Architecture Commons^™

Anti-Gang Architecture: Youth, Labor, And Spatial Agency In Mexico, Arturo Resendiz

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Anti-Gang Architecture: Youth Labor, & Spatial Agency in Mexico

In many parts of the world, teenagers face environments shaped by violence, drug abuse, and limited opportunity. The absence of inclusive communities deepens youth disconnection, leaving them vulnerable to harmful influences. This research explores how architectural qualities can create spaces that protect, inspire, and connect with Mexican youth, specifically in cities like Matamoros, Tamaulipas, where public space has lost its capacity to support safe youth development.

The central question guiding this research is: How can architecture create environments that inspire youth identity, develop creativity, and offer alternatives to violence and drug …

Comparing Carbon Emissions Across Transportation Mode For A 5-Mile Urban Trip In Spokane, Washington, Christian Agyei

2026 Symposium

Transportation plays a significant role in shaping local greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly in mid-sized cities where automobile use remains dominant. This project examines how carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions differ across transportation modes for a standardized five-mile urban trip in Spokane, Washington. Using emission factors from the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the study estimates grams of CO₂ per passenger-mile and total CO₂ emissions per trip for four transportation modes, including single-occupancy vehicles, public transit, cycling, and walking. Commute pattern data from American Community Survey (ACS) provided local context on travel behavior in Spokane. This analysis …

Space For Life Below, Anthony J. Iadevaio

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Architecture is traditionally understood as the design of spaces for people. Buildings, cities, and landscapes are typically evaluated through how humans move through them, occupy them, and experience them. My thesis begins by asking a simple shift in perspective: what happens when architecture is designed not for humans, but for other living beings, specifically aquatic life?

My research focuses on understanding how spatial design principles can be used to create better environments for fish and aquatic ecosystems. Rather than treating aquariums as decorative objects or displays for human enjoyment, I approach them as lived-in spaces where fish are the primary …

Designing Through Perception: Testing Spatial Regulation Using Virtual Reality, Denisse Rosa

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

College students across the United States are experiencing high levels of stress, sensory fatigue, and burnout, yet most academic environments are not designed to support mental well-being. Research in biophilic design and environmental psychology shows that warm materials, natural light, and intentionally organized sensory zones can reduce academic stress and create conditions for calm and focus. This thesis explores how neuro-inclusive and biophilic design principles can reshape learning spaces into environments that actively support student wellness. The framework development and virtual reality testing documented here represent the completed phase of this research; formal data collection with human participants constitutes the …

In Search Of Design Process : A Computational Framework For Meaningful Form, Mario A. Vaquiz

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

In Search of Design Process : A Computational Framework for Meaningful Form

Imagine walking through your hometown, a place where identity, culture, memory, and collective resilience should be visible within the built environment. As cities continue to develop, new buildings rise from the ground, yet many remain indistinguishable glass boxes. They are efficient and visually neutral, but they fail to reflect the depth of culture, the struggles of communities, or the meaning embedded within place. These buildings fulfill functional requirements, but they often lack intentional expression. They exist, but they do not speak.

In Search of the Design Process begins …

Antidepressant Architecture, Joshua Landrum

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Both suburban sprawl and urban habitats continue to expand throughout the world, particularly in western civilization. With that expansion, the number of mental health issues have risen to an unprecedented level, leaving many individuals feeling isolated and depressed despite living in the most comfortable era of human history. This isolation is only escalated by the convenience of digital technology which allows us to get groceries, communicate with friends, and catch up on the latest news without ever having to leave our sealed domiciles or interacting with other people in a healthy and meaningful way. Through this self-destructive leisure, our connection …

Las Tres Regiones A Cultural-Historical-Educational Center Reconnecting The Generations, Giancarlo E. Cartulin

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Peru’s cultural identity has been fading away over the years across generations. Globalization, modernization, and migration have accelerated this disconnection, slowly leaving behind the traditions, stories, and practices that once shaped the nation’s identity. Although several museums in Lima display artifacts or cultural narratives from the different regions, no space immersively represents and unifies Peru’s three regions. In response, there is a need for a space where locals can celebrate their roots and tourists can learn the nation’s history and culture. This thesis proposes a cultural-historical educational center designed to revive cultural identity, strengthen collective memory, attract tourism, and support …

Lightness Shaped By Stone, Jared Arredondo

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

In a period defined by industrial standardization, automation, and increasing distance from material reality, architecture has become increasingly detached from the physical knowledge of making. Processes once grounded in time, touch, and material consequence are often replaced by speed, abstraction, and systems of production that conceal labor. This thesis begins from that condition and examines stone as a material through which architecture can recover a deeper relationship to time, craft, structure, and responsibility.

