Architecture Commons^™

Emergency Homes, Denise A. Lee

Architecture Senior Theses

“Designers cannot just stand by and watch as the refugee crisis unfolds,” and although architects and designers can’t save the world, through design, we can alleviate consequences of scarcity. It’s not about creating a structure that will withstand the ends of time or endure the most extreme climate, it’s about how to respond in an emergency with the most geographically intelligent prototype that utilizes the utmost importance of on site materials so the bare minimum of an instruction manual or few key tools to offset distribution obstacles. This thesis is aimed to design for the 99 in disaster relief.

The Moving Image, Eujean Cheong, Andrew Kim, Sol Yoon

Architecture Senior Theses

Form in architecture has become synonymous with geometries as opposed to the philosophical Aristotelian notion of form. This thesis rests on two beliefs: space and form are co-present, as space without form is nothing and likewise form without space leaves no room to materialize itself. An object results when space and form are co-present; architecture as an object then subsequently reveals itself when a third element of human movement is introduced.

This thesis contends that if architecture is perceived through the introduction of human movement, then it is peculiar that architectural representation has historically been represented through means of …

Rethinking "Stuff", Jonathan Anthony

Architecture Senior Theses

As our methods of storing grow, our storage environments tend to not adapt. Rethinking "Stuff" contends that our established storage environments have the potential to be more closely correlated to the complex nature of our stuff today. This thesis attempts to leverage the effects of stuff in storage by capitalizing on three notions that stuff is increasingly challenging: ritual, temporality, and ownership.

Library To Nowhere, Anna Sernicki

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis explores the idea of the architectural paradox, which questions the ability of experiencing exterior (pyramid) and interior (labyrinth) spatial conditions simultaneously. The pyramid makes places of architecture, while the labyrinth respectively displaces architecture. New York City, as the site of the project, is an example of how the architectural paradox works on an urban scale, whereas the Library to Nowhere condenses these ideas consciously into a local scale. Besides the physical layer of architecture as a labyrinth, the Library to Nowhere enters a psychological realm that forces visitors to transcend reality into the sublime …

Materializing Light, Lirong Tan

Architecture Senior Theses

Artificial light, especially volumetric light, can be materialized and transform the existing ruin. Specifically, I would choreograph the interaction between people and light to exaggerate, or dramatize, the tragic feeling of Hiroshima Memorial Dome.

Dinner Parti, Evangeline Soileau

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis is a body of work that investigates the architectural relationships among event, documentation, material production, and user interaction through the lens of social dining. A Picnic, Thanksgiving, and Solo Dining are the three dining scenarios that are the subject of these analytical and design investigations. Architecture is treated as a form of creative nonfiction through the design of artifacts that perform as the events’ material and spatial analogs. These artifacts aim to create new readings of the social dining event as it is understood, misunderstood, and taken for granted in the contemporary context.

Reconstruct The Missing Narrative: Rethinking Contemporary Chinese Architecture Through Ancient Landscape Paintings, Taiming Chen, Yiwei Wu

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis addresses the issue of lacking self-identity and missing narrative under contemporary Chinese architecture discipline. Using ancient landscape paintings as design source, this project aims to create an environment that provides personal experience and exclusive meaning from a participant’s point of view instead of an omniscient view.

Paintings are selected from different dynasties and artists, but all based on one important cultural theme: Reclusion. Thus, the reconstructed narrative would provide a tranquil environment for inhabitant to have a temporary retreatment from the city life through making, seeking and thinking.

