Digital Commons Network^™

Hong Kong’S Architectural Resistance: Practice Through Research, Jingjing Huang

Masters Theses

This thesis research politically charged public spaces in Hong Kong due to the past social movements and acknowledges its uniqueness formed by the intuitive use of the vernacular public spaces in the context of both day-to-day life and social movements. The way of freely utilizing elements in public spaces makes the public space in Hong Kong a space to be, a space to express, and a space to resist. However, a unique public space like this often causes misunderstanding, misrepresentation, and sometimes fear from other sides. Thus, this thesis aims to create a subjective analytical view of the formation and …

Lucid Dream: Embracing Uncertainty, Zhiyun Zhang

Masters Theses

Glass is a tool, a projection surface, a medium for optical phenomena. It creates a tangible link between physical space and perception, transcending the physical realm to reshape our sensory perceptions and resonate within our psyche, deepening our understanding. Inspired by cosmic and natural phenomena, my installations narrate the contemplation of the moon and the appreciation of rainbows. They reference historic optical technologies, incorporating glass, mirrors, light, darkness, and space to produce an encounter that extends beyond personal experience, resonating with our collective unconscious, uniting us in profound ways. The blurred boundaries between observer and observed, reality and illusion, sensory …

A Living Storyscape, Vivian Combariza

Masters Theses

Advocating for a transformative shift, the following proposes a new cultural setting that fosters diverse voices and dialogue, moving away from the singular narratives imposed by traditional curator-visitor dynamics. By drawing inspiration from nature's complexity and mirroring museums with ecosystems, the aim of this thesis is to emulate the adaptability and interconnectedness of natural ecosystems to develop flexible and inclusive environments, encouraging community engagement and shared learning experiences. This new design paradigm fosters a deeper connection with nature and other beings despite the physical separation. Embracing the collaboration and flexibility of nature, cultural institutions can regain relevance as vibrant centers …

The Effects Of Technology Based Self-Monitoring On Behaviors Related To Academic Engagement Of A University Student With A Disability, Rachel Mickelson

Masters Theses

College students with disabilities often experience difficulties with meeting the demands of university level courses due to challenges with time management and impulse control (Shmulsky & Gobbo, 2013). Self-monitoring has been proven effective for various populations and behaviors, although limited research has been conducted with college students with disabilities. I-Connect, a technology-based self-monitoring tool, is a digital application that utilizes momentary time sampling where users can select a behavior and interval of time to be prompted to self-monitor that behavior (University of Kansas, 2022). The app also collects real time data and automatically creates graphs to depict the responses collected …

Outside_In, Zixuan Zhang

Masters Theses

In the post-COVID era, the importance of maintaining a connection with the external environment has become even more prominent. Outside_in is a series of ongoing installations located at the openings of modern buildings (spaces in between the interior and exterior) that can connect with or receive climatic resources such as wind, rainwater, sunlight, and more. Its purpose is to rethink and challenge how we can enhance the relationship with and awareness of climate and nature in our future indoor spaces through innovative experiential methods. This approach prioritizes the use of natural materials, supplemented by modern materials, and emphasizes the empathic …

Cocoa Production In The Era Of Crude Oil Economy: The Case Study Of Ondo State, Nigeria., Hakeem Shina Lamidi

Masters Theses

Nigeria's cocoa industry has been faced with obstacles that include a lack of adequate infrastructure, little or no research and development efforts for weather-related challenges and pest control, limited financial support for cocoa farming startups, absence of modern farming techniques, an aging agricultural workforce, and decrepit cocoa trees all of which have contributed to the decline in the production of cocoa by Nigeria. The Nigerian government's failure to prioritize agricultural policies and support farmers instead of relying on oil exports exacerbates these issues. While it is assumed that countries endowed with abundant natural resources, including oil, like Nigeria, would naturally …

Echo Chambers And The Rise Of The Alt-Right, Ian Robert Mcdonald

Masters Theses

The uses of social media have expanded with the growing number of platforms and niches that these platforms seek to fulfill. One of the more common uses of many current social media platforms is to engage with politics. Social media platforms have become a political tool to some, with an enormous amount of news and information being shared throughout social media platforms. The increasing use of social media has coincided with an increase in political polarization, with some raising concerns over the ability for certain groups to operate in ideological isolation, referred to as echo chambers, and the role they …

Environmental Fate And Transport Of Pfas In Wastewater Treatment Plant Effluent Discharged To Rapid Infiltration Basins, Kai M. Trobisch

