Digital Commons Network^™

Living With Impoundment, Chuxiong Feng

Masters Theses

This research-based thesis uses Miami as a site to investigate how landscape intervention can contribute to adaptation to sea level rise (SLR) and shifts it will bring to this region in the future. The whole thesis is divided into three phases and each phase has specific objectives and builds foundations for research and experiments in the next phase.

Phase One: Possible Future of Freshwater Wetlands in Miami Depict a full picture of the impact that sea level rise has had and will have on the city of Miami with particular emphasis on wetlands. The investigations include overlaying sea level rise …

In A Distant Land, Ohad Sarfaty

Masters Theses

For the past few years I have avidly collected oral histories, family memories and imagery as a way to better understand and contextualize myself, my roots, and my own personal path. My recent paintings reference my first-hand experience as an immigrant, as well as my family's long and complicated history with displacement. The paintings were put together much like a game of telephone, their narratives transmitted through generations, stretched and skewed by family members and friends, rendering them fragmented yet crystallized. In the process of painting, seeing parallels between the past and the present has been frustrating and disturbing. The …

Left Hand Stories, Saif Mhaisen

Masters Theses

I draw people and paint things. Sometimes I paint people and draw things, but mostly I draw people and paint things. I work from life. The process – painting or drawing – is not mediated. That is the primary fact concerning the current work.

I see a mediator as anything forced in between a subject and myself. Following that, the work doesn’t involve Internet searches or photography or printing or projection or tracing or elaborate set ups or still lives or prep drawing or under painting.

The current work is defined by the current context: a graduate school art studio …

Pienso En Ti, Gina Gwen Palacios

Masters Theses

Representation signifies social existence, and the lack of Mexican American representation in media, art and the mainstream American narrative is a clear dismissal of a people and their history. I grew up in South Texas and my world was filled with fields of cotton, an open horizon line, and a mismatch of Mexican and American identities and languages. I have listened to my parents’ stories of picking cotton, being punished for speaking Spanish, having their first names changed and later being forced to drop out of school. As I grew up I realized the rows of cotton we passed daily …

Ambiguous Surfaces : Dressing The Wall, Dressing The Room, Dressing The Building, Danni Zhang

Masters Theses

Fashion and architecture are the results of configuring surfaces. The surface of architecture is distanced and objective. The surface of fashion is tangible and sensible.

Dressing of an individual provides a definition of private space. Dressing of a group of people provides a definition of communal space.

My thesis interest is to explore the ambiguity between these two disciplines to create the intermedium layer of clothing surface and the building surface. The aim to explore different gradients of privacy between the private and the public, disconnections and reconnections, intimacy and distance to find a way in which they can all …

Columns Of Some Kind : Kinetic, Structural, Formal, Periodic & Interactive Elements Of Architecture, Jhanani Palanismay

Masters Theses

Architects and designers exist within the matrix of artificial intelligence and animate tools, therefore we are faced with the task of examining what it means to ‘humanize’ architecture and foster a tangible and intangible interaction with the spaces we inhabit. The poetics of architecture is now interpreted through the degree of engagement with technological advancements.

As an architectural element, the ubiquitous column exists within the substrate of floor and ceiling. In designing an animate column while retaining structural integrity, an opportunity is created for dialogic feedback between the user and the built environment, thereby activating different spatial conditions.

The generation …

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 …

Woven Curvature, Yuhao Jiang

Masters Theses

It started with reading water,

I analog the water movement with water painting.(wet stripes on tracing paper) The wet strips attached on the tracing paper grow longer and shorter, Because of this surface tension, the surface creates certain wrinkle patterns(Wrinkle_from PIE root *wer” to turn, bend.”), which I call ‘breathing surface’ for its sense of life. It expresses the strength, durability, and continuity of water.

As I zoomed into the surface tension phenomenon, I started to think about a type of architectural experience which is a gradual change rather than dramatic. Through floor to floor, wall to wall, beginning to …

Shadow Theater, Yaodan Wu

Masters Theses

In this project, I try to explore the relationship between light and shadow, light and image. From exploring the formula of lens refraction, to observe unique path of object moves created by nature. I am always exploring and trying to use architecture in response to light and to sculpture light, and attract people to come to this space feeling light, interact with light. In this space, people, architecture, light and shadows are as the elements of mutual equality, influence in interaction, waving the space tighter.

Project is located in Pemaquid Point, Maine State. In the day time light are mainly …

Transporting Eating Architecture, Margaret Kiladjian

Masters Theses

For my thesis, I worked on transporting, or perhaps translating, the lavash practice. An Armenian flatbread cooked in a tonir •. A hearth symbolizing the sun in the ground. My disciplinary positioning is one of conservation and preservation.

