Architecture Commons^™

Bilateral Vertical Urbanization, Yifan Huang

Masters Theses

Bilateral Vertical Urbanization envisions a bright future for urban development. Metropolises are currently facing the dilemma of dense population, small living area per capita, long commuting times, traffic congestion, and other urban problems. My thesis proposes an innovative urban development strategy, suggesting the redevelopment of underground space resources in cities to improve urban space utilization and help alleviate the crisis of overcrowding. San Francisco, the shining jewel on the West Coast of the United States, is facing this dilemma, as well as the long-term risks of devastating earthquakes and rising sea levels.

My urban planning methodology points out that we …

Urban Metabolism, Clayton Champion

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis aims to reimagine urban living in San Francisco through the design of a utopian megastructure that transcends traditional notions of architecture. Megastructures, a post-war architectural concept, consist of a big frame with modules that have a short-term life cycle. By integrating principles of inclusivity, adaptability, and community empowerment, the proposed megastructure serves as a spatial bridge, addressing the city's multifaceted socioeconomic challenges.

Drawing inspiration from architectural precedents such as the Metabolist movement, Fumihiko Maki, Ralph Wilcoxon, Kisho Kurokawa, and Archigram, the research emphasizes the significance of modular and adaptable structures that evolve over …

Designing Cemeteries For Personal Expressions In The San Francisco Bay Area, Jodwin Surio

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses

Our country’s largest cities have become more racially and ethnically diverse than they were in 2010 (US News, 2020). Differences are present and yet, our cemeteries, originally catering to a predominantly Caucasian market (Sloane, 1991), remain Eurocentric in design (Jones, 2011). The purpose of this master’s design thesis is to determine the design principles and elements necessary for a cemetery that is transformed by the personal expressions exhibited by visitors after the day of burial. The study focuses specifically on cemeteries in the San Francisco Bay Area. The findings were used to develop a new kind of cemetery typology that …

An Analysis And Application Of Pedestrian Streets, Ellie Krantz, Austin Lucero

City and Regional Planning

The goal of this project is to closely examine the conversion of traditional roads into pedestrian streets. By studying two examples, we will create an understanding of why cities do this, how they implement pedestrian streets, what results pedestrian streets bring, and what makes a successful conversion project.

The second part of this project is to implement the key takeaways of the research phase into a conceptual design of a similar project for San Luis Obispo. This design based phase will consider the entire scope of the project, detailing project location selection, implementation, and recommendations.

Our Streets: Increasing Equity In Active Transportation Planning Through Community Outreach, Jordan Hoy

Master's Projects and Capstones

ABSTRACT Significant research has demonstrated that active transportation infrastructure is essential for the growth and livability of San Francisco: it increases access to economic opportunities, promotes overall improved public health, encourages mobility without contributing to roadway congestion, prevents traffic injuries and fatalities, and supports the sustainability goals of the city. Despite the fact that communities of color will benefit the most from active transportation infrastructure development, historical disenfranchisement in tandem with a lack of diverse representation within public participation contributes to an inequitable distribution of walking and biking investments throughout the city of San Francisco. While research shows that Black …

A Transit Oriented Development Proposal For The Fourth And King Caltrain Station In San Francisco, Samuel Frederic Fluhmann

City and Regional Planning

The South of Market and Mission Bay neighborhoods have seen an explosion in growth over the last decade because of the high cluster of technology company opportunities in the area and the Bay Area’s high housing cost. These two neighborhoods are home to a public transportation hub with two San Francisco Muni metro and bus lines, Caltrain service, and Amtrak intercity bus service to Oakland and other parts of California. The existing Caltrain Fourth and King Station and railyards have massive potential for prime real estate development. San Francisco has seen a 10% increase in population over the last ten …

The Right To The City: San Francisco's Chinatown Before And After The 1906 Earthquake, Alexandra Hsu

Scripps Senior Theses

The development of San Francisco, much like many American cities, is deeply entwined with the spatial process of settler-colonialism. Fueled by White supremacist processes of appropriation, dispossession and exclusion, city officials and White San Franciscans legally, financially, and socially segregated Chinese immigrants who entered into the U.S. context to a dense and degraded ethnic enclave. Henri Lefebvre and David Harvey theorize on The Right to the City, the social production of space and the ways in which social processes can be concretized by space. This thesis applies these concepts to the racialized space of San Francisco’s Chinatown. An examination of …

Dodecahedron Housing Tower - Collaborative High Rise Design, Michael Ayers

Architectural Engineering

This Senior Project includes the integrated architectural and structural design of a 744'-0" tall housing tower located at the corner of Market St.& Van Ness Ave. in San Francisco, CA. The concept of this tower revolves around the tessellation of dodecahedron modules that provide the template for all structure and architectural elements within the building. The 20-week long course focused on the full development of this high rise building including its urban context, performative envelope, global structural performance as a tall building, foundation systems, and integration with architecture.

