Digital Commons Network^™

The Transformational Power Of Forgiveness Within The Church, Mary Mckenzie

Masters Theses

This thesis seeks to explore and describe the concepts and effects of forgiveness within the church. It shows that the roots of violence, suffering, and pain are in the unhealed wounds of the past. It examines biblical, theological, and psychological materials on forgiveness, unforgiveness, and health benefits. Learning about forgiveness and how to use the skills can conceivably enhance mental and physical health through an optimistic and hopeful outlook on life. It highlights the differences of the definition and understanding of forgiveness and forgiveness from an intercultural perspective. Results from participants’ from five ethnic groups (African, African American, Asian, Caribbean, …

14-3-3 Protein Rad24 And Its Effect On Mid1 Localization And Contractile Acto- Myosin Ring Assembly During Cytokinesis In S. Pombe, Anissa P. Grawe

Masters Theses

In animal and yeast cells, cell division (cytokinesis) is facilitated by the formation of a contractile acto-myosin ring (CAR). Proper CAR formation and constriction is heavily reliant on the temporal regulation, phosphorylation, and localization of key proteins. In the fission yeast S. pombe, Mid1 is an important dimeric CAR scaffolding protein that connects the contractile apparatus to the plasma membrane at the right place and time during cytokinesis. Mid1 is confined to both the nucleus and protein assemblies called nodes during interphase, and transitions to the cell cortex at mitotic entry as nodes mature and coalesce into the CAR. Rad24 …

Social Security Act Of 1935 To Tanf: A Comprehensive Look At The History And Current State Of Welfare In America, Parker Gilkesson

Masters Theses

This study seeks to explore the welfare system within the United States. The study spans from the Great Depression to the current state of TANF, post-welfare reform, to better understand the current state of welfare within the United States in order to analyze the need for further welfare reform. The initial disparities in the system, from the very beginning, are worth analyzing because it provides a framework to understand how disparities could possibly exist in the program today. Social Policy Programs are systems that have been built from multiple policies and components over time. Faulty, systematic issues, must be evaluated …

Is Religion An Effective Rehabilitation Method? Comparing The Results, Ashley Kittrell

Masters Theses

Faith-based rehabilitation programs receive both praise and criticism from the criminal justice academic community. Critics argue they risk violating inmates’ constitutional rights by forcing them to participate and adhere to religious principles and activities. Supporters of faith-based programs claim that they reduce both recidivism rates and high incarceration costs. Current studies evaluating the effectiveness of faith-based programs have struggled to accurately define and measure either variable. This study compares two popular faith-based programs to a similar secular program to determine if there is a significant difference in recidivism rates using an independent t-test.

On The Edge Of Being, Zoe Gross

Masters Theses

On the Edge of Being represents a focused exploration of clay, craft, femininity, fragility, and self-care. The title is hopeful. It represents a certain radical gentleness with myself and with my work. It reminds me that as hard as I try, there is always room to grow and improve. It is also a bit of a joke with myself; I am rarely satisfied.

I began this body of work as a way of rejoicing in the tamped down impulses of my early artistic career. I wanted to infuse my work with magic: color, texture, pattern, flowers, frills, lace, kitsch and …

Preventing Lonely Death, Hyun Kyu Lee, Menghan Zhou

Masters Theses

Loneliness is part of a constellation of social, emotional and health outcomes for the elderly which collectively form one of the greatest public health issue worldwide. Various factors, such as losing connections with family and friends, and economic issues contribute to social isolation for the elderly, leading directly into the growing problem of “lonely death.” Lonely death describes the phenomenon of bodies discovered days, weeks, even months after death. It is possible to address this social problem almost entirely via architectural means, working within existing infrastructure of cities.

