Architecture Commons^™

The Shenzhen Activist Program`, Hyunggyu Kim, Jae Hyun Kim

Architecture Senior Theses

There is a gap between being an architecture student in western countries and working as an architect in underrepresented communities. Architect Teddy Cruz defines the role of an activist architect as "expanded mode of practice", and the task of "deigning the protocols or the interfaces between communities and spaces".

This thesis contends that architecture schools need to continue to embrace the widely-accepted norm of studios studying abroad and working in an international studio. Current study abroad programs tend to skew towards being touristic field trips and there is not a curriculum or programmatic investment in cultivating relationships between the visiting …

Aftermarket Supermarket | A Speculative Retrospective, Alexander Kim

Architecture Senior Theses

In the preface to Delusive Spaces: Essays on Culture, Media and Technology, media theorist Eric Kluitenberg writes that “the delusion of the new”1 pollutes our theorizations of new media. This sort of technocratic fetishization of emergent technologies can only amount to a surfatial investigation of its effects or capabilities. Architectural investigations of virtual reality and other new media systems suffer from this tendency as well. Content-based experimentation and criticism obsess over the simultaneously exciting and daunting prospects of what we can now do or make with recent digital developments. There’s definite value in such endeavors, but frankly, in the grand …

A Plan Of The Louvre's Cour Carrée And The Making Of The Architecture Française, Jean-François Bédard, Pierre-Édouard Latouche

School of Architecture - All Scholarship

In November 1894 an album of drawings of the Louvre was auctioned in Paris. Contained within the album is an anonymous and undated plan of the ground floor of the Cour Carrée. This article argues that the survey for this plan was sponsored by educator and architect Jacques-François Blondel, and give evidence for this attribution.

Reconstruct The Missing Narrative: Rethinking Contemporary Chinese Architecture Through Ancient Landscape Paintings, Taiming Chen, Yiwei Wu

Architecture Thesis Prep

In this thesis, we will continue to address the issue of self-identity and missing narrative in contemporary context. Differently, we will use landscape paintings as our design source to revive the narrative quality. We will use the methodologies developed from the research to deconstruct the selected landscape paintings, transform them into narratives, and reconstruct the narratives into architecture.

By extracting events, atmosphere, and spirits from original painting narratives, and by borrowing the principles of paintings to transform them into sequences, we will set up architectural narratives in contemporary context for people to experience.

Details Matter: Architecture Is Understood As A Sum Of Its Details, Rajkumar Kadam

Architecture Thesis Prep

Architecture is understood as a product of its details. It is inseparable from its components and the characteristic ways in which they are assembled. The scalar and material consistency of the components is important as to how architecture is read. In this regard, the best detailing is one where each part has the same language and character as the whole as detailing is about the construction of a part to whole relationship. To construct this argument, this thesis looks at Edward Ford’s “55 Door Handles, or What is a Detail?” and the four schools of thought about the relationship of …

The Architecture Of Collapse, Alison Sekerak

Architecture Thesis Prep

The world is changing around us. There is no more denying it. We are running out of resources. We are polluting our air and water. Sea levels are rising, and with it, natural disasters. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, drought. We are killing each other. Economies are collapsing and countries are dissolving. The world is changing. Stories of apocalypse have been prevalent in our society for decades, but they may not be a thing of science fiction anymore. When the world does change, what are architects going to do about it?

An architecture must be designed to enable the survival of …

Paradise In Conflict: Let's Make Europe Great Again!, Rui Bao

Architecture Thesis Prep

What is the role of architecture in a conflict situation? Architecture can act after or during a conflict by providing emergency aid, for example, refugee camps. This kind of emergency remedy measure brings a large amount of displaced people to other countries that may address the issue of displacement and interment of refugees in countries all over the world. Refugees may be discriminated and be treated as second class citizens in those countries. They are restricted in a small area like prisoners rather than legal citizens. In order to call attention to this problem and affect the countries which are …

In The Projects: Rebuilding Social Housing In New York City, Ruo Piao Chen, Caroline Jeon

Architecture Thesis Prep

There is a shrinking stock of all types of affordable housing, resulting in the inflation of rent across all demographics. The rise in rent makes housing detrimentally unaffordable for people with extremely low incomes. Mayor Bill de Blasio also recognizes that there is an affordable housing crisis, promising to build over 200,000 units of affordable housing in the next ten years. However, his plan applies to new and privately-owned construction, not the massive public stock that the city already owns. The state of disrepair of public housing combined with generally underutilized sites in 1950’s projects makes the public portion of …

Inscrutable Places For Cyborgs, Christopher Bressler, Colin Thomas Hoover

Architecture Thesis Prep

More and more humans interface with digital devices to mediate their experiences with external information. This project seeks to explore the architectural implications of this trend as it reaches its logical conclusion in the cyborg mind. Although the project is positioned in the near future, architects practicing today will have to deal with the interaction between their architectural manifestations and the cyborg interface. This does not mean that this is a predictive project. We will be focusing on generating techniques which begin to explore the tools necessary in organizing and envisioning this world, while focusing less on the detailed inner …

Parameters For Permanence: Planning Independent Settlements For Syrian Refugee Reintegration, Katherine Barymow, Jacqueline Morin

Architecture Thesis Prep

Syrians, previously housed in camps, will be returning to Aleppo in the new ISIS-free zone, a utopian oasis for women, children and war veterans. How can architecture recognize this oscillation from the temporary to semi permanent typology?

