Architecture Commons^™

Beyond Spectacle : Parametric Design To Life In Space, Ding Xu

Masters Theses

In recent years, with the help of rapid computational developments, Parametric Design has become common in architectural practice. Parametric architecture, due to its unique appearance, has rapidly been associated with certain aesthetic trends. This is mostly because architects initially adopted it to make radical forms, not because parametric techniques demand any specific geometry.

For the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion by Zaha Hadid Architects, the team built a dynamic and fluid structure using parametric techniques. The form evolved from the spiraling shapes found in nature, and the fluid geometry provides a continuum of space and a system of logic. As a …

Re:Connection: Exercises In Unplugging And Mindfully Reconnecting, E. J. Roseman

Masters Theses

How can architecture encourage focused attention and mindfulness in an increasingly distracted and distractible world? As a primary means of connectivity in the 21st century, smartphones and social media have provided unparalleled efficiencies, connectivity and entertainment. However, constant engagement with richly-pixelated virtual worlds has also brought about mass addiction to devices as college students log more compulsive “screen time” than ever before. Mental health issues such as crippling anxiety, diminished attention spans, and unhappiness, are on the rise as students disconnect from the physical world and are consumed by their virtual one.

This thesis is comprised of a series of …

Unfolding Embodied Experience: A Process-Driven Immersive Exhibition Design Model, Mooa Seongah Kang

Masters Theses

The collections of most museums are comprised of two-dimensional artworks—paintings, drawings, prints, and photography—and are generally presented within a white cube gallery platform. Within this restricted static view, displays rarely consider multisensory engagement and immersion that reveals the accumulated time and effort of creation. Yet for many artists, the process is as important as the finished product.

My impetus for this design initiative began by questioning traditional methods of display. Is it possible to reveal the hidden depth embodied in two-dimensional artworks, allowing audiences to participate with all their senses in the journey of an artist’s experience? In other words, …

Dying Differently: Designing A Death-Oriented Psychedelic Treatment Center, Grace Caiazza

Masters Theses

In the context of therapeutic treatment for the terminally ill, psychedelic assisted therapy instigates a direct confrontation with a person’s experience of dying. Over the course of several weeks a patient will arrive at a facility, lay down in a room, and for up to eight hours at a time recommit themselves to the question: how do I comprehend death? Their answer will come in the form of sensations and sounds, visions and abstractions — things that are perhaps not immediately understood, but rather are immediately and vibrantly felt. The answer will follow a non-traditional logic unfamiliar to the empirical …

Last Sunset : Design To Alleviate Social Isolation For Chinese Elderly, Linghui Li

Masters Theses

China has one of the fastest aging populations in the world. The country’s rapid economic development and urbanization have separated millions of older adults from their children, leading to empty nest families where the elderly must fend for themselves without assistance. Design in the modern era caters to the younger generation with more consumption power while neglecting the needs of these older adults.

In China, from the moment a child is born, confinement centers, preschools, and tutoring institutions, those venues are common throughout the urban fabric. Which spaces are mainly designed for the Chinese elderly? Besides meeting necessary physical needs …

Post-Standardization, Hengrong Stanley Ni

Masters Theses

The epistemological ground for Post-Standardization is the pursuit of a humanitarian and egalitarian Utopia.

Marx notoriously argues that the economic Base determines the Superstructure. Objecting to Marx’s deterministic categorization, Post-Standardization brings together the Base and the Superstructure, where social housing and cultural institutions (e.g., museums and libraries) amalgamate. In the context of this thesis, “social housing” is the Base, denoting a specific typology of this architectural category: social housing projects utilizing Standardized Prefabricated Architecture (abbreviated as SPA in the following); “cultural institutions” are the Superstructure, denoting such institutions that require little sunlight and produce little noise (termed as Dim-Quiet Programs …

The Cthulhu Journey : Storytelling Through An Architectural Immersive Experience, Rui Zhang

