Digital Commons Network^™

Creating Dormitories With A Sense Of Home, Johnathon A. Brousseau

Masters Theses

With more people in the United States renting now than at any point since 1965, there is an amorphous temporality in the dwellings of many Americans (Cilluffo, Fry, 2022). This provides flexibility and thus, more freedom for upward mobility, an enticing attribute for younger people living on their own for the first time. However, this lack of permanence can create challenges in establishing a “sense of place”. When residents don’t feel a strong connection to their spaces, they can feel as if they don’t belong. This issue is especially prevalent in dormitories, where a feeling of belonging is vital to …

The Current State Of Practice Of Building Information Modeling, Kevin P. Brooks

Masters Theses

Building Information Modeling (BIM) has become extremely prominent in the construction industry in the past twenty years. It serves as a digital repository that can, when used to its fullest potential, combine all aspects of designing, building, and managing a structure in one place, alongside all the data produced in those processes. The construction industry has to date struggled to increase productivity alongside similar fields, such as the manufacturing industry, though the construction industry generally has far more stakeholders on one project than the manufacturing industry. Further, building designs are becoming more complex while project schedules are becoming tighter. As …

Designing For The Unhoused: Finding Innovative And Transformative Solutions To Housing, Hannah C. Campbell

Masters Theses

Architecture has not adequately addressed homelessness. A large population of unhoused individuals and families, in all parts of the country and even the world, are underserved by buildings and spaces. Moreover, architectural research has yet to address the depth of the problem and the necessity of versatile solutions. The aim of this research is to provide design solutions that are useful for those experiencing homelessness by focusing on the specific needs of the community. The program and design presented in this thesis attempts to find the best solutions specific to Amherst’s needs as a community. This thesis argues that, although …

Music As A Tool For Ecstatic Space Design, Pranav Amin

Masters Theses

Music and architecture share a sacred bond across cultures. Their histories intertwine and together, they shape ritualistic, religious, and popular practices. As one of the few remaining avenues of universal transcendental experiences that have been so integral to humans, music’s ability to create ecstatic spaces is ever more necessary for the modern human. This thesis uses spatial, artificial intelligence, visual, and aural tools—while engaging in a dialogue between rationalist architecture and shamanic conceptions of spaces—to create an ecstatic space that seeks to reimagine the union of music and architecture. It reveals new ways in which this union can be experienced …

Architecture Of Extraction: Imagining New Modes Of Inhabitation And Reclamation In The Mining Lifecyle, Erica Dewitt

Masters Theses

Mining is the primary method through which modern society obtains the minerals needed to fuel the global economy, provide for modern energy requirements, and support the built environment. Presently, mining accounts for nearly 1% of the global ice-free land surface, with a dramatic increase anticipated in the coming decades. Mining permanently changes and often destroys the pre-existing topography, hydrology, and ecology of the ground, and efforts to reclaim mining landscapes—with the aim of encouraging reforestation and soil replenishment—are often unsuccessful, rendering the land of abandoned mines both unusable and uninhabitable.

This thesis addresses the current state of mining in the …

Utopian Thought And Architectural Design, Anthony L. Faith

Masters Theses

This thesis proposes that architectural utopian ideas are the foundation for societal change. The communities that form from utopian ideas act as test sites for societal values on a microscale (Gondolf 1985). When communities work together on a utopian vision through dialogue, they avoid the pitfall of one person’s utopian vision being blanketed over the world (Schneekloth 1998). Utopian communities solve problems through experimentation that create different ways of living which act as visions that can provide hope (ibid). Ruth Levitas, author of The Concept of Utopia, defines utopia as “the expression of the desire for a better way of …

Improving Energy Efficiency Of School Buildings With Solar-Assisted Cooling For The Maldives, Ahmed Fathhee

Masters Theses

Anthropogenic activities are responsible for the impact of global climate change because of burning fossil fuels releasing harmful gases into the environment. As a result, the global temperature has risen about 1.18 °C since 1880, causing the global sea level to rise by 178 mm over the past century. This is a threat to countries that are closer to the ocean, especially the low-lying countries such as the Maldives. It is predicted if the sea level keeps rising, most of these islands could be below sea level by 2030.