Optimized Density: Rehabilitating The Tower In The Park For The 21st Century, Emmett Walker

Architecture Senior Theses

Optimized densification is the exploitation of under utilized space to create a more dynamic cooperative based density often times adding onto what is already exists. The pursuit of maximizing intelligently can help to relieve socioeconomic exclusivity, create a more ecologically sustainable lifestyle and influence social mixing. Though architecture can only have a limited influence on the social climate of a place like New York City, re-envisioning and optimizing the density of the tower in the park typology can lead to a more harmonious engagement between buildings and their surrounding context or population. Optimizing density could be the modern day American …

Food Form Function, Travis Telemaque

Architecture Senior Theses

By 2050, the global population will have grown to over 9.7 Billion people. Traditional farming practices will no longer be able to sustain food production for the increasing population. This thesis demonstrates how architecture and urban food production can be used to educate and reconnect our cities with locally sourced food. Integrating food production into dense urban settings will create a more efficient and resilient city.

@The_New_House: An Online-Offline Manifesto, Ana Paola Hernandez Derbez, Domenica Velasco

Architecture Senior Theses

The house, is one of the most fundamental architectural archetypes, has long been used as unbuilt or built manifestos to declare the avant-garde of the discipline. As designers, we need to re-visualize design concepts to create architecture that integrates and corresponds to the way we dwell. Innovating design in the same way technology and digitalization have been innovating production and the way we live. This thesis investigates a return to the design of a house as a manifesto, focusing on today’s advanced modes of fabrication and evolving ways of living to challenge the current design mindset.

As Above, So Below: Tapping Into The Latent Energy Of Abandoned Underground Infrastructure, Alexandra N. Ramirez

Architecture Senior Theses

How can architects formalize the use of surplus energy to reach more people in a more systematic way? Abandoned underground infrastructure is an example of an untapped surplus in energy that the architect has the opportunity to repurpose. Tunnels in particular, can be used as systems to heat or cool a network of buildings above ground to create more sustainable urban environments. In addition the system could also have beneficial social implications within segregated cities by providing fluid connections between divided neighborhoods.

This thesis will establish a framework for repurposing underground infrastructures. The strategy operates under an umbrella of sustainability …

The Graduate School Collaborative, Jake Copich, Stanislav Nedzelskyi

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis proposes a solution to the disconnect between today’s designers and makers. Specifically geared towards the profession of architecture, these discussions should be applied in any process of making. After providing a historical reading of the crafted object and the people involved in making it, the paper proposes a new way to perceive craft in today’s world. When defined as an indexical quality, both in the mathematical and in the pointing sense described by Charles S. Pierce, the craft of an object becomes an accessible and efficient tool for the analysis and comparison of artifice.

Method Meditation, Armand F. Damari

Architecture Senior Theses

The place of psychology in architecture has always been a contentious topic. Though the physical environment influences how occupants feel and behave, neither architects nor psychologists have been able to produce environments that can consistently create a desired effect. In this thesis, I have continued to test the legitimacy of systemization in architectural design by using a rigorous survey of potential users. My system is informed by previous experiments, yet also employs the critiques of these systems to inform the rules. It’s theorized the byproduct of this unlikely system should be the “perfect” space for calmness and relaxation.

Gold: Stories Of A City, Vivek Vijayan Njanappilly

Architecture Senior Theses

The thesis explores the latent influences of gold and its value systems on the urban geo-politics of a South Indian city. It is an anthology of sporadic narrations recording the growth and transformation of a city over time. These narrative compositions contain traces of the past, the city of the present and speculative futures. They indicate change without erasure. Their values are embodied in gold; malleable, ductile and fungible in its different forms.

The intention of the thesis is not to merely speak of a specific commodity nor is it to narrate the history of a city. It is an …

[Ar] You Ready?, Trang Tran

Architecture Senior Theses

This project challenges the obsolete existence of signage and billboards and seeks to explore how augmented reality (AR) advertisements change the relationship between signage and buildings.

Iiid: A Detailed Look Into System Integration Of Material Types Through The Use Of 3d Printing, Johnathon E. Phillips

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis wishes to pursue the potential of 3D printing ornamented designs with the use of shale/clay powder. This material compound, through this research, had been shown to be compliable with 3D printing technology so that it can be sculpted by the tools of the architect into complex geometric “blocks.” These can then be printed and red allowing them to become the tectonic building bricks for a new way of building. Through researching this material, I will demonstrate the usefulness and possibilities of this time-tested substance in the creation of new architectural spaces.

