Architecture Commons^™

Currency Museum, Costa Lopes

Building Case Studies

The metallic parasols generate shadow and urban scale.

The Meeting Of Water, Trash, & Us, Xue Ying

Fall 2019 Confluence: St. Louis and Hinterlands

The sewer system is an integral part of an urban context. It separates types of wastewater, while also making our city cleaner and more beautiful. However, these pipes clog and back up, loosening the functional system. As a result, we now face unseen daily accumulations of trash and flooding. Due to the dynamic topography in this old part of the city, the Gateway Mall is a great place to highlight the sewer system and play play with the rules of the old sewer system. Humans have built up thousands of plastic and concrete pipes underground to move the wastewater. In …

Steam Illusion, Tianhao Xiang

Fall 2019 Confluence: St. Louis and Hinterlands

Nuclear power plants provide 20% of the electricity in the United States. Heat from Uranium and chain reactions turns water into steam to run the generator. Being close to water is an important element to select the site for nuclear power plants. Most of the water elements are concentrated in east of Gateway Mall. This factor combined with the underground nuclear shelter in 22nd Judicial Circuit Court help me determine my site. The inner design is a microcosm of the nuclear cooling tower, the design can provide a warm atmosphere in the winter for visitors but at that same time …

Beyond Coal: Facing Our Landscape Legacy & Seeing Our Renewable Future, Danni Hu

Fall 2019 Confluence: St. Louis and Hinterlands

Beyond Coal is a park design project located at the Gateway Mall in St. Louis. Coal has been an essential source of power generation since the 1800s. Coal is a non-renewable resource and causes environmental pollution in the process of using coal to generate electricity. Since the 21st century, there has been a shift from coal to renewable resources. In Missouri, however, coal still generates more than 70 percent of electricity. Coal ash from power generation is buried underground, threatening soil and groundwater resources. Climate change is further exacerbated by the large amounts of greenhouse gases produced by power generation. …

Forest Evolution, Mengying Li

Fall 2019 Confluence: St. Louis and Hinterlands

The forest we enjoy today is very different from the forest 100 years ago in Missouri. Forests have undergone excessive cutting during the 19th century. After that, US and state governments implemented forest regeneration programs that ensure harvests for the future. Forest can be a renewable resource if we manage it in a sustainable way. The site is separated into three parts, each part applying different strategy: selective cutting and natural regeneration, selective cutting and replanting, clear cutting and replanting. I will plant far more trees than I remove. I use a 20’ by 20’ grid to visualize the density …

Partition & Connection, Lei Liu

Fall 2019 Confluence: St. Louis and Hinterlands

Shipping, the transportation of materials goods, is a worldwide industry that influences everyone’s life. Shipping is part of our lives. We consume large amounts of material goods, but this process also implies a huge transportation process. This is significant because the emission of carbon dioxide from shipping also contributes to climate change. On average each, person in St. Louis is responsible for enough carbon emissions to fill 3 largest size containers, by volume. Additionally, railways and highways divide our cities. These are connectors but also dividers, and I am choosing my location year railroads. My site is also near the …

Laboratory For Suburbia, Emily Bryan, Jess Deangelo

Studio Books, Office for Socially Engaged Practice

This publication is an atlas of interrogative art and design practices. As an outgrowth of the Spring 2020 Laboratory for Suburbia course at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts, this exhibition in the form of a book maps a series of student projects that speculatively approach suburban sites and communities. Organized into “neighborhoods” of resonant practices, it traces connections between individual projects and invites the reader to engage with the propositions they make.

Supported by the Divided City Initiative, Laboratory for Suburbia is a paradigm-shifting art and design project addressing the political possibilities of American suburbs. Members …

Situational Assemblage, Mikaela Gatewood

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

In this landscape-based studio, senior lecturer Jacqueline Margetts led a group of undergraduate architecture students in exploring ecological and public open space networks through the West End neighborhood in the City of St. Louis, focusing along the historic Hodiamont Tracks. The former streetcar line, which remains as a neglected service alley, will be converted to a Greenway by Great Rivers Greenway.