Masters Theses

The exhibition of sequential art is becoming increasingly popular. The subjects of these shows vary from fantasy, horror to science fiction depending on the style of authors. Compared with other 2d images, sequential art requires more narrative framing. Typical exhibitions show sequential art like regular images, however narrative is the essence of sequential art. This thesis will find a way to exhibit sequential art forms in a way that respects that they are based in storytelling. I will develop an immersive experience of sequential art. Immersion is also a narrative-based experience, if we combine the immersive experience with the sequential …

Dear City, Give Me Some Space; Creating Space For Ephemeral Forces In A City, Abinaya Sivaprakasam Thamilarasan

Masters Theses

Architecture of the past was regarded as a concrete entity, both in its materiality and approach, unresponsive to change within a city. Climatic and societal shifts greatly impact cities ill-prepared to adjust. How can the intractable architecture of the past become flexible? Does the current environmental devastation we’re witnessing demand architecture that can embrace, rather than neglect, such shifts?

Situated in Chennai, a densifying coastal metropolis in India, the adaptation focuses on two key shifts. Firstly, the climatic shifts: the alternating patterns of severe flooding, and periods of droughts. Second, the transient youth population within the city. They both share …

One Land / One Ocean: Reactivate Coastal Commons In Urban Territory, Chengie Zhang

Masters Theses

We all live in the same common -– the ocean common, sharing various common pool resources. With industrialization coming after capitalism, the resource regime is shifting and developing. The Blue Revolution and industrial aquaculture stand out as a strategy to efficiently gain resources to meet the population growth and the resource demands. However, it will reveal another form of cultural exploitation. People in the global south will become a labor resource for the global north and increase extreme coastal poverty brought by the depletion of mangroves for land and industrial places. In this book, I want to discuss the possibility …

Adaptive Reduce: Forging Architectural Futures Through Degrowth, Erika Kane

Masters Theses

There is widespread awareness of the damage caused by anthropocentric habits in the West, and there have been great strides in development of “green” materials and solutions. But what is the point of building more, though greener, if we are still building endlessly without utilizing the abundance within the built environment that typically gets dismissed as “waste”? This thesis seeks to translate the concept of degrowth, the downscaling of production and consumption, into architectural language, for more regenerative, equitable and collectivist futures.

The following proposal explores how an architecture of degrowth can facilitate sharing within a community and reclamation of …

From Invisible To Visible: The Third Wave/Way Of Intervention For Dashilar, Jiali Tian

Masters Theses

The existing community of the Dashilar neighborhood of Beijing is too economically dependent on tourists, who ever grow in number, resulting in the continuous compression of residents' living space. Most of the residents living in the neighborhood today are elderly people who do not want to move and migrant workers who are attracted by the low rents. International visitors are attracted by the long cultural history of Dashilar, which goes back 500 years. I am interested in reviving the cultural + commercial attributes of Dashilar, using craftsman as a medium to activate the productive values of local residents and to …

Field Guide To Gendered Public Life : Balancing The Preservation Of The Existing Vibrant Public Life With The Improvement Of The Female Experience, Christina Koutsoukou

Masters Theses

This thesis examines urban design practices in cities with long history, vibrant social cultures and complex cultural dynamics. Using Thessaloniki as a case study, it focuses on negative gendered experiences caused by some of these local cultural norms.

The study aims to understand and reveal to what extent these elements have shaped and reinforced experiences in the public realm, in order to propose more gender-inclusive approaches that can sustainably coexist with the city’s features forming its vibrant public life.

The research involves an analysis of the city’s built environment followed by a close investigation of the ways the city operates …

Endless Construction : Occupant Activism And Authorship, Jiayi Wang

Masters Theses

Though we don’t think of it this way, “Adaptive Reuse” often happens naturally, guided by users who modify their physical environment to satisfy urgent living needs. While these modifications may appear haphazard, they show the user’s individualism and life philosophy. We, as designers, should embrace these interventions to explore how to participate with the occupants’ adaptive reuse process over time. Given the richness of adaptation within the old residences in the ancient Chinese city of Suzhou, it is an appropriate place to explore both the skill of self–modification and the potential for interaction of designers in this process.