Reconnect: Amplifying Circulation Typologies To Radically Rethink Urban-Aqueous Relationships, Tiffany Pau

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis proposes a radical rethinking of city-water relationships to leverage existing infrastructural and architectural divides; because it holds great architectural and social value to work within and challenge existing systems, and because access to the waterfront– for sustenance, transportation, commercial, or leisure purposes– is a core human need. The project questions what happens when connections are scaled extra-large, yet aim to maintain the qualities that are imbued within them at the micro scale to generate increased public activity at the water’s edge. It looks to create a new type of urbanism, one that prioritizes the very act of circulation …

I Want This! I Want That!: A Speculation On The Future Context Of Architecture, Olivia Flores-Siller, Steven Worthington

Architecture Senior Theses

We are hypothesizing a potential future reality where architecture is in the hands of the common person, projecting the idea of mass customization and the expanding scope of DIY into the larger scale of ‘building.’ Hyper-individualism, experimentation, and expressionism characterize this ‘world’ because increases in technology have led to there being little commitment and consequence attached to actions and ‘building’. Technology works harder for us; and as we work less, we play more.

Our values and lifestyles are echoed in our architecture; what, then, is the condition an urban landscape focusing on individualism and mass customization? In this story, architecture …

Layered Scamming: Exposing How The Desires Reflect In The Architecture Design, Alejandra Charrabe

Architecture Senior Theses

Based on the essay “Learning from Las Vegas: The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Forms” by Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown, and Steven Izenour the terms “decorated shed” and “duck” take on a different meaning when speaking of architecture. These terms specifically described a relationship between the program and the façade of a building. By taking such terms an applying them to an analysis of brothel facades, an interesting relationship can be created between the marketing strategy desired for such brothel and the way in which the façade represents such strategy. I will be analyzing the relationship between public/private, commercial/cultural, container/content …

For The Love Of Concrete: Embracing The Ugly Duckling, Not The Decorated Shed, Steven Carlson

Architecture Senior Theses

For the Love of Concrete is at its heart an homage to concrete, advocating beauty, versatility and durability; celebrating concrete's ability to create spatial experiences that are compelling, varied, acoustically attuned and thermally tempered. In the face of increasing superficiality, in architecture and the world at large, this thesis celebrates the authenticity and substantiality of concrete.

Axon-Orama: A New System Of Architectural Representation, Fei Wang

Architecture Senior Theses

A codified architectural representation, the axonometric drawing is objective, yet an audience's reception of a building is perspectival and constructed through a spatial narrative over time. In response to this paradox, Axon-orama is proposed as a new representational technique - a set of variational drawings with pliable arrangement and hybrid expression - explored through the use of the British board game, Myriorama. The work blurs the boundary between objective and subjective representation and perception, offering a new system of architectural inquiry.

Details Matter: A Pavilion For India In Venice, Rajkumar Kadam

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis proposes a national pavilion for India at the Venetian Arsenal, one of the sites for the Venice Biennale. The design of a pavilion for India at the Venice Biennale is an opportunity to understand architecture as a vehicle that illustrates values that are simultaneously universal, and culturally specific. While the proposed Indian pavilion incorporates the details that define Indian architecture, they are appropriated to the highly articulate Venetian context because principally, Indian architecture is malleable and fits within its local environment. This cross-cultural representation is accomplished through symbolic relationships to natural elements and site, abstract architectonic form and …

Blur Out, Hye Rim Shin

Architecture Senior Theses

Blur Out explores ideas about architecture that seeks ephemerality rather than legibility, eidetic affects rather than demand of focused attention and atmospheric or emotional spaces rather than conventional spaces.

