Architecture Commons^™

Insert Community: A Revaluation Of Space, Joshua Ramirez

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis is an attempt to question the way in which we understand and create housing. Currently, there is a growing issue with lack of space within our major and developing cities, creating an increase of demand for higher density buildings, which is especially true for housing. Apartments are typically the answer for higher density, smaller square footage needs, leaving large amounts of uniformly small and repetitive housing units, slowly forcing people to abandon their individuality. The question is, are there no available options for creating more expressive and freeing units for people to be able to live in?

It …

Embedded Form: Using Structure To Inform Engaging Spaces Responsive To The Human Experience, Huntington Brown

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis takes a look at the basic understanding of structure as expressed in nature in the form of the catenary curve. This curve produces a funicular structure in response to gravitational loads. When inverted, this tension-based cable becomes an optimized arch in compression. This FORM as a result of gravity is the basis on which any material can be used to make a space. Understanding spatial qualities and expression of structure, the psychology component is embedded, along with the secondary structure, as a design component that can be dialed in to produce a spatial quality that, in theory, should …

Urban Inter-Space: Convergence Of Human Interaction And Form, Clayton Beaudoin

Masters Theses

How can the convergence of human interaction and form activate underused spaces and catalyze future community developments?

Architecture is defined by human needs, such as that of shelter, comfort, and place. However, we as humans have other needs; the need to create, to make, to play, to thrive, to inhabit, and to interact. The interaction between humans and architecture can serve as fuel to answer the question of how these ideas converge. This thesis examines the dynamic between humans and architecture, and how this interaction can catalyze future change by creating space and place utilized within the underused areas of …

User: Drone, Abigail L. Nelson

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

Though industrial technology furthered the possibilities of architecture and, in the the case of the automobile, redefined architectural principles and promenade, it also influenced a consumerist-driven, technology-obsessed society. Cedric Price and Reynor Banham saw great promise in the implementation of technology within architecture; what they overlooked, though, was the tangible exhaust it brought: electronic waste (e-waste). The current e-waste situation in the New Territories of Hong Kong poses a case study which allows technology, specifically that of drones, to interact with architecture.

For this thesis, drones, in reaction to the e-waste case study, operate an e-waste handling facility alongside humans. …

Audio To Architecture: House Music As A Form Generator, Polina Timchenko

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Contemporary music undergoes similar process of creation to that of the design process through computation and variation. House music as a representation of contemporary culture has a layered structure that allows specific characteristics to identify it as house music. Song components can vary and mix in different orders that form new dynamic compositions. I am going to explore the idea that every house music component can be translated into geometry with the use of parametric design techniques.

Not For All To Know: Translating The Possibilities And Mysteries Of Miracle Inhabitation, Kara R. Hannibal

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

The project speculates on the architectural possibilities and mysteries of miracle inhabitation. Luke 5: 35-43 describes a young child’s miraculous transition from death to life. The narrative encapsulates indiscriminating elements of the human condition. The descriptive Greek language, emotional conditions, and thematic elements of love and healing suggest architectural outcomes.

The architecture becomes a threshold to unlock the inaccessible. Not For All to Know, investigates components of the narrative’s emotion and language through representational devices and processes. Discoveries found in the process are articulated and translated through the architectural language of pathway, threshold and communal space.

The vision of the …

The Moving Image, Eujean Cheong, Andrew Kim, Sol Yoon

Architecture Senior Theses

Form in architecture has become synonymous with geometries as opposed to the philosophical Aristotelian notion of form. This thesis rests on two beliefs: space and form are co-present, as space without form is nothing and likewise form without space leaves no room to materialize itself. An object results when space and form are co-present; architecture as an object then subsequently reveals itself when a third element of human movement is introduced.

This thesis contends that if architecture is perceived through the introduction of human movement, then it is peculiar that architectural representation has historically been represented through means of …

Another Milstein Hall, Daniel Lin

Architecture Senior Theses

A certain Chinese encyclopedia wrote: Animal are divided into: (a) belonging to the emperor (b) embalmed (c) tame (d) sucking pig (e) sirens (f ) fabulous (g) stray dogs (h) included in the present classification (i) frenzied (j) innumerable (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush (l) et cetera (m) having just broken the water pitcher (n) that from a long way off look like flies. –– Jorge Louis Borges

Jorge Louis Borges’ list of animals supposedly drawn from his fictional Chinese Encyclopedia the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, highlights the potent absurdities and lacunae to be identified in …

Performative Architecture | A Measurable Means Of Evaluating Formal Systems, Garrett Marini

Architecture Senior Theses

The Gothic, Baroque, and Rococo architectural styles relied on perception and an underlying adherence to classical formulas to provide merit and deem an architecture valid. Up through the 19th century before the emergence of modernism these established canons would reemerge both in isolation and as an amalgam of styles. Henry Russell Hitchcock describes this latter episodic phase of building as exhibiting an eclecticism of style, where features of different styles are used together on a single building like those in the Beaux- Arts tradition. In the early 20th century, Louis Sullivan’s modernist dictum of “Form Follows Function,” while seemingly providing …

Cellular Tessellation, Chris Knapp, Jonathan Nelson, Michael Parsons, Nathan Freeman

Jonathan J Nelson

Cellular Tessellation is a small yet generous pavilion put on display as part of the Sydney Vivid Light festival in 2014. The project is both spatial and aesthetic, bringing the quality of architectural inhabitation and visceral experience to an urban festival which is typically limited to visual engagement.

