Architecture Commons^™

Any Given Sunday, Dabota Wilcox

Architecture Thesis Prep

Our lives are defined by the things we surround ourselves with. They captivate our thoughts, moods, and desires, but besides their ability to transfix us, they posses a power to transform us. They can shape our needs, values, and behaviors. They ultimately leave us with transformative experiences that provide and enforce within us our beliefs. The rise in prominence of pop culture as a force in shaping the way in which people see and confront the world has meant that our attachments are as disparate and ubiquitous as ever. We communicate and enforce that which we hold close by the …

Learning From The Informal, Cherif Farid

Architecture Thesis Prep

Architecture could learn from the socio-cultural norms of informal Cairo and could implement professional expertise to create a new housing typology that achieves the people’s needs.

Housing 20 million people and still growing, Cairo mirrors the global phenomenon of unplanned urban growth. The people have been forced to construct their own dwelling units as the government fails to provide them shelter. Approximately 65 percent of the population of Cairo lives in so-called informal housing: four to ten story concrete and brick infill structures built without legal permits in the desert or on former agrarian land. These informal housing projects are …

The Architecture Of Collapse, Alison Sekerak

Architecture Thesis Prep

The world is changing around us. There is no more denying it. We are running out of resources. We are polluting our air and water. Sea levels are rising, and with it, natural disasters. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, drought. We are killing each other. Economies are collapsing and countries are dissolving. The world is changing. Stories of apocalypse have been prevalent in our society for decades, but they may not be a thing of science fiction anymore. When the world does change, what are architects going to do about it?

An architecture must be designed to enable the survival of …

Ruin-Naissance, Fatma Gonca Tunc

Architecture Thesis Prep

Ruin-naissance is the term I use to describe not only the resurrection of an archeological site, but also the rebirth of an idea about how we think about ruins and how new construction can enhance the experience of these kinds of sites.

The principle contention of this thesis is that a better understanding of the fragmented evidence presented by an archeological site can be seen through the lens of a contemporary architectural intervention that responds sensitively to an ancient site. In doing this, the intervention needs to address issues of identity, narrative and historiography. The new architecture should not ignore …

Contemporary Infrastructure For The Sustainable Mid-Sized City, Christian Martinez

Architecture Thesis Prep

Embedded within the Feasibility Assessment of Sustainable Transportation: Syracuse study’s goals is an interest in urban mobility particularly in mid-sized cities in America. Well referenced texts tend to deliberate on issues of urban infrastructure in great urban metropolises. This presumes infrastructure improvements can universally have a positive impact on urban mobility irrespective of city size. But is it possible for the prosperity of cities to be augmented by virtue of investing in policy and infrastructure for sustainable transportation through following megalopolis biased guidebooks? Vishaan Chakrabarti advocates for a more urban America in “A County of Cities”, because of their ability …

Consulate, Cultural Center, And Housing Complex, Unknown

Architecture Master Theses

Thesis Board, Britton Award Winner.

A Consulate, Cultural Center, Housing Complex.

Deployable Domesticity, Daniel Hopkins

Architecture Senior Theses

Deployable homes have characterized the survivalist origins of our species, the lifestyles of disenfranchised populations, and the luxurious retreats of others. Still, a predominance of contemporary domestic space relies on the ‘permanently’ stationary and situated object. As the social and ecological conditions of our society are rapidly and continually fluctuating, we must reaffirm our association with deployable culture and expand the utilization of mobile and adaptable unit. Further, architecture must negotiate the contrasts between ephemerality and permanence.

Through speculation of the social and sustainable implications of the deployable unit, issues of flexibility, material selection and afterlife, economics, ecology, and efficiency …

A Shifted Perspective On Affordable Micro Housing, Jonathan Reisman

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis contends that growing cities around the world are out-pricing the younger demographic from the urban fabric. It recognizes that constantly rising real estate markets are forcing millennials outside of city centers. It understands that socially, the younger demographic provide the energy and atmosphere required to keep the city alive, and ultimately believes that in order fro young professionals to reclaim their position int he hosing market, a new typology of hosing need to be established.

