Architecture Commons^™

What Are You Thinking.... Allowing Publics To Engage The Surfaces Of The City, Matthew 'Mick' Mcnutt

Architecture Thesis Prep

"How can architecture build urban environments that allow for public participation in and control over the space of the city? Encouraging and encompassing the play element in culture, architecture can represent a society constructed with systems of exchange based upon information, communication, and imagination among varying publics in order to counterbalance the existing system of capital enterprise."

Isomorphic Correspondence: Hybrid Different Media: Music And Architecture, Ki Ho Choi

Architecture Thesis Prep

School of Crafting Instruments: Hudson Yard in Manhattan, New York, NY

"In my thesis approach to the music and architecture, I am not evoking the classical Pythagoras and Palladio. I am more dealing with architecture and music as new ground of present architecture and new hybrid medium between them...

Architecture, just linked music with simple arithmetic ratios, should confront and try to parallel to contemporary music theory...

To hybrid these different media, I have chosen the instruments and Bella Bartok's musical Theory. Instrument has architectonic form with musical character while Bartok's musical theory has visual character. These two media can …

Customassation, Paul F. Maguda

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The architecture of mass customization must be sensitive and selective at this point in time.

It must be sensitive to the historical lineage of mass production in architecture.

It must be selective in an application appropriate of the principles of the new model.

It must be selective in a location that represents old model industry set against the diverse new model society.

This architecture is best understood as a process of transformation from old model to new."

Rebuilding Community: Boston's North End, Maria A. Fazio

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The city is enhanced by architecture form which participates in the urban fabric as a means of connection, therefore promoting the formation of community... The intent is to propose developemnt for portions of the Central Artery Master Plan in Boston, Massachusetts. The city is currently in the process of relocating a major infrastructural element from its present location above grade to a tunnel beneath the city. Demolition of the exiting central artery offers the city an opportunity to infill much of the land and restore surface level streets reconnecting the east sire of the interstate to the downtown area...

The …

Mobility And Station: Place And Movement In A Culture Of Nostalgia And Commodities, Jonathan Hicks

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The proposal, interchanging an already detached program, resurrecting forgotten artifacts as symbols, and inverting conceptions of organization, would be one method of connecting to local networks and contexts in order to ground the project in site and place. It is not meant to be seen as a corrective measure for any aspect of the site, only as an opportunity to utilize and reinvent its unique situation and history in a new way. It is a model for the creation of a sustainable place in a mobile society."

Architecture, Dis/Order(S) And Interlapping, Allen Williams

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Application of a theater and subsidized housing program into a complex urban site in Boston, Massachusetts."

Hybrid Different Media: Music And Architecture, Kiho Choi

Architecture Thesis Prep

Reuse of Highline

Hudson Yard in Manhatten, New York, NY

"In my thesis approach to the music and architecture, I am not evoking the classical Pythagoras and Palladio. I am more dealing with architecture and music as new ground of present architecture and new hybrid media between them."

Architecture As Mediator: An Alternative Learning Facility In Cooperstown, New York, Jason Henault

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The environment in which the child learns is among the most important aspects of the education of a child. Architecture, as a tool for learning and an instrument of social change, plays a significant role in the shaping of the learning environment."

Architecture As Constructed Ecology: The Systemic Approach To A Built Urban Landscape, Seth R. Trance

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The contention is that in today's works of information and Ecology, the acknowledgment of each of these parts (the natural elements, social activities, and constructed landscape) of a complete system can generate an architecture that allows the urban community to coexist with the surroundings... Ecologically, how does architecture become involved with this system of parts in an urban environment?"

