Architecture Commons^™

Framing The Future: Imagining The City Through The Lens Of Film, Sofia Zavala Ferreira

Architecture Senior Theses

With a great interest in the relationship between film and architecture, this project establishes its subject matter on the possibilities presented in science fiction cinema and speculative design. By extracting attributes from these that would influence design and architectural concerns, a bridge between the disconnected imagined and real, current and future, can be created through the creation of a speculative scenario and a narrative.

It seeks to utilize cinematic design and storytelling conventions to successfully convey the desired atmosphere, architectural realities, and life conditions of a fictional city. By utilizing advanced digital techniques often used in cinema itself, including but …

Pleasurescapes: Mechanized Conveyances As Agents Of Alternate Urban Experience, Elias Varon

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis inquires the possibilities of creating pleasurable destinations in a city that engage their urban environment through the deployment mechanized conveyances - conveyances that offer an alternative experience to the day-to-day “mobilities."

Contemporary Infrastructure For The Sustainable Mid-Sized City, Christian Martinez

Architecture Thesis Prep

Embedded within the Feasibility Assessment of Sustainable Transportation: Syracuse study’s goals is an interest in urban mobility particularly in mid-sized cities in America. Well referenced texts tend to deliberate on issues of urban infrastructure in great urban metropolises. This presumes infrastructure improvements can universally have a positive impact on urban mobility irrespective of city size. But is it possible for the prosperity of cities to be augmented by virtue of investing in policy and infrastructure for sustainable transportation through following megalopolis biased guidebooks? Vishaan Chakrabarti advocates for a more urban America in “A County of Cities”, because of their ability …

The Renaissance Of The Railway | Towards A Global High-Speed System, Xiaoyu Li

Architecture Senior Theses

The railway has shown its unique character as a mode of transportation since its invention in Europe during the Industrial Revolution. In the beginning, its carrying capacity made it stand out, transforming human behavior, and stimulating economic productivity. During the 20th century, air travel, the railways, and long-distance road networks have shared the burden of human transportation - in many countries the car and plane have won out. In recent decade, however, new interest in the railway's potential has been generated as a result of the emergence of new technologies like high-speed rail and the maglev system. Greater speeds are …

Infra[Re]Structure, Sara Minsley

Architecture Thesis Prep

This project contends that through the mediation and expression of systems, energies and flows the pedestrian can reclaim the experience of the street.Crucial to this is an understanding of what is on the street and how objects and people are situated on the streets currently. Through exploiting these issues New York City the pedestrian is offered a more engaged experience of moving through the city.

China Rail-Borne, Daya Zhang

Architecture Senior Theses

The next stage of China’ growth and advancement rests on the assumption that its population will be more and more concentrated in cites since approximately 350 million farmers are expected to move towards the urban areas from 2005 to 2025. How to connect its population of more than 1 billion within those cites, and among them, is always an urgent issue for Chinese government to deal with. Railway is the most common mode for Chinese to travel around. However, the overcapacity has plagues China’s railway network for years, especially during the national holidays, such as Spring Festival. The emergence of …

Forum Contemperanueus: Re-Connecting Society Through Public Interaction, Jonathan Bruno

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This new typology will serve a great social significance

in any city it is placed in. Its ability to gather and withhold a

large number of people is its fundamental importance. Today’s

society has lost its interactivity. Through digital technologies,

more and more of us are glued to smartphones, laptops and

tablets. If this trend continues without any intervention, it will

result in us living “along together.” The public forum was the first

feature of any and all forms of “civitas” for thousands of years.

We are responsible for bringing this urban feature back to our

contemporary cities before it …

Mind The Gap, Beryl T. Johnsen-Seeberger

Architecture Thesis Prep

"I intend to create these appreciative moments in the context of desired program in the Long Beach Area. Long Beach offers a unique opportunity of density of modes of transportation, and types of people by touching on a major highway, the Port of Long Beach, and an active riverfront. The highway in question, Interstate 710, is one of the most clogged roads in Los Angeles. A major commuter route, it starts at the proposed site. The Port of Long Beach also has a rail yard and loading docks, as well as the start of its major freight train corridor on …

Traversing The Urban Landscape: Connecting The Pedestrian Grid, Carly Augustine

Architecture Senior Theses

"I contend that the advent of the super highway, reliance on the automobile and large scale infrastructure has further disconnected the shrinking city of Baltimore, Maryland by creating borders, barriers and vacancies within the pedestrian grid directly affecting the vitality of cultural street life, cohesion of communities and future densification."