The Maldives has a tropical climate requiring cooling to achieve thermal …

Prioritizing Climate Equity: A Qualitative Analysis Of The Massachusetts Mvp Program, Noah H. Gordon

Masters Theses

The Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness Program (MVP Program) has funded Community Resilience Building workshops in hundreds of communities over the past 6 years. The Planning Reports produced by these workshops offer valuable insight into the climate adaptation and climate justice priorities of Massachusetts municipalities. Climate justice literature holds that the impacts of climate change will be disproportionately felt by marginalized communities, and those addressing climate change should address the risks faced by those communities, referred to as Environmental Justice (EJ) Communities in Massachusetts. Using an inductive qualitative coding approach, this study analyzes 30 Planning Reports from towns with High, Medium …

Off-Grid Living For The Normative Society: Shifting Perception And Perspectives By Design, Patsun Lillie

Masters Theses

Off-grid houses in the United States are often connoted with mostly non-professional, home-made structures and isolated, hippie living in remote rural areas. These off-grid homeowners may also complete their consumer-independent commitment with a minimal-waste, land-dependent lifestyle that includes methodical harnessing and recycling of resources and materials, raising livestock, and productive gardening on the property. This research paper explores the background, methods and kinds of typical off-grid living structures, their ability to harness natural resources for function and performance, and the ability of its occupants to remain resilient in the face of depleting fuel resources, extreme weather patterns, and rising costs …

New Chapter, Gunju Kim

Masters Theses

This thesis addresses the challenges posed by rapid aging in Korean society, particularly in depopulated rural areas, where the aging population ratio is significantly higher compared to urban areas. With the predicted elderly population reaching 40% by 2050, it is crucial to develop effective strategies to cope with this demographic shift.

The increasing closure and abandonment of schools in depopulated rural areas further exacerbate the challenges faced by these communities. While efforts have been made to repurpose closed schools, many of them still remain unused. This thesis proposes the reuse of abandoned schools as community centers to tackle both the …

Interstice, Shravan Rao

Masters Theses

When I was about three years old, I distinctly remember being too small to see what was on top of the table. A couple of years later, when I could see those objects, I thought the world around me had grown smaller. In a way, it did, as I experienced, lived, captured, remembered, and shared the space repeatedly. This sense of the world shrinking was exaggerated during the Covid-19 pandemic, allowing new behaviours and modes of interaction to emerge. Continually shaping our modern lives, virtual technologies redefine how we access and share information and stories or even explore new places. …

Nurturing Haven: A Safe Place For Single Mothers, Meng Su

Masters Theses

Single mothers may turn to substance use as a coping mechanism due to the overwhelming responsibility of caring for children on their own. Raising children without the support of a partner can be emotionally, physically, and financially demanding, leaving single mothers feeling stressed, anxious, and exhausted. These feelings of burden and pressure can lead to depression, and substance use may sw to maintain their responsibilities and provide the care their children need. This thesis proposes the integration of two typologies: a harm reduction center and a daycare center, with the aim to de-stigmatize single mother substance users and create a …

Making Pla(Y)Ces: Softening The City Through Play, Shivani Pinapotu

Masters Theses

Cities that grow naturally over time integrate spaces of gathering that allow for serendipitous happenstance. However, the cities we design today instruct and codify through intentional planning and design; they assign use, hardening specific function to place. Such strategies lead to spaces devoid of spirit, inculcating in city-dwellers to a sense of disconnect from the city.

In contrast to this, the places we make as children, express our intuitive, direct, and unselfconscious relationships with space and one other. These spaces embody softness through their malleability and adaptability, borrowing from the world around them and imbuing the ordinary with imagination. …

A Cloud Above, Jiwon Kim

Masters Theses

Even though Manhattan has a lot of green space, it is not sufficient to reduce the urban heat island effect of so much concrete and metal. This thesis proposes a new way to create more green infrastructure in dense urban areas. by utilizing the stack effect through a chimney structure as an air purifier. Additionally, it proposes the widespread use of facades with Heliostats to produce and use solar energy within the structures.

This thesis considers a four-storeyed parking lot that has two entrances on the south and the north. Its walls are merged with those of the adjacent mid-rise …

Beyond Burial - Transforming Death: A New Ritual Of Farewell And The Ecological Return Of The Body To Nature, Chang Xie

Masters Theses

Burial and funeral culture have been shaped by human self-awareness and reflect an anthropocentric worldview. The modern funeral industry's multi-billion-dollar enterprise is based on the principle of protecting, sanitizing, and beautifying the corpse to promote the idea of human exceptionalism. However, this practice overlooks the natural process of decay and the potential beauty in returning the body to the earth, with which the body shares the same chemical basis as the earth itself. Modern science has provided Eco-friendly green burial methods, such as soil modification, ice burial, and water burial, making it suitable to contribute to natural ecology using human …