The studio was sited in the West End neighborhood in part due to its high number of native bee species, a vital component in maintaining biodiverse ecosystems and key indicator of environmental health. Students were charged with transforming sites …

Garden Intersection, Kai Smith

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

In this landscape-based studio, senior lecturer Jacqueline Margetts led a group of undergraduate architecture students in exploring ecological and public open space networks through the West End neighborhood in the City of St. Louis, focusing along the historic Hodiamont Tracks. The former streetcar line, which remains as a neglected service alley, will be converted to a greenway by Great Rivers Greenway. The studio was sited in the West End neighborhood in part due to its high number of native bee species, a vital component in maintaining biodiverse ecosystems and key indicator of environmental health. Students were charged with transforming sites …

Reproductive Benefits Of Sexual Cannibalism, Tobie Soumekh

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

No abstract provided.

Biodiverse Batway, Graham Mcallister

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

The little brown bat, Myotis Lucifugus, is the focus of this intervention. Not only is this tiny insect-eating bat an intriguing create in its own right, it is also an excellent pollinator and important contributor to the urban ecosystem; its droppings function as a superior fertilizer for plant growth.

A series of bat nesting boxes are placed on the verge between the Hodiamont Tracks and Laurel Street. Oak trees are planted within the paved surface of the inaccessible section of Laurel Street that runs parallel to the tracks forming a shady plaza and an active node. The oaks provide roosting …

Local Lavendar, Tiffany Zheng

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

In this landscape-based studio, senior lecturer Jacqueline Margetts led a group of undergraduate architecture students in exploring ecological and public open space networks through the West End neighborhood in the City of St. Louis, focusing along the historic Hodiamont Tracks. The former streetcar line, which remains as a neglected service alley, will be converted to a greenway by Great Rivers Greenway. The studio was sited in the West End neighborhood in part due to its high number of native bee species, a vital component in maintaining biodiverse ecosystems and key indicator of environmental health. Students were charged with transforming sites …

Gwen Giles Park Turtle Time Track, Martine Kushner

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

Gwen Giles Park Turtle Time Track

Gwen Giles park, the victim of misguided urban renewal efforts, still contains evidence of its rich ecological history and the significant role it once played in the community. The installation of a mile-long jogging track with distance markers and outdoor fitness equipment takes advantage of the altered topography and the rich bottomland soil; the legacy of a once-thriving prairie ecosystem.

The Catalpa tree, for which the park was previously named, is reintroduced, and a field of Goldenrod on the mounds becomes the catalyst for on-site biodiversity. Central to the proposal is the introduction of …

Birdscape Programming, Rebecca Shen

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

In this landscape-based studio, senior lecturer Jacqueline Margetts led a group of undergraduate architecture students in exploring ecological and public open space networks through the West End neighborhood in the City of St. Louis, focusing along the historic Hodiamont Tracks. The former streetcar line, which remains as a neglected service alley, will be converted to a greenway by Great Rivers Greenway.

The studio was sited in the West End neighborhood in part due to its high number of native bee species, a vital component in maintaining biodiverse ecosystems and key indicator of environmental health. Students were charged with transforming sites …

A Street-Scape Named Remembrance, Michele Chen

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

On May 21, 1996, streetcars rattled through the West End neighborhood for the very last time as #15 Hodiamont line, the only remaining streetcar route in St. Louis, ceased operation. Memory, however, persists and this intervention honors the Hodiamont service by creating an ecologically rich trailhead to the track's new life as a Greenway. Streetcars are celebrated through embedded track lanes, vertical handhold like insect hotels, and transformable furniture along tracks inserted into Gwen B. Giles park. Existing pavement cracks at the intersection of the Greenway and Hodiamont Avenue are seeded with Virginia mountain mint. As the mint spreads the …

Grandparenting Center: Connecting The Generations, Jessica Deangelo

2019 Spring Shared Sites: Design for Intergenerational Aging

Site: Hong Kong

Grandparenting Center: Connecting the Generations

This building represents a Grandparenting Center, a place with a variety of activities where grandparents or older guardians can take children for the day. One in three older adults in Hong Kong are caretakers for children at least one day a week, and in most cases much longer. This center is a space where grandparents can connect with their grandchildren while also building a community of peers with similar responsibilities and demands.

