Architecture Commons^™

Deaccessioning The Studio, Ayla Rexroth

Theses and Dissertations

I have created several micro-businesses that provide tools and facilitate experiences to help people meet their potential. The form of the businesses has ranged from a street based art gallery inside the drawers of a modern dresser to a business that sews more and bigger pockets into women’s outerwear.

Momentum Clinic For Teen And Young Adult Cancer Patients, Merian O'Neil

Theses and Dissertations

This study explores the needs of teen and young adult cancer patients undergoing long-term chemotherapy treatments and the design of an outpatient clinic that accommodates this population’s unique needs. Most teens endure long-term treatments in a pediatric facility targeted primarily for children, while others are treated in adult facilities. Teens have different privacy and social needs than children, and while they are not adults, they are involved in their own treatment decisions, unlike children. The target age group for this study is teens and young adults, ages thirteen to twenty-two. A common theme emerged from research and interviews conducted in …

Nest - Caring For The Caregiver, Ashley Whitehead

Theses and Dissertations

Today, more than ever, there exists an overlap between hospitality and healthcare industries; with the impact being felt in the way hospital interiors are designed. This influence impacts the patient’s experience but focuses very little on the experience of the caregiver. Caring for a sick child takes an emotional, mental, and physical toll on a family. It is especially challenging to care for a sick family member when away from the comfort and security of the family’s private home. This project explores that challenge through the interior design of a space that, for both patient and family, is restorative, healing, …

Heritage Hotel: A Marriage Of Heritage Tourism And Boutique Hospitality, Leah A. Embrey

Theses and Dissertations

As defined by Wai Mun Lim and Mel Endean in 2009 in their article “Elucidating the aesthetic and operational characteristics of UK boutique hotels” in the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Boutique hotels have less than 100 rooms, have an individualistic and unique design, are often in historic buildings, and have highly personalized service for guests. I found that a boutique hotel that focuses on historic preservation and heritage tourism does four things. First, it respects the history of the building it is housed in, preserving as much of the original structure as possible. It also takes advantage of …

Boomerang Studio: Community Design For Action, Jessica Walton

Theses and Dissertations

An arts education space, focusing on concepts of design thinking aimed at providing low income middle and high school teens of color the opportunity to learn about interior design, architecture and crafts. Ultimately, Boomerang Studio hopes to engage students in the world of design as a means of creating greater diversity within these disciplines.

Virtual / Reality: Designing Permeable Spaces For Social Well-Being In The Digital Age, Thomas R. Kennedy

Theses and Dissertations

The digital age has pushed people closer together than ever before. A device that fits in the palm of your hand allows instantaneous communication with billions of other human beings. People share everyday experiences, passing thoughts, personal photos, sometimes privately, often publicly. Distances between people and places feel reduced. Never has it been so easy to be so emotionally close to so many people.

But as digital experiences become routine, our collective perceptions of closeness and distance shift. As virtual communities become larger, so does our awareness of the actual distance between things. Even though humans can be genuinely close …

The Exchange: Curating Authenticity + Interaction, Sarah Webb

Theses and Dissertations

For a physical space to have an emotional impact on those who experience it, we must consider the connection and relationship between objects and experience, and how people make individual connections to insentient places. It is this symbiotic relationship that allows a building or space to attain a “soul”.

Through the adaptive re-use of a Richmond, Virginia building, this thesis project explores strategies of staging physical interaction and organic experiences through art and culture in the context of a mixed-use niche hotel.

A City Winery - Revealing Process + Promoting Interaction, Eline Warren

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis project is an exploration of process in both design and winemaking. Wine has long been a part of Virginia’s history and culture and in recent years has influenced architecture and design that is specific to winemaking and hospitality. Through an interior intervention, this project addresses the many challenges of marrying production and hospitality design criteria under one roof. The final design encourages understanding of process through links between production and consumption with both a winemaking facility and laboratory that are integrated into the surrounding hospitality-oriented spaces. This visual exposure to the facility stimulates patron interest and intuitive knowledge …

Interhouse: A Place For Growing Up And Growing Adults, Nilufar Makhamatova

Theses and Dissertations

Society has become increasingly segregated by age which lessens the opportunities for communication between generations. Before the Internet, children and adolescents typically learned through traditional means - their parents, school teachers, and life experiences. Adults believed they were capable of recognizing and addressing the needs of children and adolescents. (Strom & Strom, 2012) Now, the global media is widely accessed by people of all ages which gives it the ability to influence a large population in different ways. This has led to children and adolescents being more heavily influenced and educated by the media than other traditional sources. Adolescents, in …