Architecture Commons^™

Above The Urban Surface, Xirui Zhang

Masters Theses

This thesis aims to solve inland urban flooding in residential communities of southwestern Washington D.C. by refining the current urban surface there.

By learning from the natural mountainous surface of the area, this study proposes a plan to add a new layer of urban surface above the original highly developed ground, in order to collect, recycle clean rainwater, and reduce the stress on the urban sewer system. The conclusion of the design strategies rebuilds a sustainable urban infrastructure system for the decaying urban residential area, with influence from the disciplines of both landscape and architecture.

Hybrid Spaces In The City, Zhihao Li

Masters Theses

This investigation is about the edge, hybrid space, and public engagement in the urban environment in Washington, DC. There are three phases of this research. In Phase 1, the investigation focuses on clarifying the definitions of terms such as edge, transition, vegetated, and constructed spaces. In Phase 2, the study explores methods of understanding urban fabric based on the experiential and physical analysis. In Phase 3, the investigation generates critiques of the site conditions between Union Station and Union Square in Washington, DC.

The film The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces by William Whyte, which shows people’s different behaviors …

V.1 2016-2017 Supplement, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The 2016-2017 Supplement issue contains handwritten answers on post-its to the question "What feels urgent to you in your studio? In your life? In the world?" These post-its were written at a grad-student gathering on the day after the 2016 US Presidential election, scanned and printed as a zine the next day, and distributed at open studios the day after that.

V.1 2016-2017, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The 2016-2017 issue contains articles on Kara Walker, Women's March, "Look at Art, Get Paid" program, #pizzagate, the Mutual Encounters exhibition, and smartphones.

Know Tommorrow Brown University Poster, Shepard Fairey, Risd Archives

Ecology and Environment

Poster for Brown University student event to demand action to counter climate change. "Brown emPOWER is joining dozens of colleges across the country for Know Tomorrow, a national day of action to raise awareness about climate change and its consequences. 2015 is the year for climate action as world leaders meet for the UN climate talks in Paris to sign a global agreement on climate. On October 2nd, join us for an evening of live music, engaging speakers, and environmental action on the Main Green at Brown University! Featuring: Kerry Kennedy, What Cheer? Brigade, Voces Verdes- Latino Leadership in …

Rubbings, Architecture Department, Chris Bardt

Architecture Student Work

Student: Ronak Hingarh

In Light Of Light, Chen Sun

Masters Theses

The pursuit of architectural discourse is indeed a search for a better material existence of space serving the immaterial. Meaningful space should outreach beyond its actuality, satisfying more than the basic pragmatist. It should generate an experience evoking appropriate sequence of emotions, expressing the current life and culture.

Light should surely be the subject of the discourse then, because that space conveys most of its intentionality through altering the behavior of light, while we also contributes to the alteration with our inhabitation. Like a silent speech, Light doesn’t merely conduct the spatial actuality; it also conveys the emotions attached through …

Community In A Post-Diest World, Kirby Benjamin

Masters Theses

We are in need of a new sense of community, that doesn’t rely upon religion. There exists a demand to adapt the church typology to meet the needs of current society rather than allowing these important buildings to be demolished or preserved indefinitely in an unneeded state.

With the decline of Christian religious practice in America, thousands of churches become underutilized or vacant every year, leaving these icons with strong religious associations empty. This abandonment simultaneously impacts the communities these churches once held together. Today’s generations’ sense of community has transitioned from physical to virtual connections, leading to less meaningful …

F(R)Iction, Rami Hammour

Masters Theses

Architecture is a space for stories; stories of the inhabitants, the designers, and the builders...

In my thesis I’m using architecture to tell stories, and criticize ideologies. Stories become the program, the structure, and “building material”, my site is any place where the criticized ideology dominates.

Architecture becomes a question and discussion. It is my question about life, and it is the question of the characters of the story about life. Eventually it’s the question of every inhabitant of it. It’s also an armature for different conditions of interaction of private and public.

In my architecture, spaces are constructed from …

Rising With The Water, Xi Yang

Masters Theses

Under predictions of sea level rise in the next hundred years, this thesis looks at South Boston as an experiment for coastal community development in response to the rising water. South Boston shares issues facing many other coastal communities, including potential risk of flooding and adaptive beach occupations. This body of work primarily investigates innovative strategies to work with the rising water and form sand dunes that will protect the neighborhood from daily floods in 2100, continue providing secure access to the beach, and encourage new public engagements at the waterfront.

Equilibrium: Public Spectacle For Social Integration, Reem Al Thani

Masters Theses

This thesis explores the ways socio-cultural methods of integration can influence architecture, using built form as a catalyst for connection in fragmented cities or communities.

