Architecture Commons^™

Today's Neighborhood Drugstore, B. Sparano

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis attempts to align architectural critique with the forces that inevitably shape it. For architecture to become a (critical) reality, the architect is forced to take on new roles. She can no longer be (solely) a manipulator of aesthetics, images and signs. She must also, in addition, become the manipulator of underlying forces beneath the surface (i.e. social, political, and economic)."

Architecture As A Social Art: A School Of Visual Art In Washington, D.C., Rachel A. Roellke

Architecture Thesis Prep

"It is the contention of this thesis that architecture is a vehicle for communication that strengthens community identity by bringing art and the public together.

The thesis research explores the social role of visual art within community, including its social effects, its relationship to the surrounding physical and social context, and the formal elements of visual language. Architecture, as a form of public art, can be explored under the same parameters."

Vorhizomeid: Nodes Of Community Services Connecting Albany, Ny, Andrew Watkins

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The contention is to reposition terrain vague into the urban fabric recreating a continuum of the urban system while attempting to detract neither from the scale of the infrastructural system, nor that of the human body. Terrain vague muse be approached in a different manner than that of the traditional urban city. Establishing community through terrain vague should be done by measure of the forces, flows, and rhythms of space."

The Congregation: Sha-Ar Ha Kollel, "The Gate For All People", Avi Michael Shoss

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The issue I intend to explore is the growing lack of identity, of place, for this generation's Jewish youth."

Site As A Measurement Of Place, Creighton Willis

Architecture Thesis Prep

"PLacement and relationship of a city within its physical environment is a dynamic process that is revealed through its architecture and constructed (designed) interventions. The lift of this dynamic process deposits cicatrices, inscriptions, footprints, and artifacts within the city and place. These events inscribed in the landscape of a city reveal this changing relationship of city-environment. The contention is that a new construction within the city can actively manifest the current city landscape while also revealing the history of the place."

The Specific Engagement: A Didactic Center In Collaboration With The Adjacent Children's Museum, Aaron Bancroft

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Architecture transcends the act of 'making space' when it can engage the visitor through the realization of the what had yet to be perceived. This didactic realization can be accomplished through a series of specific moments which relate directly to the entirety of the complete experience. The sequence can be so intense or emotional that the visitor recognizes that they are meant to interact with the architecture through the varying levels of engagement and understanding."

Traces Of Time: Urban Palimpsest And Transformations, Tomas B. Fernandez

Architecture Thesis Prep

"I contend that the city is a deeply scored palimpsest that through specific natural, social, and cultural changes reveals its traces of permanence and temporality; therefore, to create in the urban realm is to respond to these vestiges of time through decoding and transformation, as if one was gently manipulating the genome of the city."

Methods Of Perception, Caleb Mitchell

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Architecture can teach an observer about itself both physically and metaphysically; this can be managed though interactive processes which demand haptic experiences.

(Methodoloy:) To investigate the capacities of mechanistic or interactive devices to reveal meaning (physical and metaphysical); and to eventually develop at full (or large) scale an artifact capable of operating through functional and meaningful interactions with a user."

Interplay: A Facility For The Design And Manufacturing Of Toys In Burlington, Vermont, Bryan Hale

Architecture Thesis Prep

"It is through interplay that we transcend a static, mechanical existence, but we can only operate within the constraints provided by our environment. The multivalent environment invites interplay and takes one of two forms: either that of kinetic transformability, or of pluralized indeterminacy. This multivalence empowers us through choice and interpretation, and in a sense we are validated as conscious, creative beings. By creating ambiguous spaces that exclude functional indicators and creating transformable architectural elements, this condition will be realized."

Urban Agents, New Events: A Transformation Of The Postindustrial Landscape, Kevin Toukoumidis

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Railway yards, abandoned industrial processing plants, decommissioned factories and polluted river ways are the leftovers from the industrial age. With the deindustrialization of society, a new prevailing urban condition has resulted: a marginalized landscape of residual spaces and urban voids, often with real or perceived contamination.... The potential for reclaiming these marginalized landscapes becomes a catalyst for the design of new modes of occupation and human activity."