Architecture Commons^™

False Actually: Constructing The False-Hyper-Real In The Quotidian American Landscape, Rose Maalouf

Architecture Senior Theses

The thesis contends that imagery, deployed through the deliberate staging of an architectural scene, can misrepresent actuality for the creation of cinematic illusion.Through the consideration of matter as imagery, my project aims to design a set of fictive traces of life/occupations that mimic the limits of realism. It is about designing a hyper-real landscape through narrative.

The author chose the site of Erie Boulevard in Syracuse as a place to catalog over time through a series of photographs. My observations over the course of 6 months gave me an image catalog to extract from and a set of actions that …

2047 City: Hong Kong’S Identity In A Space Of Disappearance, Mike Liu, Raul Sadhwani

Architecture Senior Theses

Hong Kong has always been colonial; its existence is shaped from the confluence of East and West. After 158 years of British rule, Hong Kong's handover to the Chinese Government, catalyzed by the expiration of its 99-year lease of the New Territories, began in 1997 whereby the city operates under a "one-country-two-systems" policy. These events have created a culture and identity of disappearance as the people of Hong Kong have scrambled to define their identity due to the imminence of its disappearance, as discussed by Ackbar Abbas. This is exemplified in the Umbrella Revolution in 2014 when citizens, mainly students, …

Amazon Vertical City: The Fulfillment Center Of The Future, Jessica Casero Lopez

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis looks for at the projection of Amazon's patent drawings for vertical fulfillment centers and speculates on their design to evolve into a significant typology in the present day.

Amazon is the world's largest online retailer. In June of 2017, Amazon released one of their most compelling patents, a multi-level fulfillment center with a beehive structure for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The release of the drawings made international news. These could change the way distribution centers are perceived and designed. In 2017, Amazon had 300 million users worldwide. Rapid growth has enabled Amazon to expand to different continents and forced …

Getting There: The Return Of A Public Infrastructure, Yun Qing Hu, Sizhe Wang

Architecture Senior Theses

The Greek agora was a crossroad, a civic center, a marketplace. The colonnade stoa lining the Agora of Athens was, as John Camp has written, "a true public building, designed for no specific magistrate, group or function..anyone could pass the time of day there. It was, therefore, a popular meeting place..." An agora was a social space, a place to meet or a stop while en route to other destinations. Such public space naturally formed at the intersection of social, political and commercial activities and promoted a diversity of constituents.

Public space is where society is shaped and where the …

The Denuded Image: A Critique Of The After-Image, Danya Li

Architecture Senior Theses

The Denuded Image aims to create a conversation between a photograph and its viewer by adding back the third dimension. It is not a proposal of how architects should design space, but a model for observation and study of how to create new ways of seeing. The dioramas at 1:8, 1:4, and 1:2 scales expose the reality of the forced perspective and the denuded photograph's distorted characters. As scale increases, the observer is invited to engage with the in-visible parts of the image that differ in materiality. The final spectacle includes all models and their respective images, to expose the …

Encyclappedia: Confronting Sidewalklabs Digital Physical Community, Katharina Elisa Körber

Architecture Senior Theses

Google's Sidewalk Labs claims that its plans for Quayside in Toronto will result in the "most measurable community build from the Internet up" [Dan Doctoroff, CEO Sidewalk Labs]. How can we understand the realities and implications of an urbanism that so radically challenges the current physical and mental relationship between humans and architecture, and architecture and digital devices? This thesis examines the roles of architects when a city and its architecture are planned as a community of digital devices. It explores ways to disrupt and conceptualize Sidewalk Labs' strategy of a community where humans and non-human devices "live" among systems …

Finding A New Center: A Study Of Neo-Industrial America, Juliet Domine, Virginia Paulk

Architecture Senior Theses

As a result of globalization, manufacturing in America moved overseas. The coasts, with greater access to international markets, have flourished, creating a distinct divide between the middle and the edge. Moving from the post-industrial era into the current age of the neo-industrial, revitalization of the middle can occur by introducing an industry utilizing previous skill sets. Therefore, the center of the United States can be made relevant again through the programmatic revitalization of post-industrial sites.