Streets Of San Francisco: An Analysis Of The City's Transportation Network, Complete Streets Guidelines And Policies, Ian Xavier Connolly

City and Regional Planning

Transportation is a key element to everyday life, providing an efficient connection and movement of goods and people. While there are different modes of transportation, motor vehicles are still the preferred and highly used option, providing people the luxury of traveling to farther distances on their own time and in their own comfort. However, in a country where cities are increasingly becoming cores of pedestrian traffic, motor vehicles make these places less walkable, as well as produce pollution through their use of gasoline. At a time when we must continue to consider the safety and environmental aspects of transportation, we …

Fault, Katharine Fritz

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

3,000 people died, 80% of the city was destroyed. On the morning of April 18, 1906 an estimated 7.9 magnitude earthquake echoed through the city of San Francisco. Waterlines, having been destroyed during the quake, resulted in a fire that engulfed the city and burned for 3 days after.Its epicenter was 3 miles off the coast of city surging waves of destruction from this center, this is the site of the first phased memorials designed along the San Andreas Fault system. This kinetic landscape of the San Andreas Fault stretches the length of californias coast continuously destroying and taking lives, …

Architecture Of The San Francisco Bay Area: The Influence Of The 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, Orion Weinstein

Senior Theses

Just hours after the 1906 Earthquake, Jack London arrived in San Francisco and wrote an article for Collier's Magazine, “The Story of an Eyewitness.” He famously reported, “San Francisco is gone...Nothing remains of it but memories.” The earthquake and subsequent fire left most of San Francisco in ruins; commercial buildings, humble residences and grand estates destroyed. The City was a blank slate and in the process of rebuilding, there was the opportunity to utilize new architectural styles as well as create new architecture; significantly, the Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915 (PPIE) provided the impetus as well as the art, color, …

Can We Make Chinatown A More Sustainable Environment: Rethinking And Remaking Chinatown, San Francisco?, Zhen Wang

LSU Master's Theses

Since nineteen century, Chinese immigrants in the United States had a great contribution to the economy and transformation of landscape by gold mining, transcontinental railroad construction and agriculture cultivation, applying techniques that were learned from ancestors thousands years ago in China. And Chinatown as the first destination of continuing Chinese immigrants transformed from a ghetto to the top tourist attraction of the city in San Francisco with commercial-oriented development in more than a hundred years. This paper will explore the transformation of the image and representation of Chinatown by analyzing Chinese culture influences, American confinement, and pop culture impact, to …

Alive! A Dynamic Process Of Renewal At Pier 70., Kalyn Crosier

Landscape Architecture

Alive is a project proposal for the most northern portion of Pier 70 in San Francisco at the historical slip number four. The project strives to reinvigorate a toxic brownfield with remediation systems, transforming the location into a productive landscape beneficial to surrounding neighborhoods. The project strives to revitalize adjacent communities as well as natural ecosystems.

The Church Of San Francisco In Mexico City As Lieux De Memoire, Laurence Mcmahon

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

San Francisco, memory, lieux de memoire

Revitalized Streets Of San Francisco: A Study Of Redevelopment And Gentrification In Soma And The Mission, Lucy K. Phillips

Scripps Senior Theses

San Francisco's South of Market (SoMa) neighborhood and the Mission District are facing new forms of redevelopment. The deindustrialization of SoMa has posed an opportunity for a 'new model' of gentrification to create a mixed-use, mixed-income neighborhood from an area previously occupied by abandoned warehouses and vacant lots. In the Mission, awareness of the threats of gentrification and increased community participation are fighting to preserve the neighborhood and eliminate displacement. The innovative approaches to urban revitalization in these two neighborhoods demonstrate how redevelopment may occur without gentrification.

The Making And Meaning Of Gay Space : The Case Of The Castro In San Francisco, Scott Richard Lesher

Theses

Architecture is more than the history, design and construction of buildings; it is also the creation, defining, redefining, and use of space. An understanding of these non-brick-and-mortar aspects includes how the use and meaning of that space changes over time. Gay space, specifically gay male space, is studied as both material space and social space. Material space is the 'brick and mortar' space designed for this purpose or created out of existing space, such as a room, building or neighborhood. Social spaces are the areas where human interaction occurs, such as block parties and festivals; it is more about the …