This thesis proposes a scattered elderly community within selected Boston MBTA Orange …

A Place For Plastics : Bioplastics, Bacteria And Our Thoughtless Acts, Megan Valanidas

Masters Theses

One third of all plastics end up in the ecosystem. It is time we start designing for this outcome. 311 million tons of plastics were produced in 2014 and that number is projected to more than double by 2050. Just 5% of plastics are recycled. Recycling alone is not mitigating the problem. The carbon footprint alone is massive. China’s recent announcement to no longer recycle the West’s waste promises even more challenges. We need to design for plastics to end up in the ecosystem and in the waste stream. This is where plastics go and this is where they should …

Moments Of Rotary Motion : Temporary Use In Vacant Industrial Heritage Architecture, Xuecheng He

Masters Theses

The vacant industrial historic building at 145 Globe Street within the Jewelry District in Providence, Rhode Island is designated one of the ten most endangered historic properties in the city. After surviving many stalled plans for renovation there are no efforts underway to save it, and deterioration from natural elements and vandalism continues. Many Industrial heritage buildings wait in a similar limbo. When there are no definite plans for renewal, often these buildings are left vacant for years without routine maintenance, causing severe damage and posing a threat to public safety. These buildings should be used as a resource in …

Foodways For Earthlings : Recipes And Tools For Eating In Extreme Environments, Maggie Coblentz

Masters Theses

Studying how food is made, consumed, and appreciated in extreme environments can help shed light on how our experiences of food extend far beyond that of mere nourishment. The social and preparatory food-based rituals found in even the most challenging conditions can lead to a deeper awareness of the role of food on earth today, and can illuminate how humans might eat in the future. This thesis examines the roles of food in war zones, in prisons, and in space to inform speculative recipes and food-based experiences.

Life After Dark, Austin Bamford

Masters Theses

Witnessing the movements of the moon, stars, Milky Way and meteors is a fundamental first step in examining our roles in the universe and revealing the material origins of the landscapes we inhabit. It is this cosmic understanding that leads us to steward our environments and identify who we are.

We see the choreography of the stars not only by seeing the celestial bodies with telescopes or the naked eye, but also by experiencing the ways in which ambient light interacts with ground—changing by the minute, season and year. It is the dynamics between source and surface that catches us …

Environmental Diversity For Student Residence Life, Jiaying Bai

Masters Theses

Anxlety, stress and difficulties in handling human relationships are the three most serious and common mental health problems among students of the Rhode Island School of Design, according to Shauna Summers, director of RISD Counselling and Psychological Services. As one of the best design schools in the country, RISD admits top applicants. It's common for students who had brilliant grades and performance in high school to find themselves no longer the best among their collea13ues, Moreover, the seemingly constant perfect performance of those around them adds to anxiety and stress. For these students, it is hard to recognize value in …

Harmless Studio, David Thomas Pittman

Masters Theses

This thesis project is oriented around a vegan concept brand called “Harmless Studio.” The project recognizes that industrial design causes and supports the harm of animals through the use of animal materials. This book presents the historical, social, and scientific background of the human-animal relationship as it exists today, and it challenges the common acceptance of that relationship as it is— ultimately suggesting that industrial design need not harm animals to serve human needs. This vegan approach to design is presented through a selection of sustainable, non-animal materials and objects made from those materials. The objects are presented as part …

Squishy Play, Lauren Traugott-Campbell

Masters Theses

Work is part of our identity and dictates how workers spend most of their time in the US. This obsession has truncated our imagination and ability to conceive of alternatives. As a tactic to reclaim free time, I offer a practice I refer to as squishy play in which participants momentarily adopt new social norms to collectively discover new ways of engaging with the world and each other.

I use squishy play as a lens to investigate the power structures, social norms, and material output of late capitalism in the US. Squishy play is generous in its frivolity. It is …

Placefulness, Ellen Christensen

Masters Theses

Graphic design has been referred to as a tool of inquiry — a method of thinking visually. Design can polish, beautify, hierarchize, eliminate, prioritize, propagandize, or disseminate. Using spatial inquiry as a primary mode of investigation, I argue that graphic design is also a process of attention and care. How can graphic design be a tool of expansion and inclusion?

