Architecture Commons^™

Preserving Pullman: Historic District Becomes Illinois' First National Monument

DePaul Magazine

Pullman has long had a place in history, labor and urban planning, but the spotlight on this far South Side neighborhood is about to get a whole lot brighter. On Feb. 19, President Barack Obama announced the designation of the Pullman Historic District as a national monument. With this move, Pullman entered the National Park Service portfolio, joining such iconic American sites as the Grand Canyon, the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore, and becoming the first national monument in Illinois. Pullman's history, architectural significance, and residents are spotlighted.

After The Solar Decathlon: Creating A New Design-Build Program, Eric Weber

Architecture Faculty Presentations

The School of Architecture’s intent was to use the Solar Decathlon as a catalyst for creating a new Design Build program. The project allowed the School to leverage support into acquiring tools & equipment essential to creating the house, and for upgrading the school’s shop facilities. The projects completed immediately following the Solar Decathlon utilized both digital fabrication and prefabrication. This is significant because the School intends to leverage both of these competencies, developed during the Solar Decathlon, in order to further the School’s craft-based pedagogy. Due to the Design-Build Studio’s development of the Solar Decathlon house, there has been …

After The Solar Decathlon: Creating A New Design-Build Program, Eric Weber

Architecture Faculty Research

In Fall 2011, the University of Nevada-Las Vegas School of Architecture’s David G. Howryla Design Build Studio began development of UNLV’s entry into the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2013, an international, university-based competition to design and build solar-powered housing prototypes. As a competition that requires collaboration between engineering, architecture, interior design, marketing, and communications, the Solar Decathlon is an effective tool for simulating teamwork on real projects. The School of Architecture’s intent was to use the Solar Decathlon as a catalyst for creating UNLV’s Design Build program. The project allowed the School to use support for the project …

A Study On Urban Agriculture: Recommended Actions For California, Clarissa Marie Caruso

City and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Welcome Back Downtown-Revitalization Concept And Guide For Downtown Hughson, Monet Sheikhali

City and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Measuring The Influence That Components Have On Pedestrian Route Choice In Activated Alleys, Samuel Hirsher Gross

Master's Theses

This paper explores how cities have integrated formal planning into improving public space. Through a review of literature on the topic, this the paper identifies the potential design has to renovate narrow streets and alleys, within the public right of way. By preforming an assessment of plans and programs, this paper identifies the common themes or components that have been used by planners, architects, and engineers to improve the urban environment for pedestrians. Based on this information, a pilot study was created to measure the influence the most common components have on pedestrian route choice. The results are then compared …

The Design Build Experience In The Context Of A Self-Consolidating Grout Research Project, Tanner Blumenfeld, Jordan Delfino, Deryk Izuo, Matthew Josten

Architectural Engineering

The purpose of this project was to experience the design-build project delivery method in the context of a research-fueled, procedural testing investigation. Thus, this project consisted of 3 main components each of which will be addressed in this report.

The first aspect to be addressed is the research aspect. The goal of our research was to establish a chemical understanding of how replacement of cement with pozzolans in a grout mixture affects chemical processes and resulting structural characteristics within and of the grout. This research was then applied to formulation of potentially self-consolidating mix designs to be tested in the …

Energy In The Ecopolis, Sara C. Bronin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

Climate change, resource scarcity, and environmental degradation demand a paradigm shift in urban development. Currently, too many of our cities exacerbate these problems: they pollute, consume, and process resources in ways that negatively impact our natural world. Cities of the future must make nature their model, instituting circular metabolic processes that mimic, embrace, and enhance nature. In other words, a city must be a regenerative city or, as some say, an “ecopolis.” So, how to get there—to ecopolis—from here? In this Comment, I propose a partial answer by focusing on certain legal frameworks that must be reenvisioned to enable the …

Mala Lā’Au Lapa’Au: Preserving The Hawaiian ‘Āina And Mo’Omehue, Sandra Fogg

Senior Honors Projects

The study of medicinal plants in the western world tends to focus on the isolation and elucidation of natural products that have bioactive characteristics and potential for pharmaceutical formulation. However, the utilization of medicinal plants in cultures that still practice ancient medicine, such as Hawai’i and other Pacific Island nations, involves the use of whole plant parts in conjunction with spiritual rituals to heal illnesses and ailments. In order to gather a different perspective of the use of plants in medicine, a diverse investigation of “Lā’au Lapa’au,” or the Hawaiian art of healing through the use of plants and spiritual …

Tools Developed For Courtyard Design To Enhance Daylight Performance In Adjacent Spaces Under Desert Clear Sky Conditions, Maitha Mohamed Dalmouk Al-Nuaimi

Dissertations

The court or courtyard refers to an area surrounded by the walls of a structure. It does not have a roof and is open to the sky. The courtyard is functionally an outdoor space that can be used in many ways: to provide extension to the indoor activities in the outdoors, to create a central space for social activities, and/or to create a private garden. Its high popularity is understandable as it improves building's functions and occupants' security and privacy; and it promotes fresh air and light. The majority of studies have been carried out on the environmental aspects of …

A Framework For Guiding The Briefing Process In Public-Private Partnerships In The Uae Construction Industry, Rauda Saeed Ali Saif Al-Saadi

