Architecture Commons^™

Hijacked: Parasitic Injection Of The Social Condenser Within The Contemporary City, Lara Moock

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis contends that the constructivist “social condenser” should be injected through the lens of the 21st century, capitalist city in order to reveal the interwoven collisions and hidden overlaps between the homeless and tech industry of San Francisco. The condenser will operate like a parasitic intervention by hijacking spaces along the spine of the city, heavily influenced by social and policy concerns, to formally and programmatically make these invisibilities between the two entities evident.

Animal Cities: Post-Human Urban Wildness, Jing Huang

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis contends that architecture should be designed in a way to foster closer human-animal relationships. Cities are typically designed solely with the human in mind, and over time, animals have been pushed out of the city, decreasing biodiversity. Peoples’ tendency is to separate themselves and domesticate animals, resulting in sterile and tame urban centers. This is a result of the different attitudes humans have cultivated towards animals; dirty/clean, pleasant/annoying, useful/useless, harmless/dangerous, awe/disgust, etc., and utilizing architecture as means of filtering the presence of those that are beneficial to us, rendering animals as an afterthought. In a way, humans have …

Unreal Urbanisms, Temitope Olujobi

Architecture Thesis Prep

As virtual cities are made in the transnational image of physical cities the same claims about legibility, public image and the five elements of a city’s can be asserted to virtual environment, however; the bottom up approach to building these virtual cities means the appearance, use and interplay of these elements will operate differently. The research of the virtual cities featured on Unreal Urbanisms will be executed in methods similar to the experiments conducted by Kevin Lynch. The first method will be field research in which we navigate the city and map out my own ways of movement and legibility …

Releasing The Unconsciousness | Visualizing The City, Taihui Li

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis explores how subway stations lost their identity as strategic node of connectivity which constructed the prevailing image of New York City. In Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), Sigmund Freud famously compared the human mind to the city of Rome. He argues that both contain strata of memory and history which have accumulated over the years through a messy and ad-hoc process. Like Rome, New York City also has a layered history, albeit not as deep.

This thesis contends that the subway entrance serves as an experiential entre into the unconscious experience of the unknown elements of the past. …

City School, Urban Re-Form: Sublimating Education Into Daily Civic Life, Alison Dobbertin

Architecture Senior Theses

The urban public school is in crisis. In the 21st century we have yet to reform the bounded and centralized school model: one of queues, rigid spatial/temporal organization, and restricted learning in a continuously supervised environment. The general failure of the public school system within the American city is compounded with the need for new skill sets that refocus educational priority upon ability to communicate, think critically and embody creativity – skills that are becoming crucial in the globalizing culture and economy. The urban public school awaits a critical re-formation that can architecturally and ideologically address these shortcomings.

Field Urbanism: Collective Form And The City, Pt. 3, Ann O'Connell

Architecture Senior Theses

This project employs a tactical approach to the design process. Spatial patterns and local relationships regulate form and program to facilitate these hybrid social constructions. The development of field elements re-organizes in terms of interrelationships and functions, creating infinite possible combinatory logics in the evolution of the neighborhood. These logics negotiate the threshold between figure and field, accommodating programmatic indeterminacy with architectural specificity to thicken and intensify, producing an alternative "collective" urbanism.

Field Urbanism: Collective Form And The City, Pt. 2, Ann O'Connell

Architecture Senior Theses

This project employs a tactical approach to the design process. Spatial patterns and local relationships regulate form and program to facilitate these hybrid social constructions. The development of field elements re-organizes in terms of interrelationships and functions, creating infinite possible combinatory logics in the evolution of the neighborhood. These logics negotiate the threshold between figure and field, accommodating programmatic indeterminacy with architectural specificity to thicken and intensify, producing an alternative "collective" urbanism.

Field Urbanism: Collective Form And The City, Pt. 1, Ann O'Connell

Architecture Senior Theses

This project employs a tactical approach to the design process. Spatial patterns and local relationships regulate form and program to facilitate these hybrid social constructions. The development of field elements re-organizes in terms of interrelationships and functions, creating infinite possible combinatory logics in the evolution of the neighborhood. These logics negotiate the threshold between figure and field, accommodating programmatic indeterminacy with architectural specificity to thicken and intensify, producing an alternative "collective" urbanism.