Architectural Form, Orientation, And Energy For Residential Design In The Southern Nevada Region., Ludwing Vaca

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

With the population increase, the high demand of energy from the residential sector, as well as the harsh weather conditions of the Las Vegas region, there needs to be careful consideration in the design of new homes. Energy efficiency in a single family residential building can be augmented early in the design process by careful consideration of the building form and orientation. A systematic investigation and analysis was taken to study the effects of five building forms and different orientations along the cardinal points using the software BEopt version 2.4.0.1. To connect the study to real world circumstances, a residential …

Cellular Tessellation, Chris Knapp, Jonathan Nelson, Michael Parsons, Nathan Freeman

Chris Knapp

Cellular Tessellation is a small yet generous pavilion put on display as part of the Sydney Vivid Light festival in 2014. The project is both spatial and aesthetic, bringing the quality of architectural inhabitation and visceral experience to an urban festival which is typically limited to visual engagement.

Curated Disorders, Nathanael Bengio

Architecture Thesis Prep

By using the techniques of contradiction that existed in Dadaism fused with those of psychoanalysis and defamiliarization in Surrealism and Nouveau-Realism, my thesis examines the possibility of an architectural typology that critiques hyper-functionalities, anonymous ornament and the general facelessness of most commercialized architecture today. Within the context of a Haussmannian facade will be created a simple matrix that allows for the displacement of architectural elements in and out of their intended contexts leading to the curation of the reverse, the disordered twin.

A Synthesis Of Architectural Form For Three Different Structural Systems, Hektor Cullufi, Altin Bidaj, Ervin Paci, Irakli Premti, Drilona Disha

UBT International Conference

Architectural form is often used but less frequently defined. Architectural form is an inclusive term that refers primarily to a building’s external outline or shape, and to a lesser degree references its internal organization and unifying principles. Shape encompasses various visual and relational properties; namely size, color and texture, position, orientation and visual inertia. Form is therefore generally and primarily understood as the shape or three dimensional massing, but also encompasses additional architectural aspects including structural configuration and form, in so far as they may organize and unify an architectural design.

The Creation Of Sense Of Place: Negotiating The Divide Between Nature And Culture Through Phenomenological Architecture, Gabriel Nolle

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The project I am proposing seeks to explore phenomenological architecture as a medium between culture and nature in order for humans to regain a sense of place in the natural world. While recent trends in architecture, namely sustainability, seek to emphasize environmental consciousness, the subjective relationship to the environment – how it affects our senses – remains the one we know least about. The process of designing and constructing buildings in the natural world must respond to conditions of nature in terms of site, material, purpose and form, to answer the demands of the human-nature condition. At …

Twenty First Century Form: Disrupted Continous Surface, Wiqas Ahmed

Architecture Thesis Prep

"In order to respond to the needs and demands of the twenty-first century, dual architectural thinking must be abandoned in favor of form & multiplicity. Here form should act as a canopy under which multiple functional aspects including programmatic, performative, cultural, economic, historical, geographic, infrastructural, and climate considerations can coexist simultaneously. Form can no longer be thought of as a counter argument to function, visa versa, but rather as an independent medium in which function operates. Since function is now defined as multiplicity, consequently, form becomes the study of the method of articulating multiple conditions. There may be several ways …

Performative Design: Investigating Form In The Natural And Capitalist Environment, John M. Santoro

Architecture Senior Theses

"Rethinking the design process from conception and allowing natural forces, such as wind, solar exposure, and rainfall to drive the initial design will generate a structurally and environmentally efficient form."

Speculative Housing, Jaret Steinagle

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The purpose of this thesis is to understand architecture as a semiotic "sign system" with the ability to communicate information through form; constructing a rich, meaningful built environment. A study of the history of this language and the meaning of form within suburban contexts indicates the disassociation between the complexities of the lie of the contemporary middle class and the architecture in which they live."

Sensitive Urban Mass, Thomas Zoli

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The issue to be tested is the notion that the formal structure of a multidisciplinary building of this type is analogous to the formal structure of the campus itself; buildings and departments organized strategically to promote a collective, academic atmosphere.

The program is a Center for Nonlinear Research on the campus of Princeton University."

A Paradigm For The Construction Of Architectural Narrative, Sarah F. Holmes

Architecture Thesis Prep

"How does one develop a relevant architectural narrative within a society that traditionally has been and remains highly pluralistic? ... This proposal concerns the inquiry into the physical and metaphysical structure of place. In this thesis I propose a system of analysis resulting in the creation of a structure from which an architectural narrative may be revealed."

Symbolism Versus Abstraction: Architectural Representation In A Post-Modern Society, Nina Ebbighausen

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis poses an investigation into the work of Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Mies van der Rohe as elements of a formal architectural tradition in Berlin; It proposes the institution of an architecture based up on a chosen set of historical models, with the aim of providing one possible foundation for architectural renewal (of unified Berlin) implying cultural continuity. To this end, the thesis poses an investigation into the representative qualities of architecture while examining the informative potential of artifact.

Urban Stadium, Eric Moss

Architecture Senior Theses

Certain major urban elements have been pished into suburban environments to the detriment of cities. The thesis proposed that through investigating the implications of reinserting such a building into the urban condition, it can be demonstrated that both the city and the facility will benefit. The vehicle is the design of a public building which must mediate between its needs and its urban conditions. The project therefore should have a program which has specific requirements and the site should have a strong urban dynamic.