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Sometimes The Sh*T Stays Messy : Critical Frameworks For Arts-Based Researchers & Educators, Zoe Schein

Masters Theses

The standards by which we assess the legitimacy of knowledge production are deeply biased: resting ideologically, systemically, and formally on processes that are deeply rooted in systems of oppression. Consequently, our current body of “legitimate” or scholarly knowledge presents only a partial, partisan picture of what it is possible—and worthwhile—to know. This thesis addresses how hegemonic institutions (like the academy) rely on two central notions: (1) that their methods are “objective,” “value-neutral,” or otherwise impartial (2) that these methods are the best—if not the only—ones through which “real” knowledge may be accessed and communicated. As this paper demonstrates, each of …

Researching + Observing + Reflecting Of Chinese And American Landscape Architecture Pedagogy : Focusing On Department Of Landscape Architecture In Risd And Bfu, Change Gao

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on the Chinese and American landscape architecture education, typically in Beijing Forestry University (China) and Rhode Island School of Design (USA). By relecting back to author’s graduate and undergraduate study in landscape architecture in these two schools, this thesis provides a view of an observer and outsider instead of an experiencer and insider to look through the teaching and learning in landscape architecture. Through the voice from students and academia in both schools, this thesis functions as a platform sharing the learning and teaching experience, providing a cross-culture access to other people’s experience and as a chatbox …

Light On : The Value Of Art & Art Education, Juri Rhyu

Masters Theses

As an international student, I have had the chance to view art education through the lenses of both the United States and Korean education systems. While Korea’s education system leans more on authoritarian institutions, rote memorization, and grades, art education in the US is equally as restrictive and teaches technical skill rather than fostering creativity. Technical skill does not an artist make. Because of my self-assumed lack of creativity, I began to go to museums and sketch masterworks in an effort to self direct creative learning. This experience ultimately led me to consider a future career as a teacher as …

What Makes A Good Teacher? : The Artist's Engagement In Public Art Education, Wenjing Fan

Masters Theses

This thesis is written in a language other than the author’s own, so its content as she developed an understanding of ideas in English may reveal both inaccuracies of grammar and indeed some misunderstanding of context and concept. This being said, the author uses the thesis investigation to reflect on her art education in China and also to report on encounters with teachers she has met in Providence, Rhode Island. So, the thesis has been opportunity to wonder about the significant role that various types of teacher (First Teacher to Fourth Teacher) play in cultivating students’ artistic ability. The author …

Intrigues And Priorities : Critical Thinking And Contemporary Art In Visual Arts Education, Connor Phillips

Masters Theses

This thesis looks at how arts education can respond to the context of the 21st century by focusing on critical thinking and contemporary art in visual arts education. I argue that art as a subject has the potential to educate youth beyond mere aesthetic, formal art skills. Its inherent flexibility to encompass all interests, cultures, and backgrounds makes it a truly inclusive subject and the multiplicity that follows provides students with opportunities for cross-associative and critical thinking. If utilized in an education context, it can be the necessary conduit for engaging students, respecting their intrigues, and offering a space to …

Transformation Through Drawing And Gesture, Mckenzie Gibson

Masters Theses

Drawing is a unique human invention that reveals an individual’s thoughts, knowledge, and expression of “being;” it is the manifestation of human activity and energy; it represents thought (relating to the mind) and physicality (as executed by the hand and the body) through the manipulation of materials (the world around me).

Process is the embodiment of human passion, energy, expression, conceptualization from idea to form, and the connection of hand and mind. It is a succession of verbs realized in the practice of making. I joke that every piece of work I’ve made “has my blood, sweat, and tears in …

Lighting : An Atrium Core To Reconnect With The Sun, Quan Lei

Masters Theses

At the Rhode Island School of Design, students work so much that they treat their studio as home; the majority stay in studio past midnight, which leads to lack of sleep. How to improve students’ physical and mental health is a question demanding immediate investigation, particularly as relates to rest. According to the scientists at the Lighting Research Center (LRC) in Troy, N.Y, engagement with daylight environments increase occupant productivity and comfort, and provide the mental and visual stimulation necessary to regulate circadian rhythms, encouraging more restful sleep. Students cannot function healthily because their busy schedules remove them from the …