Such housing takes increasing urban density into consideration, and provides an appropriate dwelling supply for expensive cities moving forward. It is a typology …

Collaborating With Catastrophe | A User's Guide To Post-Apocalyptic Farming, Patricia Cafferky

Architecture Senior Theses

“Collaborating with Catastrophe” contends that architecture has the capacity to visually manifest unseen forces through design’s reaction to them, allowing people to more fully comprehend and engage the intangible. Climate change, arguably the largest threat to modern day humanity, is not visible, existing only as a collection of data and patterns in a statistical construct. Taking stock of the present day failings of society in the face of crisis, this thesis then extrapolates a potential future dystopia precipitated by man-made pollutants in order to engage the problem at its most severe. Architecture is then able to make the toxic visible …

Redefining The Constraint | Designing Control To Support Rehabilitation, Jessica Borri

Architecture Senior Theses

The concrete lined cells of a contemporary prison do not lend themselves well to processes of rehabilitation. This thesis contends that it is time for architects to rethink the architecture of the prison. When an inmate knows he is being watched, he tends to exhibit positive behavior out of fear of the consequences of any action deemed to be negative. This thesis contends that by incorporating the apparatus of surveillance seamlessly into a prison's architecture it may be possible to provide spaces that feel more open and less oppressive.

One way to generate a feeling of openness is to create …

Unreal Urbanisms | A User Guide To Engagement Gaming For Community Planning, Temitope Olujobi

Architecture Senior Theses

The virtual environment is the digital manifestation of user’s transnational image of the city. It is an image conceived through small scale and short term interventions that prompt experimentation and iteration. Its development is implemented solely through active participation, community engagement and crowd sourcing. Adversely, planning experimentation in the built environment is a climate that conceives slow, costly and often unimaginative progress. Unreal Urbanisms contends that cities in the built environment can use the User Generated image of city created in virtual environments to collaboratively reinvent and re-imagine the design of the urban environment. In the absence of reality (ie. …

Imaging The Near Future, Fang Fan

Architecture Senior Theses

Instead of critiquing the danger of globalization, it propose a rather positive and Utopian version of it. The role of architecture and infrastructure being ambiguous in a future world after globalization, in which infrastructure is heterogeneous and inhabits a global space.

Also it response to the issue of cultural identity in a globalized world, believing that technological interventions will not only adapt to the needs of traveling and migration for a dense population, but also making infrastructure as a space for entertainment and a place celebrates both global and local cultures in a constantly changing world.

It's Not Easy Being Whole | Reevaluating The Relationship Of Part Whole In Pursuit Of A New High-Rise Vernacular, Josh Bransky

Architecture Senior Theses

Architecture has the power to structure societal relationships. Specifically, architecture's form can bring the balanced relationship between community and individual identity, as exhibited in vernacular single-family homes, to the housing tower. This thesis plans to achieve such a social orchestration through a nuanced understanding of formal part-to-whole relationships, or "differentiated" parts within the whole, exhibited in a 300' housing tower in Seattle, WA.

By carefully balancing the relation, material, scale, and form of each part, this project will achieve this difficult whole (of differentiated parts). Mining this middle ground will produce a housing tower in Seattle, which actively balances the …

Multidimensional Dialogue Through Architecture | An Exploration Of The Possible Dialogue Between Humans And Walls, Fengqi Li

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis proposes that architectural design no longer has to be primarily static, but rather it can be dynamically responsive to multiple information streams and conditions.

Multidimensional Dialogue Through Architecture is developed from the understanding of human factors and ergonomics. The dispersed works on research and inference are different ways to explore the interaction between the discipline of architecture and the other fields, such as psychology, engineering, bio-mechanics, physiology, cognitive science, and anthropomorphic. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis is not to design a specific building that works perfectly in particular conditions but rather to use architectural elements to mediate …

The Allopoiesis Of The Urban Artifact And The Palimpsest Of Context, Cristina Abondano

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis contends that Pathological Urban Artifacts , as defined by Aldo Rossi, could be made Propelling through Allopoiesis in combination with the palimpsest of the urban context. The proposal consists of a dialogue between the two strategies of growth, aiming to reconnect the Artifact to the city.

Allopoiesis is the process by which a system produces something other than the system itself. In this thesis, allopoiesis is the mapping of the artifact’s underlying geometry as catalyst for urban development.