Threshold: [Re]Acknowledging The Crossing, Jonathan P. Hellinga

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The contention of this thesis is that national and cultural borders and boundaries have become blurred and less noticeable by those crossing said borders. Ease of travel (both physical and informational). Free Trade agreements, and close national ties have all lent to the diminution of borders between two seemingly similar, yet culturally different, countries. Unless it is specifically expressed, the meaning of crossing a national threshold is lost in the whirlwind of everyday travel. Architecture must act as a unifier and agent of interaction through its becoming the physical manifestation of the filter through which this cross-cultural contact is made. …

Clothing As Identity, Kyung Sook Kim

Architecture Thesis Prep

Showroom - Meat Packing District, NYC

"Architecture is not a question of material or structural reality but of the effects of the particular surfaces it presents to the observer, which informs a sense of identity. Identity is constructed from people's perceptions of the appearance or outer skin of a person and a building. What he or she wears or skin that covers the building defines the appearance."

An Architecture Of Ground, Frame, And Viewer: A Box Office For The Theatre District Of Boston, Ma, Casey Boss

Architecture Thesis Prep

"There exists a separation between what we see and the reproduction created to describe it. Through seeing we locate ourselves in the world. References to the things around us as well as recollections of things we have seen before are our base for what we currently see.

Infrastructure And Improvisationalism, Nick Saponara

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Infrastructure serves as a milt-scaled organizing urban framework in which material practices impose an identity on a given place allowing for the activation of otherwise static conditions.

World Baha'i Institute In New York, Nima Yadollahpour

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The goal of this project is to understand and comprehend the philosophy of the Baha'i faith and its literature. From this knowledge, I hope to investigate the issue of transforming a specific Baha'i text into an architectural form. At this point, my job is not only to be an architect but also a translator. To be able to create an architectural language which is a derivative of the philosophy and the writings of the Baha'i Faith."

Today's Neighborhood Drugstore, B. Sparano

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis attempts to align architectural critique with the forces that inevitably shape it. For architecture to become a (critical) reality, the architect is forced to take on new roles. She can no longer be (solely) a manipulator of aesthetics, images and signs. She must also, in addition, become the manipulator of underlying forces beneath the surface (i.e. social, political, and economic)."

Architecture As A Social Art: A School Of Visual Art In Washington, D.C., Rachel A. Roellke

Architecture Thesis Prep

"It is the contention of this thesis that architecture is a vehicle for communication that strengthens community identity by bringing art and the public together.

The thesis research explores the social role of visual art within community, including its social effects, its relationship to the surrounding physical and social context, and the formal elements of visual language. Architecture, as a form of public art, can be explored under the same parameters."

Vorhizomeid: Nodes Of Community Services Connecting Albany, Ny, Andrew Watkins

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The contention is to reposition terrain vague into the urban fabric recreating a continuum of the urban system while attempting to detract neither from the scale of the infrastructural system, nor that of the human body. Terrain vague muse be approached in a different manner than that of the traditional urban city. Establishing community through terrain vague should be done by measure of the forces, flows, and rhythms of space."

The Congregation: Sha-Ar Ha Kollel, "The Gate For All People", Avi Michael Shoss

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The issue I intend to explore is the growing lack of identity, of place, for this generation's Jewish youth."

Site As A Measurement Of Place, Creighton Willis

Architecture Thesis Prep

"PLacement and relationship of a city within its physical environment is a dynamic process that is revealed through its architecture and constructed (designed) interventions. The lift of this dynamic process deposits cicatrices, inscriptions, footprints, and artifacts within the city and place. These events inscribed in the landscape of a city reveal this changing relationship of city-environment. The contention is that a new construction within the city can actively manifest the current city landscape while also revealing the history of the place."

Traces Of Time: Urban Palimpsest And Transformations, Tomas B. Fernandez

Architecture Thesis Prep

"I contend that the city is a deeply scored palimpsest that through specific natural, social, and cultural changes reveals its traces of permanence and temporality; therefore, to create in the urban realm is to respond to these vestiges of time through decoding and transformation, as if one was gently manipulating the genome of the city."

Methods Of Perception, Caleb Mitchell

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Architecture can teach an observer about itself both physically and metaphysically; this can be managed though interactive processes which demand haptic experiences.

(Methodoloy:) To investigate the capacities of mechanistic or interactive devices to reveal meaning (physical and metaphysical); and to eventually develop at full (or large) scale an artifact capable of operating through functional and meaningful interactions with a user."

