Architecture Commons^™

Notes In Improvisation : Spatializing Black Identity Through Music, Esther Akintoye

Masters Theses

The self-creation of Black spaces in America has been a form of resistance and reclamation, as well as a way to forge an identity and make room for community. This thesis argues for a use of improvisational African American music as a tool to create space. Additionally, through research and a design intervention, this thesis seeks to demonstrate how spatial creation within the framework of music and musical improvisation work as ways to expand, solidify and celebrate identity within Black and African- identifying people in America.

Fluid and improvisational techniques found in Black musical styles and genres such as jazz …

Regenerative Residences: Shrinking Stress Levels In The Sky, Peter De Lande Long

Masters Theses

Issues of overcrowding and overstimulation plague urban environments, which exacerbate social isolation and, in turn, heighten city dwellers’ levels of stress and anxiety. How can architecture mediate stimuli to be positively conducive to mood, behavior, and overall health? Given that social isolation is an intrinsically spatial issue that design can address, this thesis proposes a small-scale community living model with the intent of improving mental health and clarity for a user group of young, mentally vulnerable professionals in New York City.

16 E 16th Street becomes the architectural framework for addressing these issues. Moving away from the capitalistic endeavor of …

Rebuilding Collective Effervescence : A "Ballroom" For Post-Pandemic Revelry, Di Ma

Masters Theses

Collective Effervescence is an event that can make a community or a society come together and simultaneously communicate regarding the same thought, or participate in the same action. Such desire happened during the post- World War I period, when people were freed from the depression of war and sought pure and positive happiness, which was also what society needed. Nowadays in the post-pandemic recovery, the public, after suffering from and getting used to isolation and social distancing, has an unexpected desire for physical communications, but still fear to gather psychologically. This reaction can be seen as a “post-traumatic stress disorder” …

Re:Connection: Exercises In Unplugging And Mindfully Reconnecting, E. J. Roseman

Masters Theses

How can architecture encourage focused attention and mindfulness in an increasingly distracted and distractible world? As a primary means of connectivity in the 21st century, smartphones and social media have provided unparalleled efficiencies, connectivity and entertainment. However, constant engagement with richly-pixelated virtual worlds has also brought about mass addiction to devices as college students log more compulsive “screen time” than ever before. Mental health issues such as crippling anxiety, diminished attention spans, and unhappiness, are on the rise as students disconnect from the physical world and are consumed by their virtual one.

This thesis is comprised of a series of …

Dying Differently: Designing A Death-Oriented Psychedelic Treatment Center, Grace Caiazza

Masters Theses

In the context of therapeutic treatment for the terminally ill, psychedelic assisted therapy instigates a direct confrontation with a person’s experience of dying. Over the course of several weeks a patient will arrive at a facility, lay down in a room, and for up to eight hours at a time recommit themselves to the question: how do I comprehend death? Their answer will come in the form of sensations and sounds, visions and abstractions — things that are perhaps not immediately understood, but rather are immediately and vibrantly felt. The answer will follow a non-traditional logic unfamiliar to the empirical …

Endless Construction : Occupant Activism And Authorship, Jiayi Wang

Masters Theses

Though we don’t think of it this way, “Adaptive Reuse” often happens naturally, guided by users who modify their physical environment to satisfy urgent living needs. While these modifications may appear haphazard, they show the user’s individualism and life philosophy. We, as designers, should embrace these interventions to explore how to participate with the occupants’ adaptive reuse process over time. Given the richness of adaptation within the old residences in the ancient Chinese city of Suzhou, it is an appropriate place to explore both the skill of self–modification and the potential for interaction of designers in this process.

The old …

Unfolding Embodied Experience: A Process-Driven Immersive Exhibition Design Model, Mooa Seongah Kang

Masters Theses

The collections of most museums are comprised of two-dimensional artworks—paintings, drawings, prints, and photography—and are generally presented within a white cube gallery platform. Within this restricted static view, displays rarely consider multisensory engagement and immersion that reveals the accumulated time and effort of creation. Yet for many artists, the process is as important as the finished product.

