Architecture Commons^™

Environmental Architecture: Environmental Discovery Center On The Woonasquatucket River, Nathan Bonaiuto

Architecture Theses and Projects

The Woonasquatucket River Environmental Discovery Center (WREDC) is a place where students of the environment can enjoy a natural space within their own community. It provides a much needed connection to a site which, for far too long has been off limits to the community. As a potential learning environment for young students, the WREDC becomes a platform for a sustainable lifestyle. In this place we learn about the past, connect it to the present, and allow for change in the future.

This thesis is about making these connections of past and future through the current constructs of the Social, …

Preservation Without Restoration: The Case For Ruins, Sydney Schoof

Historic Preservation Theses

The ruins are often an overlooked topic in historic preservation. The typical method of treatment is either full restoration or demolition. However, some ruins have gained significance in their own right and this thesis explores appropriate treatment and recognition for these structures. Ruins typically represent a historical trend toward downsizing that would not be otherwise visible and are therefore eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places under criterion A, though criterion C may also be applicable as the aesthetics of ruins are often much admired and become the primary reason for local and even national interest in …

Biomimicry: Architecture That Imitates Nature’S Functions, Forms And Parts, Kostika Spaho

Architecture Theses and Projects

Architecture imitates nature’s functions, forms, and parts in order to solve the problems of sus­tainability, efficiency, strength, durability and more. Nature displays its solutions to these prob­lems through endless examples, which appear everywhere on this planet. Such designs rep­resent nature’s work, which has evolved over a “3.8 billion year period.” Nature’s creations are carefully articulated in order to fit in with their context, and to optimize their need for energy and material. It is likely that the answers to most of our design questions lie amid the surrounding organic fabric.

An Architecture Of Connection, Jessie Renee Davey-Mallo

Architecture Theses and Projects

This mixed use project explores the senses in order to make nature connections and social connections to truly link people to habitat and place. This is achieved by responding to the contextual input as well as creating new places with consider­ations to intensity, direction, enhancement, blocking, and more.

Reusable Building Systems, Daniel Boyle

Architecture Theses and Projects

This thesis discusses about designing building system which could be directly reused, without critically changing or remodeling them. Buildings designed by this system will last or will be easily replaced when they wear down or new technology outdates them.

The Passion For The Goddess; A Comparative Study On The Reverence Of The Goddess In Contemporary America And Ancient Mesopotamia, Sierra Helm

Honors Senior Capstones and Theses

Through a comparative study of contemporary America and ancient Mesopotamia, the devotional practices directed towards the goddess Inanna in ancient Mesopotamia and towards celebrities in present-day America are analyzed. Celebrities have replaced Inanna in terms of representing exceptional figures exemplifying certain qualities--qualities of motherhood, fertility, sexual appeal, wisdom, intelligence, and even that of the warrior--once associated with the ancient goddess. The position of women within these cultures is an important aspect of the research. In ancient Mesopotamia, the position of women decreased over the millennia, from 4000 BCE to 1000 BCE, in which the people of Sumer, Akkadia, Assyria, and …

Project Summary: Preservation Plan For Warren, Ri, Community Partnerships Center, Roger Williams University

Preservation Project for Warren, Rhode Island

This document summarizes the project that created a historical preservation plan for the Town of Warren, RI by the students in Professor Arnold Robinson’s graduate-level course: Historical Preservation Planning.

Historic Preservation Plan For The Town Of Warren, Rhode Island, Community Partnerships Center, Roger Williams University

Preservation Project for Warren, Rhode Island

During the graduate-level course of the 2011 Spring Semester, the RWU Historic Preservation Planning class worked to create a Historical and Cultural Resources Plan for the Town of Warren, RI. The town is in the midst of updating its Comprehensive Community Plan and had looked to the RWU Preservation Planning Workshop course for leadership and innovation in the area of historic preservation planning. At the end of the fifteen week program, the students formulated an integrated preservation plan for the community by working together with the Project Advisory Committee composed of town leaders. The plan will provide the Town of …