Character & Features: Reframing The Everyday Through What It's Not And What It's Near, Paul Lee

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis reconsiders Quatremère de Quincy’s definitions of character from his Encyclopedia by synthesizing it with discussions of character in the discourse today, specifically as written by Bob Somol and Andrew Zago. Using these recontextualized definitions, this thesis takes a second look at the photographic series of Bernd & Hilla Becher to reframe the everyday with digital media. This thesis proposes to analyze and design architecture through a focus on architecture’s features as opposed to its formal and spatial composition. Quatremère described character in architecture as “the idea of an alphabet composed of abstract units that can endlessly be combined …

Rethinking "Stuff", Jonathan Anthony

Architecture Thesis Prep

Re-thinking Stuff is a manifesto for the study of material culture and a new way of looking at the ‘stuff’ that surrounds us and makes up so much of our social and personal life. This thesis contends it is time to acknowledge and confront the lack of attention to how we store our stuff - most importantly what are the architectural effects of rethinking stuff in storage.

Urban Amnesia, Teriya Lee

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis is a response to Kevin Lynch's claim that "in the process of way-finding, the strategic link is the environmental image, the generalized mental picture of the exterior physical world that is held by an individual." Specifically, the thesis deals with those parts of the urban fabric which are imageless - the unidentified, or, the forgotten. It asks the question: what can architecture do to clarify spatial identities? The thesis will explore Hong Kong's identity as it relates to memory and space.

Ruin-Naissance, Fatma Gonca Tunc

Architecture Thesis Prep

Ruin-naissance is the term I use to describe not only the resurrection of an archeological site, but also the rebirth of an idea about how we think about ruins and how new construction can enhance the experience of these kinds of sites.

The principle contention of this thesis is that a better understanding of the fragmented evidence presented by an archeological site can be seen through the lens of a contemporary architectural intervention that responds sensitively to an ancient site. In doing this, the intervention needs to address issues of identity, narrative and historiography. The new architecture should not ignore …

The Public Sky-Spacer, Piotr Jankowski

Architecture Thesis Prep

We have reached an era where architecture has to prepare for the alarming changes affecting our modern society. Predicted urbanization will lead to cities becoming denser and taller to facilitate the needs of housing and workspace for the growing world population. High costs of rent and scarcity of real state land in city centers will force developers to build skyscrapers. Taking into account the impact of larger populations, skyscrapers will have to offer more efficient spaces and follow strict environmental regulations while contributing to the production of energy and necessary resources. Focus on human comfort and sustainability will play an …

Gold: Stories Of A City, Vivek Vijayan Njanappilly

Architecture Thesis Prep

The thesis explores the latent influences of gold and its value systems on the urban geo-politics of a South Indian city. It is an anthology of sporadic narrations recording the growth and transformation of a city over time. These narrative compositions contain traces of the past, the city of the present and speculative futures. They indicate change without erasure. Their values are embodied in gold. Malleable, ductile and fungible in its different forms.

Atlas Of Walls: Wall Speculations, Casiana Kennedy

Architecture Thesis Prep

The project lies at the intersection between the wall as device of separation + text as narrative of separation. The wall is re-examined as a LIVING architectural element that acts as an ACTOR - a necessity - in the translation of text to architecture within a city palimpsest. The wall’s capacity to create limit and separation (walled sanctuary) will be explored within the dense context of the contemporary city, wherever that might be.

The wall is not passive, it is not a given, but a constructed entity that addresses problems of space defining and ritual in a direct/efficient/explicit way that …

Dinner Parti, Evangeline Soileau

Architecture Thesis Prep

No abstract provided.

What Is Sacred, Maxwell K. Baum

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis aims to reinterpret the notion of sacred space and explore architectures role in the creation of sacred space. Stripped of the religious connotations of the sacred, this thesis hopes to create an architecture that balances between the individual and the collective, fosters both introspective reflection and extrospective contemplation, and proposes architecture for the experiencing of the sacred. Ultimately this project will make sacred architecture and experience out of a normal, mundane, and profane program and elevate the users experience to that of a transcendental one.

Provisional Permanence, Ian M. Jackson, Matthew J. Marinelli

Architecture Thesis Prep

The oceans take up 71 percent of our planet. For the east coast, Barrier Islands are the first line of defense against storms and will become the most affected areas because of sea level rise in the next hundred years. There is no stopping sea level rise and the time and money spent thus far has not been efficient and requires a different approach.

