Architecture Commons^™

Re-Designing Gentrification, Elena Whittle

Architecture Senior Theses

In Paris sans le people, a book on the gentrification of Paris, Anne Clerval writes (in a French to English translation) that, “gentrification reflects the dynamics of class relationships in the urban space” (p. 10). This thesis explores this dynamic in the context of American cities and additionally points to race relations, and private-public interests’ relations as other important factors in the American urban sphere. This thesis is an exploration of how capital plays a critical role in the morphology of the built environment. One of the ways that this is most obviously observed is through the commonly occurring phenomena …

Folie A Cinq: Performative Systems Exhibited Through Theatrical Means., Madison Cannella

Architecture Senior Theses

Performative Systems Exhibited through Theatrical Means

Truth Games, Hanneke Van Deursen

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis analyzes Neoliberalism, and architecture as its active agent, not only in constructing space, but constructing subjectivity within that space. If Neoliberalism exists in two forms, policy and ideology, I contend that architecture serves as a mediator between these forms: shaped by policy and naturalizing ideology. Truth Games – constructed “truths” which embed themselves in common knowledge and practice – allow the city to appear as banal and incidental, maybe even nice. However, the urban environment is a powerful weapon. The Truth Games embedded in architecture legitimate forms of power that operate on and through the constitution of the …

Rural Retreat | Urban Myth, Celeste Pomputius

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis proposes a destination for recreation and retreat on Plum Island, New York that references the model of the National and State Park Services and whose intended audience is primarily residents of New York City who are without the means or methods of easily seeking other experiences of nature outside the realm of city limits. The first step of this design process involves reexamining the traditional definition of “urban” to shorten the leap from the comforts of the city to the unknowns of nature. From there, the project identifies and resolves three challenges that stand between urban residents and …

The Synchronous City, Patricia Olivera

Architecture Senior Theses

Architects’ conceptualizations of cities reference and reflect trends in contemporary culture. During the early 1900's, architects such as Ebenezer Howard, and Tony Garnier speculated on modernist visions of cities, while in the mid-late 1900's radical visions of cities by Archigram, and Archizoom emerged. This project will operate along the framework of previous visions of cities by architects and envision a city rooted on the use of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs).

In order to best engage the provocation of a city based on ICTs as the primary means of exchange and interaction between citizens (as opposed to cars, pedestrians, …

Redeveloping Commerce | Comuna 20 As The Commercial Gateway Of The City, Carlos Restrepo

Architecture Senior Theses

Colombia has long been suffering a debilitating civil war. Lasting more than 51 years, this continuing conflict has brought suffering and hardship to millions of people. Indeed, countless civilians have been forcefully displaced from their rural homes into informal settlements on the outskirts of major cities. These densely populated, ad hoc constructions surround the cities as unstructured enclaves festering with crime and disease exacerbated by isolation and government indifference. The vast social, economic, and cultural divide between these settlements and the contiguous cities pose a major problem for contemporary Colombia that must be addressed. In spite of these conditions, the …

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.

Compound City: Social, Economic, And Environmental Impact In The Production Of Generative Urban Space, Nathan Jones

Architecture Senior Theses

"Compound City" will focus on the implementation of an open source, social infrastructure, as a methodology in addressing the on-going urban crisis in Lagos. Dealing primarily with urban informality, Lagos will serve as a theoretical testbed, providing a natural precedent in which to test these ideas. How can open source technologies - softwares & hardwares - subvert or embrace existing infrastructures/processes as a means of alleviating inadequate living conditions? Identifying the coincidental pressures in Lagos will help establish project parameters, driving the development of design criteria to be addressed by the new, open source, platform.

The City Is My Church: Presence And Identity For The Small Urban Congregation, Andrew Scalisi

Architecture Senior Theses

The phenomenon of church renting has grown out of necessity for small urban congregations. Churches are holding worship services in public and private places with greater regularity than some might think. It is not uncommon today to see portable church signs outside of unconventional places on Sundays. In Manhattan in particular, there is a greater need for rentable space as many congregations are struggling to find a permanent home due to density, finances, availability and politics. Typically, congregations rent until they can attain a permanent facility or develop a congregation large enough to support one. However, exercising this option comes …

Ciudad Disidente: Addressing Social And Infrastructural Deficiencies In Villa Salvador-- Part 1, Victoria Brewster

Architecture Senior Theses

Within the next twenty years, the Global South will account for 95% of urban growth, and nearly half of that will be within the informal sector.1 The population living within slums is expected to increase to two billion people by 2030, and if left unchecked, it may reach three billion by 2050.2 This extreme growth requires an URGENT response in order offset its adverse effects on the urban environment. Thus far, architects’ interventions in informal settlements have focused almost entirely on designing housing in order to improve the quality of life, and to meet the demands of the growing population. …

Ciudad Disidente: Addressing Social And Infrastructural Deficiencies In Villa Salvador-- Part 2, Victoria Brewster

Architecture Senior Theses

No abstract provided.

Midnight City And Other Urban Mythologies, Mark Eichler

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Midnight City explores the physical and representational framework of fantastic architecture as a productive mode for architectural and urban design, specifically focusing on the nocturnalized city as a space of exaggerated fantasy and escape from the mundane of the diurnal."

Fragmented City: The Intersection Of Surrealism And Urban Reality, Lauren Hackett

Architecture Senior Theses

"The concept of the experience becomes relevant in the surrealist view of the city. It is one that has been embraced by the situationists in their concept of the derive. The psychological understanding of urban space can supersede the retinal understanding of rationalized space. The search for truth within the city is what guides a civilization toward absolutism.

In treating the city as a field for discovert and the formulation of ideaas and pure thought, urban space enters a realm of surreality."

The Neighborhood As A Focus For Development, Bob Neil Scher

Architecture Master Theses

One of the purposes of urban design is an understanding, a knowledge of the urban environment. The purpose of this investigation, a thesis is urban design, was to discover strong, recurrent patterns within the city relevant to urban design as a discipline. It was found that such patterns did exist, in the form of population-migration patterns.

A theory of urban development/redevelopment was constructed as an enhancement of the already existent social pattern, in an attempt to enrich the urban experience within the structure of an average large metropolitan agglomeration.