Interactive Architecture - Intervention Of Virtual Business On Commercial Space, Yihao George Xu

Masters Theses

Traditional mall-based restaurants, such as P.F. Chang’s in the Providence Place Mall, have primarily focused on site-based dining and bar services. However, the food provided by this chain restaurant often lacks depth, and customers seldom learn the story behind the dishes. This thesis explores the integration of mixed reality technology within the physical environment of P.F. Chang’s, an American Chinese restaurant chain with over 300 locations, aiming to transform it into an authentic Shanghai food culture experience. This experience combines virtual and physical stimuli to evoke various periods of Chinese history, providing a unique encounter for customers.

The proposed transformation …

The People's Food Project, Grace Barrett

Masters Theses

The architectural design of spaces offering food assistance has received little to no attention since food pantries emerged in the 1970s. Non-profit food initiatives are often sited quickly with limited resources, producing inadequate spaces unable to fully support a food insecure community, prioritize the experience of users, and create a sense of belonging. The current spaces limit services to merely food distribution. They do not take advantage of the opportunity to expand socioeconomic capital through the power of shared food experiences: growing, cooking, eating, and learning.

This thesis redefines the traditional food pantry model, responding to explorations in psychological comfort …

Reconcile Liminality, Zefeng Wang

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the concept of liminal space as a metaphor for the current transition to the digital era. We are not fully prepared for what the future holds. Fears and worries surrounding rapid development are amplified by the potential for social problems. However, by examining human development in history, we can gain insight into our current situation and start a discussion about where we are headed. The objective of this proposal is to create a space that eases concerns about the arrival of the new digital age. This is particularly relevant to Japan, which is now at a digital …

Out In Thin Air, Daiqing Zhang

Masters Theses

My work often takes form in experience-charged installations underscored by phenomenology. The whys and hows behind the work mostly remain unspoken, since I would rather my work speak for itself. This writing project offered me the opportunity to comb through and tell the stories and thoughts that informed the work.

I have built a collection of documentation about the experience of having a sensitivity to moments of wonder in everyday life. These archives recorded sensuous imprints in life composed of mundane phenomena. In the collection there are images/footage of a glimpse of light leaking through cloud crevices; a brush of …

Adding Subtraction: Wasting Time In Space, Daeun Kim

Masters Theses

Architecture is designed to increase our productivity – think of features like uniform workspaces, straight pathways, or purely functional rooms arranged to optimize tasks. When forced into constant productivity, we gain efficiency, but we end up exhausted and disconnected from one another. We need to design subtraction spaces in our workspaces and everyday life, spaces that accommodate the feelings and dreams of the occupant: spaces where we can wander, wonder, feel, connect, relax, restore, and reset. By challenging the perception that time just moves on and cannot be controlled, people can shift time: they can start, reverse, break, accumulate, prolong, …

A.R. Futuristic Scenario In Seun, Yookyung Lee

Masters Theses

Due to social distancing policies during the coronavirus pandemic, people have increasingly turned to digital platforms to fulfill what they previously enjoyed in face-to-face interactions. The high demand for virtual world services, called “metaverses,” has sparked discussions about the possibility of completely replacing the real world, which has raised questions about the role of architects in dealing with physical spaces. However, it is widely believed that digital elements will merge into the real world instead of completely replacing it, which makes augmented reality (AR) a key technology to study in the context of architecture.

In “Learning from Las Vegas,” Robert …

Nature As Material, Time As Tool, Chuchu Chen

Masters Theses

No building stands forever. Over time, the natural environment acts upon the outer surface of the building, leading to the failure of materials and the final dissolution of the structure itself, leading to ruin. In order to prevent this or retard its occurrence, we constantly maintain and renew the things we build. Nature seems to stand in opposition to architecture. The passage of time is constantly subtracting from the building. However, what differentiates nature from architecture? This thesis questions whether these two are not opposed, but on a continuous spectrum. Approaching the building as part of the overall environment that …

The Mobile Senior University, Youshurui Li

Masters Theses

With the rapid development of technology, social networking is no longer just a face-to-face connection between people and traditional methods of contact are becoming less and less dominant. During the COVID-19 pandemic, isolation pushed us further apart, but connection through new media has also brought us closer together. Compared with the young, the elderly are generally less familiar with how to use this connection to strengthen each other's social interaction and enjoy the convenience of contact over space. This thesis proposes an architectural approach to bridge this gap and design a mobile university for seniors, focusing on new media and …

