Digital Commons Network^™

Community Pop-Up Galleries : The Instruction Manual, Mary Iorio

Masters Theses

The art world has historically been controlled by the wealthy and privileged. The institutions that have benefited the most have received criticism in recent years over the lack of diversity amongst their audience and artists represented on their walls. Community galleries can make up for the deficiencies of major art institutions and give voice to those who will not be noticed in traditional spaces (i.e. museums, galleries, auctions). This book details the process of creating a pop-up gallery that will serve the community through displaying, publicizing, and selling artwork. The process begins with organizing a committee to oversee the space, …

Lacunae In The Urban Landscape, Meriem Aiouna

Masters Theses

I take the idea of lacunae, which are defined as gaps or discontinuities in structures as the focus of this research.

With the growth in density of urban centers, access to buildable space will decrease and lacunae within the urban structure will remain. Through Intentional urban exploration in highly developed urbanscapes reveals numerous underutilized and awkward spaces. While often overlooked for development because of their complexity, the commitment of this thesis is to highlight these unique sites and their distinct spatial potential.

This project exposes the hidden potential latent in these lacunae that are underused in the urban fabric. Every …

The Milky Way : Agritourism On A Chinese Dairy Farm, Wanyue Qiao

Masters Theses

We can easily buy fresh milk in the supermarket nowadays, but have you ever thought about how milk comes from the cow's udder to the bottle in your hand? Today, highly mechanized dairy production facilities are constantly growing in scale with the increasing demand for milk, leading to the changes and decline within smaller farms and surrounding rural communities. Even as these smaller-scale farms struggle, agritourism is gaining popularity as city dwellers swarm into the countryside with a desire to understand the food they eat and reconnect to rural roots.

This proposal explores introducing tourism into a productive medium sized …

Unite The Divided : The Transition Between Death And Life, Qing Shi

Masters Theses

The modern era has marginalized death by professionalizing the care of the dying in hospitals and the dead in funeral homes. Today a growing number of families reject de-personalized, alienating funeral experiences and instead, seek rituals that are more related to pre-modern practices. Past practices developed when death was still omnipresent, and people performed their own authentic expression of the individual self and interpersonal relations. Bringing spatial, physical experiences of rituals back by personalizing a previously institutionalized occasion, the freedom of being able to choose the way we live has been extended to self expression in death and mourning.

By …

Re-Connect, Xin Ren

Masters Theses

We live in an era of contradiction: the order of the external world always stands in an ambiguous relationship to individual autonomy. In this time of high industrialization and fast paced efficiency, the development of technology has not only greatly reduced the distance between space and time, but also causes the over-coupling effect in social division: institutions are formed with a dangerously strong and stable dependence on each other. This excessive reliance on one another weakens their independence and resilience. Meanwhile, in this hyper-connected society, access to instant satisfaction through consumption and fragmented entertainment is the norm. Similar to the …

Lived-In Grassland : Nomadic Architecture In The Nomadic Community Of Mongolia, Linxi Wang

Masters Theses

Traditional modes of living and production on the Mongolian grassland are quietly changing under the impact of modern civilization, and a higher demand for a comfortable life is on the way. Shifts in career and lifestyle have changed expectations Mongolians have for housing, and traditional dwellings have not adapted to these new demands in the modern era. Fortunately, thousands of years of constant transition in nomadic life have prepared Mongolians to adapt to the new mode of survival and living in the process of constructing their residential buildings. The process of improvement of living conditions is bound to mean traditions …

Living And Alive : Homeless Shelter Design, Zixu Wang

Masters Theses

Homelessness is a major social problem in the United States. The number of people who are living without a decent shelter is rising daily throughout the country. The problem of homelessness affects various groups in society, including the elderly, children, youths, and middle-aged adults. Recent studies have shown that the percentage of teens and youths who are experiencing homelessness has reached an alarming rate. The homeless adolescent group is defined as teens aged between 13 and 19 years. This rise in homelessness in this population group demands immediate attention, particularly older teens from 15 to 18 years of age. This …

Re-Occupation : Buildings, Ideology And Decolonization In Northeastern China, Ziyu Wei

Masters Theses

Buildings often survive longer than a single human generation, and many witness significant transitions from generation to generation. When we approach varied eras that have washed over an unchangeable building like tides eroding a bank repeatedly, how can we distinguish the building’s primary identity and judge its fate?

