Architecture Commons^™

Building Translations: Narratives On Bizarre Preservation, Alexandra Allen, Scott Michael Krabath

Architecture Thesis Prep

In today’s globalized society, we’re confronted with a flood of images and data at a speed that strains our ability to fully process the information. This messy network often gives way to misreading’s and poor interpretations. In the architectural discipline, a suspension of critical disbelief is necessary to accommodate the lack of fidelity, clarity or resolution that exists in many of the documents we encounter.

We contend that there’s a productive tension between the object and its mediated representation and that the translations that occur between the two are embedded within the way that architects communicate with one another.

Robin …

Speculative Spoliation: Spolia As An Instrument Of Locus Making & Identity Mediation, Amelia Gan Wen Jiun

Architecture Thesis Prep

In this thesis, spolia is defined as the repurposing of found artifacts or material with ingrained place identities to new building matter in novel contexts. This includes architecture remnants or fragments from sites of historical ruins, urban derelicts and artifacts currently displayed in museums.

Architecture's impermanence results in demolishment, reconstruction, or exhibition of its fragments in museums or ruin parks. Attempts at preservation often only look at the surface-level significance of these artifacts without allowing for the addition of meanings over time. While displaying an artifact in a museum or turning ruins into tourist parks directly addresses the history of …

City Of Brick: Spatial And Material Explorations In 21st Century Urbanism, William Collins

Architecture Thesis Prep

The project I’m proposing, City of Brick: Spatial and Material Explorations in 21st Century Urbanism, will analyze the problem of and propose an alternative to the supertall residential tower in the contemporary city. Th ere is a trend in American cites toward the construction of ‘prestige’ projects, namely, skyscrapers of luxury apartments purchased as investments. Th is phenomenon is well-documented in the spacious floorplans of these towers; for example, 432 Park Avenue in New York City, though it is the tallest residential building in North America, only contains 104 units. My proposal seeks to provide a counter to the ultraluxury …

Political Archipelago: Repoliticizing Post-Umbrella Revolution Hong Kong, Dora Yui Kei Lo

Architecture Thesis Prep

This project aims to re-politicize the public sphere of post-Umbrella Revolution Hong Kong. Umbrella Revolution was one of the latest defining events of democratic struggles in Hong Kong. Like other protests, civil disobedience, and revolutions, the Umbrella Revolution was more than just “organized public dissents”; it was an experiment of an alternative democratic sphere for agonistic struggles. The occupation temporarily altered, reoriented, disoriented or debilitated the existing boundaries and thresholds in the city; it resisted the logic of the city to create a space of exception. However, these temporary alterations did not leave significant permanent imprints to the city. In …

Political Archipelago: Repoliticizing Post-Umbrella Revolution Hong Kong, Dora Yui Kei Lo

Architecture Thesis Prep

This project aims to re-politicize the public sphere of post-Umbrella Revolution Hong Kong. Umbrella Revolution was one of the latest defining events of democratic struggles in Hong Kong. Like other protests, civil disobedience and revolutions, Umbrella Revolution was more than just “organized public dissents”; it was an experiment of an alternative democratic sphere for agonistic struggles. The occupation temporarily altered, reoriented, disoriented or debilitated the existing boundaries and thresholds in the city; it resisted the logic of the city to create a space of exception. However, these temporary alterations did not leave significant permanent imprints to the city. At the …

Bridge: Fantasy Of The Demilitarized Zone, Lan Li, Yifei Li

Architecture Senior Theses

Architecture can do many things and solve many problems of the local condition. For example, skyscrapers meet high demands of housing and offices; sustainable green buildings are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient. When it comes to bigger topics like dealing with social and cultural conflicts which influenced by national and political decisions, the usual architecture types may not resolve or help as much as expected. So, for dealing with these topics, we find that architecture has limitations. However, when we look through other fields like art, we can find an opportunities to address them. For example, Ben Shahn was American artist, …

Subaltern Virtuality: Virtual Hegemony And Domestic Architecture In Postcolonial World, Nusrat Jahan Mim

Architecture Senior Theses

Antonio Gramsci coined the term “subaltern” to reveal the presence of small social groups of people on the fringes of history. Subaltern can be perceived as negative space or position of disempowerment, a position without social or political agency, and access to the power or hegemony. Today the emergence of ubiquitous computing, virtual social network, and globalized image culture has created a new group of subalterns in the virtual world. Amounts of tweets, likes, views, shares etc. have started to appear as a dominating factor in determining the “status” of a person in the virtual world and hence, have created …