Identity Production, Boyang Xia

Masters Theses

What are we talking about when we talk about identity? People are likely to define themselves in terms of what is relevant to their time and place, in other words, context. This indicates that identity is not a fixed definition, but more of a malleable construction; it develops its attributes via context. I am constantly recalibrating the relationship between the two. Context is ubiquitous, unnoticed, coexistent and interchangeable. Identity is reflexive, fragmented, shapeable and fluid. Identity Production explores and unveils how identity is adapted and manifested in contemporary conditions, as well as its external validation which paradoxically defines this indefinable …

Inhabit The Storm : Emergency Evacuation Route, Anastasiia Isakova

Masters Theses

Today a lot of design research is concentrated on problems of resiliency and performance in conditions of hazardous events, such as sea level rise, hurricanes, tsunamis, cyclones, earthquakes and drought. And while designers, architects and engineers try to convince people to care about these issues, offer building higher seawalls, recreating marshlands, reinforcing shorelines and various ecosystems, they never really address evacuation, which remains a big problem for vulnerable areas prone to cyclical occurrence of natural disasters.

More people die during evacuation - escaping the disaster site, rather than from the disaster itself; more people die because of the consequences of …

Super Natural : Hybrid Strategies For Urban Flood Protection In Coney Island Ny, Georges Fischer

Masters Theses

How will inundation change the design of city coastlines? This thesis is an investigation into strategies to mitigate urban flooding from storm surge in Coney Island NY.

In Phase 1, dynamic phenomena are identified and deconstructed, the result are properties that can be assembled to make a machine that applies forces to wet plaster, which solidified to yield insights into the sectional forms of waves. This process was used to inform a conceptual model documenting the site’s physical form, and the relative differences between land and water in terms of its density and porosity.

In Phase 2, a catalog of …

Alleyways As Avenues, Rebecca E. Ladd

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the possibilities of in-between spaces bounded by the realms of public and private experience in an urban environment, specifically situated in Downtown Providence, RI. This thesis begins by questioning the meaning of what public space is and how we as humans choose to inhabit space that has been given a particular program or quality. What allows a person to feel that he or she has ownership over a public space? Through the interdisciplinary lens of Landscape Architecture and Interior Architecture, the subsequent phases will analyze how people in Downtown Providence perceive and utilize space within the city …

How To Become Ocean?, Elaina Runge

Masters Theses

A shifting viewpoint transforms into multiple perspectives to explore surface and depth.

By compressing time into an instant, or expanding a moment out in infinite directions, patterns reveal and obscure themselves.

A process that is both rational and intuitive emerges through the use of different systems to approach the unknown.

The ocean operates as a metaphor. The beyond guides the search of one who is tethered to the shore.

Plastic, linen, silk, elastic, glass, cellulose, protein: fold, curve, bend, distort, resist to create forms that are neither unfamiliar nor named.

Blue, blue-grey, blue-green, blue violet, azure, cobalt, sapphire, lapis lazuli, …

Retooling : Experiments In Digital Apprenticeship, Ryan Ferguson

Masters Theses

Over the past decade, rapid advancement in the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning has led to an abrupt shift in the skills we designate as “human” and the skills we delegate to machines. This shift can be characterized, to some degree, by the transformation of tacit knowledge–knowledge that is difficult to transfer or quantify, into explicit knowledge–a language that machines can both understand and act on. An adjacent surge in democratized education platforms has made it possible for anyone to begin learning a new skill. Mastering a skill however, especially hands-on skills, often requires a level of tacit …

I Am Come Back To You, Eleanor Tomlinson

Masters Theses

Through various forays into psychological science and affect theory, this work attempts to understand how quick and simple commodities might coalesce into a complex portrait of individual and collective memory.