Rossi sees in the Propelling Urban Artifact a formal structure that confirms the presence of the city and persists through …

The Renaissance Of The Railway | Towards A Global High-Speed System, Xiaoyu Li

Architecture Senior Theses

The railway has shown its unique character as a mode of transportation since its invention in Europe during the Industrial Revolution. In the beginning, its carrying capacity made it stand out, transforming human behavior, and stimulating economic productivity. During the 20th century, air travel, the railways, and long-distance road networks have shared the burden of human transportation - in many countries the car and plane have won out. In recent decade, however, new interest in the railway's potential has been generated as a result of the emergence of new technologies like high-speed rail and the maglev system. Greater speeds are …

Total Fiction | The Artifice And The Armature, Anrai Pearson

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis views architecture as a total fiction. It aims to explore the representational and communicative qualities of the architectural surface. Architects have always abstracted raw materials in order to create a larger conceptual basis for architecture but the relationship between abstraction and reality has not always been concrete. In the past, ideals of “truth” and “authenticity” have played a central theoretical role in defining how architects approach building. For example, John Ruskin and Viollet-le-Duc decry various forms of material deceit, in favor of an authentic and truthful architecture. Alternately, architects interested in the communicative agency of architecture have questioned …

The Burning Building | Fire As Place, Winnie Tu

Architecture Senior Theses

The importance of fire in human social evolution is widely acknowledged but the extent of its impact is not fully explored. Generally, it is connected to energy, light, purification, illumination, creation, destruction and metamorphosis. Fire’s paradoxical nature has built up many societies throughout human history and has been the primary social driver within communities. Due to technological advances, its energy has been transformed into a distant element which is being used discretely in industrial buildings, hidden under basements, or replaced by other forms of energy. Now, heat, energy, and light is readily available anywhere at any time, eliminating the biological …

Where Wellness Begins, Chelsea M. Wheeler

Architecture Senior Theses

A public need for improved health has called into question the manner in which one's built environment has the ability to affect a person's health and well-being. Recent studies have revealed a correlation between health and residence, suggesting that the built environment has a significant influence on occupant health and well-being. As a result of such studies, Delos Living, a well-building consulting firm, has proposed a set of deign standards that can be used to promote occupant health. The problem with such methods is that there are processes of certification relying primarily on post-deign evaluations. This thesis seeks to align …

Atlas Reimagined | Richter, Flusser, Architecture, Blake Capalbo

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis is built from the materials of Gerhard Richter's "Atlas," a collection of 802 image plates (and couting) that the German visual artist has been assembling since the mid 1960s. Comprised of newspaper cuttings, sketches, drawings, photographs, and paintings, "Atlas" is both a companion to Richter's other work and a work in and of itself.

Atlas Reimagined applies the theories of Vilem Flusser, the late 20th-century philosopher and theorist of image and media, to Richter's work to devise alternative forms of architectural imaging. Richter's "Atlas" when examined in terms of Flusser's distinction between technical and traditional images becomes a …

Innie/Outie | Renegotiating Figure And Structure, Maxwell Rosner

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis contends that in order to sustain its claim to be socially progressive and accessible enterprise, the discipline of architecture must resist the divorce of figure and structure.

Innie/Outie considers Architecture as a simultaneously typological and teleological proposition. Architects exploit typology as a means of classifying, diagramming, and ultimately flattening and iconicizing ideas about Architecture so as to place them within a broader cultural context, thereby making them intellectually accessible to their audiences. By contrast, architects from the advent of Modernism onwards have displayed a critical preoccupation with the discipline’s teleological potential, the creation of form that follows function …

Subtraction | Construction In Reverse, Sherina S. Zhang

Architecture Senior Theses

The life of a building does not begin at the creation of the new; it starts with the subtraction of the old. As the pace of technological development accelerates, buildings are erected and demolished at an unprecedented rate. Cities use their urban artifacts like skyscrapers, to portray economic and political prowess. For example, the ghost cities of China are relics of a burst financial bubble while Venezuelan ruling party elites name business towers after themselves as a show of power and prosperity. Many parts of the world today are now overbuilt with artifacts that decline into obsolescence. Demolition procedures erase …

Two Lands, One System | Redefining The Border Crossing, Matthew Trulli

Architecture Senior Theses

The Israeli and Palestinian populations each have their own distinct infrastructural system, which operates independently and fails to connect the people in this region. This thesis contends that if a two-state solution is implemented under the guidelines of the 2003 Geneva Accord, new connections can stitch the populations of Israel and Palestine together through a reimagined border system.

