From Concept To Design: Managing The Development Of The Avi Ari Café At Quinta Mazatlán, Jose L. Tabarez Jr.

Honors Theses

The Avi Ari Café project represents a holistic approach to sustainable architecture and civil engineering, focusing on integrating environmental stewardship, energy efficiency, and community engagement. Located within Quinta Mazatlán, a wildlife preserves in McAllen, Texas, the café is designed to blend harmoniously with the surrounding ecosystem while offering visitors a modern, functional space. This thesis explores the design, construction, and operational strategies employed to minimize the environmental impact of the café, ensuring its sustainability both during construction and throughout its long-term operation.

The project is structured around several key objectives: reducing waste generation, conserving energy, utilizing sustainable materials, and promoting …

Unraveling The Labyrinth: Disability, Spectacle, And Paranormal Tourism In The Winchester Mystery House, Karenna Gm Pullen

Student Theses

This thesis examines the intersection of disability, paranormal tourism, and cultural narratives through an analysis of the Winchester Mystery House and its owner, Sarah Winchester, from a Disability Studies perspective. The research problem centers on the commodification of disability within paranormal tourism, where disabled bodies and spaces are transformed into spectacles for public consumption. Using the Winchester Mystery House as a case study, the research explores how disability is framed within narratives of paranormal tourism, with a focus on stigma, fear, and cultural mythmaking. The methodology involves historical research, discourse analysis, and architectural evaluation to reveal how Sarah Winchester’s disability …

The Effectiveness Of Risk Management In Project Success, Vishwa Goswami

Harrisburg University Dissertations and Theses

Abstract: This study investigated the effectiveness of risk management on project success within agile software development environments. It addressed the increasing complexity and challenges that agile teams faced in managing risks, which, if unmitigated, could significantly hinder project outcomes relate to time, cost, quality, and stakeholder satisfaction. By examining the intersection of risk management practices with agile methodologies, the research identified critical gaps and proposed tailored solutions to enhance overall project success. The study emphasized the importance of incorporating risk management into project planning and execution, thereby increasing the likelihood of successful project outcomes. It analyzed the effects of organizational …

Reviving Neurodivergent Workplace, Nayeli Gonzalez, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

The post-pandemic era has left the United States with nearly one billion square feet of vacant office space, creating significant economic and social challenges. Alongside this, many employees continue to work from home, often experiencing adverse effects on their physical and mental well-being due to environments that are not conducive to long-term productivity. Addressing these issues, this thesis explores how outdated and underutilized office spaces can be revived, reinvented, and renovated to not only attract employees back to the workplace but also to accommodate the unique needs of neurodivergent individuals. Neurodivergent people, representing millions globally, often encounter sensory overstimulation and …

Roots Of Resilience: Designing Culturally Informed Healing Spaces For Asylum Seekers, Michelle Guzman, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

This thesis explores the role of culturally sensitive architectural design in immigration asylum centers, focusing on how these spaces can better support the well-being, dignity, and cultural identity of Hispanic/Latino asylum seekers. Current asylum centers often prioritize efficiency and functionality over the emotional and psychological needs of their occupants, resulting in environments that feel institutional, impersonal, and disconnected from the cultural identities of displaced individuals. This lack of consideration for the cultural background and emotional recovery of asylum seekers exacerbates the challenges they face, including isolation, trauma, and disorientation.

The research in this thesis seeks to address these issues by …

Engaging Our Elders: Reprograming The Architecture Of Continued Care Facilities To Engage The Community, Mercy Koehler, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

The elderly are one of the most overlooked groups in our population. The poor attention to the design of their living spaces is a sad testament to this reality. Designed like hospitals and prisons, nursing homes are sterile environments, uninviting to guests and suffocating to residents. The person-centered care of new assisted living communities is an improvement, but often the design of these institutions is governed by economic factors and architectural code requirements that continue to create isolated environments. To create truly inclusive spaces for our growing elderly population, care-centered design must go a step further and find programmatic ways …

Variant Minds - Designing For Neurodiversity In Offices, Maya Schiltz, Robin Puttock