Hill Study : Re-Energize Highly-Programmed Hill Study Space, Di Qiang

Masters Theses

Sloping sites present a variety of difficulties to the structures on which they are built: difficulty in access, difficulty in delineating the space, difficulty in reaching specific functional areas. These problems aren’t caused by the sloping site itself; the sloping site is a natural terrain. The problem lies in the contradiction between the natural sloping site and the traditional hillside architectural forms which evolved from flatland architecture. The College Building of the Rhode Island School of Design exemplifies the use of flatland architectural typology on the hillside . During the expansion of Rhode Island School of Design in 1935, RISD …

Building Community : Network Within Grey Space, Lingfei Liu

Masters Theses

Buildings constitute the city, but at the same time isolate people from the action of the city by delimiting the activities within. Considering the relationship between buildings and public urban areas, is there a missing characteristic which could blur the boundary and create a smooth transition, a grey space gradually mediating between the outside and the inside, exterior and interior? Perhaps a type of connection within the city which contains more flexibility and accessibility would reduce the isolation of people from the activities of their own cities.

Isolation of this type exists on the urban scale, but also affects institutions …

Updraft : Crafting A New Passive Cooling, Hobin Song

Masters Theses

To comfortably inhabit historic buildings we have developed mechanical devices to manage the internal environment so that it is possible to keep the room temperature stable despite season and climate. However, enormous energy is necessary to sustain these machines, which poses practical and environmental problems. To overcome and prevent this waste, efforts have been made to control the internal environment of contemporary buildings using natural principles. Is it possible to use this approach to improve the performance of historic buildings without compromising character or significance?

This is an ideal topic to test against RISD campus buildings. The campus is made …

Every Change, Ruhan Feng

Masters Theses

After being away from home for six years, distance and time make me reconsider: “Who am I?”

This thesis is an honest memoir, which records my reflections about life through my struggles, confusion with cultural identities, and conflicts with my mother in a one-child family. In a two-year graduate program, I continue to explore my identities as Chinese, an international student, an expatriate, and a daughter.

The text, accompanied by illustrations, interprets personal artistic changes. Printmaking in my work is not just a tool to make multiples. The ideas of layering and repeating are also applied to my three-dimensional installations …

Proximity, Interaction, And Evolution : Taking A Deeper Look At The Systems Around Us, Rachel Back

Masters Theses

In the new age of the sharing economy, the society is more connected than ever, but humanity has never been more disconnected from the environment and the natural world. This thesis begins with studying the dynamics of physical and non-physical systems, at all scales. Additionally, this thesis explores the physical and emotional connection to place, time, and memory. Finally, the goal of this thesis is to create spaces that reintroduce nature into architecture, and allow the inhabitant to experience the mystery and awe of the living systems.

The Flood : Another Note Of Humanity, Muyi Fan

Masters Theses

Site is an inhabitable system, in which forces are generated by sets of rules which dictate all the natural and human histories, perceivable and unperceivable. The manipulations of these existing forces are always based on the comprehensive understanding of this system, rather than the willing of a single (group of) inhabitant(s) of occupying, ruling and colonizing. This process is always suggestions rather than solutions, and allows further editing. Through continuous manipulations, site is evolving.

Living On The Edge : Failure By Design, Odile Schlossberg

Masters Theses

This Thesis Project starts a conversation between the coastal edge and the built environment in order to develop a new approach towards transformable architecture design.

Erosion has an inevitable impact on coastal inhabitation. Over time, the water edge erodes and the shoreline retreats, pushing back development or causing existing buildings to collapse. Raised architecture has been a proposed solution to mitigate the impact of oceanic forces on buildings, but I believe there can be a different alternative to this approach.

Erosion could be seen as a ‘transformation that takes place over a period of time’, rather than as an environmental …

Killing The Angel, In The Mind, Body And Home, Vaishnavi Ramesh

Masters Theses

There is something reassuring about belonging to a space. In patriarchal societies, there is a perceptible manifestation of gender that is constructed into spaces. The street and a public life contain within it the notions of movement that is unrestrained and free. These are attributes of a space that men identify with and an unintended consequence has resulted in public spaces being demarcated as male domains. This notion is embedded in how women experience life everyday, as they are accustomed to the idea that public spaces and streets are only spaces they pass through to reach destinations and not enjoy …

Naturally Occurring Form, Margaret Kristensen

Masters Theses

I am trying to find art in my body, attempting to create images that personalize and desexualize the nude. Between the body of images that we have access to via social media and the images we have seen of female nudes, emphasis is put on finding the form to be within western society’s acceptable range of beautiful; so rarely do we find organic figures existing in the photographic environment.