Waterfront Revitalization: Bridgeport Aquarium And Waterfront Promenade, Ryan Devenney

Architecture Theses and Projects

I am proposing a new public institution, a waterfront aquarium, along with a waterfront promenade, to be located in Bridgeport, Connecticut. This new development will be linked to an existing park, ferry terminal, and an Amtrak train station, along with two other proposed parks. This project will help support urban revitalization in the city. It is based off of several similar projects such as the National Aquarium located in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor district, and the Adventure Aquarium located on the Camden Waterfront. These projects include an aquarium as the centerpiece of their waterfront-based renewal scheme. This new public institution will …

Programmatic Overlays: A Park/Cemetery In Jersey City, Nj, Lawrence Zarpaylic

Architecture Theses and Projects

The development of sensory invitation and discovery will be the guiding premise infused within the architectural construct. Allowing one to recognize and identify with their emotions by establishing a heightened sense of ‘place’ and ‘time’ are steps towards realizing ones’ essence. Creating spaces that foster this awareness by using physical forms, textures, and colors that will aid in the manifestation of a building that engages, interacts and touches the soul. As cities expanded, cemeteries would typically be built alongside their development. Today space is limited for burial with the dense urban fabric of the 21st century. Thus, a proposal for …

Working With Nature, Carolyn Brown

Architecture Theses and Projects

In order to receive the benefits of telecommuting while preventing a loss in social aspects, the proposed project is a new type of work environment that will be a combination of home and office. A place that provides the necessary technologies that are needed to be a telecommuter. A place that is away from the office and home but still holds the social aspects of an office and comfort of home. An alternate office, a telecommuting hub that contains flexible office space for long term use, temporary use, or day to day use for different businesses and organizations, assisted by …

Walley School Community Arts Center Feasibility Study, Bob Miklos,Kelly Ard, Scott Slarsky, Arnold Robinson, Hank Kniskern, John Mcquilken, Robert Rambo

Architecture and Urban Design

The Walley School community arts center initiative began in the fall

of 2011 as a joint project between the Town of Bristol and Roger

Williams University’s School of Architecture. Shortly thereafter, the

Gabelli School of Business was asked to development a business case

for the project. Four students in the course “Management 439: Business

Planning” took on the Walley School as their team project for

the semester. The business case study was developed in conjunction

with the Town of Bristol, the initiative’s steering committee, Roger

Williams University’s Community Partnerships Center, the School

of Architecture and the School of Construction Management. …

Charles G. Calder House Rehabilitation Plan, Benjamin Bergenholtz, Valerie Farm, Dustin Powell, Matine Rousseau, Jonathan Shea, Alison Talbot, Arnold Robinson

Historic Preservation

Upon completion and proper drying time of new plaster, sand all walls to an even smooth surface and apply base coat followed by Linen White paint by Benjamin Moore (flat) on all wall surfaces. Ceilings are all to be painted a flat Ceiling White by Benjamin Moore. Woodwork that has been painted in the past (not stained) is all to receive semi-gloss Bright White paint by Benjamin Moore. No less than two coats throughout on all painted surfaces.

Celestial Vaults In English Gothic Architecture, John Shannon Hendrix

Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications

Many of the vaults in English Gothic cathedrals and churches are catechisms of cosmologies and celestial vaults. The tierceron and lierne ribs at Lincoln Cathedral, for example, and later lierne and net vaults at Bristol Cathedral and St. Mary Redcliffe, for example, display the geometries that can be found in medieval cosmologies such as the De Luce and De Lineis, Angulis et Figuris of Robert Grosseteste in the thirteenth century. The vaults can be read as intelligible structures of matter and the heavenly bodies. The vaulting of the nave of Lincoln Cathedral between 1235 and 1245, during the bishopric of …