By encouraging spaces of attention and listening within the built environment and virtual worlds, we can think critically about power dynamics, interiority and exteriority, and subjectivity and objectivity. Within this phase of late capitalism, I focus on leftovers, scraps, and …

Reveal The Aura : Risd Contemplative Atrium, Shuyi Guo

Masters Theses

The built environment affects us on an emotional and psychological level; architecture can be as calming as meditation. Architecturally-induced contemplative states allow inhabitants to experience the benefits of meditation through space. Emotional well-being is essential to personal development and integral to the creative process. The Rhode Island School of Design campus currently offers counseling and psychological services for student and faculty. What is not offered is a space for students and faculty to seek inner peace in a relaxed way. In order to support the RISD community by creating a place for people to promote mental health in a consistent …

Understanding Dwelling Beyond The Terrestrial, Sungkyu Yang

Masters Theses

One of the first places humans have lived outside of Earth is the International Space Station. However, the quality of life on the station is dehumanizing because it was designed to be a laboratory, not a dwelling. The condition of the existing space is monotonous and dooms residents to a boring and tedious life. The expression of beauty inherent in human nature is missing. The operation of the ISS as a space environment research laboratory is scheduled to end in 2024. This thesis explores how to utilize the adaptive reuse potential of the International Space Station to better understand human …

Radically Normal : The Menstruation Issue, Kathryn Smiley

Masters Theses

Hey readers, Periods are normal. But you’d never know that by checking out the average bathroom. The only menstruation-related public restroom fixture considered remotely standard is the trash, the one used to hide the evidence. A tampon dispenser is a rare sighting –a functioning, stocked dispenser, even rarer still.

Dispensers’ exclusion from public space reveals the ways that menstruation is not treated like other natural body functions. Instead, it has long been considered a sign of imbalance and weakness, discussed mainly in hushed tones and sly euphemisms. Historically, the medical profession has greatly contributed to cultural anxieties about women and …

Bound By // To // In Earth, Lila Pickus

Masters Theses

The story of Uravan does not end with its erasure in 1986. The 74 years of the town’s existence is only one chapter in the cyclical narrative of industry, individuals and the earth that shapes today’s political, economic and environmental discourse. Visitors to Uravan are active participants in this story’s ongoing development. The scale of this responsibility, however, is impossible to grasp.

Without the architecture and artifact that make history tangible, Uravan’s legacy is invisible. All remains of the town’s infrastructure have been demolished, yet the site continues to be defined by its intangibility. The rubble of a destroyed company …

Capes Make The Man, Khalid Mezaina

Masters Theses

‘Capes Make The Man’ is a project that provided me with the opportunity to grow as a designer and an artist. Over the last two years at RISD, I’ve frequently asked myself questions about my place and role as a man in the United Arab Emirates, and what awaits when I move back after graduating. Using personal narratives and cultural symbols from home, I bring to life the archetypes I carry as a mature masculine – my king, warrior, magician, lover and dancer. The end result is a series of bold, wearable capes, resembling stage costumes worn by pop stars …

Domestic Disorientation, Marisa Adesman

Masters Theses

At the center of all human life is the idea of ‘home’, and although this notion has persisted across time, the specific ideas and meaning of that word have changed significantly across the millennia. We are now in an unprecedented time of rapid change and social, economic and political upheaval, and from where we stand now, it is important to explore what ‘home’ means to us today, at both the individual and collective level.

The domestic space of the home, and the rooms within, represent a politicized site vis-à-vis gender, and these gender dichotomies are perhaps most prevalent in the …

The Arctic Commons, A. Gavin Zeitz

Masters Theses

The Arctic Commons envisions a world where geopolitical cooperation and transnational friendship generate an ethos of planetary collectivism promoting the future stability in the Arctic and rest of the world. This book will be a guide to understanding the Arctic at a range of scales, from governmental to regional, and finally the experiential and phenomenal that engages the unique ground conditions. The Arctic Commons encourages political action to create a new network of infrastructure that operates as a model for retrofiting global systems which currently fail to represent the common interests of the everyday citizen. Humankind’s current standards for social …

Home · Land : Olmsted's Legacy And Gentrification In Boston, Ma, Jessica Wilson

Masters Theses

Home • land is a master of landscape architecture thesis project encompassing an expansive body of trans-disciplinary research around the issue of gentrification and cultural displacement. The outcome is a proposal for a Community Land Trust (CLT) around Columbia Road in Boston, MA - the “missing link” of Frederick Law Olmsted’s Emerald Necklace park system. This book examines the impetus of Olmsted’s Legacy and the mayor’s promise to complete the “final jewel” of the necklace, the vectors of gentrification acting on the site, and the strategies and tactics that might aid in combating rather than catalyzing gentrification in this neighborhood. …