Stone resists speed. Its weight, density, and permanence demand precision, patience, and consequence. Each cut, joint, and surface operation requires an understanding of the material’s limits and …

Found & Forged: Rediscovering What Was Lost & Reshaping What Will Be., Christopher Dennis

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The decline of heavy industry across the American Rust Belt has left behind expansive, fragmented landscapes that are often treated as voids awaiting replacement. This thesis, Found & Forged challenges that assumption by repositioning the former U.S. Steel site in Lorain, Ohio, not as an absence, but as a layered urban condition with embedded cultural and spatial value. Found & Forged proposes a regenerative urban design framework guided by three interdependent pillars: Memory, Reconnection, and Resilience. Rather than erasing the industrial past, the project selectively preserves and reinterprets existing structures and artifacts to construct a living narrative of place. At …

Nurtur-Her, Azizi Ivey

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The Vine City Wellness Campus will transform the abandoned Morris Brown College Student Center—a symbol of the neighborhood's rich HBCU heritage—into a beacon of community health, honoring the past while addressing present health crises. By integrating clinical care, maternal health services, wellness programming, and community gathering spaces within a historic structure supplemented by sensitive new construction, this project will demonstrate how architecture can heal both bodies and communities, addressing generations of health inequity in one of Atlanta's most historically significant yet underserved neighborhoods.

Ile Idasile Aso: Creating Spaces That Promote The Creative Economy In Lagos., Ifeoluwa S. Gandonu

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Ilé Ìdásílẹ̀ Aṣọ directly translates to “House of Cloth Creation”. Yoruba fashion is more than attire; it is a cultural system that encodes identity, resilience, and social belonging through fabric. Every textile from the indigo-dyed adire of Osogbo to the ceremonial aso-oke woven in Abeokuta carries a story of community, heritage, and continuity. These materials serve not merely as garments but as living archives that express the Yoruba worldview through color, pattern, and form. Just as fashion weaves meaning into cloth, architecture can weave culture into space. Both disciplines involve composition, layering, and adaptation, reflecting how societies construct and express …

From Camps To Communities: A Spatial System For Refugee Recovery, Integration, And Independence, Neeya Yahaya

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Global displacement has reached unprecedented levels, with over 114 million people forcibly displaced worldwide (UNHCR, 2024). Although refugee camps are intended as temporary emergency responses, the average duration of displacement has extended to approximately 17 years. During this time, displaced populations are typically housed in rural, border-adjacent settlements with limited access to infrastructure, economic systems, and social services. Designed for short-term survival, these environments often fail to support long-term recovery, resulting in prolonged dependency and continued exposure to instability.

This research defines this condition as temporary permanence: refugees remain in camps for years or decades in environments not designed to …

Piece By Peace: Reimagining Healing Spaces For Us Veterans, Gerdon Chavez

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The study of U.S. Veterans mental illness presents a unique opportunity to explore how architecture can respond to the psychological, emotional and economic struggles through spaces that provide solutions beyond conventional institutional healthcare models. Findings suggest that veterans continue to experience complex forms of trauma, including but not limited to, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) and existing clinical spaces are often disconnected, making the reintegration back into society harder. This study will examine how architecture can shift its focus from housing a facility to becoming part of the process by integrating housing, therapeutic spaces and community …

Building For Shared Experience:Common Ground Through Interaction, Belonging & Elective Learning At Clarkston High School, Tiana Mcbride

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis explores how adaptive reuse and spatial organization can transform a typical high school experience into spaces that support collective belonging and organic interaction. Located in Clarkston, Georgia, a city recognized for its diverse immigrant populations, the project expresses the transition from literal cultural representation to the formation of unified space, without assimilation.

The proposal reuses the existing structural framework of a former school building. Reorganized through a central atrium strategy with the addition of elective class learning to facilitate the natural gathering of students within the spaces they love and choose. Elective programs, commons, library spaces, and shared …

Biomimicry Of The Everglades, Angelica M. Moss

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The Everglades Ecosystem is a slow moving river of grasses, encompassing 1.5 million acres from Lake Okeechobee southward to the Florida Bay. The ecosystem is a constant mosaic of gradient habitats, flowing from fresh to saltwater and from grasslands to forest, creating both resiliency, but also an interdependence. All ecosystems possess keystone species, who help to define how the ecosystem is shaped and behaves. In my thesis, I explore several keystone species within the Everglades, namely the mangroves, the family crocodilia, and the roseate spoonbill, and how formal translations of these organisms can produce functional biomimetic buildings that give back …

Can Architecture Save The World?, Stella Majewsky

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia has been under ongoing threat from mining. It sits at the border between Georgia and Florida in an area with child poverty rates up to 52 %.Heavy reliant on the timber industry, the region has suffered ecologically through hurricanes, mill closures and various other economic forces. The thesis proposes an architectural intervention in the Stephen Foster State Park in the Okefenokee. The objective is to develop an architecture that will help to protect the swamp; an architecture which invites the visitor to follow a trail into the swamp, to learn about the unique landscape, and …

Reclaiming Civic Space: Designing A Public Space For Political Engagement, Joiya Nguyen

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

According to a 2018 survey of the United States, loneliness has reached generational highs, particularly among those who substitute social media for in-person social relationships — from dating to political engagement. Despite this knowledge, digital interaction continues to displace physical community. The root of this turn to the digital is the lack of adequate public spaces. This project investigates how the built environment can reclaim civic spaces by offering meaningful, in-person alternatives to digital interaction.