A chief complaint of older adults caring for children is the physical demands of keeping up with a child. In …

Shared Sites - Design For Inter Gernerational Aging: Movement Around Water, Teresa Lu

2019 Spring Shared Sites: Design for Intergenerational Aging

Site: St. Louis

Environmental press plays an important role in both a person's physical and mental development. Research shows that children and older adults' walking speed are both in the lower range of all age groups and are quite similar to one another. Even for a healthy senior, their mobility will most likely decrease in a gradual but stable pattern as they age. A healthy environment should be able to encourage mobility in a safe surrounding, while a completely safe space is often unenterprising.

The program proposed is a physical health center with a pool in the center of activities. …

Intergenerational Touch, Heewoong Yang

2019 Spring Shared Sites: Design for Intergenerational Aging

Site: St. Louis

Intergenerational exchanges are becoming more and more important as the society ages. Throughout this studio, I have tried to figure out what are the walls between generations and how to tear down the barriers with architectural languages.

Between two generations, there are a lot of strong stereotypes which make more difficult to interact with each other.

If we just ignore these stereotypes and try to make them interact, it might bring many side effects.

According to research conducted by Taiwan civil organization, they tried to give a particular preparation stage before making two different aging groups meet. …

Cicada Grove, Helen Han

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

The gentle throb of cicada song is an essential element of hot summer nights. The annual performance not only reminds people of a carefree childhood, but also signals a rich ecosystem. The cycle of cicada emergence is emblematic of the natural cycles of growth and decay.

This project proposes a neighborhood hub—an epicenter of cicada habitat and social activities. Located in the heart of the historical West End neighborhood and sited between apartment complexes, parking lots, and a playground, Cicada Grove is both a productive garden, a gathering space, and a place of repose where the song of the cicada …

Musical Therapy Center For Parkinson's Disease, Howie Chen

2019 Spring Shared Sites: Design for Intergenerational Aging

Site: Hong Kong

Design Intention for Uncle Shan and Nephew Justin:

This simple space tends to establish a kind of space prototype for intergenerational people living and working together. The space is designed mainly for two of my relatives including my 68-year-old uncle—Shan, and my 7-year-old nephew—Justin. Shan has been retired for almost ten years and developed his stable daily schedule throughout these years, while Justin is still a young kid who always kept being curious about the exterior world and whose schedule might be more flexible. the space should serve them both and fulfill their spatial needs either simultaneously …

Greenway Development, Makio Yamamoto

2019 Spring Undergraduate Landscape Architecture Studio

In this landscape-based studio, senior lecturer Jacqueline Margetts led a group of undergraduate architecture students in exploring ecological and public open space networks through the West End neighborhood in the City of St. Louis, focusing along the historic Hodiamont Tracks. The former streetcar line, which remains as a neglected service alley, will be converted to a greenway by Great Rivers Greenway. The studio was sited in the West End neighborhood in part due to its high number of native bee species, a vital component in maintaining biodiverse ecosystems and key indicator of environmental health. Students were charged with transforming sites …

A Space For Making, Making One's Own Space, Samuel Bell-Hart

2019 Spring Shared Sites: Design for Intergenerational Aging

Site: Hong Kong

The programming is focused around the supporting of activities that broadly involve making and working with one's hands. Specifically, woodworking and gardening are chosen as activities that can be engaged in at varying levels of difficulty and enjoyed by a wide range of age groups. The first means through which multiple generations interact is the mentor/student relationship, where someone with previous skills in either area acts as a facilitator for an older or younger student to learn. There are two "higher level" activities, dragon-boat building and orchid gardening, that comprise the long-term work of the space and …

Kastra: Architecture And Culture In The Aegean Archipelago, Constantine E. Michaelides

Books and Monographs

Final version of Kastra: Architecture and Culture in the Aegean Archipelago, published Summer 2018. “Kastra: Architecture and Culture in the Aegean Archipelago,” is a sequel to “The Aegean Crucible: Tracing Vernacular Architecture in Post-Byzantine Centuries,” published in 2004. “The Aegean Crucible” focused on the vernacular architecture of the Aegean archipelago, while “Kastra” focuses on the collective fortification, a building type vital to survival in the region, during the thirteenth-to- eighteenth-century period. “Kastra” was also written on the conviction that what we identify today as the vernacular architecture of the Aegean islands emerged from the building of Kastra, the medieval collective …