Volcano: Tools + Projections, Sang Ha Jung, Young Joon Yun

Architecture Thesis Prep

The core of this project is the idea of humankind as a geological force. By imagining the active ground in relation to the creation of new ground and environment, this thesis seeks to reclaim the formal language of the geological through volcanism. As we create a series of spaces within this new ground, using lava as our natural tool for architecture, the goal is to create architecture and landscape that reconciles the geological and the biological, merging the natural and the artificial. Architecture can be formed naturally, like a stone built over time, through sedimentation and erosion. This idea of …

Living In The Shrinking City: Making A Case For An Urban Resurgence In Syracuse, Sou Fang

Architecture Senior Theses

The focus of this thesis is the City of Syracuse. Understood as a city undergoing population decline since the 1950s, this thesis attempts to engage with the effects of city shrinkage by evaluating the socio­-economic and material reality of the city. This project challenges the pedagogy of architecture to both broaden and be very explicit on how its disciplinary questions enter the frame of discussion surrounding the shrinking city discourse. The aim of the research / investigation and analysis (phase 1) is to understand the underlying principles, characteristics and effects of city shrinkage in the case of the City of …

Reshaping Reality: From Disneyland To Dismaland, Lina Wang

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis deals with hyperreality as a key concept to reassess contemporary socio-cultural conditions. Jean Baudrillard once described Disneyland as one of the main examples of hyperreality. By presenting imaginary as more realistic than reality itself, Disneyland draws visitors into the world of escapism and happiness achieved through simulation; it makes the troubles of the real world less relatable. If we wear glasses to view Disneyland more closely, however, we might see many issues behind it. Dismaland is an important reference in this thesis. When asked about the idea and inspiration for his Dismaland project, Banksy stated, "theme parks should …

Atmospheres And Bureaucracy: Challenging Everyday Perception And Regulation Of Public Space, Philip Claghorn

Architecture Senior Theses

It is common for us to overlook the everyday elements encountered in the city such as public Wi-Fi beacons, aestheticized benches, bike-sharing stations, and other items which have colonized street-scapes. In reality, these components are cosigned by business investment districts, private businesses, and city governments who stand to profit by maintaining control of public space. This struggle between formal and informal urbanism has been played out globally. The best example of informal urban contention can be found in street vending policy. An increasingly congested sidewalk, in conjunction with convoluted policies in places such as New York City, has made street …

Relink Tangible And Intangible, Weibin Lao, Xiaobai Zhao

Architecture Thesis Prep

Syracuse, as part of the Upstate New York used to be an essential economic center of the United States. This not only was resulting from its once influential salt industry and its easily accessed canal infrastructure, but also was heavily influenced by the industrial innovation. Without trained engineers, the people in Syracuse designed machines for excavating the earth and building the Erie Canal. And with easy transportation, goods and industrial products created and produced from Syracuse were shipped and transported. This brought prosper and wealth to the Syracuse. With new transportation technology development including the railways for trains and highways …

Transitional Spaces: Re-Thinking Of Disaster Relief Housing, Evelyn Brooks

Architecture Thesis Prep

Natural disasters such as tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes, and hurricanes destroy our infrastructure, civic buildings, public amenities, and homes. These disasters create problems of homelessness, but they also create environments within the city that are unlivable due to a lack of electricity and potable water. People displaced by disasters often find themselves living in a government-or non-profit-run evacuation shelter, at the mercy of bureaucratic organizations for assistance to begin the recovery process. People forced to evacuate neighborhoods where they have perhaps been established for decades often also lose their ability to attend school. These shelter environments are repurposed public buildings like …

2047 City, Mike Liu, Raul Sadhwani

Architecture Thesis Prep

Hong Kong has always been colonial; its existence is shaped from the confluence of East and West. After 158 years of British rule, Hong Kong's handover to the Chinese Government, catalyzed by the expiration of its 99-year lease of the New Territories, began in 1997 whereby the city operates under a "one-country-two-systems" policy. These events have created a culture and identity of disappearance as the people of Hong Kong have scrambled to define their identity due to the imminence of its disappearance, as discussed by Ackbar Abbas. This is exemplified in the Umbrella Revolution in 2014 when citizens, mainly students, …

Gender Segregation: What Does Dividing Space Across Gender Mean?, Mikayla Hope Starr

Architecture Thesis Prep

A Utopia is an idea of an ideal form of society that rethinks current power structures and dynamics at play in the world and subverts them. In proposing a new perfect society, one is critiquing the current society and questioning what can and should be done to improve the status quo. To start creating a Utopia, designers must first consider what faults exist in the world that they wish to remove or improve.