[Re]-Establishing Connection: Integrating People Through Movement And Culture In Nyc, Justin Leung

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis proposes to test and re-establish how architecture can make connections between people. Through freedom of movement, transportation creates many opportunities for the congregation of people and social interaction. This thesis aims to create spaces for mixing and awareness through movement, and program."

Rural Iowa And The Transgenic Railroad, Wilson Day

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Using an understanding of transgenics and recombinant SNA technology as an analogue for exploring the architectural possibilities within a rail line in Clinton, Iowa, and its directly adjacent modes of transportation, I propose to create an intervention which bridges all modes and establishes a connection between a large portion of Eastern Iowa and the city of Clinton, which will act as an interface for the transfer of architectural goods as well as the transfer of people from various parts of rural Iowa to larger urban areas."

Activating The Void: Programmed Pedestrian Infrastructure In Syracuse, Ny, Karissa Kizer

Architecture Senior Theses

"To deal with the abundance of vehicles, much of the land immediately surrounding highways is occupied by parking facilities. These facilities, however, are neither spatially nor economically beneficial to the site, and are considered voids as they lack any meaningful use or activity. The scales of highways and pedestrians must be reconciled and the voids activated in order for cities to continue to survive with the ever-increasing presence of transportation infrastructure."

Gateway To Interaction, Adam C. Mcwilliams

Architecture Thesis Prep

"American cities presently face a moment of truth. While traditional city centers continue to signify established culture, science, education, and finance, in almost every city crucial sections of originally thriving city centers have persistently decreased as a location of interaction.

The regional city, if it is to sustain itself and maintain any diversity of architecture, density, and most importantly interaction, will need to accommodate a broad range of speeds, scales, and means of movement in both directions to reactivate the city center."

Mobility And Station: Place And Movement In A Culture Of Nostalgia And Commodities, Jonathan Hicks

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The proposal, interchanging an already detached program, resurrecting forgotten artifacts as symbols, and inverting conceptions of organization, would be one method of connecting to local networks and contexts in order to ground the project in site and place. It is not meant to be seen as a corrective measure for any aspect of the site, only as an opportunity to utilize and reinvent its unique situation and history in a new way. It is a model for the creation of a sustainable place in a mobile society."

Newark Noir: A Study Of Film And Architecture, Tom Mcinerney

Architecture Senior Theses

"Through the investigation of the filmic narrative and the semantics of the visual style inherent in film noir, I intend to establish a precedent that can be used to construct an architectural product in Newark that serves to investigate the city's past, present, and anticipate the future."

Terminus A Quo: An End From Which A Starting Point: The Auto-Terminal, Garrett M. Singer

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The intent of this thesis is to develop a new civic order for parking structures in the urban context. The thesis investigation will exist on two primary parts. The first area of investigation will deal with an urban design and analysis of parking as gateways of arrival to Manhattan. Tis will serve as entry nodes for all automobile passages into the city. The second half of the thesis is an investigation of the transformation of the parking garage, which has typically been seen as an eyesore, into an elegant structure."

Fxva Tyson's Corver: Reconsdiering The Edge City, Emillio Stokes

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis proposes a new way to consider suburban sprawl and the regional mall to generate a new approach to contemporary development practices. The objective is to relate vehicular and pedestrian traffic, public and private space with the current typologies existing in Tyson's Corner Virginia."

Architecture And The Articulation Of Passage: A Ferryboat Terminal For Old San Juan, Ruperto Arvelo

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The primary goal is to develop the area around the ferryboat terminal of San Juan waterfront, understanding such issues as:

-the importance of the bay and the role that the city of Old San Juan played in it as its physical entrance.

-definiteion of the waterfornt edge...

-the connection of Old San Juan to other areas of the metropolitan area through the new ferryboat system...

-ideas of representation, of historical continuity between the traditional and modern architecture, an understanding of the old fabric and how we can complement it, without imitating it or opposing it."

Echoing The Sounds Of Time: Pennsylvania Station, Michael D. Wade Jr.

Architecture Senior Theses

The intent of my thesis is an investigation that will exist on two primary levels. The first level is an investigation of urban design and will deal with the development of a city within the city using a multi-programatic complex, as the vehicle. The second level is an investigation of a modern transformation of an existing typology using the primary piece of the complex, the railroad station, as the vehicle and will deal with attempting to re-establish the station and the idea or memory of travel and arrival as an important event within the fabric of the city.