My impetus for this design initiative began by questioning traditional methods of display. Is it possible to reveal the hidden depth embodied in two-dimensional artworks, allowing audiences to participate with all their senses in the journey of an artist’s experience? In other words, …

Beyond Spectacle : Parametric Design To Life In Space, Ding Xu

Masters Theses

In recent years, with the help of rapid computational developments, Parametric Design has become common in architectural practice. Parametric architecture, due to its unique appearance, has rapidly been associated with certain aesthetic trends. This is mostly because architects initially adopted it to make radical forms, not because parametric techniques demand any specific geometry.

For the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion by Zaha Hadid Architects, the team built a dynamic and fluid structure using parametric techniques. The form evolved from the spiraling shapes found in nature, and the fluid geometry provides a continuum of space and a system of logic. As a …

Dear City, Give Me Some Space; Creating Space For Ephemeral Forces In A City, Abinaya Sivaprakasam Thamilarasan

Masters Theses

Architecture of the past was regarded as a concrete entity, both in its materiality and approach, unresponsive to change within a city. Climatic and societal shifts greatly impact cities ill-prepared to adjust. How can the intractable architecture of the past become flexible? Does the current environmental devastation we’re witnessing demand architecture that can embrace, rather than neglect, such shifts?

Situated in Chennai, a densifying coastal metropolis in India, the adaptation focuses on two key shifts. Firstly, the climatic shifts: the alternating patterns of severe flooding, and periods of droughts. Second, the transient youth population within the city. They both share …

Block Chain Home, Jonggun Lee

Masters Theses

Studies indicate that every four years urban dwellers relocate. Given this phenomenon, the direction of urban housing development in mega cities now encourages the divestment of personal furnishings to support mobility. While efficient, the singular imprint of furnishings upon individual space is getting severely flattened by suggested shapes and built in furnishings that define the form of dwelling. Also, unlike suburbs, turbulent cities tend to make people live alone, making them lose their uniqueness in the process of adaptation.

This thesis lives in between the ideas of SuperStudio, Andrea Zitell, and Metabolism architecture. In that, the concept of “BLOCK CHAIN …

Revisionist Zinealog : A Coacted Countercultural Device, Madaleine Ackerman

Masters Theses

The REVISIONIST ZINEALOG functions as an evaluation and resourced countercultural device. Here, the user accesses a zinealog, (part zine, part catalog) and its supplemental Animate Postcard to become more familiar with how the canon of precedent positions its political relationship to a representational agenda.

This project is a critique and revision of the politics of aesthetics on the canon of precedent through the act of redrawing futures of the nonsite architectural imaginary.

Space In Sound, Gidiony Rocha Alves

Masters Theses

Due to its strategic location between Africa and the Americas, Cabo Verde became a major hub for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade where millions of slaves were transported across the Atlantic. The interaction of slaves and merchants saw a racial emergence that gave rise to a mixed culture rich in both European and African traditions. Towards the end of the 1800s, Drought, plagues, poverty and poor colonial rule resulted in forced migrations Westward which still affects the archipelago today. There are more Cape Verdeans living abroad than there are living in the islands. Immigrants in turn have had a major influence …

Remnants, Sarah Chriss

Masters Theses

Remnants is a revision of our interaction with land extraction through reimagining processes of representation and image-making. By altering perspective and focus, the visual effects of commodity culture shift toward the consequences that occur before and after our consumption. Dependably lost in translation, spatial and temporal information of material exchanges across the globe uphold and preserve the synergy of our commodity transactions. In a field constantly playing with and pushing against the boundaries of representation, remnants aim to redraw lost connections of material transformations through a granite quarry in Rhode Island. Representation is a tool to revise visual narratives that …

For A Moment, I Was Lost ; A Visual Reflection On The Process Of Grief And Mortality Within The Home, Adam Chiang-Harris

Masters Theses

Grief is typically experienced following a loved one’s unexpected death. It is human nature to experience grief or bereavement as a way of processing the end of a person's life and coping mechanism of the living. In cases where we have pre-knowledge of a person's inevitable departure due to illness, such as with terminal illnesses like Alzheimers, grief happens in a longer period preceding death. In this circumstance, caregivers, friends, and family, must endure a duration of hardship dictated by the progression of the disease while knowing the fated outcome of a person's life. Typically this period caused by the …

Reengineer Value, Maxwell Altman

Masters Theses

Through adaptive reuse an equitable densified inhabitation solution can be instituted for the Broad Street Synagogue, using a doctrine of value defined by emotion instead of economics to generate positive experience through materiality.

