Architecture Commons^™

Impact: The Visual Communication Of Information, Jennifer Shields, Mark Cabrinha, Sasha Menshikova, Catherine Trujillo, Emily Chung, Miles Young, Hope Golden, Laura Akatsu Kuffner, Markus Rogne, Aimie Olson

Creative Works

Impact: The Visual Communication of Information focuses on the diversity of visual communication created by students, faculty, and staff across California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Drawing from a multitude of methods in courses and activities across the campus, the exhibit displays the influences of visual communication in fields ranging from statistical data and geography, to art, design, and engineering, to performance and physics. This project was made possible by a gift from the Austin and Gabriela Hearst Foundation.

This catalog represents the onsite exhibit of the same name, which opened in winter of 2020 at Robert E. Kennedy …

The Zimmerman Library Mural In The National Register Of Historic Places: A Working Paper And Timeline, Samuel E. Sisneros

University Libraries & Learning Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Working paper and timeline about the nomination and listing process of the UNM Zimmerman Library “Three Peoples” paintings to the National Register of Historic Places.

America’S Finest Housing Crisis: Racialized Housing & Suburban Development, Vicenta Martinez Govea

McNair Summer Research Program

U.S. Government operations between 1940-1950 brought unprecedented direct and indirect employment opportunities to San Diego, exacerbating an already growing housing shortage. To accommodate the thousands of new defense workers, the government produced the largest defense housing project to date in the small neighborhood of Linda Vista. However, this opportunity and largesse was extended primarily to a select group of white working-class families who had access to defense jobs and, consequently, subsidized housing. Military presence in San Diego during World War II shaped the design of homes and exclusively allocated housing, as both shelter and financial instrument, to white working-class families …

Investigations Of Mycelium As A Low-Carbon Building Material, Kevin Yang

ENGS 88 Honors Thesis (AB Students)

With the building industry being responsible for 39% of global carbon emissions, there is an imperative need for low-carbon solutions that can decarbonize the built environment. This thesis aimed to address whether mycelium, the hyphal body of fungi, can be used as a building material. The first part of research involved developing a protocol for creating and testing mycelium samples. Mycelium composites were created by inoculating strains of mycelium onto agricultural substrates such as walnut shells, rice hulls, and a commercially available mix from Ecovative Design LLC. Mechanical compression and tensile tests, as well as thermal conductivity and fire resistance …

[Ne]W Arch Hall | Building Inclusion & Equity Into Architecture Education, Jati Zunaibi

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

The purpose of this thesis book is not to play into the historically white-male-centric hierarchical system that the collegiate institution has established for architecture. The objective of this text is to provide a critical reflection of our academies through the lens of a minority emerging architect (raised by two former practicing architects that transitioned into academia, spent eight years in school with countless leadership experiences, and nationally recognized as a scholar). Most of the white text contents herein are appropriate for scholastic study, but, I would encourage readers to follow along with the grey and bracketed text as well. Although …

User: Drone, Abigail L. Nelson

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

Though industrial technology furthered the possibilities of architecture and, in the the case of the automobile, redefined architectural principles and promenade, it also influenced a consumerist-driven, technology-obsessed society. Cedric Price and Reynor Banham saw great promise in the implementation of technology within architecture; what they overlooked, though, was the tangible exhaust it brought: electronic waste (e-waste). The current e-waste situation in the New Territories of Hong Kong poses a case study which allows technology, specifically that of drones, to interact with architecture.

For this thesis, drones, in reaction to the e-waste case study, operate an e-waste handling facility alongside humans. …

Growth: Expanding The Nature Of Cities, Collin R. Meusch

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

This thesis aims to define and explore why it is absolutely necessary for cities to accommodate higher densities of people and incorporate the natural environment within the built environment. As urban populations continue to grow at rapid rates, the threat of losing our ties to the natural environment looms on the horizon, but presents architects with an opportunity to help combat this problem. This thesis aims to critically examine strategies for rethinking the architecture of cities, strategies that include both accommodating higher numbers of people and presenting people with the opportunity for frequent exposure to nature within the context of …

Representational Forms: Storytelling Of Climate Change, Hayden Cudaback

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

Climate change is recognized as one of the biggest threats to our natural world and its biodiversity, as well as to global security, human health and well-being. We are already witnessing the early effects of climate change, with more frequent, extreme weather events and changing seasonal patterns being seen around the world.

Climate change is a complex object that you can’t physically connect with. Its effects can be felt, but climate change itself is an entity that people can’t understand the depth and magnitude. This characteristic of climate change makes any depiction related to its effects static and two dimensional. …

Catalog Of Speculative Suburban Futures, Tara Grebe, Geneva Sinkula, Austin Riggins, Zac Porter

UCARE Research Products

This joint creative project examines ordinary suburban architecture through a neutral lens. American suburbs are often a source of vibrant debate in architectural discourse. The goal of this research was not to contribute to the endorsement or condemnation of suburbia, but to instead study the composition of these common place typologies. The three typologies studied in this project were shopping malls, big box stores, and gas stations; each of these has a distinct organization and set of characteristics that separates it from the others. After studying the basic components, interventions were made to transform each building in unique ways. This …

Intimate Nevada: Artists Respond, Lauren Paljusaj, Anne Savage

Calvert Undergraduate Research Awards

Creative Works Winner

Most of us know Nevada beyond the Strip. It’s a place of houses, of shopping plazas, of movie theaters, and grocery stores. A place of hotels that are also places of work. A place of basins, ranges, vistas, and nature. A place of personal history. For Intimate Nevada: Artists Respond, curators Lauren Paljusaj (ENG BA ‘20) and Anne Savage (CFA BA ‘22), draw on photographs found in UNLV Special Collections to uncover the intimate visuality of a Nevada of past centuries. The exhibition focuses on how the imaged built landscape of early 20th century Southern Nevada …

