Other Architecture Commons^™

Utopia In The Apocalypse: Creating A Framework Of Survival Systems, Bryan E. Toepfer

Masters Theses

As medicines continue to evolve, as well as our tendency to misuse and abuse them, viruses become more and more resilient. While the flu is largely an inconvenience which at its worst may result in a missed day of work, it bears the risk of returning to the days of old when it was a terminal disease. With the imminent risk of resistant super viruses emerging,New York Cityhas taken precautions to prepare for the worst case scenario. If deemed necessaryNew Yorkhas plans to completely quarantine and isolate the city from the world. This provides us with the perfect opportunity to …

Architecture For Science: Space As An Incubator To Nurture Research, Maryam Mohammad Shafiee

Masters Theses

This thesis will study how scientific research environments should be designed, specifically addressing the issues beyond mere needs of research scientists. Assuming that the purpose of research is to create new knowledge and foster discoveries, as well as positively influence the community in its processes and results, this thesis will explore the potential of the influence of this building typology that has not been previously considered enough. The objectives of the thesis are on one hand, the changes in science disciplines and their reflections in the evolution among this building type, on the other hand, the impacts of research environment …

Emergent Opportunities: Urban Design In Small Town Appalachia, Phillip Geiman

Masters Theses

This thesis looks at urban design within small town Appalachia and its role in low density and low resource communities.

Small towns are facing a critical juncture in this point in their history. As most areas transition from a heavy depend acne on industrial based economy to an uncertain post-industrial, they face challenges unique to rural areas. Specifically, this thesis looks at “urban design” in distinctly non-urban areas and seeks to answer the question of what is the function and what is the role of design at such a large (urban) scale.

The idea is that what distinguishes small towns …

Greening Non-Profit Residential Construction: An Analysis Of Habitat For Humanity In Mississippi, Brett Alexander Doleac

Honors Theses

Poverty affects housing quality which in turn affects occupant health, and Mississippi (MS) has been identified as the state with one of the highest poverty rates. Voluntary support offered by Non-Profit Organization (NPO) serves to aid populations experiencing inadequate housing conditions. Given the need to create adequate housing for low-income families, it can be probable that green building strategies fall low on the list of NPO priorities. Thus, this research aims to identify the trends of a major NPO operating in MS, which also adopts green housing. The researcher also identified the aspects for NPO affiliates that set the adopters …

Equal Standing, Benjamin Thomas Dance

Masters Theses

My goal in this thesis is to challenge the social issues that can arise from current downtown redevelopment plans throughout the United States. This proposal seeks to break down physical, spatial, and social barriers that can result from commercial development by creating a design intervention that is economically beneficial for the city while remaining inclusive to the community as a whole. This particular thesis will focus on the current downtown development in Muskegon, Michigan.

The challenge is to create a design and program that is as central to the community as industry once was. This will come in the form …

Refocusing Roles ...A Look At Refocusing Programmatic Emphasis From Living Units To Amenity Spaces In Apartment Living, Laura Mae Kneebone

Masters Theses

As growth within cities increase, so does the demand for living options within the city context. A cultural shift is drawing more individuals and families back into the heart of cities instead of fleeing to the outskirts of surrounding highway towns.

This increase in desire for city living has raised issues surrounding the lack of living options within the city that may accommodate those needing and/or seeking affordable living options. Micro-unit apartment housing has become the trending answer to this need, providing compact affordable living spaces within the core of a city. Micro-unit apartments can be currently found in most …

Block 271, Reviving An Industrial Artifact, Jared Thomas Pohl

Masters Theses

Vacant industrial sites are scattered throughout our cities all across the country. These sites, these remnants of industry, are occupied by a very interesting category of buildings. They are artifacts from an industrial era that served very unique and specific functions. These service buildings suffered programmatic failure and have lost their vitality. They have entered a form of hibernation, waiting for the post-industrial epoch to wake them up.

The building stock under investigation makes up a large portion of the city’s structures. Identifiable by their heroic scale, clean articulated lines and tendency to be vacant, these service buildings raise arguments …

Amphibious Architecture: Living With A Rising Bay, Heather Christine Anderson

Master's Theses

Over the past century, sea level has risen nearly eight inches along the California coast and climate scientists suggest substantial increases in sea level as a significant impact of climate change over the coming century. This project explores the concept of creating a sustainable living environment for seaside residents in Redwood City as an alternative to permanent construction on land in the event of a substantial rise in sea level.

This project will generate a flood-resilient design solution that is capable of rising and falling with the water. In order to ensure the well-being of the inhabitants, I will analyze …

Studies And Research Regarding Sound Reduction Materials With The Purpose Of Reducing Sound Pollution, Timothy G. Hawkins

Master's Theses

Noise can be defined as unwanted sound. There are many cases and applications that reducing noise level is of great importance. Loss of hearing is only one of the effects of continuous exposure to excessive noise levels. Noise can interfere with sleep and speech, and cause discomfort and other non-auditory effects. High level noise and vibration lead to structural failures as well as reduction in life span. The importance of noise issue could be well understood by looking at regulations that have been passed by governments to restrict noise production in society. Industrial machinery, air/surface transportation and construction activities are …

A New Suburban Elysium: A Headstone For The Dying Periphery, Samuel David Chertock

