Architecture Commons^™

Architecture For The Lost Place, Jeremy Shipp

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates how architectural production can deal with the history in a place. It describes how the idea of genius loci can define a place’s existence and how architecture can respond to a site that is disconnected from its history by a sudden loss of that which once defined it. I consider a place which has been physically transformed and whose population has been removed. These conditions invite a program to elucidate the site’s past, and architecture to interpret a state of absence. The project responds to the site’s history without pretending to manifest the historical place.

Subverting The Panopticon: Privacy In The Public Realm, Stephen Collins

Masters Theses

The Panopticon, designed by Jeremy Bentham in 1787, is an architectural device based on isolation of people and surveillance -knowledge focused in places of power. The Panopticon was influential as an architectural paradigm, easily adapted to varied uses. Bentham as did other utilitarian eighteenth century philosophers believed the built environment could fabricate virtue.

The techniques of the Panopticon were applied to the central task of fabricating normality, rather than the peripheral task of rectifying abnormality. Michel Foucault brought the moral engineering to the fore and showed that it was put in place to conduct 'normatively self-disciplining subjects.' As normative control …

Civil Rights In Action: Creating Art On The Borderline A Visual Arts Cultural Center For Memphis, Tennessee, Melissa Anne Ruff

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to explore opportunities for communication in the racially divided city of Memphis, Tennessee. A center for the study of the visual arts is proposed for the platform of communication. This study contends that a well-planned and well-designed architecture can serve as a location for communication for people from divergent backgrounds.

The history of the racial divide and the contemporary racial separation are both explored in this study. Approaches to healing the wounds created through years of division are also investigated. This thesis contends that a building for the creation and study of the visual …

Urban And Regional Planning: A Review Of Three Rational Planning Processes, Mark Joseph Taylor

Masters Theses

The rational planning process is a widely accepted method to guide the profession of Urban and Regional Planning. After a literature review, limited and incomplete information was found concerning the rational planning process.

A comparison was conducted among three documented rational planning processes. A common labeling system identifying all the concepts within each process was developed in order to examine the steps within each process for similarities and variations. The three areas focused on are the sequential ordering, labeling and defining of steps within the processes.

The inconsistent sequential ordering, labeling and defining of steps detailing the rational planning model …

Anchoring Perception Through Tactile Orientation, David L. Bouldin Jr.

Masters Theses

The sense of touch concretizes our perception by adding a perceptual quality stronger than the other senses. This haptic dimension also encompasses a sense of orientation, balance, and movement in the spatial experience of architectural works. This important sense has been neglected and must be re-emphasized as a worthy architectural design goal. In urban settings, the other senses are bombarded with sensory input while tactility is often denied. Public libraries are in a position to serve the haptic dimension over the other senses because of the nature of their (dynamically changing) services. Special care must be taken to design a …

The Surreal Strip Mall, Myles N. Trudell

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the surreal quality of sub-urban strip malls. Using the theories set forth in Robert Venturi’s Learning from Las Vegas and Rem Koolhaas’ Delirious New York, I present a proposal for the redevelopment of an underused strip mall in South Knoxville. The goal of this proposal is to use surreality as a tool to illuminate the absurdities inherent in many sub-urban development, and to create a civic/commercial center to serve the community.

Urban Spa: Capturing The Sensual Through The Filmic, Brian K. Chevchek

Masters Theses

Architects and film directors share in the mental task of structuring our being in the world and articulating the surface between ourselves and the world. This structuring and articulation occurs through a chiasmatic binding of the external world of the body and the inner world of the mind.

It is through the sensual qualities of architecture that perception is opened and awareness of ones existence in space occurs. This thesis investigates how the poetic images in film can inform and assist the production of an architecture that captures the experiences and encounters of the sensual.