countries that may address the issue of displacement and interment of refugees in countries all over the world. Refugees may be discriminated and be treated as second class citizens in those countries. They are restricted in a small area like prisoners rather than legal citizens. In order to call attention to this problem and affect the countries which are …

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

Architecture Thesis Prep

There is a shrinking stock of all types of affordable housing, resulting in the inflation of rent across all demographics. The rise in rent makes housing detrimentally unaffordable for people with extremely low incomes. Mayor Bill de Blasio also recognizes that there is an affordable housing crisis, promising to build over 200,000 units of affordable housing in the next ten years. However, his plan applies to new and privately-owned construction, not the massive public stock that the city already owns. The state of disrepair of public housing combined with generally underutilized sites in 1950’s projects makes the public portion of …

Inscrutable Places For Cyborgs, Christopher Bressler, Colin Thomas Hoover

Architecture Thesis Prep

More and more humans interface with digital devices to mediate their experiences with external information. This project seeks to explore the architectural implications of this trend as it reaches its logical conclusion in the cyborg mind. Although the project is positioned in the near future, architects practicing today will have to deal with the interaction between their architectural manifestations and the cyborg interface. This does not mean that this is a predictive project. We will be focusing on generating techniques which begin to explore the tools necessary in organizing and envisioning this world, while focusing less on the detailed inner …

Parameters For Permanence: Planning Independent Settlements For Syrian Refugee Reintegration, Katherine Barymow, Jacqueline Morin

Architecture Thesis Prep

Syrians, previously housed in camps, will be returning to Aleppo in the new ISIS-free zone, a utopian oasis for women, children and war veterans. How can architecture recognize this oscillation from the temporary to semi permanent typology?

Character & Features: Reframing The Everyday Through What It's Not And What It's Near, Paul Lee

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis reconsiders Quatremère de Quincy’s definitions of character from his Encyclopedia by synthesizing it with discussions of character in the discourse today, specifically as written by Bob Somol and Andrew Zago. Using these recontextualized definitions, this thesis takes a second look at the photographic series of Bernd & Hilla Becher to reframe the everyday with digital media. This thesis proposes to analyze and design architecture through a focus on architecture’s features as opposed to its formal and spatial composition. Quatremère described character in architecture as “the idea of an alphabet composed of abstract units that can endlessly be combined …

Rethinking "Stuff", Jonathan Anthony

Architecture Thesis Prep

Re-thinking Stuff is a manifesto for the study of material culture and a new way of looking at the ‘stuff’ that surrounds us and makes up so much of our social and personal life. This thesis contends it is time to acknowledge and confront the lack of attention to how we store our stuff - most importantly what are the architectural effects of rethinking stuff in storage.

Urban Amnesia, Teriya Lee

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis is a response to Kevin Lynch's claim that "in the process of way-finding, the strategic link is the environmental image, the generalized mental picture of the exterior physical world that is held by an individual." Specifically, the thesis deals with those parts of the urban fabric which are imageless - the unidentified, or, the forgotten. It asks the question: what can architecture do to clarify spatial identities? The thesis will explore Hong Kong's identity as it relates to memory and space.

Ruin-Naissance, Fatma Gonca Tunc

Architecture Thesis Prep

Ruin-naissance is the term I use to describe not only the resurrection of an archeological site, but also the rebirth of an idea about how we think about ruins and how new construction can enhance the experience of these kinds of sites.

The principle contention of this thesis is that a better understanding of the fragmented evidence presented by an archeological site can be seen through the lens of a contemporary architectural intervention that responds sensitively to an ancient site. In doing this, the intervention needs to address issues of identity, narrative and historiography. The new architecture should not ignore …