The Specific Engagement: A Didactic Center In Collaboration With The Adjacent Children's Museum, Aaron Bancroft

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Architecture transcends the act of 'making space' when it can engage the visitor through the realization of the what had yet to be perceived. This didactic realization can be accomplished through a series of specific moments which relate directly to the entirety of the complete experience. The sequence can be so intense or emotional that the visitor recognizes that they are meant to interact with the architecture through the varying levels of engagement and understanding."

Interplay: A Facility For The Design And Manufacturing Of Toys In Burlington, Vermont, Bryan Hale

Architecture Thesis Prep

"It is through interplay that we transcend a static, mechanical existence, but we can only operate within the constraints provided by our environment. The multivalent environment invites interplay and takes one of two forms: either that of kinetic transformability, or of pluralized indeterminacy. This multivalence empowers us through choice and interpretation, and in a sense we are validated as conscious, creative beings. By creating ambiguous spaces that exclude functional indicators and creating transformable architectural elements, this condition will be realized."

Urban Agents, New Events: A Transformation Of The Postindustrial Landscape, Kevin Toukoumidis

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Railway yards, abandoned industrial processing plants, decommissioned factories and polluted river ways are the leftovers from the industrial age. With the deindustrialization of society, a new prevailing urban condition has resulted: a marginalized landscape of residual spaces and urban voids, often with real or perceived contamination.... The potential for reclaiming these marginalized landscapes becomes a catalyst for the design of new modes of occupation and human activity."

Joint Venture: The Production And Reproduction Of The Fragmented City, Mark Rhoads

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This thesis proposes an investigation into the fragmented city and what Henri Lefebvre terms as the specialization embedded in the creation of the contemporary urban condition... The museum for censored photography is proposed to occupy Pennsylvania Avenue, a threshold in the city of Philadelphia... The architectural joint or hinge becomes the vehicle for the spatial "insertion.""

Breaking Boundaries: The Connection Of Public Buildings To Public Spaces, Josh Linkov

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Traditionally, public buildings sit as monuments in a city and can be read as objects in a public space or boundaries surrounding it. There is often little interaction between the building and the site. I am proposing a new town hall located on a public plaza that will deal with connecting the building to the space it sits within. I will show how the ideas initially incorporated in New England town halls, up until the mid 1800's, can be investigated and reinterpreted to form a coherent unified system of built form and designed landscape."

Proposal For Reunification Center, Joseph Lee

Architecture Thesis Prep

"Providing a single space that is shared by two communities is a crucual part of a reunification process. I believe such a shared space will solve the problem between two communities by providing a threshold between two sides. Designing a reunification center for future Korea wil test this thesis by solving both intangible and tangible problems raised by the division of two communities."

Speculative Housing, Jaret Steinagle

Architecture Thesis Prep

"The purpose of this thesis is to understand architecture as a semiotic "sign system" with the ability to communicate information through form; constructing a rich, meaningful built environment. A study of the history of this language and the meaning of form within suburban contexts indicates the disassociation between the complexities of the lie of the contemporary middle class and the architecture in which they live."

Bastard Brand Civility, Mclain Clutter

Architecture Thesis Prep

"This investigation springs from a simultaneous interest in two parallel trends int he contemporary city:

1. The loss of the primacy of architectural and urban form in lieu of economic, market driven understandings of the city...

2. The related necessity of the city to adapt to this move towards the economic, and subsequently market itself as a commodity attractive to the consumer...

My contention, instead, is that we must embrace market forces and sell the city as a spectacle.

Analyzing The Sustainability Of Puppets To Create A Puppet Theater, Emily Buttrick

Architecture Thesis Prep

'The revitalization of an urban community can begin with a public building and can incorporate sustainable design. Sustainable architecture is not only ecologically sound but programmatically flexible and utilizes the resources of the neighborhood. Sustainable design can therefore incorporate ideas of future use of a building. It can also be used in a way to inspire the people using the building so that their own lives become subsistent.

"This thesis contends that through the analysis of the sustainability of puppets, the construction of a community theater building can be fashioned. A puppet's flexibility, layers, scale, structure, and joints make it …