Symposium of Student Scholars

High-functioning adults with cognitive disorders such as ADHD, Autism, and Anxiety are often overlooked when considering solutions to help neurodiverse individuals thrive. While low-functioning neurodiverse adults often receive support through specialized programs and care facilities, high-functioning neurodiverse individuals are expected to integrate into traditional work environments, which can severely impede their ability to succeed. Despite growing awareness around creating neurodivergent-friendly workplaces, many office designs continue to follow a “one-size-fits-all” approach, typically featuring open desk arrays, a few private offices, and meeting rooms. This setup fails to provide adequate separation from distractions such as noise, smells, visual glare, and other sensory …

Amazed: Teaching Architectural Design Styles With A Board Game, Monisha Sooklall

Publications and Research

Future architects can better solve problems or develop their design styles when they study the designs of prominent and influential architects. My board game Amazed educates players about four architects' architectural design styles. These four chosen architects are part of an extensive list of architectural pioneers. These architects were selected based on their designs that push the boundaries with curves, designs with curves in different ways, designs that capture the relationship between light and material, and designs that use glass and steel in modernist architecture. The architects whose designs were examined for this board game are Ludwig Mies van der …

Optimizing Indoor Environment Quality, Anjum B. Ahmmed, Christopher Gabriel Lopez, Jennifer Garcia, Marti Tapia, Nick Antoine, Alexander Aptekar

Publications and Research

This research investigates an integrative approach to health in building design by focusing on material selection and its impact on indoor environmental quality (IEQ). Specifically, the study examines clay plaster through sensory evaluation methods to compare its effectiveness with conventional finishes in filtering out unpleasant odors from chemicals commonly used in indoor spaces. Key parameters such as material texture, and visual satisfaction will also be assessed. Randomly selected participants from across campus will evaluate the odor of clay plaster and paint applied to the laser-cut composite boards, reporting on each finish's ability to mask the burnt smell of charred edges …

A Legacy Of Discord: Controversial Meanings In American Mudéjar Style (20th–21st Centuries), Francisco Mamani Fuentes

Artl@s Bulletin

This paper offers an American perspective on the term Mudéjar, examining debates in the study of American colonial art and architecture from the 20th century to the present day. It delves into the debates surrounding its stylistic classification and the resulting ambiguities associated with linking all geometric forms to Islamic aesthetics. The paper concludes that the current application of the term in architectural studies has overlooked criticisms from visual culture studies, which tend to ignore the constructive and design-specific aspects where Mudéjar might hold greater stylistic legitimacy.

Este artículo presenta una perspectiva americana sobre el término Mudéjar, examinando …

No Need Of Styles: Building Up Architectural Historiography, Carmen Popescu

Artl@s Bulletin

If styles lost impetus within the methodology of art historiography, in the (parallel) field of architecture, they were firmly rejected one century ago. One might consider that this more radical positioning (particularly in terms of epistemological tools) constituted the very reason for the undeclared but yet consumed divorce between the two disciplines. Attempting to define its specificity but also the autonomy of the discipline, architectural historiography followed a path less directly preoccupied with aesthetics and closer to functionality and technicity. My paper analyses how architectural historiography built up its idiosyncrasy.

Si les styles en tant que catégorie ont perdu de …

Optimising Public-Private Partnership Adoption For Housing Delivery In Oyo State, Nigeria: A Narrative Review, Mojisola H. Akinola, Funmilayo M. Adedire, Oluwafemi K. Akande

Journal of Sustainable Social Impact

The increasing global demand for housing and budgetary constraints have led governments in several developed and developing countries to seek new ways of providing housing. Among the several options adopted by many governments is to establish partnerships with the private sector, usually referred to as public–private partnerships (PPPs). In Nigeria, substantial gaps in the housing market still exist because housing delivery systems have not effectively satisfied the housing demands of the country’s low-income population. Despite the Nigerian government’s efforts to ease the housing shortage, the adoption of PPP has not been holistically embraced for the delivery of public housing projects, …

Providing Proteins To Belizean Residents Through Poultry Products, Ellis Freel

Poultry Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Belize is a food insecure, developing country. Although Belize has plenty of nutritious food in-country, the exportation of that food to generate income contributed to a distribution issue of that nutritious food. More impoverished areas of Belize do not have access to nutritious food because of the lack of affordability and high export rates. Diets with a lack of food, or lack of balanced, nutritious food can negatively impact growth and cognitive development, especially in children. Poultry is one of the only products in Belize not able to be exported. Implementing poultry into Belizean diets would affordably alleviate food insecurity …