In Northeastern China, a Japanese dormitory survives as a witness of Manchurian colonization, early socialism and the economic recession that caused its abandonment until today. The city also suffers a swiftly aging population and brain drain as the brightest of the youth move away. How can an intervention build dialogue and revive …

Creating A Safe Haven : A Study On Coastal Resilience In A Time Of Climate Change & Sea-Level Rise In The Philippines, Maria Carla Victoria M. Sebastian

Masters Theses

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan struck the southern part of the Philippines with a five to six meter storm surge; in just three days it took more than 7,360 lives in one city alone, displaced four million citizens, and affected around 16 million Filipinos nationwide. Coastal resiliency in relation to climate change is a particularly urgent issue for city planners and government leaders in an archipelago of 7,641 islands, where 80% of the population dwells in coastal areas. This thesis aims to challenge the existing paradigm of coastal provincial architecture in the Philippines by proposing a more integrated evacuation center that …

Togather: To Gather Together, Kyungah Sohn

Masters Theses

I believe that we can live healthier lives when we address both our mental health and our physical health at the same time, rather than when we focus on only one of them. Currently, however, mental and physical health are treated as separate issues, while actually they are closely connected to each other. In light of this, services and applications that address wellbeing should promote both physical and mental issues in a more integrated way.

As a result, I designed a holistic system where what we do for mental and physical health is intertwined. This is the premise for my …

The Objects Around Us., Rohit Sen

Masters Theses

The book is based on two paleolithic design concepts that I have arrived at: ‘Use & Dispose’ and ‘Find & Assemble.’ The first concept is based on our innate paleolithic instinct to throw away objects after the need for it has been extinguished. This theory is based on the understanding of the ‘value-effort’ relationship in relation to stone tools. The second concept is based on the circular model of ‘designing under duress,’ and how the objects around us can be recontextualised and assembled to serve a purpose to meet emergent needs under constraints.

These two concepts then go on to …

This Land Is Your Land: Democratizing Landscape Architecture, Adrienne Emmerich

Masters Theses

The main question posed by this thesis is: How can landscape architects give individuals and communities creative agency over their own landscapes?

This question is framed by three key concepts. First, there is the fact that throughout US history, land management and design decisions have been used to marginalize communities of color. The second concept framing this thesis is that communities of color continue to be negatively affected by decisions about their land. For example, new toxic waste sites are disproportionately placed in communities of color (Mohai and Saha 2015). The third concept framing this thesis is that landscape architects …

Generative Landscapes: Successional And Equitable Plant Propagation On Rhode Island's Public Lands, Elizabeth Hunt

Masters Theses

This project is about participating in the life cycles of plants in order to generate more resilient and equitable landscapes. This project proposes fun, inclusive ways for a cultural shift toward taking care of our landscapes and expanding, diversifying and deepening them. From educational programming, to seed bomb tosses, invasive scavenger hunts, named tree posts, hell strip garden beds, and more, the intent is to make land management shared, productive, and scaled to the emergency of climate change and environmental inequity.

Territories Of Trash: Designing The Overlap Of Spaces Of Disposal And Acquisition, Mary Kokorda Cavazos

Masters Theses

Where should we put our trash?

Our current system keeps potentially valuable material designated as trash hidden away at the margins and edges of our built environment, and shuttles garbage vast distances into landfills, where it persists indefinitely.

Over the past year I’ve invested time into learning about our country’s history of disposal in the landscape. Historically, changes in volume, types of waste, and cultural attitudes have prompted changes to typologies of disposal in our built environment.

Currently, due to changes in Chinese recycling policy in 2018, China no longer accepts America’s highly contaminated recycled material. Americans are also caught …

3d Simulation In Flooding Providence, Qing Liu

Masters Theses

This thesis use 3d data visualization to provide the scenarios of how global climate changes will influence people’s life if we don’t take actions as soon as possible, which provide non-professional people an easy way to understand the urban issues and engage them into the environmental protection. My proposal is to visualize the flooding issues in Providence by using kinds of simulation tools, including 3d model, augmented reality(AR), animation in order arise the awareness of climate change and the significance of human’s actions to protect the living environments. These simulations also provide the support for the designers and policy-makers to …

Ether: A Social Design, Zihan Zhou

Masters Theses

As an individual with an independent consciousness that cannot be shared, it is impossible to have complete empathy. But as a social animal, empathy is also the ability pursued by individuals and society collectively. Empathy is an indispensable element to also achieve social justice which benefits each individual.