In this Utopia, the focus will be on equality for all gender identities, through spatial design. The specific elements being studied are those spaces clearly delineated on …

Growing Syracuse: The Architect's Role In Improving Syracuse, Ny's Food Environment, Stephanie Wagner

Architecture Thesis Prep

Urbanism requires community, and community requires a platform of public space. Underutilized spaces within the urban fabric can be activated by small scale architectural interventions to create formal spaces for community gathering, interaction, and commerce. The positioning and connectivity of these interventions can lead to the creation of new urban corridors that encourage growth within and between underdeveloped parts of the city.

It is the role of the architect to develop an architecture that is contextually relevant to a community, while addressing larger-scale urban issues, in order to create an accessible and beneficial built environment and lifestyle for users. The …

Drone Mapping The 140: A Narrative Of Architecture In The Conflict Zone, Rasan Taher

Architecture Thesis Prep

Since the Kurdish regional government in Iraq was established in 1991, the border between the federal government and the KRG has shifted and is in constant dispute. In 2003, under the new Iraqi constitution, article 140 identifies the mechanism to settle the disputed areas through the restoration of all demographic changes and by referendum to decide land claims, to be held no later than 2007. Since then, many attempts to change the demographics and the cultural characteristic of the disputed area have been attempted by both governments in order to secure their political and economic interest in the area. The …

Soft Tectonic/Adaptive Joint, Kuo Jui Lai

Architecture Senior Theses

In Taipei, more than 70% of buildings are older than 30 years. 1 The rate of illegal additions to existing buildings (wei zhang jian zhu) in Taipei is over ten percent.2 Excluding legal issues, illegal construction can potentially lead to significant safety issues. As a response, the Taiwan government is undergoing demolitions on illegal additions throughout the city. In recent years, the number of demolished building additions has surpassed the number of that being constructed. Despite this radical effort, Taipei city is finding that illegal additions continue to be a mainstream practice.3 Illegal additions and the issue of renovating old …

Full Proceedings, 2018, Jianshun Zhang

International Building Physics Conference 2018

Full conference proceedings for the 2018 International Building Physics Association Conference hosted at Syracuse University.

Suicide Normal Absurdity Foxconn Utopia, Yenhsi Tung, Yuchi Kuo

Architecture Senior Theses

Suicide normal absurdity Foxconn utopia is a study of modern architecture and urbanism in the information age. It posits that the metropolis spectacle that can be infinitely extended as a sprawling and systematic intervention. Snafu narrates the spectacle of high-efficiency in the Shenzhen and Hong Kong region, as represented by the existing Foxconn technology group in the Longhua campus. This manufacturing panorama is utopian. It consists of normal and all-inclusive phenomenon for each occupant in the form of productive cell that is embedded within an efficient coordinated system. Additionally, the standardization, optimization and hierarchical manipulation formulated by snafu generates a …

Proximate Environment, Prominent Impact, Stephanie Portmann

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Proximate Environment, Prominent Impact looks closely at the history and development of learning environments, and, more specifically, early childhood classrooms. While there is much debate around teacher versus child centered learning and pedagogies that have developed in the past century, this capstone focuses on the immediate environments of classroom spaces. I use history, architectural case studies, and scientific research to discuss the ways the physical environment of early childhood education classrooms can impact learning, well-being, and behavior.