Moving Narration: A Journey Through History, Yincheng Zhu

Masters Theses

The Central Pacific, as the first transcontinental railroad, is a remarkable achievement in the history of the United States. However, the story of what happened during its construction, including the struggles of the first generation of immigrants from China who built the tracks, and the resistance of native Americans to cede their lands, is largely forgotten. The California Zephyr, as a long-trip train that currently runs on the Central Pacific tracks, is not only a means of transportation but should also tell the history of survival and resistance embodied by the landscape it moves through and tracks it travels over. …

Intensifying The Experience Of Contemporary Art, Wanjin Feng

Masters Theses

Contemporary Art museums, emphasizing visual experience- es, struggle to accommodate multi-sensory art forms. This thesis introduces a groundbreaking exhibition design mod- el focused on creating immersive, multi-sensory experiences for visitors. The model transitions from a passive observation paradigm to an interactive perception approach, fostering a deeper understanding and emotional connection to art.

Applied to the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), the model introduces strategies such as narrative sculptures, interactive drawing spaces, integrated reading within exhibitions, and emotionally-driven spatial design. These strategies aim to make art more accessible, promoting personal connections with artworks.

In conclusion, the proposed model transforms contemporary art …

Overlooked Modi Vivendi, Natalia Silva

Masters Theses

Traditional gender roles, performance of heterosexuality, marriage, parenthood, and a large variety of other societal expectations manifest themselves in the domestic realm, both intangibly and spatially. The design of domestic spaces has historically catered towards heteronormative living stereotypes, marginalizing people whose way of living challenges the norm. Even in the present day, designers with non-user clients — developers, investors, real estate firms, etc. — will design with heteronormative households in mind. The rise in feminist and LGBTQ+ rights movements has allowed for non-heteronormative modi vivendi (ways of living) to be more vocally and visibly present in the sociopolitical and cultural …

The Miacomet Movement, Charles Duce

Masters Theses

Nantucket MA, is an island that has failed to refine and regulate the unreasonable uses of freshwater supply, and re-establish the purification processes involved with filtering our wastewater. The validity in claiming re-evaluation for Nantucket’s immoderacies in freshwater consumption and implausibility's in existing wastewater treatments, is seemingly irrefutable. Along with these detriments, Nantucket experiences harsh coastal erosion conditions that are rapidly altering beach profiles and diminishing irreplaceable habitats. Similarly, coastal flooding is causing ecological displacement and in some instances ecological degradation.

The relentlessness and fleetingness sparked by Nantucket’s climatic realities require willing and able action to mitigate impacts; but our …

Illusion Of Consumption, Architectural Rebellion: Unraveling The Maze Of Consumption, Xinjie Xiang

Masters Theses

Consumerism was born in the industrial age, and has been criticized since that time, but it still exists and flourishes in new forms with the information age. Consumption affects values and life, spurring economic growth and causing ecological crises. Therefore, a critical discussion of consumerism must continue.

This thesis proposes a space within an existing mall that raises people's awareness to be vigilant against the control of consumerism by exposing how marketing packages goods and manipulates people's psychology to guide consumption. An ideal mall to host this program is the Changsha International Finance Square, a large mixed-use building in the …

Orchestration Of Experience, Jingyi Shen

Masters Theses

The sensory experience shaped by the landscape unconsciously influences people’s emotional and mental states. Contemporary urban landscape designers prioritized the functionality of the landscape, sometimes ignoring the spiritual impact of the atmosphere created by imperceptible environmental sonic factors. Orchestration of Experience explores the connections between sound and vision in shaping people’s sensory experience of the landscape. Drawing from soundscape ecology, environmental psychology, and dynamic visualization, this study demonstrates how they are closely intertwined. Motivated by the idea that white noise can unconsciously affect people’s mental health by Michael Rutter, we question how physical and sound landscapes shape each other, how …

Sensible Nature: To “See” As We Once Did, Yuhan Su

Masters Theses

This thesis starts with the premise that our growing dependence on tools and digital technologies has led to a gradual decline in our sensory acuity, causing a disconnect between people and nature.

To address this issue, the thesis aims to re-establish lost connections by utilizing plant-based sensorial designs that evoke emotions and instincts, reigniting empathy and intimacy with the natural world.

By utilizing these strategies, this thesis seeks to enhance our ability to perceive, connect with, and appreciate the world around us, thereby creating a stronger, more intimate relationship between humanity and the environment.