An initial investigation into dwelling and the concept of value has instigated a desire to redefine value from the traditional economic stance. Value in living currently suggests a focus on qualities that directly influence and maintain aspects of monetary value, however value can be placed instead in what influences emotional well being. Equity becomes a powerful motivator for the inclusion of positive influences, even when not directly …

Notes On Institutional Architecture ; Towards And Understanding Of Erasure And Conversation, Liam Burke

Masters Theses

Material Conversations /məˈtirēəl/ /ˌkänvərˈsāSH(ə)ns/ noun 1. derived from an early memory of forming relationships to objects, a way to understand the physical environment through a scaling down process that follows, but is not limited to, space, element, material. 2. the way in which material components are tectonically related 3. a process which would inform one to work with materials in a way which is conceptually informed by both aforementioned definitions 4. an integral aspect of architectural design, Material Conversations enable the architect to establish a language with which to relate to the components of their work, to better speak to …

A Digital Surreal, Michael Garel-Martorana

Masters Theses

As architects, much of our work lives within our various computer softwares. Rendering within architectural practice allows us to fabricate highly calculated, realistic representations of our work- a method by which we place ourselves within a space, inhabit it, or make it familiar.

“A Digital Surreal” seeks to explore how rendering can be employed as a space for the production of narratives that instead challenge our perceptions of space. Drawing from artwork from the Surrealist movement, the project considers the characteristics of work by artists including Rene Magritte, Kay Sage, and Conroy Maddox, amongst others, along with contemporary architectural precedents, …

Community Conservation & Engagement Through The Architecture Of Public Transportation, Liam Costello

Masters Theses

A good public transportation system......should be extensive, quick, and efficient, while also being equitable and accessible as well as environmentally friendly and resilient to cope with climate change and rising sea levels. Until the 1980s, Philadelphia had an extensive streetcar network. From 1977 until 1992, however, all lines serving northern Philadelphia were abandoned, leaving the city’s once-expansive public transit system a shell of its former self. The communities formerly served by streetcar have the lowest average household income in the city and are mainly communities of color. Additionally, many of these residents do not own cars. Therefore, the people who …

Caregivers As Worldbuilders, Caitlin Dippo

Masters Theses

Caregivers as Worldbuilders explores architecture as the relationship between people and the space that surrounds them, looking to memorials, quilts, and forms of gathering to understand how communities use care to shape their built environment. A table was built to host gatherings over the course of the spring semester. Each week new prompts, props, and prosthetics transform the table to meet the needs of those who gather. With the table as a proxy, this thesis considers the in-between spaces that relate and separate us and speculates on how architects can work with communities to gain trust, listen to what is …

Towards A New Immersion, Kaijie Huang

Masters Theses

The rapid development of informational technologies and computational technologies in the past few decades had made previously expensive computational devices affordable for the general public. Personal computers in the 1990s and 2000s, Smartphones in the 2010s, and Virtual Reality (VR) headsets especially in recent years(2020s). The extraordinary immersive qualities of VR had sparked a new wave of exploration of this newly developed media.

The immersive medium has a long history in human society even before the invention of computers. It can take as many forms as literature, drama, painting, sculpture, photography, film, digital media and so much more. Depending on …

Astoria Houses: A Resilient Community, James Juscik

Masters Theses

As climate change leads to more intense and frequent storms throughout the northeast, architecture needs to adapt to be able to protect life and property. As we can see from Superstorm Sandy, and the more recent Hurricanes Ida, and Henri the current architecture and infrastructure is failing its purpose. Nowhere is this more true than in Astoria Queens.Among the New York City neighborhoods most impacted by climate change, Astoria has received little investment to make it more resilient. The Astoria Houses public housing complex becomes the perfect site to design a new mixed density, resilient neighborhood of the future.

