Architecture Commons^™

Designing Playgrounds For All Children: All-Inclusive Adventure Playground For The City Of Arlington, Texas, Taner R. Ozdil

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

A child’s play is an essential part of his/her connection to a community, social relations, and physical activity and mentality. Through play, a child gains an understanding of himself and his /her world. “Limiting children’s outdoor play harms their cognitive, social and language development, it limits their physical fitness, hurts their health, and reduce learning and the ability to cope with trauma” (Forest, 2008 p.140). Creating a friendly, safe and accessible environment for all is just as significant as the play equipment. Adventure playgrounds, which are in most cases natural environments for children, provide many opportunities for children to develop …

Mapping In The Humanities: Gis Lessons For Poets, Historians, And Scientists, Emily W. Fairey

Open Educational Resources

User-friendly Geographic Information Systems (GIS) is the common thread of this collection of presentations, and activities with full lesson plans. The first section of the site contains an overview of cartography, the art of creating maps, and then looks at historical mapping platforms like Hypercities and Donald Rumsey Historical Mapping Project. In the next section Google Earth Desktop Pro is introduced, with lessons and activities on the basics of GE such as pins, paths, and kml files, as well as a more complex activity on "georeferencing" an historic map over Google Earth imagery. The final section deals with ARCGIS Online …

Understanding The Dynamics Of Public Space: Zoning, Urban Design, And Use Value. A Case Study Of Downtown San Francisco, Joaquin Cabello Silva

Master's Projects and Capstones

This paper seeks to understand how zoning, urban design, and use value control the dynamics of a city and the public space, from the way they are shaped, to the way they are built, and finally to the way they are used. In this research the first step is to recognize that the strategies of zoning in a city are a way of governing and guiding the development of the space, followed by the urban design—which is a more tangible way of interpreting the different rules because it is the actual form zoning takes—to then see how they generate an …

Aer-075, Yasmin Soliman

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

Anticipating the potential future changes of airport design and expansion along with city planning for the purpose of bringing the two entities in closer alignment with one another is the main purpose of this book.

By conducting a timeline analysis of five different US cities and their airports, conclusions were drawn from tracking the relationship between the growth patterns of both. This allowed for a discovery of methods to increase connectivity with one another. These conclusions were followed by an overview of the jet industry and its possible future impacts on the way airports are designed, considering future adaptations of …

Typology Of Stigma, Silvia Flor Quiroz-Perez

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

This study begins with an analysis of the proposed site and campus of what is being called the “Corridor of Hope” in Las Vegas. Followed by an analysis of “Haven for Hope” in Texas which is a built campus that is being used as a model for what the “Corridor of Hope” will become.

This base analysis of the proposed campus will be used to compare and contrast with other typologies of shelters that exist.

In order to better understand the homeless population in and around the Las Vegas valley, an initial demographic analysis is done, followed by a geographical …

[In]Hospitable, Pedro Borquez, Taylor Wolak

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

Through comparative analysis of existing development in this region, this project identifies archetypes of ranging scale and magnitude which will influence evidence-based adaptive reuse design strategies and prototypical responses. With such a vast infrastructure, many opportunities exist to subvert paradigm shifts of thinking in terms of desert living, resource management, and utility distribution.

Hospitality Design Pattern Language, Tracy Hang

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

The Strip is a destination location where visitors can experience the uniqueness that each integrated resort has to offer. This thesis argues that the design of all aspects within and around an integrated resort influences guest experience and is a major contributor to creating the uniqueness of each property. The intent for the exploration of this thesis is to prove that the compilation and documentation of the patterns specific to hospitality design is necessary in becoming a design tool to guide designers and hoteliers in the development and management of this specific typology.

Three tasks were performed within the application …

Artscape, Emylanie Carnate, Ronald Cano

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

In this thesis, three design opportunities are presented. The first design iteration looks at the micro scale. Public infrastructure along the length of the strip serves as canvases for public art. By expressing art on posts, utility boxes, guardrails, and bollards, a consistent rhythm of public art along the strip links together the separated attractions and properties. To emphasize this connection, the second design iteration implements intermittent hooks. Here, the meso scale reinforces public art interventions on medium-scale sites, such as street medians. The third design iteration is in the macro scale, which involves artscape anchors at either end of …

Environmental Emergency Calls In Dallas, Texas: Applying The Brace Model To Assess The Effects Of Microclimates On Urban Design & Human Heat Stress, Crystal Marie Kazakos

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

The objective of the study is to investigate how the practice of landscape architecture can help mitigate the effects of climate change and the urban heat island effect on vulnerable block groups in Dallas, Texas by using a model framework, to assess, project, analyze, develop, and evaluate microclimates in these urban areas. This study investigated how the physical morphology of urban areas affect the frequency of heat-related environmental emergency calls by applying the Center for Disease Control’s (CDC) Building Resilience Against Climate Effects (BRACE) framework. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) was used to identify warm trends in Dallas block groups in …

Defense In Desolation, Dounia Bendris

Theses and Dissertations

This paper discusses different forms of defense strategies in architecture throughout history as well as how a building’s function morphs over time in relation to the political and social climate that surrounds it. Both of these concepts provide a framework for understanding my thesis drawing, “Defense in Desolation,” which uses bunkers in abandonment as a reference to the psychological impact of architecture outside of functionality.

