Architecture Commons^™

Green Blot District | Considering Low Density Neighborhoods, Tom Arleo

Architecture Senior Theses

By adjusting the texture of now declined early 20th Century outer-urban neighborhoods to adopt low density blocks, new zoning and its resultant architecture can produce an intricate spatial fabric that mediates between individual customization and collective suburban image essential to American detached dwelling. Overlapping functions, spaces, and surfaces offer a new cohesion necessary for developing physically and socially tight-knit communities in a thinning, object-made fabric.

This thesis rethinks suburban practices at the scale of the house, lot, and block, in order to speak directly to issues of building autonomy, non-spatial surface and volume conventions, and residential-program-only zoning. Creating the scheme …

Deployable Domesticity, Daniel Hopkins

Architecture Senior Theses

Deployable homes have characterized the survivalist origins of our species, the lifestyles of disenfranchised populations, and the luxurious retreats of others. Still, a predominance of contemporary domestic space relies on the ‘permanently’ stationary and situated object. As the social and ecological conditions of our society are rapidly and continually fluctuating, we must reaffirm our association with deployable culture and expand the utilization of mobile and adaptable unit. Further, architecture must negotiate the contrasts between ephemerality and permanence.

Through speculation of the social and sustainable implications of the deployable unit, issues of flexibility, material selection and afterlife, economics, ecology, and efficiency …

Algorithmic Settlements | Modeling Informal Settlement Through Automated Generative Design, Ben Anderson-Nelson

Architecture Senior Theses

The position of the architect when designing is to arbitrate which information is relevant and which is not, and to do so across a broad spectrum of fields. Considering this, Christopher Alexander claimed as long ago as 1964, that “design problems are reaching insoluble levels of complexity.”This thesis focuses on informal settlement growth and how architects can investigate growth as a part of master-planning new housing. Drawing on case studies of settlements, video game logics, and existing architectural tools, a tool was developed to study the growth of settlements. This tool is based on cellular automata, a spatial and algorithmic …

Cooperative Housing Systems, Shane Madden, Andrew Mcallister, Kieran Brady, John Flynn, Emma Conway, Holly Carton, Yi Shi, Benjamin Cooney, Sean Conlon-Smith

Students Learning with Communities

No abstract provided.

Self Made City, Noel Brady

Other resources

A review of cohousing policy and projects in Berlin as published in "Self Made City” – Self Initiated Urban Living and Architectural Interventions

The Self Sufficient Pod, Brenna Merola

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis presents a typology of temporary relief housing that will be self sustaining and will better address the procedure and process of housing individuals affected by disasters. The proposed pod will be adaptable in order to fit the needs of different types of environmental conditions, while still encompassing the architectural necessities of light, heat, and energy.

Routes To The Renaissance For Pittsfield, Ma, Nicholas A. Armata, Laura Caughlan, Ross C. Kahn, Leonard M. Kendall, Sarah Lang, Tiffany Leung, Christopher Mcgoldrick, Stephen Meno

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity

The goal of the Master of Regional Planning Studio is to develop a student’s techniques for collecting, analyzing, and synthesizing spatial and non-spatial data and then presenting that collective data in a manner (i.e., report, video, presentation, and charettes) that is understandable to academics, professionals, and the public. Planning Studio allows students to integrate knowledge from coursework and research, and apply such knowledge to resolving representative planning problems. At UMASS Amherst, these problems are found in neighborhood, rural, urban, and/or regional settings.

In the fall of 2015, the City of Pittsfield contracted the MRP Studio to create a vision plan …

Housing In Zurich, Switzerland, Edward Asfour

Architecture Senior Theses

Housing in Zurich, Switzerland

Britton Award Winner, Thesis Board.

Student/Artist Housing, Jeanne Stoney

Architecture Senior Theses

Student/Artist Housing in Washington, DC.

Britton Award Winner, Thesis Board.

Renting Trouble: Current Government Policy Of Relying On The Private Rented Sector To Deliver Social Housing Is Unlikely To Succeed, Tom Dunne

Reports

A review of the history of housing in Ireland shows that owner occupancy and social housing were policy choices by successive governments. Owner occupancy was heavily supported through a system of grants and tax breaks and social housing was directly provided through local authorities at subsidised rents. In recent years policy has changed and tenure neutrality is now guiding the government’s attitude to housing. This is a significant change which has not been sufficiently discussed and has consequences which are not appreciated. Relying on the market to provide rental housing for people on low incomes and who may be in …

Use Of Accessory Dwelling Units As A Housing Strategy: A Case Study Of Lawrence, Kansas, Travis M. Hulse

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses and Student Projects

Accessory dwelling units have long been utilized as an alternative strategy of homeowners within single-family neighborhoods of the United States in response to changing needs in living arrangements. The American Planning Association defines an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) as either a self-contained living area located within the walls of an existing home or a freestanding structure on the same lot as the principal dwelling unit. While it is difficult to accurately identify all of the municipalities that allow the creation of ADUs in single-family neighborhoods, their presence was long established prior to the enactment of zoning regulations in cities across …

Precarity And Gentrification: A Feedback Loop, Samuel Stein

Graduate Student Publications and Research

How do rent hikes and labor precarity conspire to reinforce each other against tenants and workers? Samuel Stein explains the mechanisms that link these two trends affecting citizens and calls for a tightening of rent-control laws to stop the spiraling descent of American residents into poverty.

