Architecture Commons^™

Architecture In Anime: Miyazaki's Motifs, Jack Collins

Honors Projects

Internationally known, celebrated, and respected, director Hayao Miyazaki has become a household name by transforming an industry through his films. This research focuses on Miyazaki’s process and the similarities he shares with architects, both in and out of his works. By initially examining his background, the three motifs of architecture, inspiration, and sustainability are explored through works like Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke and more. The results of this research are to inform fans of both architecture and anime about the connection between someone who designs and builds the world, and one who designs and builds …

Encapsulated Fantasy:A Dystopian Future Of Segregation By Technology, Shihua Xuan

Architecture Senior Theses

Objects...previously only available through interpersonal relationships, such as daily food and sexual partners, can now be obtained extremely easily with the help of fast food and sex industries without any troublesome interpersonal relationships. At this point, it can be said that our society has been constantly moving towards animalization... - Azuma Hiroki, the post-modernization of animalization: Japanese society in the eyes of the otaku

In an era of losing the grand narrative and the development of technology in Japan, many people no longer search for life's meaning, easily amazed by superficial products created by the capital market. Desire describes a …

The Postmoder Hermits, Xuechen Li

Architecture Senior Theses

Metropolitan cities to grow at unfathomable rates, forming a new scale of geography know as Megaregions. And as these settlements continue to develop with the principal focus on the consequences of economy and environment, the psychological, mental health of the inhabitants becomes neglected. Japan, the archetypal example of a highly developed country, despite its economic and technological advantages, has been plagued by social isolation, suicides, and mental health issues among its people. With 541,000 young Japanese labeled as hikikomori, a term describing young people who isolate themselves in their rooms for months or years at a time, their memories of …

Shizen Nōhō: Restoring The Relationship Between Food, Nature, And People In Japan, Katharine Graham

Scripps Senior Theses

In Japan’s postwar era, agriculture has become highly industrialized, involving heavy machinery, chemical fertilizers, and pesticides, all in the name of “progress.” Through employing such practices, humans have attempted to improve upon nature’s way of doing things, and in turn have degraded the soil’s fertility, natural ecosystems, and human health. In response to this, Shizen Nōhō has emerged in Japan as an alternative way of cultivating food. Shizen Nōhō practitioners challenge the notion that we need chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and machinery to farm successfully. Rather, they advocate for a way of growing food that functions seamlessly with natural ecosystems. This …

Ordering Spaces, Making Places: Women’S Uses Of Non-Domestic Spaces In Tokyo, Japan, 1868–1937, Yuko Nakamura

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores Japanese women’s uses of non-domestic spaces in the modern period (1868–1945), focusing on the transformations that were occurring in the new capital city of Tokyo. After the 1868 Meiji Restoration, a modern government took over in place of the Tokugawa shogunate, the feudal military government that had ruled Japan for nearly three centuries, based on a hereditary status-based system. The fall of Tokugawa social order liberated Japanese people from the principle that John W. Hall famously called “rule by status.” Yet, it also complicated the ways in which the society was organized. Because the status system had …

Assessment Of The Potential Of Proposed Stations Of The California High-Speed Rail As Major Hubs For Physical And Economic Development, Seitu Akira Coleman

Master's Theses

This study investigated the potential for development of station catchment areas around the proposed California High-Speed Rail System. The study was prompted by a review of practices of Japanese railway company groups that engage not only in train operations, but also in business diversification and property development within the station areas of their lines. These actions allow the company groups to diversify their revenues streams, increase ridership on their lines, and operate as a whole with net profits. This is in contrast to transit agencies in the United States, which only focus on transporting passengers along their lines and do …

What Is A House?: Architects Redesigning The Domestic Sphere In Contemporary Japan, 1995-2011, Cathelijne Tamara Nuijsink

Publicly Accessible Penn Dissertations

This dissertation examines how the detached house in Japan is part of a discursive space of a jūtakuron (住宅論), or “housing debate,” among Japanese architects from the late 1950s to the present. This intense theoretical examination, in turn, is what drove the production of a series of radical house experiments that critically addressed the question of “what is a house?” Using as primary sources the most prominent Japanese architecture journals, an archive of personal interviews with architects and residents, as well as site visits that attest to the lived experience, this study identifies a significant shift in the housing debate …

The Foreign Complex | A Cross-Cultural Vernacular, Dexter Cicchinelli

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis investigates transforming a decommissioned military site into a productive part of its host nation’s context. Okinawa consists of a group of islands that make up the southern-most prefecture of Japan. MAP It is situated midway between Tokyo and Manila, and called the “keystone of the Pacific” by military planners because of its strategic location. AERIAL FLIGHT MAP It was the site of the devastating Battle of Okinawa in WWII which prompted an ongoing history of military intervention and occupation. TIMELINE Immediately after the war, displaced Okinawans were put in camps while the military claimed land for bases. Some …

Introductory Review To The Special Issue: Shrinking Cities And Towns: Challenge And Responses, Andreas Luescher, Sujata Shetty

Andreas Luescher

Cities and towns facing sustained population loss are being researched and discussed more than ever before. Once the focus of a relatively small group of architects and urban designers in Europe, these cities and towns are now being studied by scholars across the world. In a range of contexts - from a large, iconic city like Detroit, to a small village in Japan (described by Thomas Feldhoff in this issue), this phenomenon is being observed in unexpected places, and far more frequently than once imagined. A wider population is engaging in this as well, as discussions of the future of …

The National Historic Preservation Act: Preserving History, Impacting Foreign Relations?, Mark P. Nevitt

Faculty Articles

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, the highest political leader in Japan, shook his head in disbelief. His tenure as Prime Minister had been tense, partly due to the ongoing question of a replacement airfield for the U.S. Marines in Futenma. A predecessor, Yukio Hatoyama, also suffered political fallout stemming from his reversal of a public promise to find a replacement location for the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station. Prior to the Hatoyama administration, the Japanese government had selected a new location for the Marine Air Station, a remote area far removed from the busy city of Okinawa in Henoko. Moving …

Concept And Technique: How Traditional Japanese Architecture Can Contribute To Contemporary Sustainable Design Practices, Courtney Angen

Environmental Studies Honors Papers

No abstract provided.

