Architecture Commons^™

Spaces Of Our Own: Reclaiming Community In Jaipur's Informal Settlements, Daisy Bhambhani

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

India’s rapid urbanization has resulted in fragmented urban fabrics, where women and children remain in vulnerable positions. They face systemic barriers in education, health, and social belonging due to under resourced environments. Despite the nation’s commitments to gender equality and the right to education, slum environments continue to lack adequate infrastructure that supports learning and collective well being. Architecture has the potential to combat these challenges by creating spaces that promote social inclusivity.

While architects and planners have recognized the increasing need for inclusive spaces, most projects do not explore how a built form itself can create empowerment within marginalized …

Building For Shared Experience:Common Ground Through Interaction, Belonging & Elective Learning At Clarkston High School, Tiana Mcbride

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis explores how adaptive reuse and spatial organization can transform a typical high school experience into spaces that support collective belonging and organic interaction. Located in Clarkston, Georgia, a city recognized for its diverse immigrant populations, the project expresses the transition from literal cultural representation to the formation of unified space, without assimilation.

The proposal reuses the existing structural framework of a former school building. Reorganized through a central atrium strategy with the addition of elective class learning to facilitate the natural gathering of students within the spaces they love and choose. Elective programs, commons, library spaces, and shared …

Folding As A Generative Process, Donald E. Malcom

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This research is an exploration of folding in architecture as a way of conceiving of form and space. Transformation of volumes and planes allow for the creation of a pliancy system that generates a complexity of both spatial and form making. The continuous form and space generated by the transformation allows for a phenomenal experience of the space both visual and physical by the incorporation of all aspects of the structure from the floors to the ceiling to the circulation to the structure, all incorporated to the singular system of folding. Folding can be understood as a system of regular …

Biomimicry Of The Everglades, Angelica M. Moss

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The Everglades Ecosystem is a slow moving river of grasses, encompassing 1.5 million acres from Lake Okeechobee southward to the Florida Bay. The ecosystem is a constant mosaic of gradient habitats, flowing from fresh to saltwater and from grasslands to forest, creating both resiliency, but also an interdependence. All ecosystems possess keystone species, who help to define how the ecosystem is shaped and behaves. In my thesis, I explore several keystone species within the Everglades, namely the mangroves, the family crocodilia, and the roseate spoonbill, and how formal translations of these organisms can produce functional biomimetic buildings that give back …

Domestic Remix: Rethinking Home When Everything Happens Everywhere All At Once, Erika Louise Morales

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

With the cost of living rising, Americans are gravitating towards a living arrangement that may seem unconventional by local standards, but is common throughout the world: multigenerational households. This shift signals a growing openness to shared domesticity and a more collective way of living. Traditionally, Americans, like many Western cultures, are perceived to be more individualistic, whereas multigenerational living is often associated with more traditionally collectivist societies in the East. Yet, as social and economic pressures rise, Americans are reconsidering what “home” means to them, not only in terms of their individual space, but in terms of how their day …

Power Writes, People Rewrite; Distribution Of Collective Memory Through Space After The 1954 Coup, Brandon G. Maldonado

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis examines the relationship between power, propaganda, and spatial memory through the lens of the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état and its lasting impact on collective cultural identity. In response to systems that have controlled and suppressed narratives, the project proposes an alternative architectural framework that reclaims memory as a collective, participatory act. Operating across plazas, protest routes, and alleys in Zone 1 of Guatemala City, the project transforms existing urban conditions into a distributed system of memory production. In plazas, memory is created through acts of gathering and making. Along protest routes, a mobile kit-of-parts which carries the crafts …

Antidepressant Architecture, Joshua Landrum

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Both suburban sprawl and urban habitats continue to expand throughout the world, particularly in western civilization. With that expansion, the number of mental health issues have risen to an unprecedented level, leaving many individuals feeling isolated and depressed despite living in the most comfortable era of human history. This isolation is only escalated by the convenience of digital technology which allows us to get groceries, communicate with friends, and catch up on the latest news without ever having to leave our sealed domiciles or interacting with other people in a healthy and meaningful way. Through this self-destructive leisure, our connection …

In-Tsira Healing: Integrating Trauma-Informed Design And Sustainable Design Into Wellness Centers For Survivors Of Gender Based Violence, Eniola Ololade Esther Akinyemi

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Survivors of gender-based violence in Northern Nigeria face layered barriers to recovery, including trauma, stigma, displacement, and loss of livelihood. Yet the built environments intended to support them remain largely unresponsive. This thesis proposes a trauma-informed, climate-responsive wellness campus in Maiduguri, Borno State, grounded in cultural and environmental context.

The research asks how trauma-informed and sustainable design strategies can be implemented in healing centers to reduce re-traumatization, foster safety, and support reintegration through self-supportive, educational, and communal spaces?

How can trauma informed and sustainable design strategies be implemented in wellness centers to foster safety and healing while reducing re-traumatization, and …

Las Tres Regiones A Cultural-Historical-Educational Center Reconnecting The Generations, Giancarlo E. Cartulin

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Peru’s cultural identity has been fading away over the years across generations. Globalization, modernization, and migration have accelerated this disconnection, slowly leaving behind the traditions, stories, and practices that once shaped the nation’s identity. Although several museums in Lima display artifacts or cultural narratives from the different regions, no space immersively represents and unifies Peru’s three regions. In response, there is a need for a space where locals can celebrate their roots and tourists can learn the nation’s history and culture. This thesis proposes a cultural-historical educational center designed to revive cultural identity, strengthen collective memory, attract tourism, and support …

The Social Art Of Architecture: Designing Adaptive Systems To Protect And Sustain Collective Resistance, Jadyn Dortch