Having been taught how to photograph the body by looking at images of women taken by men, I don’t see myself. The photographs by Edward Weston and Irving Penn look, gaze, …

Into The Open : Blurring Building Fences, Chun Qiu

Masters Theses

When an urban college campus is open to the surrounding community, students benefit from a closer engagement with the resources of the city: entertainment, markets, living arrangements, more cultural and professional experience. At the same time, local residents enjoy a stronger regional economy from all of the people attracted to study or work on campus, allowing closer contact for locals with the world beyond the boundaries of their own city.

Though it is clear how valuable communal engagement is to urban life, we live in a society obsessed with separation. The near-universal practice of extruding backyard parcel lines has created …

Wellness Within Reach : Life / Work Balance Within The Risd Campus, Kyunghwa Kang

Masters Theses

Academics often overlook the importance of a balanced life and even encourage a competitive work environment. However, life balance, health and mental wellness have strong influence on academic performance, social relationships and even life satisfaction. Working environments matter, too: lack of natural light and ventilation, noise and lack of privacy often contribute to elevated levels of stress, anxiety and depression. In the case of students from the Rhode Island School of Design, most devote almost all time to work without satisfying the body’s need for rest. However, studios do not integrate spaces for relaxing, resting and refreshing and do not …

Re-Structure : An Exploration Of Relational Engagement Through Objects & Object Making, Mark Epler

Masters Theses

Home is a loaded concept. For each of us it means a vast spectrum of associations, emotions and values. However, there are also a myriad of universal commonalities of what home is in our collective imaginations and experiences despite the increasingly transitory and elusive ideas about what home means for each of us. Whatever or wherever we might call home, our experiences within the walls of what we understand to be home impact and shape us. It is the physical and sociological structure that shapes our lives and the shelter from which we depart to grow into the larger world …

Creating Access And Equity In Arts Education : Strategic Partnerships For Systemic Change, Colleen C. Andrews

Masters Theses

Creating Access and Equity in Art Education: Strategic Partnerships for Systemic Change examines the diminished state of art education in United States public schools, reveals how nonprofit arts organizations supplement what is lacking in the current educational system, and offers current examples, based on interviews, to place these issues in context. A history of the National Endowment for the Arts and an examination of arts funding, both public and private, provides a backdrop for the weakened state of the arts in schools. Exploring educational policies such as No Child Left Behind and the Every Student Succeeds Act reveals how federal …

Risd Club, Madeleine Devall

Masters Theses

Higher arts education is an enormous luxury. If part of the appeal and exclusivity of higher education is grounded in the extravagance of attending private, reputable schools like Rhode Island School of Design, is there a way to extend this exclusive “club” to alumni and visiting artists and designers?

When we join a club, we become part of an organization that is exclusive to people with similar interests. Education is a club; the privilege to be accepted to an exclusive group of people with similar interests allows for access to professional insight, resources, and knowledge. RISD provides privilege where ability …

We Are What We Dispose : Continuation Of Culture Through Recycling At Rhode Island School Of Design, Xinzhou Jiang

Masters Theses

Every year, RISD produces massive amounts of waste, from dining trash to discarded art pieces. Art educational institutions have more complex varieties of garbage compared with other educational institutions, given the variety of media used by each discipline. As an art and design school, RISD takes issues of sustainability seriously, therefore it is natural to address the problem of waste. The current recycling strategy of RISD is mainly based on the waste’s material difference, even though other processing strategies have been developed, like the Second Life Store, which is mostly based on usability; current recycling strategies remain singular and linear, …

Creative Collisions : A Risd Case Study, Hannah Liongoren

Masters Theses

Creative collisions play an important role in artistic work. These encounters broaden an artist’s perspective, exposing them to new processes, ideas, disciplines, and collaborators. The exact nature of creative collisions is difficult to pin down, as they flourish in an ever-changing mix of social interaction and creative inspiration in a setting of multidisciplinary work. A little-known example of a serendipitous collision between artists occurred between Gustav Klimt and designer Emilie Floge, whose individual medium and style influenced the others’ work, and together they dominated the Viennese Secession movement. A similar creative relationship developed between Charles and Ray Eames who met …