Towards A Collective Spatial Form:An Analysis Of Achill’S Deserted Village, Noel Brady

Conference papers

This paper examines an earlier study by Bob Kingston and along with onsite observations develops an environmental theory behind the particular siting and location of the deserted village in Achill, Ireland. The paper relies on the survey conducted by Kingston in the first instance but then by translating the material into a different format has concluded on statistically significant evidence of willful and careful planning and design in the construction of the houses.

Housing Regeneration Strategies - Dit Students' Projects For Waterford City, Ireland., Jim Roche, Orla O'Donnell, Jim Ward

Other resources

No abstract provided.

House As Mediator: Integrative Typology As Connector Between Land And Sea, Samantha Kudish

Architecture Thesis Prep

Rather than the water being an obstacle to coastal residential communities, water can act as an opportunity. Instead of barricading these areas from the water, integrating it with the area would create communities that are capable of living in unison with the ocean. This can introduce new typologies of housing that can withstand the continuing rise of sea levels. Blurring the line between land and sea by living with the sea will allow coastal regions to stay afloat, benefiting from ever-changing water conditions. A proposed new housing typology would introduce a new program to coastal neighborhoods, rather than putting up …

Dubai: Re-Designing Labor Worker Communities, Can Cakmak

Architecture Senior Theses

In an effort to provide humane living conditions for immigrant workers in Dubai who are trapped in the flawed immigration system, I will design a ‘worker community ’ to replace the ‘ labor camps’ where workers live today. These communities will be tested at a variety of levels, from planning, infrastructure, modularity to materiality; and while certain elements such as planning will play a much more significant role than, for example, infrastructure, the goal will be to generate a worker community which will provide necessar y amenities and act as a temporar y city - immediately next to the construction …

High Density La: Ego-Centric Housing, Yannick Matthews

Architecture Thesis Prep

Los Angeles has spread out too far and needs to adjust its urban strategy in terms of higher density develpments and compact urban nuclei.

These nuclei will establish more defined city centers with locally available amenities, thereby decreasing Angelino’s reliance on an overtaxed private transportation infrastructure. To sustain these centers there is a need to increase both population and housing density. Courtyard housing is the ideal typological model to remedy the situation. The Courtyard model, additional allocation of public space, and encentivised public transportation are key to achieving the best possible results.

Re-evaluate Los Angeles through a Freudian filter, identifying …

Housing Indeterminacy: Responsive Design For Diverse And Changing Households, Mark Sousa

Architecture Senior Theses

This project hopes to create a new outlook on the future of housing design. Ray Forrest wrote, “The pace of demographic change need not be that dynamic to outpace the capacity of markets or states to provide appropriate dwellings in appropriate locations. […] Dwelling placement or adaptation is always likely to lag.” The preceding statement reflects the belief that housing is static and rigid, and that dwelling replacement or major structural adaptation is necessary to accommodate a continually evolving population. On the contrary, responsive housing can release significant pressure on housing systems by anticipating change and providing a lower cost …

Residential Square In The 21st Century: Applying A Typology To Create A New Urban Morphology, Elizabeth Whittington

Architecture Senior Theses

The transposition of the residential square will be part of a large-scale strategic plan for the re-development of low-rise low-density neighborhoods on the fringe of the central business district in the post-industrial city. A community garden will be defined by a public housing project. Thus, the neighborhood’s identity will be presented through the physical landscape, building volumes and façade. The project will become part of the system of communal spaces within the city. American individualism will express the civic realm, while creating a secure and connected environment. The new housing block provides a proto-type for an urban morphology that decreases …

A Sustainable Urban Village For The "Six Corners" & "Old Hill" Neighborhoods Of Springfield, Massachusetts, Patricia O'Flaherty

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

In the United States, traditional urban centers, particularly in the Northeast, have suffered from neglect, dilapidation, and the general decay of their built environments over the last 50-60 years. Corresponding with this on the social side are increased poverty, unemployment, crime, and the disruption of the family unit.