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis explores the concept of protest architecture, focusing on how temporary, mobile, and tactical structures emerge within social movements to challenge systemic inequities and reclaim public space. Architecture has often been understood as permanent and institutional, yet protest reveals its capacity to be agile, symbolic, and activist. The project is motivated by the recognition that space is never neutral—it both reflects and produces relations of power. Influences include Teddy Cruz’s work on borderlands and architecture as civic infrastructure, Henri Lefebvre’s foundational theories of the production of space and the right to the city, and Angela Davis’s Black Studies scholarship …

Lightness Shaped By Stone, Jared Arredondo

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

In a period defined by industrial standardization, automation, and increasing distance from material reality, architecture has become increasingly detached from the physical knowledge of making. Processes once grounded in time, touch, and material consequence are often replaced by speed, abstraction, and systems of production that conceal labor. This thesis begins from that condition and examines stone as a material through which architecture can recover a deeper relationship to time, craft, structure, and responsibility.

Stone resists speed. Its weight, density, and permanence demand precision, patience, and consequence. Each cut, joint, and surface operation requires an understanding of the material’s limits and …

From Sprawl To System: Reframing Suburban Thresholds For Density And Social Connectivity, Quincy A. Smith

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Suburban form is a fragmented and low-density system of sprawling divisions which prevents social connection, carrying a particularly adverse effect for low-income families that cannot offset these attributes with economic bandages. My thesis asks how suburban elements can be implemented at the urban and architectural scale to create an accessible and connected system which results in both individual expression and communal opportunity. More specifically, this thesis aims to translate the thresholds of prototypical suburban typologies into a structural and circulatory framework.

Stan Allen’s field condition concept is explored for the urban level research methodology, introducing repetition and the grid to …

Subaltern Alternatives: Reclaiming Agency Through Spatial Articulation, Nadirah Ali

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The concept of the subaltern, introduced by Antonio Gramsci to describe populations excluded from political, social, and economic power while still being used to sustain dominant systems. Today, migrant construction workers often occupy this condition: essential to urban growth, yet denied dignity, visibility, and participation in the cities they build. Their housing is frequently reduced to an instrument of control—spaces designed to contain labor rather than support life. This thesis proposes an architectural alternative.

The project examines contemporary cases of labor exploitation in the United States, Qatar, and Singapore, where migrant workers have faced unsafe conditions, wage theft, …

Learned Resilience, Rebeca Ortiz

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Haiti faces a complex web of environmental and social pressures, from deforestation and soil erosion to climate instability and strained institutional support. While regenerative farming and community-led development are often discussed in the context of sustainability, architecture is frequently relegated to the background, treated as a secondary or isolated fix rather than a primary driver of change. My work challenges this by positioning architecture as the central, regenerative framework that weaves together food production, collective learning, and civic life. I see the built environment not just as shelter, but as an active agent for resilience and a sense of belonging. …

Assessing Transit-Oriented Development And Mixed-Use Urban Planning Strategies In Taipei, Taiwan, Eliza Mccoole

CISLA Senior Integrative Projects

No abstract provided.

Un|Veiling Walls, Olivia F. Aratea

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis explores how trauma-informed design principles can be integrated into Kennesaw State University’s Marietta Campus to promote psychological safety, emotional resilience, and reduction of trauma triggers for survivors of sexual assault. While trauma-informed approaches have been implemented in healthcare and counseling, their application within academic architecture remains limited. This gap is important to consider given the rising rates of sexual assault, which have increased 62.5% since 2020. Current data shows that four in five women (81%) and two in five men (43%) experience sexual assault in their lifetime, specifically noting that college-aged women are three times more likely to …

Walking Easy, Grayson P. Isley

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis aims to aid in connecting an otherwise fragmented inaccessable area through safe and enjoyable spaces.

Virtual Matter: Architecture As A Critical Turning Point, Aden Sterchi

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The materialization of AI infrastructure has outpaced all regulatory frameworks, allowing data centers to proliferate with limited oversight despite their growing environmental and social impacts. Through a review of artificial intelligence’s technological development, the rise of big tech, and contemporary data center expansion, this thesis situates AI infrastructure within a broader pattern of deregulation, delayed accountability, and market-driven governance. Using a qualitative mixed-method approach combining historical analysis, policy critique, regional case studies, and research-through-design, the study examines how existing land use, utility, and environmental frameworks have failed to keep pace with the scale of data center sprawl; The study also …

The Patina Of Care, Jose Alejandro Carpio

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis aims to address the urgent need for adaptable, socially responsive housing in Sapporo, Hokkaido. The area currently faces a crisis in rapidly aging populations, youth out-migration, housing insecurity, and high rates of domestic violence. These problems are intensified by economic strain, harsh winter conditions, and periods when cultural stigma limits access to safety and community support. As it stands, current housing systems cannot evolve with the rapidly shifting demographics and social needs of the city.

Confront these challenges. The thesis proposes a megastructure-framework grounded in the metabolism movement and the works of Metabolist architects such as Fumihiko Maki, …

Interweaving Cairo's Urban Fabric: The Formal, The Informal And The Contemporary, Hagar Ahmed

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Architecture is a negotiation between memory and change, preservation and erasure. In Cairo, a city layered with history, rapid development threatens historic areas and informal settlements (AlSayyad, 2011). While monumental heritage preservation is institutionalized, informal urban fabrics are often excluded from heritage discussions and planning. This research explores Mansheyet Nasser, or Garbage City, an informal settlement between Islamic Cairo and the Mokattam plateau. Over the past fifty years, Zabbaleen residents have built a communal waste collection and recycling system that processes up to 80% of materials, outperforming many regulated cities (Fahmi and Sutton, 2010; Didero, 2011). This infrastructure is both …