Drawing on Henri Lefebvre's Right to the City and Anthony Vidler's writing on occupied spaces, alongside an analysis of historical civic precedents, this research maps …

Sanctuary Uprising: Spiritual Reclaiming Of A Former Immigration Detention Center Site In Laredo, Texas, Antonio J. Labra Alvarez

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis operates at the intersection of

architectural memory, spatial justice, and speculative

futurity. It asks not only how buildings harm, but how

the ground they occupy can be reclaimed — not

erased, but transformed. Rather than demolishing

the evidence of detention, the project proposes a

descent: a subterranean sanctuary that borrows the

geometry of confinement and inverts its intention,

turning surveillance corridors into processional

thresholds, cell dimensions into the measure of

sacred space, and the enforced stillness of detention

into a choreography of ritual and rest.

The site is Webb County Detention Center, Rio

Bravo, Laredo, Texas — a …

Kattam Choreography- A Facade Of The Virgin Islands, Kiyani J.M. Ottley

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Kattam Choreography reimagines a historic building in Charlotte Amalie, St. Thomas, USVI as a vibrant cultural hub that celebrates dance, memory, and commerce. Rooted in the embodied traditions of the qudrille folk dance, this project explores adaptive reuse as a performtive act—where architecture becomes a living archive of movement and heritage.

The design treats the building’s layered history not as a static artifact, but as a choreographic score. Quadrille’s spatial logic—its symmetry, rhythm, and communal gestures—informs circulation, program, and atmosphere. The building unfolds as a triptych: a dance pavilion, multi-purpose educational spaces, and a gift shop. Each element responds to …

Constructing Atmosphere The Use Of Light And Water As The Generators Of Architectural Atmosphere, Victoria A. Cioffi

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

What if the spaces we inhabit are no longer felt, only seen? In contemporary architecture, many buildings are designed for visual impact rather than human experience, often resulting in environments that feel emotionally detached. This thesis asks a central question: have buildings lost their soul? It proposes that atmosphere, understood as the sensory and emotional quality of space, is essential to restoring meaning and connection within architecture.

Drawing from the work of Peter Zumthor, this research explores how architecture can move beyond visual form to engage the body through environmental conditions. The study focuses on light, shadow, and water as …

Resurrecting The Romani Presence - Restoring Cultural Memory In Triana Seville, Jesus A. Sanchez

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

In an era of placeless architecture and fragmented civic identity, this thesis investigates how design can cultivate belonging through cultural and historical meaning. It examines the disjunction between spatial function and symbolic resonance in contemporary civic institutions, proposing a framework for architectural memory — a system of strategies that translate narrative, context, and collective history into spatial experience. Through precedent studies and design research, the project explores how rootedness can be achieved through materiality, sequencing, and light, transforming civic space into a vessel of memory and participation. The design proposal, a Romani Museum in Triana, Seville, situates architecture within …

Built For The Moment: Creating Temporary Hotel Architecture With Prefabrication For Transit-Oriented Development Along Marta Stations, Joshua D. Aicher

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis explores an architectural approach to addressing temporary population increases caused by large sporting events through flexible, prefabricated structures that adapt to varying sites and programmatic needs. The project is situated in the context of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in the United States, where host cities face significant pressure to accommodate short-term population surges. Typically, cities invest heavily in roads, transit, and hotels to support these events which are then abandoned or underutilized after events. While cities such as London 2012 Olympic Games and Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games leveraged existing, mature transit networks to absorb this increased demand, …

Enduring Identity: A Peace And Cultural Center For Palestinians In Exile, Sami M. Hajbi

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Over 110 million people have been forcibly displaced worldwide, confronting architecture with a challenge that extends beyond shelter toward the preservation of cultural continuity, history, and human dignity. This thesis investigates how architecture can function as a living framework for cultural memory rather than a static monument, an active system rather than a filed afterthought.