Architecture plays a role in accentuating or diminishing socio-cultural segregation that exists in developing cities with diverse cultures. Doha, Qatar, with a population split between 13% National and 87% Expatriate, is an example of a developing city with extreme diversity that struggles to maintain its local community alongside foreign influx. The situation is jarringly apparent in the form of isolated architecture that has overtaken the city with glass towers and megastructures that are out of …

The Post Office Reimagined : Restoring Healthy Living In America, Mallory Buck

Masters Theses

Our built environment and broken food system are significant contributors to the obesity epidemic in the United States and must be considered when working towards a solution. Careless development patterns and city planning based around the ease of motor vehicle travel have left us with fragmented neighborhoods, increased dependency on cars and unsafe or uninviting sidewalks, each contributing to increasingly sedentary lifestyles.

Simultaneous changes in communication needs and increased connectivity through use of email have led to a drastic decline in the use of the postal service, causing major financial problems for the government agency. Historically a staple to every …

Redefining Liminal Spaces Through Natural Phenomena, Hanna Kim

Masters Theses

This thesis harnesses the untapped potential of spaces that are easily overlooked within our urban landscapes. By highlighting the environmental elements within these spaces (wind, precipitation, temperature and light) the quality of everyday urban life is enriched.

Used to living in predefined built environments that shape our thinking, we often fail to perceive subtle aspects in our surroundings and lose sight of their value. Alley spaces are perceptual urban blind spots: blighted left over places due to minimal activity. Their sense as "other spaces" presents them as undefined afterthoughts of city planning. Due to ambiguity of their status, the alleyways …

The Complexity Of Plainness, Michael Clouse

Masters Theses

The works that I am drawn to consistently have a simplicity to them, why is this so? Plainness must be a positive quality: it bears a clarity that helps reveal why a work is made the way it is. Restraint and necessity are agents for the process of making simple works. The necessary elements are positioned deliberately, in such a way that reveals the way a space is meant to be experienced. The recognition of multiple readings and calibrated alignments weigh more profoundly when plainness is achieved because it is through simplicity that our senses are attuned.

A great work …

Power Shift: A Catalyst For Architectural Transformation : Rapid Transit, Cincinnati, Dachamont Kaewket

Masters Theses

Large-scale architectural projects rely on political stability, and take considerable time to realize. The survival of an architectural development depends on outliving the governing bodies that initiate these improvements. With a change in power, often these large-scale projects are halted, demolished, or left unfinished.

The adaptation of these unfinished structures can reconcile the difference in a power shift, providing an important sense of continuum that is not only a record of the shift in power but also a source of connection through time with this fragmentation. For these reasons, Cincinnati’s subway system is a good example of a public project …

Faith In Phases, Linyi Dai

Masters Theses

This architectural proposal is about regaining faith by aligning threads of movements and allowing moments of overlap between the movements. This thesis proposes a series of constructs of an airport based on three phases: passenger, luggage and the airplane. The constructs aim to eliminate the separation between phases and to create overlap between the movements of the three types of objects.

We Begin When We Finish When We Begin, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

We Begin When We Finish When We Begin was a graduate student publication published in 2015. It featured essays, interviews, and student work dealing with themes of identity, geography, academics, and student life. Students as well as faculty contributed.

V.1 2015-2016, Center For Arts & Language, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

v.1 is a publishing platform for the ongoing work, ideas, discussions, debates, and aspirations of students at the Rhode Island School of Design. The 2015-2016 issue contains articles on addressing the complexities surrounding today's institutions, pedagogies, technologies, and professional expectations. This issue was not themed intentionally, yet the articles signal the problems of higher education and the precarity of the students who occupy it.

The Steel Yard, Architecture Department, Sculpture Department, Bruner Foundation

Rudy Bruner Award | 30 Years of Urban Excellence

The Steel Yard redeveloped a historic steel fabrication facility into a campus for arts education, job training, and small-scale manufacturing in Providence, Rhode Island. The 3.5-acre property in the city’s Industrial Valley required extensive environmental remediation to meet regulatory requirements while retaining the industrial urban character of the site. The Steel Yard offers classes, workforce training, and fabrication space for local artists, creating an industrial arts incubator where they can share ideas, materials, and space. It has become a center for creative activity, bridging the gap between the traditional arts community on the affluent east side of Providence with manufacturing …

Solar Decathlon 2014: Techstyle Haus Project Manual, Jonathan Knowles

Competition

Solar Decathlon 2014 Techstyle Haus Project Manual. The Solar Decathlon competition challenges twenty collegiate teams to design and build sustainable homes that are powered exclusively by solar energy and incorporate sustainable architecture and design. Techstyle Haus is an international Brown University, RISD and University of Applied Sciences Erfurt,Germany collaboration designing a solar passivehaus out of high performance textiles.