A Natural Circus, Cecilia Plasencia

Masters Theses

I’ve come to the conclusion that I have no interest in controlling and manipulating matter to my own heart’s content. I’m rather bored of rigidly perfect geometries and sentiments. Rather than controlling materials I allow them to do as they please. I capture their moment of revelation, and allow them to speak for themselves. I realize this process of making demotes me from creator to conduit, but I’ve noted that the materials have a far more unique and intelligent message than I could ever imagine.

So, I listen to matter. Matter has one very good friend, the center of the …

A Monument Thesis, Graham Rice

Masters Theses

Monuments are to something; people, events, memories, achievements, or tragedies. They are meant to freeze the moment of the builder and save it for the future. Monuments are an attempted cryogenesis, but monuments that preserve the past sever themselves from the present. They are cryogenic. They can be viewed, but are frozen behind the glass of time. All but the most potent of artifacts will fade at these low temps. Their relevance diminishes until they undergo a transmutation from an intentional object into a historical artifact.

These historic monuments are worthy of our suspicion. Do they replicate or preserve what …

The Room : The Space Between, Adelaide Cushing Mackintosh

Masters Theses

As a society we see the urban fabric as fragmentations. Spaces that are in front, behind and between. The urban landscape has been divided by boundaries of infrastructure and vehicular traffic. The pedestrian has been left behind. For the room the space between, I have studied these unwanted spaces and their commonalities. These spaces have become the keepers of our unwanted material. They are the impermeable landscape that roof drains lead to. These spaces are fragmented voids that tie together down narrow alleys and over streets. Why are these spaces undesired?

This thesis addresses the city of Providence, Rhode Island. …

Fungible Commodities, Kelly Taylor Mitchell

Masters Theses

This is an unbound portfolio printed using polymer plates on the vandercook press, in Providence, Rhode Island. The portfolio was created as a supplement for fungible commodities, a series of three multimedia installations.

Gassed Out, Toban Shadlyn

Masters Theses

As the automobile industry continues to evolve with car sharing services, electric vehicles and soon autonomous driving, the infrastructure that supports our present-day car culture will become obsolete. While the current advancement focuses on the future of car design and accompanying policies, there is a need to consider the evolution of our infrastructure from an adaptive reuse standpoint.

Among the different kinds of automotive infrastructure, gas stations in particular, are the most environmentally problematic yet advantageous due to their abundance. The conversion of gas stations, however, is not a new notion. While these sites have been renovated into cafés, restaurants, …

Living With Mega-Cavity, Ankang Xu

Masters Theses

With the future depletion of mineral resource, huge quarry pits will be remained in many areas in Massachusetts. They are like vast “scars” laying beside the urban fabric which create a sense of “urban sublime”. They exist abhorrently but definitely have significant influence on the region at many levels, such as ecology, hydrology, economy and society. Moreover, the abandoned mine pits have become a global environmental issue. How to deal with these “scars” will be a vital topic in the future.

In phase 1, the researcher focused on the study of quarries in Massachusetts and the recognition of “Urban Sublime” …

Providence Productivity Framework : Ideas For A Network Of Sites Rethinking Productivity In Providence, Patricia Noto

Masters Theses

This thesis attempts to answer the broad question: “How can designers have a role in creating or enhancing productive systems in cities?”

The focus is on rethinking the function of public and quasi-public space with the aim of building inclusiveness, ecological diversity, and productivity. The project explores the meaning of productivity and works to push the defi nition of urban productivity to include but also extend beyond community gardens. For example, a productive city might include a network of agroforestry sites, sites being remediated so that they can grow food in the future, a nursery on a capped brownfi eld …

Open Community : Break Up The "Superblock", Ke Xie

Masters Theses

This thesis proposes a redesign of the "superblocks" of Wuhan (China).