Guidelines For Sustainable Practices In The Rural Built Environment, Nash Kelly, Ethan Weiche

UCARE Research Products

This poster provides information about sustainable changes people can make to better improve their health, community and built environment. From what is shown, this can be done through community gardens, pedestrian access and building certifications.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), climate change will have direct and significant health impacts (1), which the Lancet Countdown identifies as disproportionately affecting at-risk populations.(2) The challenges of geographic isolation and lack of population density in rural and remote areas limits adequate access to basic healthcare services, such as primary care, emergency care, and mental health services. Additionally, the health deficit experienced by …

Re-Designing Gentrification, Elena Whittle

Architecture Senior Theses

In Paris sans le people, a book on the gentrification of Paris, Anne Clerval writes (in a French to English translation) that, “gentrification reflects the dynamics of class relationships in the urban space” (p. 10). This thesis explores this dynamic in the context of American cities and additionally points to race relations, and private-public interests’ relations as other important factors in the American urban sphere. This thesis is an exploration of how capital plays a critical role in the morphology of the built environment. One of the ways that this is most obviously observed is through the commonly occurring phenomena …

Truth Games, Hanneke Van Deursen

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes Neoliberalism, and architecture as its active agent, not only in constructing space, but constructing subjectivity within that space. If Neoliberalism exists in two forms, policy and ideology, I contend that architecture serves as a mediator between these forms: shaped by policy and naturalizing ideology. Truth Games – constructed “truths” which embed themselves in common knowledge and practice – allow the city to appear as banal and incidental, maybe even nice. However, the urban environment is a powerful weapon. The Truth Games embedded in architecture legitimate forms of power that operate on and through the constitution of the …

Occupy, Nitya Charugundla

Architecture Senior Theses

Union Square, originally called “Union Place,” was a former site for public forum, parades, public addresses and much more. However, the newest design of the park that can be seen today has attempted to make a space that is far less conducive to public forum and assembly than it once was. This thesis seeks to change that and allow for Union Square, as well as a news media center, to be a vehicle for public forum once again. The public space will be used as a vehicle for different types of forums, protests, and even public address in conjunction with …

Encapsulating Educational Design For Students With Autism Spectrum Disorder, Lauren Praeuner

Honors Theses

This paper is a thesis/creative project hybrid split into two parts. First, it examines different aspects of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), the symptoms experienced by those on the spectrum, and the guidelines that parents, medical professionals, and educators should follow to ensure a holistic approach to the care and education of children with autism. The text also notes some of the considerations that designers should review when designing educational facilities for these individuals, as well as few precedents that successfully do so. The second part of the paper presents my team’s architectural studio project, contributed to by UNL students Lindsay …

Excavating A Future Vision Past: Mike Davis’ City Of Quartz, William Blick

Publications and Research

When Mike Davis published City of Quartz in 1990, his work was widely praised by many and dismissed as liberalist hysteria by others. The reflections it contains on architectural design as a reflection of sociopolitical tumult still strike chords today. This article sets out a reexamination of the text through hindsight, using contemporary and subsequent reviews to consider how the book was relevant at the time of its publication, how it may be relevant today and how it has had a profound impact on sociological and cultural studies.

Pit Stop, Lainey Barschak

Oswald Research and Creativity Competition

Electric cars are rapidly gaining popularity across the United States because they are environmentally friendly. The problem is that the United States does not have enough infrastructure to support the number of electric cars expected to be purchased in the next decade. This project strove to fix that problem by converting an old gas station to an electric car charging station that doubled as a roadside attraction.

Pit Stop functions as a charging station, a restaurant, and an exercise/play area for families to stretch their legs between drives. All the parking spots come equipped with an electric car charging unit, …

Socio-Spatial And Quality Of Life Themes In Aged Care Architecture: A Qualitative Methods Protocol, Sarah Mcgann, Caroline Bulsara, Holly Farley

Arts Papers and Journal Articles

Aim: To evaluate the connection between residential aged care architecture, the residents’ ability to find home and Quality of Life themes.

Design: This study uses convergent qualitative mixed methods approach across the three phases of the research project to explore the lived experience of residential aged care residents, their family members, and direct care staff.

Methods: The chosen qualitative methodology is based on a constructionist paradigm and uses a combination of observations, photo production and prompted discussions, and architectural visual data collection methods. Funding was approved in March 2018.

Discussion: This research will provide a novel approach to understanding ways …

A Framework For Implementing Integrated Project Delivery In Architecture Design Firms In Egypt, Ayman Ahmed Ezzat Othman, Lamis Yasser Wagih Youssef

Architectural Engineering

Purpose

This paper aims to develop a framework for implementing the integrated project delivery (IPD) approach during the design process in architecture design firms (ADFs) in Egypt.

Design/methodology/approach

A research methodology consists of literature review, case studies and survey questionnaire was designed to achieve the abovementioned aim. First, literature review was used to identify and categorise the challenges of implementing IPD during the design process. Second, four case studies were analysed to investigate the values delivered to the client or missed due to the use of IPD or traditional procurement approaches, respectively. Finally, a survey questionnaire was carried out with …

The Production Of Space And The Archive Of Everyday Life, David Capener

Conference papers

The cloud is a complex material entanglement that moves across multiple scales from the microscopic to the mega-city. The material manifestations of the cloud, like data centers are nodes in an entangled network that cannot be thought apart from the modes of being that they produce. This requires us to think beyond the question — dominant in much architectural discourse — of what it is and ask what does it do? Concerning the cloud these two questions cannot be separated, to ask one is immediately to ask the other. This is the reason why I propose that Lefebvre’s triadic is …