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The proposed “cemetery” and retail center for the Idora neighborhood of Youngstown, Ohio is the result of one research semester and one design semester. The design proposal arose from dissatisfaction with the architectural community’s propensity for using jargon and clichés when describing the contemporary suburban condition. Many critics and commentators understand suburbia through the lens of the postwar period. It has been suggested that suburbia was developed for use as a media weapon – and thus, at the conclusion of the Cold War, should have been rendered architecturally irrelevant. However, suburbia has remained stagnant. Design standards employed by developers continue …

Making By Taking: An Investigation Of Architectural Appropriation, Victoria Lee

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The project contends that explicit appropriation can be a legitimate method of architectural production. The scope encompasses four canonical works of architecture: Villa Rotonda, Villa Savoye, Fallingwater, and the Farnsworth House. These works are appropriated as the basis of a retrospective analysis and as the foundation for a speculative, generative design strategy. Following the height of postmodernism, the notion of explicit formal appropriation was characterized in a negative light, seen as inauthentic imitation. However, an increasing number of contemporary artists and architects are utilizing explicit appropriation and historical reference as a primary method of production. This mode of thinking can …

Representing Rurality, Carolina Esther Jimenez

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Architecture is a system of representation. Architecture’s power is that through representation we may change previously constructed conceptions and misperceptions, and ultimately it can transform patterns of spatial inhabitation. Through words, images, drawings, and built work, we define modes of experiencing space. This project seeks to redefine Nebraska as a territory of critical social, political, economic, and physical importance through architectural representations.

Five Rings To Rule Them All / Olympus The Architecture Of The Olympics & Global Media, Harsha Royyuru

Honors Capstone Projects - All

900 million people across the globe tuned in to watch the London 2012 Olympic Opening Ceremony on television. The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) own broadcasting division circulated over 100,000 hours of coverage to respective national networks, extending the breadth of the Olympic telecast into every one of the 204 participating countries. At the conclusion of the Games, more than 1 billion views had been recorded on NBC’s YouTube webpage specifically designed for Olympic coverage. In a time when occupation of space via digital media is the preferred method of experience, what is the agency of the architect? Stadiums once designed …

Guerrilla Tourism|The Anti-Resort In Cuba, Michael Kowalchuk

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Guerrilla Tourism: Between the Resort and the Casa Particular The justification for guerrilla tourism in Havana draws from the political experiences of the urban guerrilla movements of the 1970s which transplanted rural guerrilla strategies to the city. The same basic rules continued to apply: a working knowledge of the terrain and local communities, an ability to strike and retreat quickly and a network form of military-political power. The anti-resort is a collection of micro-hotels in the city that rely on public support programs and fit within communities instead of dominating them. The current tourist infrastructure of Havana is socially unsustainable: …

The Knowledge Accident Situating The Built University Within The Virtual, Alanna Beth Rosenblatt

Honors Capstone Projects - All

Abstract

The increasing un-sustainability of the built university and the rise of the apparent mass democratization or synchronization of higher education through the virtual Massive Open Online Course [MOOC] is occurring concurrently with the mutation of the historically grounded Accident into the Knowledge Accident. The standardization of higher education through the MOOC has created the conditions for the Knowledge Accident, the “integral accident”, of the built university. This is where we find the present state of the university, in a moment of crisis grounded in unconstrained "progress".

The current form of the MOOC, begun in 2011, has expanded and evolved …

The Manifest Narrative, Kelsey Requeña Devries

Honors Capstone Projects - All

I posit that architecture can serve to expose the vital immigration, labor, and consumption processes underlying food production in the United States through a clear narrative made evident by techniques of sequence, mimesis, and composition in a functional monument containing an Immigration Advocacy Center, Community Garden, and Farmer’s Market for the city of Sacramento.

In architecture, narrative is the observation, interpretation, and implementation of ideas developed through stories. The architect formulates an observation about something in a society that exists or should exist in the form of a story, finds a time and place where the narrative is applicable, and …

2041: A Communal Life, Nathaniel Thomas Danciger

Honors Capstone Projects - All

I posit that an architecture of collective cultural spaces, shared human and animal habitat, and affordable local building techniques, implemented through the design of a co-housing community, would promote a collaborative and communal way of life in harmony with the natural landscape and offer a model for the future development of former agricultural and suburban sites in a manner preferable to the current practices of the American suburb. This project is concerned with redefining the way that people in the United States will occupy rural landscapes in the future. The site for this new co-housing model is a field outside …

Engaging Holistic Health Through Active Design In Public Space, Alec J. Hembree

Honors Capstone Projects - All

The design proposal for a health center and urban network of active pathways in Pittsburgh, PA is the cumulative result of two semesters of research and a partenership between myself and Emily Sholder (non-honors; B. Arch. May 2014). The ideas behind the research and design work included within originated from the pressing need to address physical health issues, educational shortcomings, and community disparagement present in many cities in the United States today. By addressing these issues at the scale of the individual, the school, and the urban environment through design in public space, we feel that architecture can empower people, …

A Transient Community For A Transient Lifestyle, Sameh Mohamed Ibrahim

Theses and Dissertations

The project suggests an alternative means for living in Qatar. It proposes the development of a transient, floating community a man-made, transitory archipelago of floating housing units located at the ‘soon to be abandoned’ docks a short distance from the Museum of Islamic Art and the Doha Corniche. The design, through a variety of bespoke dwelling options, can provide both more and less nomadic housing to accommodate a variety of dif- ferent lifestyles and social units. Clustered around three permanent islands (containing a cultural/activity center, three adaptable ‘work-unit’ towers, and a park/commercial area), the design provides a wide set of …