Masters Theses

Fate and transport of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) effluent discharged to rapid infiltration basins (RIBs) is investigated using data from 26 WWTPs in Michigan and numerical modeling to assess the role of air-water interface (AWI) sorption in modulating mass fluxes to the saturated zone. Analysis of RIB physical properties yields a median separation distance of 6.5 meters between land surface and the water table, and a continuum of area-normalized effluent fluxes ranging from 0.01 to 0.62 meters per day. A subset of WWTPs with RIBs indicate higher PFAS concentrations in groundwater than effluent with …

Beyond Display: Crafting Emotional Journeys For Belonging And Connectivity, Jiamin Yang

Masters Theses

In bustling urban areas like Manhattan, New York, the majority of interactions between individuals occur amidst the whirlwind of daily life. Yet, there is an absence of genuine connections within local communities, particularly among neighbors who are geographically close, creating a sense of detachment, untrusting, and anonymity. This thesis involves exploring innovative interventions with the ultimate goal of uncovering novel possibilities in interactive exhibitions, distinct from traditional displays. All of this is an effort to curate emotional journeys that transcend routine, fostering vibrant community belonging and connectivity. Against the backdrop of the city’s vertical living, where neighbor encounters are often …

Snapbot - The Enhanced Physical Play, Morong Li

Masters Theses

Snapbot is a building toy set. It investigates the integration of physical and digital mediums within the realm of play, addressing the dominance of video games in children’s entertainment. By merging Morong’s interests in toys, design, and psychology, this project aims to balance different play mediums to offer combined benefits without diminishing each one’s value.

To address screen time’s dominance, I developed a toy concept for 11- to 13-year-olds that merges physical and digital play. This concept allows for the physical construction of robotic toys that, when transferred to a digital environment, come alive and tackle digital challenges. In this …

This Is For You: A Handbook For Design Students, Gabriel Drozdov

Masters Theses

This Is For You is a handbook for design students. It is a collection of stories, projects, and conversations on the subjects of design, code, and teaching. The book’s first part, “Learning,” contains stories about the experiences that shaped me as a designer. The second part, “Making,” summarizes the projects that taught me how to design. The third and final part, “Sharing,” is a series of conversations with the people that helped me along the way. In collecting and publishing these resources, This Is For You is an attempt to create an open-source example of what a career in design …

Infinite Plane: Metaphysical Architecture + Digital Space, Isabella Ruggiero

Masters Theses

In her book, The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space from Dante to The Internet (1999) science writer/artist Margaret Wertheim posits that cosmology is fundamentally based on how humans interpret space and situate themselves within it. Today's scientific view portrays the fabric of the universe as ubiquitous and undifferentiated in its substance, effectively a single space. In contrast, the medieval perspective delineated space into discrete entities with defined properties—in the case of Christian cosmology, through Heaven, Hell and Purgatory, separate planes with distinct material and metaphysical conditions. However, in the digital age, a new spatial cosmology has emerged, …

Room To Grieve: The Space Of Solace In Public Life, Lauren Blonde

Masters Theses

An essential tension in everyday life is that we spend the majority of our time inside working while we fight our own secret battles. Grief is one of the most profound shared experiences among humans, and one for which we have nearly no space in public life. Our world has often pushed grief to the realm of the religious and the private, offering temporary reprieve. But where do we go when we’re at work at 2pm, struck with the unavoidable and irregular wave of grief, at our desks on the fourth floor?

This thesis seeks to understand spaces we know …

City Sonatas, Duoduo Lin

Masters Theses

Countries like the UK and France, as shown in Statista's 2023 report, benefit from significant national cultural attractions and monuments that boost museum attendance by attracting tourists. The data suggests a positive correlation between museum attendance and the historical significance, as well as the suitability for tourism, of the institutions2. However, faced with rapid societal advancements, most museums' responses to these challenges have been varied and slow. Contemporary museums, as crucial conduits for the dissemination and exchange of artistic culture, continue to face persistent challenges of low engagement and levels of attention in many countries. Furthermore, a series of remarkably …

Here—There, Glikeriya Shotanova

Masters Theses

Here—there explores the nature and ways of gathering, proposing an alternative path to organizing a cultural center. Divided into three acts (Act One: There, Act Two: Here, and Act Three: Together), it touches on the topics of collective knowledge and the importance of its accessibility to the local communities. How do we organize communities in a way that operates as a body, and how do we use industrial spaces as a bridge between knowledge and those who carry the knowledge? Due to alienation in societies, the decentralization of creative communities, and the inaccessibility of real estate to younger generations, there …

Perform—Produce, Rebecca Wilkinson

Masters Theses

Perform — Produce defines graphic design as a discipline rooted in work rather than a process that springs forth spontaneously from the creative imagination.