Increasing Drift Capacity Of Non-Ductile Concrete Shear Walls Through Confinement With Fiber-Reinforced Polymer Application, Andrew Duong, Sophia Maglabe, Sheyna Rongong

Architectural Engineering: Graduate Reports

The seismic response and laboratory testing of pre-1980s reinforced concrete (RC) shear walls commonly exhibit undesirable concrete crushing and rebar buckling in the wall end-zones leading to a flexural compressive failure. The lack of ductility of these walls is attributed to low reinforcement ratios and absence of special boundary elements (SBE) as required by modern design code. Thus, the authors are proposing a fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) retrofit method to provide confinement to the end-zones of pre-1980s walls equivalent to that of an SBE. Current industry applications of FRP have largely been for shear strengthening of RC beams, columns, and …

Art Of Resistance: Reclamation Through Art, Christina Sifri

Undergraduate Student Research Fellowship

No abstract provided.

Barcelona As A Blueprint: Integrating Architectural And Urban Identity To Future Urbanism, Angela Uribe

2024 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Barcelona is one of the largest and most recognized European cities on Spain's Eastern coast. Throughout its history, it has developed a powerful sense of cultural identity through architecture, design, and urban planning. City identity in some modern architectural and urban developments is slowly disintegrating. This is problematic because these historical and cultural aspects help shape the urban and physical environments we live in today. The study focused on Barcelona’s specific planning strategies and design elements to conclude its underlying city identity, which was used as a point of reference for contemporary city development. The results showed that Barcelona’s Cerda …

Architectural Narrative: Exploring The Convergence Between Architecture And Film In Narrative Construction, Cynthia A. Carbajal

2024 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

This study explores the relationship between architecture and film, focusing on how both disciplines function as storytelling mediums through spatial and visual techniques. This research analyzes how both fields help shape experiences and the built environment. The methodology employed in this research consisted of analyzing selected films and specific architectural projects to assess the compositional techniques used within these works. The findings reveal a similarity in how architecture and film use cinematic and spatial design techniques to evoke an emotional response and heighten a narrative's depth, thereby enhancing the user’s experience. This study suggests a deeper understanding of this interlinking …

Implementing Down Syndrome Accessibility Features Through Renovations In The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, Bailey G. Samide

2024 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Down Syndrome is a developmental disability that affects all stages of development. To create accessible spaces, demographic information, such as age, about the users must be considered and the appropriate features should be added to cater to each stage of development. A few of the appropriate features include mobility improvements, setting clear spatial boundaries, and utilizing lighting techniques. This study explores the feasibility of implementing Down Syndrome accessibility features through renovations in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Using existing literature, a 3D mockup of the more optimal alterations was developed. A heatmap was created based on a variety of data, and …

Natural Lighting As A Strategy For Sustainable Design, Grace Holdsworth

2024 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Modern buildings are increasingly reliant on artificial light to illuminate interior spaces, decreasing the importance of natural light in architectural design. However, the adverse effects of climate change, catalyzing blackouts and rising energy costs, have made this reliance a significant issue. This study aimed to analyze the benefits of daylighting in architectural design and its ability to improve buildings’ sustainability. To examine the impact of sunlight on the perception of a space, a light box study model was constructed, and the interior was photographed periodically from sunrise to sunset. This study highlighted the dynamic quality of sunlight, and its ability …

Body As Instrument: Crafting A Spatial Representational Language For The Dancer's Body, Avery Boland

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project explored the intersection of dance and architecture using choreography, photography, and architectural principles through the development and application of a graphic notation system. Focused on the works of modern dance pioneer Martha Graham and photographer Barbara Morgan, the study tested the representation of the body in space through the use of Graham's choreography as captured by Morgan.

The results of the study demonstrated the effectiveness of the representational language in capturing the spatial dynamics of the human body in Martha Graham's choreography through the notation of “frame” and “plane”. Through a comparative analysis of the selected dances, the …