I looked at the practice of Lavash at three horizontal levels: The land, the refectory and the table. Each of these levels informed me on where and how I would be transporting the practice. The village women, when making lavash, were living next to the field where the wheat is grown and harvested. They were using stone mills, which allowed the grain …

Decoding The Digital Border, Gian Villarruel

Masters Theses

We come to rely on computer hardware and digital software to generate and digitize the world around us and the degree of distortion latent in “street view” and public domain digital representations is rarely brought to the fore. Organized information made up of data scripts and RGB values within an intangible space have now become what many assume to be architecture. But where, between all that translation of information, does our sense of history and culture lie? What impressions remain and what memories are lost from the collective of digital representations when the only things left to define them are …

The Space In Between : Liminal Space, Wei-Chun Cheng

Masters Theses

Drawings are not just a representation of the architecture. We ask questions through drawings and solve questions by drawings. Every line on the paper is constructing a thinking, an idea. The moment you draw, ideas start to evolve. The way you draw reflects the way you think. Your drawings will function as a trigger to stimulate your brain to imagine the world differently.

This thesis is a journey of discovery through draw “boundary”. The site, architecture language, and program will emerge from the process of drawing.

Designing For Disaster Resilience In Puerto Rico, Aislin Mac Donald

Masters Theses

Being hit by both Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria in September 2017, Puerto Rico was left devastated economically, psychologically, and infrastructurally. After Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico entered into what would become the longest blackout in US history, and the second longest blackout in global history. Forty-eight per cent of the island was left without access to clean water and the death toll has risen to over 1000 people. The lack of federal support and Puerto Rico’s depleted economy has become a dire human rights issue. Federal relief efforts were delayed, disorganized and underfunded. Many people did not know where or …

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

Masters Theses

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

Between Gods And Animals : Deconstructing Heteronormative Masculines Pursuit To Sustain Power, Shawn Bush

Masters Theses

Between Gods and Animals is a multi-angle exploration of the Caucasian heteronormative male’s endless pursuit to sustain power and inability to live by their own set of codes. Using the Grecco Roman period as an origin point, this work examines the forces that have historically perpetuated the myth of masculinity. Relating past ideals of maleness to contemporary standards this thesis illuminates patriarchal structures that are systematizing masculinity while providing a space to normalize a gamut of masculines. The visual works included act as an introspective approach in accepting the complacency of my existence as a man who has operated within …

A Third Thing : An Exploration Of Black Hair In Architectural Design, Christina B. Schaller

Masters Theses

“African-American architects have been unable to articulate our own truth or vision of the future except as a reflection of the very culture that marginalizes us. We are so spent by trying to get into the system that there is little time remaining to critique the historical condition that make our climb so difficult. Rather than develop a self-defined praxis of architecture that would make a real difference in the lives of our people, we mimic the values and goals that have created our oppression.” - Sharon Sutton

By looking at traditions, art and architecture in the African American community, …

Pretend Power, Rosemary Engstrom

Masters Theses

This is an anti-thesis about being a tender and tuff queer femme bitch with mental illness trying to exist in this shitty world by creating worlds of their own. With bright colors, video performance, dress up, collage, and a lot of feelings, I turn power structures on their upside. They become a game of pretend where queers run the show. It’s ok to be sick. It’s ok to be vulnerable. It’s ok to be queer. You’re not alone.

In Exchange, Anna Mcneary

Masters Theses

This thesis parses the dynamics of emotional labor in personal relationships. By bringing softness, connection and exposure to the viewer’s body in the form of tactile experience and wearable sculpture, this book and the installation that it accompanies provide a physical lens through which to consider the challenges of reciprocity and the emotional experiences at that are at stake in a struggle for balance and mutuality in relationships.

Four Projects, K. Sarrantonio

Masters Theses

This thesis gives an overview of the author's inspirations and art practices and specifically surveys four projects that launched video projection work. The simple descriptions of the projects are accompanied by silkscreen prints taken from stills of the work.

Matriarchy, M. Camila Escobar Vélez

Masters Theses

This book collects my personal and artistic process since I got to the United States two years ago. My cultural and religious background is the foundation for my artistic explorations. This book collects theoretical references and personal stories that explore the impact of Catholicism on my personal life especially as a woman.

Facade Of Democracy : Realizing The Architecture Of The Fourth Wall, Johnny Yueh Han Lin

Masters Theses

This thesis project explored the scope of democracy and seek the opportunity to relate the research into the discipline of architecture. This one-year thesis journey started from “Democracy in Words”, “Democracy as a Rule of Drawing”, which seek to develop a representation system under the wide topic of democracy. The second part, “Behind the Democratic Illustration”, used a series of collages and drawings to understand a contemporary democratic crisis. And in the last part of the thesis “Reveal the Democratic Truth”, develop an architectural project based on the previous knowledge to reveal the predicament of the society through a counter-design …

Archinaut : Archinaut Design Laboratory Office Manual, Joseph Echavarria

Masters Theses

Like all cities, they are built up of forgotten or neglected icons commemorating a certain event from the past. Over the years, some no longer have the same social impact they once had. There becomes a need when looking towards the future to preserve the icons of Houston and protect them from erasure.