The barrier islands may be the first line of defense against storms, but they are more than that. There is a long standing allure to the islands that we’ve come to know as beach culture. For …

Real Estate: Urban Renewal At Shibati Community, Chongqing, Wenxin Zeng

Architecture Thesis Prep

The project is a “urban renewal” project at Shibati Community in Chongqing, China. The title “Real Estate” suggested that the land never become “real” until there are activities, communications happened between the occupants. The government did several renovation project in Chongqing, either totally destroy the entire site and build a copy on the site by saying we are preserving the history, or solely refurnished the façade of the houses but leave the inside of the house at a rough condition. The project is a critique of what the Chinese government and other official agencies in China have tended to respond …

Charon's Passage: The Journey To Nimiety, Nicholas Kronauer

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis aims to reconsider the possibility and potential of the mausoleum as an architectural contradiction by reconceptualizing the mausoleum as a typology for public space, thus inverting the traditional objective of introspection and the object-form, interior-exterior dialectic of funerary architecture. By engaging the mausoleum with 21st-century urbanization, traditional notions of permanence, meaning, and tectonics can be renegotiated through the juxtaposition of a foreign object that activated by the appropriation and integration of a social program. Through this thesis, the mausoleum is no longer a place for reflection or solidarity but will operate as a stage set to frame and …

Cyber Security In An Age Of Insecurity, Angela Copes

Architecture Thesis Prep

By combining the structure and space of Gothic Revival churches with the programmatic elements of a data center, two problems can be addressed. First, the churches avoid a fate of abandonment and obsolescence. As the Christian population declines and consolidates, these monuments are given a chance to maintain significance.

Second, through design, data centers can become a more integrated piece of the communities they serve. Instead of data centers being isolated warehouses in the middle of nowhere, people can have a better understanding of what allows their internet at home to connect them to the global network.

White Out, Hye Rim Shin

Architecture Thesis Prep

“White Out” explores ideas about architecture that seeks ephemerality rather than legibility, eidetic effects rather than demanding of focused attention and atmospheric or emotional spaces rather than conventional spaces.

Learning From The Informal, Cherif Farid

Architecture Thesis Prep

Architecture could learn from the socio-cultural norms of informal Cairo and could implement professional expertise to create a new housing typology that achieves the people’s needs.

Housing 20 million people and still growing, Cairo mirrors the global phenomenon of unplanned urban growth. The people have been forced to construct their own dwelling units as the government fails to provide them shelter. Approximately 65 percent of the population of Cairo lives in so-called informal housing: four to ten story concrete and brick infill structures built without legal permits in the desert or on former agrarian land. These informal housing projects are …

From Sun Mao To Emergent Structure, Yang Song

Architecture Thesis Prep

With the exploration of the cultural meaning and structural capacity of the traditional Chinese joinery, Sun Mao, the intent of this thesis is to propose a joinery-driven design system, which merges architecture and structure, and bridges the vernacular Chinese culture with the contemporary fabrication technology.

A Re-Application Of Neo-Plasticism: De Stijl Architecture In A Contemporary Context, Tyler Holdren

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis will apply the principles of neo-plasticism to a contemporary building and site. The aim of this project is to extend de Stijl architecture into a contemporary context, making use of modern building methods and materials in an effort to express the full potential of the neoplastic project.

In order to achieve this one must select a site that is contextually scarce as well as one that will allow the building to be experienced from all sides. A site that is not contextually rich will enable a sense of self-referentiality within the project which is a critical theme to …

Half House-S: Axonometric Panorama, Fei Wang

Architecture Thesis Prep

Axonometric Panorama is a patio-organizational image, a hybrid of multi-dimensional views. Distinction and interdependency within and between form, program, and space will be elaborated by my practice.

Life As A House: A Manifesto For The New Iconic House, Ana Paola Hernandez Derbez, Domenica Velasco

Architecture Thesis Prep

The house, is one of the most fundamental architectural archetypes, has long been used as unbuilt or built manifestos to declare the avant garde of the discipline. As designers, we need to re-visualize design concepts to create architecture that integrates and corresponds to the way we dwell. Innovating design in the same way technology and digitalization have been innovating production and the way we live. This thesis investigates a return to the design of a house as a manifesto, focusing on today’s advanced modes of fabrication and evolving ways of living to challenge the current design mindset.

Any Given Sunday, Dabota Wilcox

Architecture Thesis Prep

Our lives are defined by the things we surround ourselves with. They captivate our thoughts, moods, and desires, but besides their ability to transfix us, they posses a power to transform us. They can shape our needs, values, and behaviors. They ultimately leave us with transformative experiences that provide and enforce within us our beliefs. The rise in prominence of pop culture as a force in shaping the way in which people see and confront the world has meant that our attachments are as disparate and ubiquitous as ever. We communicate and enforce that which we hold close by the …