The current media environment is usually that information is aggregated from the bottom to the top, and then transmitted from the top to each individual at the bottom through an announcement of information.

The biggest contradiction arising from this information mechanism is that humans who both send and receive information involuntarily pay …

Urban Palimpsest: Re-Placing Memory In War Torn City Dresden, Xinyi Sun

Masters Theses

Urban landscapes can be envisaged as a palimpsest of historical layers, some of which have disappeared while others remain active in constituting contemporary identities.

Yet memory is tricky and one’s memory can be false, distorted or erased consciously or unconsciously from brain. Like history, some memories can be lost, while others others might be retained and continue to influence the present.

This thesis explores memory as active construction. Construction and reconstruction are ongoing and as layered and nuanced as the history itself. Moreover, memory is both personal and collective. It is shared, appropriated, and reassigned depending on whose personal filter …

Clay Beneath The Tree: An Exploration Of Design Processes In Community Development, Shiya Zeng

Masters Theses

Parents bought their kid a new toy and said: “Here you go, enjoy.” he plays with it for three hours, and then I go back to play with the clay beneath a tree. The “new toy” is an analogy of a traditional Design-Funding-Implement design process. The reason why “clay” is more attractive is that clay is flexible and manipulatable, which allows for continually engaging, reshaping, destructing, and exploring. More importantly, clay unleashes one’s imagination that unlocks thousands of possibilities. Community design process is “heartwork” that enhance well-being, equity, and agency for change. This is why the process matters.

This thesis …

Urban Ecotone: Restoring The Water-Land Balance As A Strategy For Social Equity, Yuzhe Ma

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on Dhaka, Bangladesh, and the urban interface between the more formal developed parts of the city and the less-formal and more economically-vulnerable urban neighborhoods.

It seeks to reframe this interface as an ‘ecotone’ versus a hard boundary. By reframing this area along ecological lines, this interface is positioned as a place with a great diversity of ‘species’ and fertile conditions and collisions, which allow it to act as a generator of new opportunities benefitting both of the communities (biomes) which transition into it.

This ecotone is seen as being further fed by the presence of urban ecology …

Restorative Urbanism: Redefining Socio-Ecosystems In Manila, Kaixin Zhang

Masters Theses

This thesis explores coastal cities and the narrow zone lying between their developing urban areas and the waters of the open sea. Worldwide, there are more than 14 cities with populations over 10 million are situated along endangered coastlines. The fact that many of these continue to experience rapid growth, are economic centers of international importance, and are increasingly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, is a matter of global concern. In this work I examine the implications and possibilities of restoring urban coastline defenses and ask how I can learn from past efforts while adapting such strategies to …

Fluid Urbanism, Huachen Zhang

Masters Theses

As we stepped into the 2020s, technologies keep emerging, such as the autonomous vehicle. We can already foresee some of the future cityscapes. Some of the largest vehicle manufactures have already road-tested their autonomous vehicles and shifted their focus to electronic powered vehicles. So what will the future city look like with new autonomous vehicle technology? What does an autonomous vehicle actually mean? What's the potential of this technology? In my thesis, I am not focusing on the impact of existing autonomous technology, but am trying to dig deeper and find its fuller potential. In my thesis autonomous technology as …

To Protect The Hell Yeah And Every Hell Yeah's Variations, Lukey Walden

Masters Theses

I try to imagine a scrutiny free from transaction and authority, where time and generosity are not scarce. If real generosity divests from the expectation of returns, then what are the full implications of imaging someone in this way, through touch? My sitters gave me permission to stare at them in private. What happens to this momentary consensual gaze over time, prolonged into months of looking? Prolonged into an abundance of labor, abundance of attention, abundance of precious materials?