Dissertations

Public-Private Partnership (PPP) is a procurement method that employs a long-term contractual arrangement between public and private sectors with the intention of developing a public facility. A PPP brief must supply information that not only particularizes the project requirements but also specifies its program, risk management, expected performance output and payment mechanism. Many challenges currently face the briefing process of PPP projects in the UAE. A uniform briefing process has not been agreed, because there is no unified tender law or PPP procurement process in the country. The main aim of this research is to develop a framework for guiding …

Using Archived Transit Data To Analyze The Effect Of Rainfall On Transit Performance Measures At The Route Level, Nicholas F. Bleich

Master's Theses

This study investigates the effect of rainfall on transit performance measures at the route level in the Puget Sound region of Washington State. Transit agencies are required to report certain performance metrics to the Federal Transit Administration (FTA), but performance measures can also be used to evaluate service and provide customers with information regarding the transit system. Using a three-year sample of archived automatic vehicle location (AVL) and hydrologic data the relationships between ridership, travel time, delay, and rainfall were investigated. The analysis of daily ridership and rainfall resulted in no statistically significant results, however, the results are supported by …

Utility Scale Solar Projects In California: An Initial Survey, Meaghan Mroz-Barrett

Master's Theses

The lack of a comprehensive database for both concentrating and photovoltaic utility-scale solar power projects, those with a generation capacity of greater than 50 MW, hinders the ability of researchers and policy makers to examine the state of solar development in the state of California. This research project seeks to fill this gap in understanding by creating a database of proposed and developed projects in order to examine trends in proposals, process time, approvals, and construction starts. Existing literature was evaluated to determine potential factors for project success in approval and construction. Upon determination of these factors, the project database …

The City Of Milpitas Historic Gateway Background Report And Design Guidelines, Jaime Marie Jaramillo

Master's Theses

The aim of this project report is to investigate and identify the needs of the historic area (focus area) in the City of Milpitas, to positively contribute to the City’s planning process, and to make recommendations for the focus area’s future development. In the first chapters, City and focus area research results are presented. Currently, there is a lack of exclusive regulatory standards for attractive development in the City’s historic core. The project report then discusses the results of a short empirical everyday user survey, a parcel-by-parcel land use survey, and a walkability analysis. Research results indicate that the focus …

Power Shift: A Catalyst For Architectural Transformation : Rapid Transit, Cincinnati, Dachamont Kaewket

Masters Theses

Large-scale architectural projects rely on political stability, and take considerable time to realize. The survival of an architectural development depends on outliving the governing bodies that initiate these improvements. With a change in power, often these large-scale projects are halted, demolished, or left unfinished.

The adaptation of these unfinished structures can reconcile the difference in a power shift, providing an important sense of continuum that is not only a record of the shift in power but also a source of connection through time with this fragmentation. For these reasons, Cincinnati’s subway system is a good example of a public project …

Equilibrium: Public Spectacle For Social Integration, Reem Al Thani

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the ways socio-cultural methods of integration can influence architecture, using built form as a catalyst for connection in fragmented cities or communities.

Architecture plays a role in accentuating or diminishing socio-cultural segregation that exists in developing cities with diverse cultures. Doha, Qatar, with a population split between 13% National and 87% Expatriate, is an example of a developing city with extreme diversity that struggles to maintain its local community alongside foreign influx. The situation is jarringly apparent in the form of isolated architecture that has overtaken the city with glass towers and megastructures that are out of …

The Post Office Reimagined : Restoring Healthy Living In America, Mallory Buck

Masters Theses

Our built environment and broken food system are significant contributors to the obesity epidemic in the United States and must be considered when working towards a solution. Careless development patterns and city planning based around the ease of motor vehicle travel have left us with fragmented neighborhoods, increased dependency on cars and unsafe or uninviting sidewalks, each contributing to increasingly sedentary lifestyles.

Simultaneous changes in communication needs and increased connectivity through use of email have led to a drastic decline in the use of the postal service, causing major financial problems for the government agency. Historically a staple to every …

Redefining Liminal Spaces Through Natural Phenomena, Hanna Kim

Masters Theses

This thesis harnesses the untapped potential of spaces that are easily overlooked within our urban landscapes. By highlighting the environmental elements within these spaces (wind, precipitation, temperature and light) the quality of everyday urban life is enriched.

Used to living in predefined built environments that shape our thinking, we often fail to perceive subtle aspects in our surroundings and lose sight of their value. Alley spaces are perceptual urban blind spots: blighted left over places due to minimal activity. Their sense as "other spaces" presents them as undefined afterthoughts of city planning. Due to ambiguity of their status, the alleyways …

The Complexity Of Plainness, Michael Clouse

Masters Theses

The works that I am drawn to consistently have a simplicity to them, why is this so? Plainness must be a positive quality: it bears a clarity that helps reveal why a work is made the way it is. Restraint and necessity are agents for the process of making simple works. The necessary elements are positioned deliberately, in such a way that reveals the way a space is meant to be experienced. The recognition of multiple readings and calibrated alignments weigh more profoundly when plainness is achieved because it is through simplicity that our senses are attuned.

A great work …

In Light Of Light, Chen Sun

Masters Theses

The pursuit of architectural discourse is indeed a search for a better material existence of space serving the immaterial. Meaningful space should outreach beyond its actuality, satisfying more than the basic pragmatist. It should generate an experience evoking appropriate sequence of emotions, expressing the current life and culture.

Light should surely be the subject of the discourse then, because that space conveys most of its intentionality through altering the behavior of light, while we also contributes to the alteration with our inhabitation. Like a silent speech, Light doesn’t merely conduct the spatial actuality; it also conveys the emotions attached through …