Architecture Commons^™

Reading Toward Breath: A Poetic Ecology Of Creative Reading, Jessica Schad Manuel

All Dissertations

Reading is an act of perception that begins in wonder and leads to wisdom. It is not a response to writing but a response-ability we have to interact with the world around us and the phenomena before us. Reading with the body leads to wisdom, and when we participate in our existence by being in the world, we are reading. So what is reading? Reading is making. We make connections, and we form relationships. The act of reading is more than a cognitive process and even surpasses the phenomenological encounter.

My research describes the reader’s relationship to the text as …

Design, Integration, And Evaluation Of Iot-Based Electrochromic Building Envelopes For Visual Comfort And Energy Efficiency, Qingqing Sun

All Dissertations

Electrochromic glazing has been identified as the next-generation high-performance glazing material for building envelopes due to its dynamic properties, which allow the buildings to respond to various climate conditions. IoT technologies have improved the sensing, communication, and interactions of building environmental data. Few studies have been done to synthesize the advancements in EC materials and building IoT technologies for better building performance. The challenge remains in the lack of compatible design and simulation tools, limited understanding of integration, and a paucity of evaluation measures to support the convergence between the EC building envelopes and IoT technologies. This research first explores …

Disparate Sense Of Exclusion Between Young People Of Color Living Within Variable Social Infrastructures., James M. Joyce

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

I analyzed transcripts of listening sessions with youth/young adults of color in 2021-2022 for the purpose of addressing local racial inequity during COVID-19. I used inductive coding methods and found three themes on sense of exclusion to be most salient. These themes related to racial exclusion, exclusion of social infrastructures in the community, exclusion of young people of color by people working in schools and other public settings, and exclusion or disconnection of young people of color from opportunities for building community. I show how these themes vary across some dimensions of the local social infrastructure, and I discuss implications …

Empirical Evaluation Of Route-Based Landscape Experiences, Garet Openshaw

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis explores a method of visual analysis that aims to create a more in-depth understanding of how individuals see and visually perceive their environment. Here we explore a geospatial tool, called Visual Magnitude, to assess road-based experiences. We aimed to provide evidence of a relationship between the tool and scenic rating preferences from a survey. The content of this thesis is split between two articles. The first article, contained in Chapter 2, focuses on optimizing the selection of viewpoints along route-based envrionments. In this study we ask the question is there an optimal sampling rate of viewpoints along a …

St Louis Modern Residences As Cultural Sites, 1938–1951, Mariana Melin-Corcoran

Graduate School of Architecture & Urban Design Theses & Dissertations

In the 1930s and 1940s, the modern architectural style was first introduced in the United States through exhibitions and publications. The style was also introduced through the works of prominent architects, in particular through their own homes, where they were not beholden to a client. This investigation examines six modern residences in St. Louis during the foundational years of the style, analyzing their architectural, social, and cultural impact as their distinguished local designers navigated new ideas of modern living in the region. These modern houses primarily acted as private homes, but they were also works of art that intrigued and …

Pocatello Downtown Development Plan: A Vision For The Twenty-First Century, James L. Anglesey

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Downtown Pocatello is the beating heart of the city and serves as the community's epicenter of civic and cultural life. It encompasses Pocatello's unique heritage and will play a vital role in Pocatello's success in the future. Downtown's physical location between world-class recreational opportunities and a research-based university provides key metrics for creating a successful downtown. This thesis establishes the foundational premise for downtown success and sets forth a vision for Pocatello to reinforce, connect, and intensify its greatest community assets through a series of urban design and redevelopment solutions and recommendations. A literature review focused on the theoretical underpinnings …

Leveraging Data Analytics To Study The Impacts Of State Budget Cuts On Public Higher Education Institutions In The United States, Praveen Kumar Guraja

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Public higher education in the United States (US) is funded through two primary forms: one is through state higher education appropriation funds, and the other is student financial aid that is directly given to students. Increasing postsecondary full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment and graduation rate are becoming a crucial economic priority in the US. However, only a limited study is available about whether state investment in higher education and increasing tuition charges can impact FTE student enrollment (FTEE) and graduation rate (GR) at 4-year public universities in the US. A systematic literature review was conducted for the present research to comprehend …

One Space Can Put Her In A Different Place - How Do We Inhabit Spaces Differently?, Farida Youssef

Theses and Dissertations

In Egypt, a male-dominated society, women are forced to constantly negotiate with patriarchal systems. Dichotomies and paradoxes between principles governing different gendered roles, religion and cultural codes and westernization and commercialization have been continuously shaping Egyptian women’s status over the past decades. This is exhibited in public spaces, where women’s current preferences, perceptions and behavior emphasize the dominance of one gender over the other. This research aims for a better understanding of space inhabitance through a gendered lens. It questions the roles the society and the urban spaces play in the daily lives of women through examining women’s perception of …

Creating A Development Framework: A Generic Lens For Public Markets’ Analysis And Development In Integration With Their Zone Of Influence Revitalization, Nourhan Ahmed