Things That Grew While I Looked At The Ground, Heather Mcmordie

Masters Theses

Broadly speaking, I am interested in the role of fine arts in translating the complexities of natural systems. This particular body of work explores the relationship between printmaking and soil science—just one of the many possible relationships between arts and sciences—with a focus on salt marsh soil systems. Generating public interest soil systems and other hidden ecological systems can be difficult due to the opaqueness of language and concepts surrounding these systems and a perceived distance (physically or conceptually) from the general public. Printmaking—with its inherent multiplicity, mediation, and readability—offers opportunities for making the seeming abstraction of soils evocative and …

Storytelling In Arts, Lindi Shi

Masters Theses

People and narratives are the core of my art practice. Compared with only exploring the subject matter, I am more excited about the characters and narratives around it. My media gradually shifts from flat drawings or prints to installation, performance, and even explosions. Perhaps as a human myself, I like people a lot. There are always interesting stories where people go. The thesis discusses four stories, including an oral tale from my grandma, my personal experience, stories about bodies, and a story in the imagination. This writing reflects my research on the relationship between types of storytelling and various art …

Change Of Plans: The Subversive Kit In The Planned Community, Hugo Caldwell

Masters Theses

My thesis seeks to investigate the relationship between the prescriptive forces of urban planning with architecture. Through extracting elements and characteristics from an existing context, I implement a subversive system/kit of parts that work together to challenge the ideas behind top-down planning while painting a new picture of Columbia, MD, and planned communities as a whole.

Vacancy Never Vacant, Marina Bibidakis

Masters Theses

Vacant buildings are never truly vacant. They might not be used as originally planned but there are still signs of life inside them. Even in a state of ruination, nature takes over or undocumented humans use them as temporary shelter. Instead of going the route of completely redesigning, I would like to embrace the qualities created from the transition periods in between to categorize and articulate the thesis, the focus will be on industrial buildings. My interest is directed on revitalizing buildings. My interest is originally designed for human occupation or appreciation, but rather for machines. Part of the research …

In-Between Through : Bordering Bodies ; A Spatial Containment, Aroly Enamorado

Masters Theses

Due to the continuous struggle for undocumented migration, the U.S. Mexico border has always been on of the most misunderstood. This thesis tries to form awareness of the number of migrants that are seeking asylum in the United States. Most of these people are coming from Central and South America to experience the American dream, a concept that many do not get to achieve. Understanding the physical and cultural aspects from departing their homeland, arrival at the border, possible deportation, the admission into the country, and starting from zero. Nowadays, the southern border wall has turned into a cancerous divider …

Climate Resilience For A Neighborhood Without Privilege: East Boston, Peter Niels Heller

Masters Theses

This architecture thesis is about climate change and unprivileged populations – sea-level rise in particular, and the neighborhood of East Boston. Across recorded human history, the burdens of climate stress have fallen disproportionately on marginal populations, and today is no different. We don’t have to travel to a South Pacific island to see the risk posed by sea-level rise – that risk can be found right here along the New England coastline. Neighborhoods with a minimum of privilege face challenges to their existence – and those residents want to stay in their homes and preserve their communities just like anybody …

The Official Showreel Companion To Framed Familiarity In 4 Acts : A Defamiliarization Of The Tropes Of Architectural Practice, Through An Expanded Frame Of View And Frame Rate, Julie Kress

Masters Theses

In the spirit of Resier and Umemoto’s Atlas of Novel Tectonics, this work does not propose solutions to a stated problem in the field of architecture. Instead it provokes an entry into subjects that are taken for granted, yet are in dire need of re-framing in a postdigital age of architecture.

This proposal for speculative architectures that are only possible through animation, is antithesis to the format of the printed book. The format of this document assumes that it is not viewed alone but is treated as a behind the scenes companion to the 3 minute showreel “Framed Familiarity in …

Playgrounds : Symbiosis Of Humans, Nature, And Architecture, Hannah Langmuir

Masters Theses

As we have adapted to learn how to best take advantage of our natural resources, we have evolved into the beings we are today. However, once we shifted away from natural environments to embrace new technologies and confine ourselves to our human-built spaces, we began to take a step backwards in our evolutionary timeline, returning to a confined, limited state.

As a result, this project examines play as a solution to connecting humans, nature, and architecture. By integrating these new programs into existing offices in downtown Providence, this process was an exploration in adapting our architecture to provide spaces where …