Architecture Commons^™

Emergent Opportunities: Urban Design In Small Town Appalachia, Phillip Geiman

Masters Theses

This thesis looks at urban design within small town Appalachia and its role in low density and low resource communities.

Small towns are facing a critical juncture in this point in their history. As most areas transition from a heavy depend acne on industrial based economy to an uncertain post-industrial, they face challenges unique to rural areas. Specifically, this thesis looks at “urban design” in distinctly non-urban areas and seeks to answer the question of what is the function and what is the role of design at such a large (urban) scale.

The idea is that what distinguishes small towns …

Block 271, Reviving An Industrial Artifact, Jared Thomas Pohl

Masters Theses

Vacant industrial sites are scattered throughout our cities all across the country. These sites, these remnants of industry, are occupied by a very interesting category of buildings. They are artifacts from an industrial era that served very unique and specific functions. These service buildings suffered programmatic failure and have lost their vitality. They have entered a form of hibernation, waiting for the post-industrial epoch to wake them up.

The building stock under investigation makes up a large portion of the city’s structures. Identifiable by their heroic scale, clean articulated lines and tendency to be vacant, these service buildings raise arguments …

Carbon-Neutral Design Guidelines For Medium Density Urban Areas In Warm-Humid And Cool-Dry Climates, Jennifer Delane Stewart

Masters Theses

This thesis combines Architecture 2030’s carbon-neutral performance targets with the SmartCode transect-based development principles, to generate guidelines for design of medium-density carbon-neutral districts. The topic examines these guidelines in medium density planned and built sites (transect types T4, General Urban Zone, and T5, Urban Center Zone) in representative cities within a cool-dry climate (IECC climate zone 5B, Denver) and a warm-humid climate (IECC climate zone 3A, Atlanta). The thesis assumes that a carbon-neutral district is more effective and potentially easier to achieve than designing independent carbon-neutral urban buildings. Within an urban context, it is now possible to connect buildings to …

Working At The Water's Edge: Reconnecting The People Of Charleston With The Water, Maria Ann Fox

Masters Theses

Water is a chemical compound fundamental to life. When many people first think of water, it is the water used for everyday activities and drinking that may come to mind. What is frequently overlooked is the fact that 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered with water and 96.5% of Earth’s water is found in oceans and seas (U.S. Geological Survey). What may not be as clear is the importance of these bodies of water to the surrounding towns and cities.

Since it’s founding in 1670, Charleston, South Carolina has always had a strong relationship with the water. One could …

Recapturing Urban Space: An Inhabited Bridge In Nashville, Tennessee, Benjamin Smith Culbertson

Masters Theses

Density. A word used in the description of many large cities. It is how so many people can fit into a relatively compact area and still operate efficiently. Density, used as a tool to craft cities can generate spectacular moments. Several centuries ago, one of these moments was the inhabited bridge. It provided the continuity of the urban fabric by linking areas that were separated by rivers and other natural boundaries. They were nodes in the city that housed commerce, social activity, and residences. However, as cities grew to be more globally connected hubs, the needs of the pedestrian fell …

Urban Economics Of The Ideal City, William Taylor Brantley

Masters Theses

Infrastructure influences both depictions of the ideal city and economic models predicting urban growth. As the common variable, infrastructure investments could promote ideal city values within free market economies.

To preserve the countryside and natural lands infrastructure investments must encourage concentrated growth in cities. The city and countryside are codependent. An abstraction between the two zones will lead to the demise of both the city and the countryside. New urban infrastructure should relate to public spaces creating economic, cultural, and social value in dense development. This value is achieved by generating a multiplicity of connections, program, and places within the …

Breaking The Eviction Cycle: Rethinking Design In An Urban Homeless Campsite, Lauren R. Dunn

Masters Theses

In Knoxville, TN, in an area of decaying rail-based industry close to a cluster of homeless services, people experiencing homelessness, who cannot or will not use the shelter system, generate outdoor campsites. Every 6 or 8 months, local authorities evict the campers due to complaints of trash accumulation or disturbances. The homeless campers then move to new locations, and the cycle begins anew. Homeless service providers and policy makers discuss what to do about the perceived problem, but they do not condone the urban campsites or ask the campers what they need to improve their situations.

This is a “wicked …

Urban[E] Agriculture Developing An Architecture That Supports Hyper-Localized Agriculture In The Urban Context, Jason Michael Cole

Masters Theses

This thesis contains both the outline of the modern day problem of food deserts and nutritional injustice in urban areas, as well as my proposed solution for combatting both of those issues. Through research, investigation, experimentation and synthesis of design, I have put forth my thoughts and ideas on how we as a community can work together to shape our own nutritional destiny in the urban environment.

Deep Surface: Engaging The Terra Viscus, Amanda Nicole Gann

Masters Theses

Two hundred and forty-six acres along the eastern edge of downtown Memphis are labeled as “Shaded Zone X” on FEMA flood insurance maps. This is an area “protected by the levees” but subject to flood during large storm events. Unprepared for the potential flood, the people within this area feel safe behind the static levee wall. If storms worsen as predicted and settlement continues to sprawl increasing impervious surfaces of the Mississippi River Basin, the area within Shaded Zone X and the people who occupy it will be in danger.

Historically, storm water In Zone X drained into the Gayoso …

Refocusing Roles ...A Look At Refocusing Programmatic Emphasis From Living Units To Amenity Spaces In Apartment Living, Laura Mae Kneebone

Masters Theses

As growth within cities increase, so does the demand for living options within the city context. A cultural shift is drawing more individuals and families back into the heart of cities instead of fleeing to the outskirts of surrounding highway towns.

This increase in desire for city living has raised issues surrounding the lack of living options within the city that may accommodate those needing and/or seeking affordable living options. Micro-unit apartment housing has become the trending answer to this need, providing compact affordable living spaces within the core of a city. Micro-unit apartments can be currently found in most …

Make A Delirious Noise: Improvising Urbanism In New Orleans, Louisiana, Jason Michael Stark

Masters Theses

Decades of poor urban design choices and a lack of attention to the characteristics of communities have played prominent roles in the fracturing of urban communities and the relegation of those without means to the edges of the urban fabric: poverty and powerlessness abetted by geographic location. Rather than “restitching” the urban whole back together, I argue that progress can be made through the generation of local nodes of identity: a polynucleated urban condition. The development of spaces to magnify community identity with respect to localized characteristics produces a community focus to replace the unattainable (for those without means) city …

Place And Crowdfunding: An Examination Of Two Distressed Cities, Brenna Elrod

Masters Theses

Crowdfunding is a relatively new form of funding made possible by Web 2.0. This study examines community-based projects made possible through the crowdfunding platform, Kickstarter. Projects were compiled that were successfully funded between the dates of April 28, 2009 and July 26, 2012. These projects were collected for all cities listed on the site in the United States. Subsequently they were compared across three measures: raw numbers of projects, normalized city population, and against the creative class index of Richard Florida. Using these measures, Detroit and New Orleans emerged as cities for further in depth analysis. Interviews with initiators in …