A few native landmarks, some thriving more than others are replicated and reprogrammed creating a potemkin village within a new hyper urban environment. The new Houston, Hyper Houston, commemorates these icons by stripping the essential elements of these icons to produce these new altered icons of Houston. …

Haunt : Casual Surrealism, Cara Buzzell

Masters Theses

This thesis aims to define, observe and create a feeling of surrealism through a series of design gestures. The process began with a question: If I, as a designer, immerse myself in a subculture that I have no interest in, will I become a fan of it? To attempt this, I created systems and tools to deeply investigate each subculture. I observed and recorded what I experienced. As a case study, the haunted attraction community captured my attention. I went to their conventions and took classes in the crafts of “the haunt.” While immersed in this community, I started to …

Field Guide : Collected Studies Of A Symbiont, Jennifer Livermore

Masters Theses

Field Guide is a collection of studies that explore how symbiosis relates to graphic design. These studies investigate how visual language constructs — and is constructed by — ideas about nature.

As a manipulator of language and imagery, I borrow the ecologist’s methods in order to make sense of our relationship with the natural world. My techniques include observation, collection, mutation, framing and recombination. I use these methods not to celebrate them, but to expose their subjective nature.

I approach visual language, technology, and our ecological home as an entangled set of ideas rather than estranged categories. My work investigates …

This Is Public Work, Nick Adam

Masters Theses

This thesis positions graphic design as an integral form of public works.

T his is public work regards the causal relationship between graphic design and its publics as an opportunity to explore the formal maneuvers to enhance an artifact's visual codes. The idea is an experiential one: rich and meaningful form can lead to rich and meaningful experiences.

The designed artifacts of our world function across informational (effect) and emotional (affect) modes. The complexity of these operations take on an infrastructural role — what we see day-to-day shapes our experiences and understanding. The opportunity of a designer to practice in …

Monument For Feeling : Notes From The Archivist, Melissa Weiss

Masters Theses

I’ve always loved the conjunctions unless, yet, however, although. Grammatical interventions, they subvert all things certain, rational, and indisputable, opening a series of syntactic doorways into new, undetermined possibilities.

The pieces in the Institute fo? Contempo?a?y Inqui?y’s archive function like those conjunctions. They refuse and destabilize easy categorization, pointing, like a rhizome, toward a thousand different possible pasts — and just as many futures.

To be clear, the Institute fo? Contempo?a?y Inqui?y does not have a physical site. It is a network of psychic locations materialized through its archive. It is, in other words, what I have gathered.

I have …

Constellations, Maria Rull Bescós

Masters Theses

In this book you will find a collection of projects that both reflect and simultaneously reinvent my personal way of seeing the world, which I consider to be a space that is complex, diverse, and in continuous transformation.

Graphic design is the lens through which I examine and understand this complexity, and it is also the medium through which I translate this huge realm into navigable systems of ideas, tales, forms, and experiences.

I have been inspired to produce my own systems in response to those I discover through actively observing my environment (territory), reflecting upon my personal background (origin), …

Anachropomorphism!, Carson Evans

Masters Theses

Folks, the Truth is hard to know—if can be known at all.¹ Conventional Western wisdom tells us: stick to the facts. (I’m looking at you, Enlightenment.) We privilege the written word as an objective and reliable vehicle for communication. Useful, yes, but we over-rely. I counter with this: bodily performativity and purposeful inaccuracy that produces, paradoxically, narrative accuracy. These methods roil in our gut or tug at our heartstrings—instead of recoiling, we should embrace them.

I like to unpack “the stories we tell ourselves,”² our personal and societal mythologies, with a particular eye to how the past plays a role …

Curious Things, Allison Davis

Masters Theses

Curiosity fuels progress. It is what pushes us forward individually, as well as collectively. It allows us to make sense of the world and those that are in it. The problem is, we are in the midst of a curiosity crisis whereby our sensitivity to the physical has drastically diminished. Curious Things sheds light on our detachment from our surroundings and explores how ‘embodied curiosity’ can foster our need to know, experience, and explore. Through curious observations and unexpected encounters captured by others, this thesis argues that the use of distinct object forms and visual aesthetics can be viable solutions …

Letsqube, Biniam Assegid Kebede

Masters Theses

Letsqube is a platform that enables groups of friends to easily collect and pool money towards communal events, gatherings, and purchases.

Individuals find their friends on Letsqube and then agree on a budget for an event, gathering, or group purchase. Letsqube handles the finances by automatically debiting a set amount from a user’s bank account on a predetermined schedule.

Letsqube encourages people to get together, provides accountability and a schedule for contributions, and handles the finances in the background so that groups of friends can focus on enjoying their time together.

Making time to get together with friends regularly is …