Introductory Review To The Special Issue: Shrinking Cities And Towns: Challenge And Responses, Andreas Luescher, Sujata Shetty

Architecture and Environmental Design Faculty Publications

Cities and towns facing sustained population loss are being researched and discussed more than ever before. Once the focus of a relatively small group of architects and urban designers in Europe, these cities and towns are now being studied by scholars across the world. In a range of contexts - from a large, iconic city like Detroit, to a small village in Japan (described by Thomas Feldhoff in this issue), this phenomenon is being observed in unexpected places, and far more frequently than once imagined.

A wider population is engaging in this as well, as discussions of the future of …

Nature In Architecture - Japan Architecture, Lessons For Kosovo, Arta Jakupi

UBT International Conference

Focus of my research is to be found on several issues concerning architectural opinions and design in Japan, and for better understanding of its development the attention will be set from the old toward the current architectural endeavors. The created urban mess of Kosovo, beside it’s over built and overcrowded area lack s the most valuable quality of a living settlement- its greenery. The suffocation of the living area can be reduced by producing; inventing; reusing more greenery, more gardens with its calming and meditative effect. The research study reveals a solution; hidden on the inclusiveness of nature into the …

Glass House For Diver, Naf Architect & Design

Building Case Studies

Overall composition of the building consists of roof and transparent glass to enclose interior space with the aforementioned concrete block structure. There is no roof over the concrete blocks. Therefore rays of the sun pour over the blocks, and the reflection of the light shines inside the house. Furthermore, vines of various flowers will be planted along the block, changing breakwater-like structure to a hill of flower and greenery in the future.

Starbucks Coffee Shop In Dazaifu, Kengo Kuma

Building Case Studies

The building is made of 2,000 stick-like parts in the sizes of 1.3m – 4m length and 6cm section.. Create a sense of Fluidity.

Re-Active Architecture: Exploring The Japanese Educational Experience, John J. Baker

Architecture Theses

This design seeks to transform the Japanese educational experience through the use of architecture. The aim is to provide an alternative school that breaks from the uniformity of the current system and provides an educational environment that places an emphasis on interaction, community, and learning. The school would serve as a junior high school combined with a small community library. The school would accommodate 250-300 children. Ultimately, this school could serve as a model for future educational buildings within the Japanese educational system.

Final Wooden House, Sou Fujimoto Architects

Building Case Studies

The lumber pieces, serves as everything the house is made of: walls, floors, cielings, and tables, counters, stairs and insulation included. The lumber pieces are stacked and spaced to create the structure and voids. The lumber used in this dwelling are unfinished, and unpainted pices of lumber in it's simplest form.

Ando: Inside Out, Noel Brady

Articles

Review of lecture by Tadao Ando Architect

Review Essay: National Traditions And Foreign Influences In The Architecture And Urban Form Of China And Japan, Carola Hein

Growth and Structure of Cities Faculty Research and Scholarship

Review of JEFFREY E. HANES, The City As Subject: Seki Hajime and the Reinvention of Modern Osaka. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. pp. xii, 348, bibliography, index; JONATHAN M. REYNOLDS, Maekawa Kunio and the Emergence of Japanese Modernist Architecture. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001. pp. xviii, 318, bibliography, index; JEFFREY W. CODY, Building in China: Henry K. Murphy’s “Adaptive Architecture” 1914-1935. Seattle: University of Washington Press/The Chinese University Press, 2001. pp. xxiv, 264, bibliography, index; GIDEON S. GOLANY, Urban Design Ethics in Ancient China. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2001. pp. xvi, 312, bibliography, index.

The Hall House, Alphaville Architects

Building Case Studies

Strength and Durability, Versatility, Low maintenance, Affordability, Fire-resistance, Relatively low emissions of CO2, Energy efficiency in production, Excellent thermal mass, Albedo effect.

Place And Collective Living, Madoka Yuasa

Architecture Senior Theses

"Japanese contemporary urban houses have list their traditional relationships to nature, to seasons, and to natural landscapes. And the urban landscape with respect to architecture in Tokyo is chaos. This situation is due to the rapid economic growth they followed in the process of modernization after WWII. In this project, I would like to propose a housing which reconnects people to their traditional cultural roots through intensifying sensorial experience within contemporary urbanity."

Urbanisms With Japanese Culture And Its Living Style, Madoka Yuasa

Architecture Senior Theses

"The current urban Japanese houses have lost its richness closely related to its nature, landscapes, and seasonal events which their traditional architectural spaces had an important role as a part of their lives. This situation is due to rapid economic grows they followed in the process of modernization after the WWII, and the urban situation with respect to architecture in their city is complex. In this project, I would like to propose a housing system that has their traditional design aspects to incorporate five senses with nature and also complex contemporary urban situation to enhance their livings."

A Flight Into Technology: An Investigation Of Building And Telecommunication Technology, Bruce A. T. Siska

Architecture Senior Theses

"A new physical infrastructure to support activities based on communications and the transmission of information is being developed. Part of this infrastructure includes the construction of "intelligent" buildings that are seen to play as important a role in improving of office workers as automation has played on the shop floor of manufacturing industry. The term "intelligent" is used to describe buildings which provide an adaptive environment of high quality, energy efficiency, security and safety, permitting optimized information flows - both internally and externally - so that its functionality is largely independent of location."