These divisive infrastructural networks, which are a result of tense relationships, have also sparked increased violence throughout the region, particularly in Jerusalem. The French Hill, located north of the Old City in Jerusalem, is positioned at a critical point in the infrastructural …

The Foreign Complex | A Cross-Cultural Vernacular, Dexter Cicchinelli

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis investigates transforming a decommissioned military site into a productive part of its host nation’s context. Okinawa consists of a group of islands that make up the southern-most prefecture of Japan. MAP It is situated midway between Tokyo and Manila, and called the “keystone of the Pacific” by military planners because of its strategic location. AERIAL FLIGHT MAP It was the site of the devastating Battle of Okinawa in WWII which prompted an ongoing history of military intervention and occupation. TIMELINE Immediately after the war, displaced Okinawans were put in camps while the military claimed land for bases. Some …

The Seed | Urban Vertical Farming Germinated, Michael Lima

Architecture Senior Theses

A city works as an ecosystem in many ways. However, we currently do not live within that ecosystem, as the difference between an ecosystem and a city is the waste output and food input . Nature and society do not exist independently because there are no spaces of nature unaffected by man. With this in mind we need to reestablish our relationship with nature. Architecture and engineering can be used to create buildings that will allow humans to turn cities into ecosystems. This thesis argues that Urban Vertical Farms will produce social and economic hubs that will be a new …

This Is Not The Color Yellow | A Thesis On Projecting Materiality, Annagrace Walton

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis reimagines the traditional materiality of the architectural façade by coupling the functional and aesthetic expectations of the day-lit building face with the supplementary material and narrative possibilities of a projected night time display. Engaging the potential of new architectural technologies, the thesis celebrates both the novel and sensational qualities of physically manifested materials and textures while simultaneously exploring the future possibilities of virtual and augmented materials through digital projection mapping.

Set in spectacle-friendly Las Vegas, Nevada, the test site for this experimentation is the Flamingo Resort in Las Vegas, a pivotal intersection of pedestrian and motor traffic. Re-cladding …

A Mat Response To Deinstitutionalization | A Model For Spatial Medicine, Dominic S. Lipuma

Architecture Senior Theses

In an attempt to salvage the institution, this thesis adopts the Mat-building strategy and typology, coined by Alison Smithson in 1974, exploiting its inherent qualities as a minimal, flexible, and temporal framework, which best supports the unique program of a Community Mental Health Center (CMHC).

This is in response to the severed and contentious relationship between architecture and mental health, in regards to psychopathology. The two fields were estranged with the onset of deinstitutionalization, beginning in the 1960s, and the consequent abandonment of architectural issues has prevented their reconciliation. As a result, further social issues have manifested, with higher proportions …

Incision Of Division, Nicoletta Kyverniti

Architecture Senior Theses

Conflict is a timeless topic of conversation, rising and recurring in various parts of the world. Whether active or dormant, the conflict exists within our urban environments in multiple forms and scales. A border that cannot be crossed. A building that cannot be accessed. A view that cannot be seen. It defines how we move within our cities and creates distinct boundaries. Architecture can diverge form its current use of division to instead exhibit the potential for mediation. It can confront the divide through incisions into the existing site thus exposing the need to intervention. It can cerate a wall …

Occupy Pomo | A Citizen's Guide To Urban Excavation, Kriti Garg

Architecture Senior Theses

Traditionally, architects' definitions of solid-void conditions create a dichotomy between private, or built matter, and public, or void, spaces. Yet, this notion is a missed opportunity to understand the complex society of the twenty-first century that no longer operates within the realm of open, public space nor acts as a point of primal cohesiveness for culture and community. Rather than aggregating at instances of density, it is lost within a new ghostly cosmopolitan substitute of mass consumption and globalized culture. This new public realm is a "phantom public sphere", one comprised of "sub-publics", tailored to the demands of a mass …

Absorbency In Tidal Resiliency | The Thickened Pier, Shauna Strubinger

Architecture Senior Theses

The inevitable truth of climate change has placed coastal cities at great risk. Past natural disasters in the United States such as Hurricane Sandy and Katrina, displaced many people because these communities’ only protection was their failed infrastructure.1 Although hard and soft infrastructure strategies have addressed the rising sea level, architecture at the building scale creates static surfaces and divisions that are slow to adapt to flooding and leave little to no room for the ambiguity of tidal flooding and storm surge. Though numerous areas are at risk of sea level rise across the globe, the Chesapeake Bay area is …