Hatch Is Hatch: Building Building Drawings, Thomas Kuei

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The relationship of drawings to built architecture has changed drastically with the advent of technological advances that have automated drawing practices that once required skill, time, and effort. The focus of this body of research is on the hatch as an image-making tool, examining its current relationship to the translation from drawings to buildings. This paper will explore the implications of the hatch’s complex history in relationship to the mediating technologies and techniques through which they have been produced to recapture lost intention with the use of the hatch today. The paper will then focus on the hatch’s capacity to …

Contemporary Preservation, Elizabeth Johnson

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Architects are redefining how preservation can act in contemporary culture. Traditionally, preservation has been used to isolate and protect; freezing a building in its decayed state or in its original inception. Typically, preservation is only applied to culturally significant buildings. Obsolete typologies often do not fall under this category; therefore, they are destroyed to make way for the next best innovation. As such, innovation has been viewed as separate from history. Contemporary societal issues, such as climate change, drive us to reconsider this separation and embrace architectural methodologies that value cultural heritage. This thesis aims to use contemporary ideas of …

Infrastructure As Fabric: Integrating Autonomous Vehicle Highways In Urban Environments, Samuel Dye

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

In an age of advancing transportation technology, the redevelopment of I-81 in Syracuse will be a local condition set as a blueprint for infrastructural solutions at large. This will be done through increased density and a pedestrian friendly environment to repair urban fabric and sprawl. The project accepts highways and viaducts not as barriers of the city but as a seam – an anchor that the city develops around. This research paper will first lay out the scenario to which new infrastructure can succeed in positively reshaping the urban environment. Secondly, this paper will dive deeper into the effects of …

Midtown East Re-Development, Daniel Asoli

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Midtown East is an aging part of Manhattan that needs immediate attention from developers, urban planners, and architects alike in order to flourish amongst the other recently blooming districts in both Mid- and Downtown. This part of the city has not seen major redevelopment for over 70 years and is struggling to maintain basic city functions such as high commuter traffic, aging infrastructure, low vacancy rates, and in particular the provision of Class A commercial real estate for big corporate tenants. These are just the most pressing issues, which Midtown East must face. Fortunately for the special Midtown district, in …

Hatch Is Hatch: Building Building Drawings, Thomas Kuei

Architecture Senior Theses

The hatch is a series of marks on a page laid out systematically. It is a representational technique that has evolved, taken up different values, and has been utilized in different ways over time as technologies and practices changed. Today, the hatch is used symbolically as a way of communicating a drawing and has no direct relationship to the represented subject. However, by looking back at drawing practices, we start to understand the hatch has material consequences and is no longer solely illusory. The act of making a mark allows for the process to be read in the final image …

The Refurbishment And Renovation Of The Palais-Royal During The Recency, Jean-François Bédard

School of Architecture - All Scholarship

Philippe II, duc d'Orléans and his architect, Gilles-Marie Oppenord, embraced the grand goût style and recast the Palais-Royal as a surrogate Versailles. This shift imagined the Palais-Royal as the center for royal power during the Regency period. This article traces the ways in which renovations from 1713 until 1723 transformed the Palais-Royal. While Louis XV moved the seat of power back to Versailles, Paris remained the center for French politics thanks to duc Orléans and Oppenord.

Unimaginable Form Semantic Exploration In Digital Turn 2.0, Yang Wang

Architecture Senior Theses

Bill Bryson cited in 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' that "We live in a universe whose age we can't quite compute, surrounded by stars whose distances we don't altogether know, filled with matter we can't identify, operating in conformance with physical laws whose properties we don't truly understand." Using Big Data-Driven algorithm based on the Self-Organized Mapping (SOM) and Convolutionary Neural Network (CNN) to do the Computational Generative Form Design with huge complexities of Form Reality. The initiatively avoidance on the complexities of form has imprisoned architects' creativity.

Learning instinct of human being is seeking common information. Artificial intelligence …

In The Projects: Rebuilding Social Housing In New York City, Ruo Piao Chen

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

"The most logical solution to the affordable housing crisis in New York City is to redevelop the city’s public housing stock. However, Mayor Bill DeBlasio’s administration is far more concerned with incentivizing private deve"

For The Love Of Concrete, Steve Carlson

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

For the Love of Concrete celebrates the beauty, versatility, durable sustainability and authenticity of concrete in architectural design. This capstone is born out of the contentious debate around the mid twentieth century architectural style “Brutalism”. I acknowledge the shortcomings of concrete as a material (chiefly its carbon-intensive manufacturing process), but forefront its positive attributes. This in the face of increasing demolitions of concrete structures, and the trend toward superficiality in architectural design as architects more than ever focus too much on the design of the skin or facades of buildings, rather than focusing on designing good bones.