The old …

Revisionist Zinealog : A Coacted Countercultural Device, Madaleine Ackerman

Masters Theses

The REVISIONIST ZINEALOG functions as an evaluation and resourced countercultural device. Here, the user accesses a zinealog, (part zine, part catalog) and its supplemental Animate Postcard to become more familiar with how the canon of precedent positions its political relationship to a representational agenda.

This project is a critique and revision of the politics of aesthetics on the canon of precedent through the act of redrawing futures of the nonsite architectural imaginary.

Space In Sound, Gidiony Rocha Alves

Masters Theses

Due to its strategic location between Africa and the Americas, Cabo Verde became a major hub for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade where millions of slaves were transported across the Atlantic. The interaction of slaves and merchants saw a racial emergence that gave rise to a mixed culture rich in both European and African traditions. Towards the end of the 1800s, Drought, plagues, poverty and poor colonial rule resulted in forced migrations Westward which still affects the archipelago today. There are more Cape Verdeans living abroad than there are living in the islands. Immigrants in turn have had a major influence …

For A Moment, I Was Lost ; A Visual Reflection On The Process Of Grief And Mortality Within The Home, Adam Chiang-Harris

Masters Theses

Grief is typically experienced following a loved one’s unexpected death. It is human nature to experience grief or bereavement as a way of processing the end of a person's life and coping mechanism of the living. In cases where we have pre-knowledge of a person's inevitable departure due to illness, such as with terminal illnesses like Alzheimers, grief happens in a longer period preceding death. In this circumstance, caregivers, friends, and family, must endure a duration of hardship dictated by the progression of the disease while knowing the fated outcome of a person's life. Typically this period caused by the …

Notes On Institutional Architecture ; Towards And Understanding Of Erasure And Conversation, Liam Burke

Masters Theses

Material Conversations /məˈtirēəl/ /ˌkänvərˈsāSH(ə)ns/ noun 1. derived from an early memory of forming relationships to objects, a way to understand the physical environment through a scaling down process that follows, but is not limited to, space, element, material. 2. the way in which material components are tectonically related 3. a process which would inform one to work with materials in a way which is conceptually informed by both aforementioned definitions 4. an integral aspect of architectural design, Material Conversations enable the architect to establish a language with which to relate to the components of their work, to better speak to …

Community Conservation & Engagement Through The Architecture Of Public Transportation, Liam Costello

Masters Theses

A good public transportation system......should be extensive, quick, and efficient, while also being equitable and accessible as well as environmentally friendly and resilient to cope with climate change and rising sea levels. Until the 1980s, Philadelphia had an extensive streetcar network. From 1977 until 1992, however, all lines serving northern Philadelphia were abandoned, leaving the city’s once-expansive public transit system a shell of its former self. The communities formerly served by streetcar have the lowest average household income in the city and are mainly communities of color. Additionally, many of these residents do not own cars. Therefore, the people who …

Remnants, Sarah Chriss

Masters Theses

Remnants is a revision of our interaction with land extraction through reimagining processes of representation and image-making. By altering perspective and focus, the visual effects of commodity culture shift toward the consequences that occur before and after our consumption. Dependably lost in translation, spatial and temporal information of material exchanges across the globe uphold and preserve the synergy of our commodity transactions. In a field constantly playing with and pushing against the boundaries of representation, remnants aim to redraw lost connections of material transformations through a granite quarry in Rhode Island. Representation is a tool to revise visual narratives that …

Caregivers As Worldbuilders, Caitlin Dippo

Masters Theses

Caregivers as Worldbuilders explores architecture as the relationship between people and the space that surrounds them, looking to memorials, quilts, and forms of gathering to understand how communities use care to shape their built environment. A table was built to host gatherings over the course of the spring semester. Each week new prompts, props, and prosthetics transform the table to meet the needs of those who gather. With the table as a proxy, this thesis considers the in-between spaces that relate and separate us and speculates on how architects can work with communities to gain trust, listen to what is …