Leon Battista Alberti And The Concept Of Lineament, John Shannon Hendrix

Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications

A core idea in the architectural theory of Leon Battista Alberti, as expressed in the De re aedificatoria, is the distinction between “lineament,” the line in the mind of the architect, and “matter,” the material presence of the building. This distinction plays a key role in architectural design throughout the history of Western architecture. As Le Corbusier would say in the twentieth century, “architecture is a product of the mind.” The distinction between mind and matter can be found in Vitruvius, in the distinction between “that which signifies and that which is signified”; at the Accademia di San Luca …

Minnesota Modern: Era Of Innovation, Christine Madrid French, Elaine B. Stiles

Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications

The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP), with the cooperation and support of the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota, Preserve Minneapolis, DOCOMOMO MN, and the Minnesota Historical Society, hosted a two-day Modern Module in Minneapolis and St. Paul on October 27 and October 28, 2009. This booklet is a companion publication to the The National Trust for Historic Preservation (NTHP), with the cooperation and support of the Preservation Alliance of Minnesota, Preserve Minneapolis, DOCOMOMO MN, and the Minnesota Historical Society, hosted a two-day Modern Module in Minneapolis and St. Paul on October 27 and October 28, 2009.

Palimpsest, John Shannon Hendrix

Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications

(Borromini) The sketchbook continues to be important for the parti in the design process in architecture. The computer is an important tool in the development and execution of the design, and can also be important in the parti, for example when forms are generated from number sequences, but certain functions of the sketchbook cannot be replaced by the computer. The sketch can more completely represent the relation between the human mind, thought and psyche, and the architectural design. The best example of this is the quality of palimpsest in the sketchbook, where layers of forms and ideas …

Using Sequential Mixed Social Science Methods To Define And Measure Heritage Conservation Performance, Jeremy C. Wells

Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications

There is no agreed-upon definition for heritage conservation performance, but it is possible to borrow ideas from the natural resource conservation field to inform this concept. Dimensions of performance can include economic, technical, and sociocultural and experiential indices. Because heritage conservation ostensibly benefits people as its primary goal, however, the values of most stakeholders ought to play a role in defining performance. Most of these values are subjective and represent sociocultural and personal meanings and tend to differ dramatically from the positivistic, fabric-centered value system of conservation experts. Measurement implies quantification, yet many sociocultural values are based on qualitative meanings …

Aspen Modern: America’S International Resort, Christine Madrid French, Elaine B. Stiles

Architecture, Art, and Historic Preservation Faculty Publications

The Aspen Modern event held on July 28, 2010 was presented by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, in partnership with the City of Aspen Community Development Department, the Aspen Art Museum, the Aspen Historical Society, the Aspen Institute, and Spring Board Aspen, with support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Henry Luce Foundation. This full-color booklet highlights the modern architecture of Aspen, Colorado.

Graffiti Gallery, Mike Delvalle

Architecture Theses and Projects

This project is an architectural exploration of the ability of architecture to enhance the lives of those belonging to stigmatized subcultures, in this case graffiti artists, Skateboarders, BMXers, and Rollerbladers. To do this there is a focus on achieving a spatial justice for these social groups by creating public space that is in fact public, uninhibited by the processes of inclusion and exclusion that plague nearly every public space. More importantly than achieving spatial justice, however, is creating a societal awareness of the positive attributes of these subcultures. After all, it is society that has control over how public spaces …

Invention Center: A Building Of Inventions, Jonathan T. Archbald

Architecture Theses and Projects

In today’s world, the word sustainable often goes hand in hand with design. As a recent trend the LEED standards are used as a way to “prove” a building’s commitment to being sustainable. LEED however is only the tip of the sustainable iceberg of what design can actually be. The term Sustainable has to be linked with the term efficient. Sustainability is more than the design and construction of a project. It has to be involved with all aspects of a project’s life.