The exploration of Blur Out is situated within the research topic of different states of snow that are generated from avalanche phenomena of Iceland, which develops site specific understandings of the phenomena and effects. The project aims to build a blurred boundary both literally and experientially between the built and natural environment to challenge representing and re-presenting the spectrum of tangibility to intangibility. By exploring the dichotomy between the built and …

The Oppelaland: An Underground Refugee Theme Park In Aleppo, Rui Bao

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis operates on the perception of Syrian refugees as a threat and a burden to European countries by architectural means.

In emergency situations, architecture tends to act only after the conflict by providing temporary aid, such as refugee camps. This kind of emergency remedy displaces a large number of refugees to countries all over the world. Refugees may be discriminated and treated as second class citizens in the host countries. They may be restricted in small areas like prisoners rather than citizens with equal rights.

This thesis propose a hyper-real project in the form of "Refugeeland" to call attention …

Y'All Come Back Now, Ya Hear: A Reflection On Nashville's History And The Carnivalesque, Kolby Forbes

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis seeks to utilize the technique of allegorical image in understanding both the past and present histories of Nashville. By collaging aspects of past and present, the images produced seek to present the emerging alternative. This otherness constructs an in between in which the narratives of both instances begin to merge and mutate. These collages establish a landscape of Nashville which is no longer constricted temporally or spatially, remaining open to interpretations and resisting a clear sense of closure. The designs that I propose are meant to clarify the neglected traumas and occurrences of the past to demonstrate that …

Ritual Place, Dabota Wilcox

Architecture Senior Theses

What is a ritual? Its connotations are rooted in the vocabulary of religion, but essentially a ritual is a repeated or singularly significant act meant to instill a deeper meaning or reinforce a belief. Beliefs are supported through the practice of rituals. Rituals are special because they facilitate experiences that separate us from the mundane. They serve to pull its participants to recognize and participate in something of worth. But what would it mean to imagine the new ritual? If for a moment this distinction were expanded there are countless moments, activities, or seemingly insignificant acts that could be considered …

A Simulation-Assisted Workflow For Outdoor Thermal Comfort Design In Downtown Syracuse, Pouya Zhand

Architecture Senior Theses

Cities are not just about the buildings and skylines. Cities are also about the space be­tween buildings (the ground in figure-ground). More importantly and fundamentally cities are about people and the life that happens between buildings. Simulation tools can inform the design of attractive public spaces by pro­viding insight about the environmental conditions.

Framing The Future: Imagining The City Through The Lens Of Film, Sofia Zavala Ferreira

Architecture Senior Theses

With a great interest in the relationship between film and architecture, this project establishes its subject matter on the possibilities presented in science fiction cinema and speculative design. By extracting attributes from these that would influence design and architectural concerns, a bridge between the disconnected imagined and real, current and future, can be created through the creation of a speculative scenario and a narrative.

It seeks to utilize cinematic design and storytelling conventions to successfully convey the desired atmosphere, architectural realities, and life conditions of a fictional city. By utilizing advanced digital techniques often used in cinema itself, including but …

Rural Retreat | Urban Myth, Celeste Pomputius

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis proposes a destination for recreation and retreat on Plum Island, New York that references the model of the National and State Park Services and whose intended audience is primarily residents of New York City who are without the means or methods of easily seeking other experiences of nature outside the realm of city limits. The first step of this design process involves reexamining the traditional definition of “urban” to shorten the leap from the comforts of the city to the unknowns of nature. From there, the project identifies and resolves three challenges that stand between urban residents and …

Learning From The Informal: Designing A New Housing Typology For Informal Development In Cairo, Cherif Farid

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis examines what to design when designing for the informal and questions the role of the architect. The project combines the inherent qualities of the informal; self-built, incremental construction, and flexibility of spatial uses, with alternative urban design strategies.

The design strategy is to control the ground plane and roof scape, while leaving an open frame in between to be incrementally filled with housing. This frame allows residents to voice their identity by physically constructing their homes. It introduces an urban system that is composed of blocks that consist of an aggregation of identical units. The blocks are connected …