Perform — Produce is driven by strict constraints and machine-like craft, employing outdated tools and the physical body in processes of making that are stubbornly slow.

Perform — Produce deploys performance as a tactic to expose the otherwise invisible labor of design, and to reveal the ways design acquires value.

Perform — Produce proposes a new organizational model that integrates live happenings, cross-disciplinary exchange, and self-publishing to consider not just the product of design but also …

Never Real Historians, Emily Bluedorn

Masters Theses

Never Real Historians is a graphic inquiry into how surfacing hidden histories can lead to a liberatory and layered design practice. It is both a record of my process and a template for future making and future ancestors. Mining inheritance can be an ambiguously murky territory, full of contradictions, collisions, and tension between the past and present. My hope is that this thesis functions as a model of navigating that terrain, by interacting with storied objects and ephemera, in order to revive forgotten and marginalized histories. By re-examining my own shared and personal inheritances, as an American woman designer living …

Naturify 2300, Yarina Yiwei Dai

Masters Theses

In my art practice, I explore the interplay between human desires to manipulate and anthropomorphize nature, as seen in the technological augmentation of plants and living entities. This investigation delves into how this intersection, alongside empathy towards these creations, contributes to fears of uncontrollability and the risks of addiction and excessive dependence on technology.

Bioengineering and genetic modification have cultivated unprecedented developments, allowing humans to manipulate the fundamental building blocks of life. My research speculates on this technology further, modifying the genetic code of organisms and creating bioengineered wearable entities with enhanced traits or entirely new functionalities. The primary objective …

Snowstorm, Caleb Shafer

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the connection between memory and place-building, focusing on how personal narratives and physical models compress details to reveal their core essence. Memories serve as a bridge between time and space, allowing for a non-linear experience of time and offering a unique perspective on the existence and transformation of places. Although this compression involves some loss, it generates new narratives and insights into life while examining the power structures and cultural systems inherent in representation.

Umbrales (Thresholds), Maureen Scally

Masters Theses

Umbrales is Spanish for Thresholds.

Thresholds are by nature ambivalent spaces, inviting two distinct realities into play. As an artist, I materialize my experiences as a migrant into an architectural form. A series of textile walls shape a space that is simultaneously interior and exterior so that the audience circulates in the negative space in between. It is in the construction of this threshold condition — a simultaneous placement, neither here nor there — that a complex narrative of place unfolds.

Living Surfaces, Ryan R. Sotelo

Masters Theses

This thesis examines the role of architectural surfaces as a staging ground for personal objects that carry with them aspects of memory, narrative, and personal histories. The lived experience within architecture is often dismissed with the architect’s role in a building’s life ending at its physical conception. Architectural representations are often devoid of time, motion and personal histories in sake for spatial clarities. With precedent representations such as period room drawings, motion studies, and photographic guns, there was an interest in developing a representation to better examine the lived experience within our architecture.

By incorporating personal testimonies, accurate bedroom documentations …

Unconditioning Air, Weijia Deng

Masters Theses

Unconditioning Air rethinks the boundaries contrived through environmental control. For more than a century, HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) defined the boundaries of interior air. The regime and tools of mechanical conditioning promise stability and manageability of indoor air quality at the expense of external phenomena, and by extension, any complexity or fluctuation in the environment. As a result, air conditioning premises that ideal interior comfort is “bubble-like”, requiring increasingly standardized and highly regimented regulatory tools. The plethora of patent drawings, duct specifications, and ASHRAE comfort codes produce an oppressively tightening grip over indoor air and comfort, rendering both …

Call And Response : Experiments In Storytelling, Deanne Fernandes

Masters Theses

Being part of RISD's inaugural Masters of Illustration cohort has been an immense honor. This journey has been nothing short of transformative and healing, as it has allowed me to unearth layers of self-discovery through my creative practice.

In my thesis, I introduce a fresh research methodology rooted in the principles of call and response, with adaptability, creativity, and storytelling as its foundational pillars. Through the lenses of visual storytelling, experimental animation, graphic journalism, and fictional world-building, I demonstrate how these techniques can effectively bridge the gap between theory and practice. This dynamic approach fosters meaningful connections among diverse perspectives …

Modern Times, Will Beattie

Masters Theses

At the intersection of glass, photography and sound lies issues of perspective, framing, and information. These factors as well as the conceptual space between object and image offer an opportunity to explore the way we register narrative through contradicting signifiers. Glass historically has been used as an instrument to reveal spaces, moments, and phenomena previously imperceptible to the human eye. This rendering of previously unseen spaces through language, technology or vision, may work to reorient the viewers’ perspective and allow for a new understanding of the world. The power of disruption as a potential catalyst is central to my studio …