The Fault With Asphalt: Towards Absorbent Urban Design In New York City, Scott Paul Redfern Brown

Student Theses 2015-Present

In the time of metropolises and rapid urbanization, design is instrumental in facilitating a mutualistic relationship between the built urban environment and the surrounding natural processes. This paper addresses the issue of stormwater runoff and identifies design techniques in urban areas used to mitigate the destructive consequences of urbanization related to precipitation and impermeability. With a focus on New York City, this study uses historical and current rainfall data as well as particular case studies to address successful rainwater collection and stormwater mitigation design implementations. To provide an interdisciplinary approach to combating stormwater runoff, the disciplines of environmental history, economics …

In Present Past: Sun Tunnels And The Historic Reconstruction Of Vision, Patrice M. Capobianchi

Theses and Dissertations

The following study investigates how Nancy Holt’s Sun Tunnels makes effective use of time and land to reprogram the modern viewer’s eye. By utilizing sculpture that is reminiscent of pre-historic observatories as an observational framing device against the landscape topography, the artwork succeeds in presenting a historic reconstruction of vision.

Staging A Modern Nation: The Art And Architecture Of The Peruvian Pavilion At The 1939/40 New York World’S Fair, Alida R. Jekabson

Theses and Dissertations

At the 1939/40 New York World’s Fair, the Peruvian government installed a multimedia display of objects and products in a foreign pavilion. An examination of the building and its contents provides a basis to understand how art and commerce work together to construct narratives of authenticity, nationalism and modernity.

Know Good Food: Fighting The Effects Of Food Deserts Through Community Education, Timothy Huntley

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

According to a nation-wide study conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture Service nearly 10% of the population “are living in communities that do not provide adequate access to healthy food retailers.” This phenomenon is commonly referred to as a ‘Food Desert’. This problem is predominately articulated in the low income, urban communities of color and many rural communities. The inadequate access to healthy food and the definition of what is considered a ‘Food Desert’ only provides a glimpse of the problem. Many families living in these low income areas have access to and are able to buy healthy …

The Benefits Of Interaction With Environments Created For Attracting Birds On People Living With Dementia, Mahsa Yari

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

In consideration of the increasing growth of people living with dementia, researchers have started to look at different interventions that help enhance their health and well-being. While the search for medical interventions is important, it is critical for other professions to consider how to contribute to the quality of care that dementia patients receive. Therapeutic landscapes can improve the overall care process for older adults with dementia living in long-term care facilities (i.e., dementia care homes) (Bossen 2010). While the landscape should be designed to help older adults with dementia, it should also create natural environments that attract birds that …

Impact Of Interactive Digital Kiosks Upon Social Behavior In Urban Public Spaces, Ravija Munshi

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

The objective of this thesis is to study the impact of Interactive Digital Kiosks upon human social behavior in urban public spaces. William H. Whyte; an author of The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, highlights several characteristics that promote the successful use of urban spaces: sitting space, nature, concessions, pathways, and triangulation (Whyte 1980). The way in which one of these five characteristics i.e. triangulation, influences human interaction is the focus of this thesis. Triangulation is the “process by which some external stimulus provides a linkage between people and prompts strangers to talk to each other as though they …

Fortifying Lower Manhattan's Shoreline, Krystel Campuzano, Mathlyn Mckie

Publications and Research

Lower Manhattan comprises less than 1% of the entire city’s land area, but generates almost 10% of the city’s total economic output, as measured by Gross City Product, and is the location of over 10% of all New York City jobs. Workers in Lower Manhattan come from all parts of the city. The District’s growth is supported by excellent access to transit, with 19 out of 25 subway lines and 26 ferry lines passing through the District. Any climate impacts in the District will resonate across the city as a whole and beyond. Because Lower Manhattan is a critical economic, …

Stitching The Void, Taylor Van Ness

Senior Honors Projects, 2010-2019

My thesis asks how architecture can play a role in the scientific surveying and ecological healing of a landscape of declining biodiversity in order to assist reforestation, while offering an invitation to returning wildlife. A series of architectural interventions stitched into the landscape are inhabited by reforestation activation devices. The symbiotic relationship between architecture and the devices allow for the implementation of a number of dynamic and pragmatic functions based on a pre-determined protocol.

Surrealism And Architecture, Jesse Halverson

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

A different way of thinking about Architecture, to reconsider the rationalism that has been my Architectural education and to rediscover lost poetics in the practice of Architecture. As Bernard Tschumi said, I aim to,

“reject functionalist ethics, to refuse the rational and to celebrate unrepressed delights.”

A critique of rationalism, surrealism explores the irrational and the unconscious. It endeavors to create a supreme point of contradiction, a perfect union of the rational and the irrational, a duality of dream and reality resulting in a super-reality - all to the end of rejoining a connection with an ultimate truth that is …

Blend Space: Architectural Storytelling In The Age Of Mixed Reality, Grant Moehlenhoff

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

Storytelling and narratives have long been traditions for communication in human culture. Hieroglyphics, cave paintings, and stone tablets became the mediums in which this common method of communication began. The reasons why people tell stories are numerous, the most common ones being to entertain, to keep cultural heritage, to transfer knowledge, or provide warnings to others of danger. In addition, cultures often use architecture as a place to embed these narratives.

As technology has rapidly developed, so have the modes for telling stories. Today, stories are moving beyond the physical, and into both virtual and mixed realities. Virtual and augmented …