Our current knowledge of the disciplines of architecture and sustainability can be applied to a built solution that will yield a greater public good. Good design can improve the lives of people by creating homes, neighborhoods, and villages that are comfortable, secure, and sustainable for all of the activities that make life …

A Place Of Dwelling For Graduate Students, Garth H. Schwellenbach

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

The lives of graduate students are often insular and focused, with high workloads and resultant stresses. Beyond the unifying demands of academia, graduate students have a diverse set of individual challenges. Some students have families, some are visiting the US and learning to live in a new culture, and some are fresh out of undergraduate studies and living on their own for the first time. In addition to these challenges the graduate student body is a diverse and disparate group, representing varied cultures, experiences and generations. Due to these demands and circumstances the students have little time and energy to …

Prelude To A Master Plan: Ware, Massachusetts, Belen Alfaro, Bruno Carneiro, Margaret Engesser, Kathryn E. Fox, Evadne R. Friedman, Timothy Inacio, Anita Lockesmith, Christina Mills, Stephanie Molden, Meagen Mulherin, Russell Pandres, Vinicius Pereira, Brian Reid, Pedro Soto, Jennifer Stromsten

Landscape Architecture & Regional Planning Studio and Student Research and Creative Activity

Prelude to a Master Plan offers ideas, recommendations, and a toolkit to help the town chart its own path towards that future. While the teams and individual students worked to ‘drill down’ into specific topic areas, the Studio defined three basic areas in order to think about how the various assets, challenges and ideas undermine or reinforce one another. The report is loosely organized in those terms: addressing the outlying rural areas and issues specific to these places, considering one of the key growth areas that has extended from town and the conflicts that arise from the many uses occurring …

Sensitive Design, Elizabeth Raar

Architecture Thesis Prep

"I contend that the architecture we produce should be a

framework that is informed by our senses in order to create an

experience for the user to better utilize and live in a space."

Housing Indeterminacy: Responsive Design For Diverse And Changing Households, Mark Sousa

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This project hopes to create a new outlook on the future of housing design. Ray Forrest wrote, “The pace of demographic change need not be that dynamic to outpace the capacity of markets or states to provide appropriate dwellings in appropriate locations. […] Dwelling placement or adaptation is always likely to lag.”2 The preceding statement reflects the belief that housing is static and rigid, and that dwelling replacement or major structural adaptation is necessary to accommodate a continually evolving population. On the contrary, responsive housing can release significant pressure on housing systems by anticipating change and providing a lower cost …

Assessing The Engineering Performance Of Affordable Net-Zero Energy Housing, Jordan P. Wallpe

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

The purpose of this research was to evaluate affordable technologies that are capable of providing attractive, cost-effective energy savings to the housing industry. The research did so by investigating the 2011 Solar Decathlon competition, with additional insight from the Purdue INhome. Insight from the Purdue INhome verified the importance of using a three step design process to design a net-zero energy building. In addition, energy consumption values of the INhome were used to compare and contrast different systems used in other houses.

Evaluation of unbiased competition contests gave a better understanding of how a house can realistically reach net-zero. Upon …

Housing For The Aging, Sybil R. Idelkope

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Future housing for the elderly should focus more on the psychological stresses of aging, and find solutions for the physical disabilities through this perspective. With design techniques such as biophilic architecture, mixed use and warmer, yet contemporary, materials, elderly housing can feel less institutional, and people can feel like their new home is at least comfortable and supportive of their needs.

Reinvestigation Of Culture, Yi Zhang

Masters Theses 1911 - February 2014

Due to the culture revolution, inflation of economy and globalization, China has been suffering from mass unqualified products of architecture, loss of culture and traditions, also unaffordable real estate; causing the instability of the society, in which emptiness, anxiety, uncertainty of people are occupied. Burdons must be released. And culture need to be revitalized. By studying I-Ching and Taoism, the origins of Chinese civilization, finding the philosophy of Tao which can be carried into architecture, the equilibrium between culture and globalization is established. The nation-wide uniformed apartments built under the welfare oriented housing distribution system in the 1980’s, are now …

Avoiding The Mistakes Of The Past, Tom Dunne

Articles

Tom Dunne explores the long term drivers of dysfunction in Ireland's housing markets and what a more sustainable housing system would look like.

Casa Como Yo, Gabriela Montilla

Architecture Senior Theses

"The key to addressing Puerto Rico’s increased life expectancy is to provide housing that improves people’s quality of life while growing older. I contend that the role of architecture is to encourage people to embrace aging through a re-conceptualization of senior housing: designed as “not so senior” (which stigmatizes the older individual as being less capable) and more focused on life satisfaction- promoting free will, flexibility, and program integration. Housing for the aging population should accommodate spatial needs over time in a self-directed personal environment, as well as provide interest and connection to the larger urban community."

Creating Social Networks: Resettlement Center For Burmese Refugees, Kelly Lynne Clarke

Architecture Theses

The refugee resettlement program in the United States must encourage both the formation of refugee communities and integra­tion within the larger community. I propose a multiuse building to strengthen refugee communities [bonding social networks] and connect refugees to the larger community [bridging social networks]. Both of these connections are essential for refugees to become integrated in a community. The building will be run by Lutheran Social Services who currently assists in the resettle­ment of refugees in the Springfield, Massachusetts area, with assistance in funding from the Wilson-Fish Discretionary Grant Program which provides financial support for alternative models of resettlement.

In …