Searching For The Hyperobject: Crystals As Transscalar Vehicles, Jay Costello

Masters Theses

When I touch the street outside my house, I'm touching Los Angeles—a contiguous vector of material bisecting a continent. A slab, a stone, dust and oil, a googolplex of tightly packed anisotropic particles... At nightfall, I sneak to the edge of the highway and break off a piece. 'What does it mean for a worm to be aware of the scale of the planet?' Bruno Latour's evocative questioning of scalar jumps prompts an existentialism that places me somewhere between the hyperlocal and the massively distributed. Like a cosmic traveler floating through the universe, I feel adrift. I look around, grasping …

Landing: Body, Site, Material, Renata Berta

Masters Theses

I believe that in order to build on the land, I must establish a profound relationship with it. As an outsider to New England territories, I actively seek this connection through immersive activities such as swimming, surfing, climbing, and extensive walks, immersing myself in the land to better understand it and synchronize with its rhythms. In my artistic and architectural practice, I explore dissolving traditional boundaries, emphasizing the vital return to the land to create a more responsive and embodied architecture that symbiotically engages with the landscape

Within this ongoing project, “Landing: Body, Site, Material,” I conceptualize my body not …

Small Islands Commons: Retrieving Territory, Identity And Rights In The Bahamas, Fangzhou Zhao

Masters Theses

The Earth’s surface area comprises 71% ocean and 29% land. This vast disparity has led to the conceptualization of the Earth as a collection of interconnected islands, a perspective that challenges traditional views which often portray islands as isolated, marginal, or primitive. These narratives have been further complicated by the effects of climate change, which positions islands as vulnerable and in need of attention.

This research seeks to explore new socio-cultural contracts with territories to achieve bio-socio-spatial justice. It aims to maintain sustainable and equitable relationships between governments and local communities, focusing on addressing historical inequalities. By examining landscape-based strategies …

Memory And Experiential Lab, Yufan Xu

Masters Theses

In the tapestry of our lives, there exist moments and places that we can never revisit, scenes etched into our memories that fade with the passage of time. These experiences and memories are treasures, provide us with an anchor to our past. Unfortunately, many of these moments are like fireflies in the night, here one moment and gone the next. Yet, they remain invaluable, forever etched in our hearts and minds. I wonder if it is possible to trigger cherished past experiences and memories in our daily lives, allowing individuals to re-experience similar moments, thereby nourishing the spiritual world. Therefore, …

Graphic Warmline, Soo Min Lee

Masters Theses

Graphic Warmline is a metaphorical helpline for designers.It is a safe space to embrace doubt, navigate the complexities of our surroundings, and to move and adapt in new ways through the design process. Born from my own struggles, and ongoing processes of active-listening, observing, and introspection, this warmline is an invitation to contemplate and reframe standards of perfection and ingrained habits in order to discover genuine joy, a true voice, and to embrace flexibility, openness, and dynamism while designing.

Graphic Warmline offers interactive experimental methods, materials, and formats through actions of interplay in freeform.These experimentations revolve around threads of interplaying …

Equivision Habitat: The Collective Dreamworks, Shixuan Zhou

Masters Theses

近年来，武汉这座充满活力的城市在经济快速增长的同时，也经历了重大的社会变革。城市的天际线不断扩大，新的商业和住宅区正在迅速涌现，吸引了更多的中产阶级家庭。作为武汉的长期居民和观察者，我看到了这种向中产阶级社会转变的诱惑力，但我也敏锐地意识到随之而来的社会成本。武汉向中产阶级社会的转变不仅体现在消费水平的提高和生活方式的转变上，更重要的是，体现在城市空间和社区角色的重新配置上。曾经为低收入居民提供住房的旧社区正在被改造成高端公寓和商业空间。虽然这种转变改善了城市的整体形象，但也导致了原住民的流离失所。这种深刻的变化凸显了中产阶级化的双刃剑性质。在这种背景下，我开始关注那些被这一进程边缘化的人的声音和需求。老年居民失去了熟悉的社区环境，年轻人尽管渴望加入新兴的中产阶级，但仍在为高昂的生活成本而苦苦挣扎。这种日益加剧的社会分层，让我深刻反思了城市更新的公平性和可持续性。本文提出了一种基于集体所有权和通过社区土地信托进行管理的社区模式。这种模式将土地所有权从个人转移到社区集体，确保开发活动优先考虑社区的长期福利，而不是短期的商业收益。其目的不仅是提供经济适用房，还旨在培养一个具有共同愿景的社区，探索在城市发展的同时维持社会多样性和包容性的方法。