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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
The Evolution Of Chinese Supermarkets In North America: An Alternative Approach To Chinese Supermarket Design, Ruoxin Lin
Masters Theses
This thesis begins by investigating the evolution of traditional Chinese markets to Chinese supermarkets in North America. By charting the trends of these structures in shop floor layouts and site approaches, a hybridized architecture is uncovered. Then, through the design of a contemporary Chinese supermarket in Philadelphia, PA, the thesis demonstrates how values of identity and cultural awareness can be brought into dialogue with architectural trends.
Translational Placemaking: The Diasporic Archive, Alia Varawalla
Translational Placemaking: The Diasporic Archive, Alia Varawalla
Masters Theses
Globalization and mass migration has propelled a hybrid existence, as individuals that occupy multiple geographies we live in a constant state of translation. Our museums and cultural institutions are in opposition to this; static, preserved and de-contextualized. At the intersection of printmaking and architecture, this thesis proposes a living archive to document the collective migratory journey across sites, materials, and hybrid identities. A network of centers for knowledge sharing and production centered on India and its diaspora. As art practices and people migrate, cultural production evolves with its context, gaining new meaning as it changes hands generationally and globally.
Rooted In Topsoil, Jiaying Wang
Rooted In Topsoil, Jiaying Wang
Masters Theses
Disillusioned by my transnational identity, I have come to realize that my sense of belonging is no longer attached to any physical location, but instead to a state of mind, to an intimacy with the world. My notion of home is an obscure and unsettled—at times utopian—idea, which can be infinitely decoded, re-positioned and re-established psychologically. This thesis is an investigation of that liminal state, questioning the paradoxical place at the intersection of longing and belonging, interior and exterior, rootedness and uprootedness. Through a collection of short essays that accompany projects, I seek to unpack the precarious emotional complexities that …
In-Between Spaces: Atmospheres, Movement And New Narratives For The City, Paul Alexander Stoicheff
In-Between Spaces: Atmospheres, Movement And New Narratives For The City, Paul Alexander Stoicheff
Masters Theses
We often think of architecture as distinct buildings, yet as we move through the city we continuously pass through a built environment that is a collage of buildings. These spaces between buildings are underestimated as influences on our experience of everyday life in the city. Considering architecture as linked existential experiences through spaces rather than confined to individual buildings is more in line with our experience of the city as a series of interconnected spaces and places. Rather than describing a single, static architecture through words, how can we express this linked experience of spaces dynamically through narratives? Can writing …
Block 271, Reviving An Industrial Artifact, Jared Thomas Pohl
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 …
The Life And Death Of An American Block: A Dialogue With Entropy, Micah Daniel Antanaitis
The Life And Death Of An American Block: A Dialogue With Entropy, Micah Daniel Antanaitis
Masters Theses
My goal in this thesis is to frame, through design, an existing environment in a manner that fosters the witness and embrace of the reality and beauty of decay—which acts as a marker of the passage of time. My intent is to engage in a careful renewal of a neglected, and largely forgotten, urban landscape, which does not ignore its temporal context. My hope is to explore the full potential of the life cycle of buildings and discover the lesson of mortality in modern American ruins.
Things fall apart. This is a simple truth about the physical world that humanity …