Astoria …

Sacred Pleasures : A Patronage Festival Of The Erotic And Play, David Dávila

Masters Theses

Sacred Pleasures emphasizes human connection and experience. The transcalar use of the erotic and play in spatial design can redefine the current cultural value of production and capital. The proposal addresses three scales of these socioeconomic and spatial conditions: system, architectural, and human scale. The erotic is used as power and resistance. Play is used as a method to achieve agency and to mediate human connection.

The thesis resists from within the context of Puerto Rico, an island product of colonization by two entities, Spain and the United States of America. It addresses the relationship between Puerto Rico and the …

Immortal/ Ephemeral/ Versatile, Zhenhong (Brad) Lei

Masters Theses

Imagine 150-year-old building components coming together to form a summertime fruit market. The building is ephemeral, but the parts are here to stay, as well as the building/unbuilding cycle. The immortal ephemerality paradigm embraces the precarious lifespans of buildings and urban environments, alongside the infinite craving for new buildings and urban renewals.

Objects In Transformation, Caroline Coxe Lippincott

Masters Theses

Traces and marks left behind tell the stories of buildings and their materials. Remnants of the past remain, while new construction is layered on top, creating a kind of palimpsest. Artifacts of material time - rust, erosion, growth - are inevitable, yet often feared. Typically in search of longevity, architects gravitate toward materials and finishes that promise durability. My work questions some of the assumptions we have about material quality as a function of time. Through experimental artifacts, this thesis reorients our perceptions of time’s effects on the built and natural environments, and introduces a new and expanded time scale.

Scaffolding: Medium, Mediator, Mediated, Mono Yingyi Mo

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates, analyzes, and fictionalizes scaffolds, seeing scaffolds as a medium (that which is being neglected and unquestioned), a mediator (that which is actively executing shaping powers), and a to-be-mediated being (that which requires to be reimagined). Scaffolds in this thesis is registered as a polydimensional group of frameworks, tools, and agreements, ranging from scaffolds in the built environment, architectural drawing convention, CAD program interfaces and interaction modalities, and codes and scripts behind the digital programs. Together, these scaffolds simultaneously enable and prescribe architectural design processes. The project aims to make the scaffolds seen, de-familiarized, and rediscovered. The current …

With Water, Kt Mcleod

Masters Theses

Focusing on the coastal areas of Maine and the existing water conditions, this thesis proposes the integration of architecture to engage with and help facilitate a micro-climate while serving the surrounding natural environments.

Domestic Disturbance: Cleaning, Labor And Maintenance Of Architecture, Valeria Portillo

Masters Theses

From a very young age, I saw my mother and father clean houses as well as my Grandmother and Grandfather clean Elementary School as janitors. I began this project as a way to understand how a certain habits could be passed down culturally and socially.

As I reflect, I appreciate the daily cleaning habits that were instilled within me. Moving away from home to go to college, I am always reminded of the ordinary and mundane moments within cleaning my home. These practices became part of my daily life and something that I hope to pass down to my children …

The Value In Intentional Impermanence, Dominique Tsironis

Masters Theses

Impermanence and maintenance are two words often associated with the discourse of temporal architecture; durability, sustainability, efficiency, are all keywords to measure the value of a structure. The architect strives for an everlasting building: a monument of the superiority and knowledge of the designer. However, in order to retain its enduring status, it must succumb to the act of maintenance. Typically seen as a solution or a key player in the game of the architectural resistance of time, maintenance is rarely seen as the question in which to design around.

What happens when architecture is created around the act of …

Salt Infrastructures & Geographies, Jordan Voogt

Masters Theses

Salt Infrastructures & Geographies presents itself as a collection of unordered documents, drawings, and images. This allows the reader to move freely between different fragments of the thesis and consequently jump across the varying scales of geography and time that salt takes form in.

The research and language of this project was developed from an initial index tracing the presence of salt across the planet. This index (found in the following pages) understands salt as multiscalar and of varying visibility. In this index salt is a remnant of geology-past, public safety agent, and the center of a global extraction and …

[Daymeh] A Postmemory Database, Natalie Rizk

Masters Theses

As a first-generation American, my Middle Eastern heritage sometimes feels like a conglomerate of different influences pieced from American culture and a motherland I have received in bite-sized portions. By contextualizing postmemory passed down from generation to generation, new traditions, spaces, and practices have the space to evolutionize while remaining precious.