Creating Social Networks: Resettlement Center For Burmese Refugees, Kelly Lynne Clarke

Architecture Theses and Projects

The refugee resettlement program in the United States must encourage both the formation of refugee communities and integra­tion within the larger community. I propose a multiuse building to strengthen refugee communities [bonding social networks] and connect refugees to the larger community [bridging social networks]. Both of these connections are essential for refugees to become integrated in a community. The building will be run by Lutheran Social Services who currently assists in the resettle­ment of refugees in the Springfield, Massachusetts area, with assistance in funding from the Wilson-Fish Discretionary Grant Program which provides financial support for alternative models of resettlement.

In …

125th And Amsterdam: Creating Spaces For Social Interaction, Joshua Payne

Architecture Theses and Projects

This Project is designed to address the negative aspects of gentrification in an urban context, specifically Harlem, NYC. This is relevant to the current situation in Harlem as 125th Street, its main corridor, is being revitalized and wealthy investors are buying property in the area. Through sitting, programming and integrated design, my goal is to relieve the tension between two drastically different socioeconomic neighborhoods as they are becoming one.

Lost Angeles: Los Angeles, California, Usa, Irena Gagulic

Architecture Theses and Projects

A social resource center and emergency crisis intervention shelter for unclaimed runaway youth attempting to reclaim their identity within society, and a memorial dedicated to the individuals who lie unclaimed or unidentified because they never received that opportunity.

A Catalyst For Urban Renewal: Reservoir Number Three Environmental History Museum, Brian R. Fontaine

Architecture Theses and Projects

This architectural thesis investigates how architecture can have an impact on urban renewal by strengthening communities with an architecture which promotes human interaction through spatial and programmatic interconnections, as well as promoting relationships between people, their history, and context.

Architecture As An Educational Tool: University Of Connecticut School Of Architecture, Nicholas Mundo

Architecture Theses and Projects

I propose a school of architecture focused on holistic approach to design, taking consideration for the various related fields to offer a positive learning environment. The building itself will serve as an educational tool, providing space for interactions to occur and for visitors to understand the inner workings of a school of architecture. The building should represent a progressive thought process and promote creativity and collaboration.

Hatfield Community Center: Hatfield, Massachusetts, Patrick Dominov

Architecture Theses and Projects

The goal of the project is to create a building that can be as active as possible throughout the day and evening. This can be done by finding a variety of users to occupy the building for different times of the day. In addition, creating multipurpose spaces will allow the building to stay smaller in size; a space in the building can take on multiple functions. Bringing in the entire community to this building is what will make the building successful. The building will be designed with the entire community in mind; young, middle-age, and elderly, not just a specific …

F.F.A: Forensic + Funerary Architecture, Michael P. Cafro

Architecture Theses and Projects

This thesis document proposes the notion of an architecture that incorporates a three part program which involves violent and natural death cases. With scientific and larger public gathering spaces proposed in the building’s program, the users are grouped in a common environment that deals the subject of death. The general public are a witness to the building’s architecture and have the ability to react and become aware of their surroundings and possibly allow for an appreciation toward life.

Design As A Tool For Architectural + Social Development: The Kalighat Women’S Resource Center, Lindsay Brugger

Architecture Theses and Projects

This project aims to serve, and ultimately enable, those who fall outside the realm of social recognition; specifically, women working in prostitution. The project will provide a place for these women to learn alternative skills, become educated, and rediscover themselves. This effort will be of particular importance to women aged 25-35. It is at this age when the women become less viable within their profession. Without a minimum number of clients the women are unable to pay their daily rent. Since very few have any sort of financial savings, many women end up either on the street, or becoming madams …

The 21st Century Civic Identity: Redefining The Small Town City Hall, Leellen M. Lewis

Architecture Theses and Projects

Identity is defined as the distinguishing character or personality of an individual. Throughout life, we as individuals, strive to create and uphold a sense of identity. Once our identity is established, we feel more comfortable with ourselves and our surroundings. However, at a larger scale, what happens when a community lacks a sense of identity? Small towns especially struggle with finding their identity and creating a suitable and exciting Civic infrastructure. Often there is a lack of involvement in the community. There is no drive for contributing to the majority, whether through community service, town council meetings, government, or community …