Baden Community Open Space Plan, Rod Barnett

Books and Monographs

A team led by professor Rod Barnett has completed the Baden Community Open Space Plan. In summer 2016, Barnett and a team of research assistants collaborated with the on-the-ground team to engage residents to understand their needs. This data, combined with ecological data points, and public health assessments collected in the community, informed the proposed masterplan. In the voids created by voluntary buyout and demolition, the Baden neighborhood has an opportunity to redefine how infrastructure and greenspace can come together to create a space that serves residents. The team of partners has included the Green City Coalition, the City of …

Maya Lin In Conversation, Sam Fox School Of Design & Visual Arts, Maya Ying Lin

Books and Monographs

Record of a conversation held in Umrath Hall at Washington University in St. Louis on November 17, 2016 between Maya Lin and Sam Fox School faculty and students. The event was co-hosted by Women in Architecture + Design. Contents Introduction / Natasha Tabachnikoff -- Submissions / Sam Fox Students & Faculty -- In conversation / Maya Lin ; transcribed by Jenny Li. Question 1 / Francisco Coch ; Question 2 / Mingxi Li ; Question 3 / Jenna Schnitzler ; Question 4 / Jared Crane ; Question 5 / Natasha Tabachnikoff ; Question 6 / Rita Wang ; Question 7 …

Social Sustenance: Nurturing Change, Daniel Aguilera

2016 Fall Inclusion and Neighborhood Resilience with IISTL

The site’s direct connection to S. Grand Blvd. and the existing building are the fabric on which program, design and intent were concentrated. The building presented for adaptive reuse was originally the South Buick Auto Center, a structure capable of vehicle occupation on each floor, including the roof. The elevated rate of youth crime and the lack of activity space in the community brought about an idea for an alternative to re-incarceration, low employment rates and low educational and economic mobility for those individuals convicted of crimes between the ages of 17-25. Social Sustenance proposes a food truck incubator catered …

The Third Space: Creating A Community Anchor, Suzannah Grasel

2016 Fall Inclusion and Neighborhood Resilience with IISTL

Third Space is a civic space that proposes journalism as a programmatic outlet for the Gravois Park and immigrant communities of St. Louis. Throughout history, journalism has been an invaluable platform and voice for marginalized communities through Foreign Correspondents Clubs [FCC]. FCCs are hubs where journalists, correspondents, diplomats, and citizens convene within the community. In these spaces community and club members can create periodicals, host forums and exhibitions, network with fellow members, learn about topical issues, reference libraries, and generally engage with their community in a meaningful way. Third Space provides these resources concurrently with a digital library to the …

Mountain Climbing Childhood, Xinzhi Pan

2016 Fall Inclusion and Neighborhood Resilience with IISTL

The proposal for the reuse of the Donna Brown Building was the result of the analysis of the public space layout on S. Grand Ave. This included an understanding of the qualities of the promenade created in the S. Grand Commercial District through a “street diet”, and the beautification of the streetscape. I was in particular interested in studying parking as it clearly affects walkability and circulation. Through a series of studies in plan and section, I was able to look at the different parking typologies that exist along Grand. It was apparent in this study that as a pedestrian …

Early Beginnings: Inclusive Early Head Start Program, Amanda Malone

2016 Fall Inclusion and Neighborhood Resilience with IISTL

Gravois Park is a unique neighborhood for its density and diversity, yet it is troubled with issues of economic disparity and crime at a rate similar to north St. Louis. Research shows that low income and education lead into crime. Gravois Park confirms this by showing the lowest education levels of degrees attained within the City of St. Louis, along with some of the highest high school dropout rates for the public schools. School readiness, particularly among poor children, may help prevent the cascade of consequences of early academic failure and school behavioral problems. Specifically, the years before a child …

Interactive Education, Savannah Hecker

2016 Fall Inclusion and Neighborhood Resilience with IISTL

The building was constructed in 1926 as the Southside Automobile Company’s service center. The automotive industry has been an integral part of St. Louis’ history and precedents along Grand Blvd. My intention is to transform the building back to the historic use, bringing the lively nature of the automotive industry back to this area of Grand. The automotive service in St. Louis is still thriving and within the St. Louis area, and I propose a Trade School for Automobile Service. The School will have a service learning so parents and students will be able to work during their training. There …