Palestinians represent one of the longest-standing displaced populations, enduring generations of exile since 1948. Despite fragmentation and loss of homeland, Palestinian identity has persisted through embodied cultural practices: embroidery, music, storytelling, and communal ritual. Cultural memory, this thesis argues, is not preserved through objects alone, …

Placemaking On Peachtree: Breathing Life In To Downtown Atlanta’S Outdoor Environment Through Wellbeing-Centric Design, Rachel Pickert

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Why do outdoor public spaces in Atlanta not prioritize pedestrian well-being by providing comfort, safety, and service to their daily life? The built environment is a key determinant of overall well-being through the opportunity for social interaction, stimulation, safety, comfort, and a sense of belonging. The vehicular-centric design of Downtown Atlanta has resulted in pedestrians seeking comfort away from the ground level using viaducts, subterrain transit, and sky bridges. This historic removal of pedestrians from the streets of Atlanta has resulted in un-activated outdoor public spaces which do not fulfill the basic needs for pedestrian wellbeing. This thesis uses existing …

Domestic Remix: Rethinking Home When Everything Happens Everywhere All At Once, Erika Louise Morales

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

With the cost of living rising, Americans are gravitating towards a living arrangement that may seem unconventional by local standards, but is common throughout the world: multigenerational households. This shift signals a growing openness to shared domesticity and a more collective way of living. Traditionally, Americans, like many Western cultures, are perceived to be more individualistic, whereas multigenerational living is often associated with more traditionally collectivist societies in the East. Yet, as social and economic pressures rise, Americans are reconsidering what “home” means to them, not only in terms of their individual space, but in terms of how their day …

Power Writes, People Rewrite; Distribution Of Collective Memory Through Space After The 1954 Coup, Brandon G. Maldonado

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis examines the relationship between power, propaganda, and spatial memory through the lens of the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état and its lasting impact on collective cultural identity. In response to systems that have controlled and suppressed narratives, the project proposes an alternative architectural framework that reclaims memory as a collective, participatory act. Operating across plazas, protest routes, and alleys in Zone 1 of Guatemala City, the project transforms existing urban conditions into a distributed system of memory production. In plazas, memory is created through acts of gathering and making. Along protest routes, a mobile kit-of-parts which carries the crafts …

In-Tsira Healing: Integrating Trauma-Informed Design And Sustainable Design Into Wellness Centers For Survivors Of Gender Based Violence, Eniola Ololade Esther Akinyemi

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Survivors of gender-based violence in Northern Nigeria face layered barriers to recovery, including trauma, stigma, displacement, and loss of livelihood. Yet the built environments intended to support them remain largely unresponsive. This thesis proposes a trauma-informed, climate-responsive wellness campus in Maiduguri, Borno State, grounded in cultural and environmental context.

The research asks how trauma-informed and sustainable design strategies can be implemented in healing centers to reduce re-traumatization, foster safety, and support reintegration through self-supportive, educational, and communal spaces?

How can trauma informed and sustainable design strategies be implemented in wellness centers to foster safety and healing while reducing re-traumatization, and …

A(Gr)Tecture: Designing An Agricultural Learning Facility To Energize Food Production In The Urban Areas Of Dominica, Kendel Constant

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis aims to explore my interests in improving the agricultural sector/farming within the urban areas of the tropical Caribbean Island of Dominica. The research will examine the issues currently challenging the agricultural sector, including hurricanes, landslides triggered by heavy rainfall, and shifts in temperature, which destroy open-field crops. In addition, other issues, including limited adoption of advanced farming techniques, an aging farmers’ population, and soil erosion, have weakened the agricultural sector in Dominica. My thesis project is to teach farming methods through an Agricultural Learning Facility that can help address these challenges, but focus on the urban areas.

The …

Rebel Commons: Reimagining Commoning, Connectivity, And Civic Space Through The 2025 Gen-Z Uprisings, Corbin Austin

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

In September 2025, Nepal’s Generation Z, those born roughly between 1997 and 2012, mobilized one of the largest horizontally organized youth rebellions in South Asia, using digital platforms to coordinate mass protests against corruption, unemployment, restricted opportunity, and failures of public governance. These grievances are exacerbated by Nepal’s unique geographical conditions, leading to severe physical disconnection due to the country’s extremely mountainous terrain. In tandem with this physical fragmentation, the nation has experienced years of political instability following the 1996 to 2006 civil war. As a result of these factors, young people face limited mobility, deteriorating infrastructure, and weak institutional …

Folding As A Generative Process, Donald E. Malcom

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This research is an exploration of folding in architecture as a way of conceiving of form and space. Transformation of volumes and planes allow for the creation of a pliancy system that generates a complexity of both spatial and form making. The continuous form and space generated by the transformation allows for a phenomenal experience of the space both visual and physical by the incorporation of all aspects of the structure from the floors to the ceiling to the circulation to the structure, all incorporated to the singular system of folding. Folding can be understood as a system of regular …