In the post-industrial era, St. Louis has suffered from economic decline, unemployment spikes, and population decreases. Revitalizing forgotten industrial spaces with a new mode of …

V.1 Spring 2019, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The Spring 2019 issue contains articles on studio practice, a Sculpture studio that uses Fort Adams as an installation site, Harvard Art Museum's pigment collection, a student's recollections of the British Club in Bahrain, creativity in Sri Lanka, gender agnosticism/transgenderism, RISD Provost Ken Kleinman, Vice-President of Social Equity and Inclusion Matthew Shenoda, reflections from the workshops "Urgency Lab," the Sunrise Movement, a RISD Museum performance "Strand," a counter-protest to the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, religion …

Reimagining Future Sustainable, Climate-Resilient Urban Design For Apia, Samoa: Developing Plans For A Developing Nation, Alyssa Kaewwilai

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Small island developing states are arguably the most vulnerable, exposed nations on a global scale to the harmful effects of climate change. Particularly in Samoa, an abundance of environmental, economic, and social impacts have severe impacts on both the country as a whole as well as on an individual level. This study analyzes future mitigation strategies of land use and urban design to recreate Samoa’s capital of Apia as a more climate-resilient city to encourage economic growth and to ensure the well-being of all inhabitants. This planning is based upon current challenges of Samoa driven by climate change such as …

Historic Structure Report: The Roper House, Kiim Hlavin, Rucha Kamath, Dana Marks, Amy Mendelson, Sada Stewart, Chris Tenny, Kendra Waters

Master of Science degree in Historic Preservation - Research Reports

A historic structure report is a typical document product of historic preservation research. An Historic Structures report is a comprehensive assessment of a building or buildings including the history, physical condition, and evolution over time. Usually prepared during a moment of transition for a building or property, the historic structure report prepared in the Spring semester of 2019 for the Roper House is no exception. Should the use and programming of the Roper House change from its current configuration, this report contains helpful information to record the building in its current state, and suggestions to best carry out and accommodate …

The Professional Constructor, Full Issue, Volume 44, Number 01

The Professional Constructor

No abstract provided.

The Empty Mill: An Analysis Of A Disappearing Linchpin Of Southern Society And Its Hope For A Preserved Future, Matthew South Bright

Senior Theses

August Kohn’s report, The Cotton Mills of South Carolina, published in The News and Courier in 1907, attempted to document the impact that cotton mills in South Carolina had on its places, people, and growth. Over 100 years since the lists publishing, a comprehensive evaluation of the mills had not been undertaken. This thesis endeavored to evaluate the current status of the South Carolina cotton mills from Kohn's 1907 list. Of the original 141 mills, 120 were successfully located and their status mapped in a Geographic Information System (GIS). Sixty-six were found demolished, twenty-five were standing, and twenty-nine were developed …

Bridges As Part Of City Symbols An Analytical And Descriptive Study With Case Study In Basra, Iraq, Armen Sakis Khosrof Markarian, Kkhalil Ibrahim Ali

Emirates Journal for Engineering Research

Various studies had covered a number of major areas and sectors (Mehalla) in Basrah describing its major roads building methods and characteristics of traditional and contemporary buildings. They also cover the rivers passing through the city and the canals where bridge from a strong link between the parts. These rivers and canals formed a significant element in the city formation. These studies did not cover the visual impact of these bridges nor have documented evidence about their attributes and significance on the whole city especially. This study tries to through the period 1870 – 1958 this study tries to fill …