Techstyle Haus Project Drawings, Architecture Department, Jonathan Knowles

Prototype

Complete Techstyle Haus project drawings. The Solar Decathlon competition challenges twenty collegiate teams to design and build sustainable homes that are powered exclusively by solar energy and incorporate sustainable architecture and design. Techstyle Haus is an international Brown University, RISD and University of Applied Sciences Erfurt,Germany collaboration designing a solar passivehaus out of high performance textiles.

Materials Education And Research In Art And Design: A New Role For Libraries (Survey Stats), Mark Pompelia

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries

No abstract provided.

Materials Education And Research In Art And Design: A New Role For Libraries (Program Sheet), Mark Pompelia

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries

No abstract provided.

Materials Education And Research In Art And Design: A New Role For Libraries (Program Booklet), Mark Pompelia

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries

No abstract provided.

Materials Education And Research In Art And Design: A New Role For Libraries (Website), Mark Pompelia

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries

No abstract provided.

Materials Collection Creation And Administration: A New Role For Libraries (White Paper), Mark Pompelia

Materials Education and Research in Art and Design: A New Role for Libraries

The Problem/Opportunity: To define, identify, and guide design-based materials collections in academic settings and foster community among those with existing collections and/or those considering creating and supporting one.

Contents and topics:

1. What is a materials collection?
2. Why have a materials collection?
3. Acquisition strategies
4. Organizational approaches
5. Programming possibilities
6. Symposium summary
7. Resources

All-Nighter 2013, Students Of Risd, Risd Archives

All Student Newspapers

All-Nighter was a digital student publication that began in 2011 as all-nighter.com. The Spring 2013 issue is the only known print issue. It contains writing previously published online as well as new content. Highlights include photographs from Senior Open Studios; articles on the Quad mosaics, community gathering spaces, the timing of Thanksgiving break, Saturday night dinner parties in Ewing House, dining employees around campus, how Mike Fink saved Carr House, and the trouble with summer subletting; as well as comics by Maddy Trower, Jackie Ferrentino, and Casey Roonan.

Additecture, Architecture Department, Jonathan Knowles, Sina Almassi, Alexa K. Asakiewicz, Jason W. Askew, Caterina Belardetti, Guoyuan Chen, Kim E. Dupont-Madinier, Sara B. Fetterolf, Zachary P. Futterer, Atara H. Kelman, John A. Mars, Kevin T. Mcnulty, Saja Tourbah, Annabelle T. Tran, Cong-Xin G. Wong

Preliminary Design Work

Preliminary design work for the Solar Decathlon 2014 entry Techstyle Haus completed in a wintersession 2013 RISD design studio in Erfurt, Germany taught by Jonathan Knowles. The Solar Decathlon competition challenges twenty collegiate teams to design and build sustainable homes that are powered exclusively by solar energy and incorporate sustainable architecture and design. Techstyle Haus is an international Brown University, RISD and University of Applied Sciences Erfurt,Germany collaboration designing a solar passivehaus out of high performance textiles.

Rediscovering The Wheel, Brooke Hodge, Risd Xyz

RISD XYZ Fall/Winter 2013: Out of Bounds

What does architecture have to do with pottery? For Adam Silverman BArch 88, these two seemingly disparate creative practices are inextricably intertwined.

Brooke Hodge, director of exhibitions and publications at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, writes frequently about architecture and design for major publications. This text is excerpted from a longer essay in the new book Adam Silverman Ceramics, published this fall by Skira/Rizzoli.

Haus House, Architecture Department, Jonathan Knowles, Sina Almassi, Alexa K. Asakiewicz, Jason W. Askew, Caterina Belardetti, Guoyuan Chen, Kim E. Dupont-Madinier, Sara B. Fetterolf, Zachary P. Futterer, Atara H. Kelman, John A. Mars, Kevin T. Mcnulty, Saja Tourbah, Annabelle T. Tran, Cong-Xin G. Wong

Preliminary Design Work

Preliminary design work for the Solar Decathlon 2014 entry Techstyle Haus completed in a wintersession 2013 RISD design studio in Erfurt, Germany taught by Jonathan Knowles. The Solar Decathlon competition challenges twenty collegiate teams to design and build sustainable homes that are powered exclusively by solar energy and incorporate sustainable architecture and design. Techstyle Haus is an international Brown University, RISD and University of Applied Sciences Erfurt,Germany collaboration designing a solar passivehaus out of high performance textiles.