Multi-Purposeful Water Design For Monte Sano Park In Baton Rouge, Yuta Masakane

LSU Master's Theses

Today, water-related disasters, including hurricanes, flood, and stormwater surge, are occurring more frequently than in the past due to extreme weather brought by climate change all over the world. In August 2016, Baton Rouge had a historic heavy rain which brought flood and negative economic impacts specifically on the north Baton Rouge area. To mitigate the negative impact of future flooding, in Monte Sano Park and its neighborhoods in north Baton Rouge, it would be helpful to implement green infrastructure which utilizes natural infiltration process of soils and plants to slow, store, and treat the stormwater as well as enhances …

Creative Chaos And Effect On The Livable City, Mohammed Qasim Al Ani, Wurood Adeeb Khamees

Emirates Journal for Engineering Research

The city is a complex entity and needs the integration of several urban systems. Urban systems, including the development plans and the strict building codes, will lead to the loss of part of the creativity and vitality of urban dwellers. When these laws and plans lose control of the city, the needs of the occupants will be clearly visible, sometimes leading to uncontrolled urban chaos. However, this disorder to count as the driving force of life that drove occupants like Baghdad residents to express their needs. The city life and its complexity will appear through several criteria governing their regularity …

Design And Fabrication Of Automatic Single Axis Solar Tracker For Solar Panel, Ghazanfar Mehdi, Naveed Ali, Shafquat Hussain, Asad A. Zaidi, Ahmer Hussain Shah, M. Mustafa Azeem

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Sun energy is a considered to be one of most promising sources to address the world energy crises. Photovoltaic cell is one of the prominent sources of energy. The most important factors that affect the efficiency of solar cells are cell temperature, maximum power point tracking (MPPT) and energy conversion efficiency. The optimization of these factors improves solar cells efficiency for more reliable applications. This study associated by means of the designing and manufacturing process of single axis tracker device by using photo voltaic conversion panels. This solar tracker system assures the conversion optimization of electricity from the source of …

Fractal Dimension As Objective Function In A Genetic Algorithm For Application In Architectural Design, John Charles Driscoll

Systems Science Friday Noon Seminar Series

One of the goals of The Green New Deal Resolution reads, “upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximal energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification.”

How can this realistically be done given the sheer number of buildings in the United States? This presents a ‘wicked’ problem that calls out for a systems approach. This is also, in essence, a design problem. As data scientists we are used to using models to analyze data but there is another aspect to these models that can be used not to …

Galactic Preservation And Beyond: A Framework For Protecting Cultural, Natural, And Scientific Heritage In Space, Matthew Rosendahl

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

In July 2017, Moon Express, a private spaceflight company, announced plans to build an outpost on the South Pole of the Moon by 2020. The goal? To mine the Moon for minerals and water that could then be sold for profit. Indeed, the Moon has been found to possess resources with lucrative uses, both in space and here on Earth. The potential for huge rewards has incentivized several private and governmental actors to launch planned expeditions to the Moon, with China becoming the third nation to land a spacecraft there in 2013. Both China and India have since announced plans …

Measuring Element (31) External Walls Completion. An Introductory Demonstration, Tony Cunningham

Other Resources

This demonstration is addressed to Irish students taking measurement or quantities modules at first year or entry level of quantity surveying related programmes.

The worked example has been carried out using traditional handwritten quantity surveying processes on traditional dimension paper. It is acknowledged that, in actual practice, this would be carried out using measurement software or on-screen measurement technology. The traditional handwritten approach, however, has been retained in order to enable novice students to develop the necessary measurement skills and build confidence through direct contact with drawings and written taking off processes. In addition the presentation illustrates how the work …

Rough Roads Ahead!?, Sarah Reed, Brooke Thomas, Jim Hellmann

Purdue Road School

Have you ever found yourself in the public's cross-hairs when it is time to implement a few roadway improvements? Are you handicapped in your ability to describe the true value of community planning and economic development planning? Come hear from one dynamic trio with the ability to identify issues and opportunities that others might not see and work to uncover even more ways tin which we are better together.