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses how the development of public markets through a structured framework can be a catalyst for revitalizing its zone of influence. Public markets have always been marked by their rich experience, and their central role in towns, cities, and villages, as they have been vital engines for urban growth and cities formation since their prevalence. Needless to mention their role in entrepreneurship and their significance for the social development of neighborhoods. Nowadays, local governments are rediscovering the central role of public markets and are putting them under focus to catalyze the urban growth and neighborhoods revitalization by their …

An Empirical Investigation Into Current And Future Overheating Frequency In Nzeb And Passivhaus Dwellings In Ireland, Evan Finegan

Theses

The European Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) 2011, ensures that all new Irish dwellings designed after 01st November 2019 are nearly zero energy (nZEB) dwellings. The Passive House (PH) standard has been the most commonly applied energy standard across the globe in recent decades, while overheating is identified as a growing issue in nZEB and PH dwellings. The EPBD requires all dwellings to be designed to reduce energy consumption, while considering general indoor climate conditions to avoid the negative effects of overheating. Overheating frequency simulations are not mandatory for dwellings under Irish legislation. Anticipated climate change trends will result in …

Notes In Improvisation : Spatializing Black Identity Through Music, Esther Akintoye

Masters Theses

The self-creation of Black spaces in America has been a form of resistance and reclamation, as well as a way to forge an identity and make room for community. This thesis argues for a use of improvisational African American music as a tool to create space. Additionally, through research and a design intervention, this thesis seeks to demonstrate how spatial creation within the framework of music and musical improvisation work as ways to expand, solidify and celebrate identity within Black and African- identifying people in America.

Fluid and improvisational techniques found in Black musical styles and genres such as jazz …

Regenerative Residences: Shrinking Stress Levels In The Sky, Peter De Lande Long

Masters Theses

Issues of overcrowding and overstimulation plague urban environments, which exacerbate social isolation and, in turn, heighten city dwellers’ levels of stress and anxiety. How can architecture mediate stimuli to be positively conducive to mood, behavior, and overall health? Given that social isolation is an intrinsically spatial issue that design can address, this thesis proposes a small-scale community living model with the intent of improving mental health and clarity for a user group of young, mentally vulnerable professionals in New York City.

16 E 16th Street becomes the architectural framework for addressing these issues. Moving away from the capitalistic endeavor of …

Beyond Spectacle : Parametric Design To Life In Space, Ding Xu

Masters Theses

In recent years, with the help of rapid computational developments, Parametric Design has become common in architectural practice. Parametric architecture, due to its unique appearance, has rapidly been associated with certain aesthetic trends. This is mostly because architects initially adopted it to make radical forms, not because parametric techniques demand any specific geometry.

For the Chanel Mobile Art Pavilion by Zaha Hadid Architects, the team built a dynamic and fluid structure using parametric techniques. The form evolved from the spiraling shapes found in nature, and the fluid geometry provides a continuum of space and a system of logic. As a …

Re:Connection: Exercises In Unplugging And Mindfully Reconnecting, E. J. Roseman

Masters Theses

How can architecture encourage focused attention and mindfulness in an increasingly distracted and distractible world? As a primary means of connectivity in the 21st century, smartphones and social media have provided unparalleled efficiencies, connectivity and entertainment. However, constant engagement with richly-pixelated virtual worlds has also brought about mass addiction to devices as college students log more compulsive “screen time” than ever before. Mental health issues such as crippling anxiety, diminished attention spans, and unhappiness, are on the rise as students disconnect from the physical world and are consumed by their virtual one.

This thesis is comprised of a series of …

Unfolding Embodied Experience: A Process-Driven Immersive Exhibition Design Model, Mooa Seongah Kang

Masters Theses

The collections of most museums are comprised of two-dimensional artworks—paintings, drawings, prints, and photography—and are generally presented within a white cube gallery platform. Within this restricted static view, displays rarely consider multisensory engagement and immersion that reveals the accumulated time and effort of creation. Yet for many artists, the process is as important as the finished product.

My impetus for this design initiative began by questioning traditional methods of display. Is it possible to reveal the hidden depth embodied in two-dimensional artworks, allowing audiences to participate with all their senses in the journey of an artist’s experience? In other words, …

Revisionist Zinealog : A Coacted Countercultural Device, Madaleine Ackerman

Masters Theses

The REVISIONIST ZINEALOG functions as an evaluation and resourced countercultural device. Here, the user accesses a zinealog, (part zine, part catalog) and its supplemental Animate Postcard to become more familiar with how the canon of precedent positions its political relationship to a representational agenda.

This project is a critique and revision of the politics of aesthetics on the canon of precedent through the act of redrawing futures of the nonsite architectural imaginary.

Space In Sound, Gidiony Rocha Alves

Masters Theses

Due to its strategic location between Africa and the Americas, Cabo Verde became a major hub for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade where millions of slaves were transported across the Atlantic. The interaction of slaves and merchants saw a racial emergence that gave rise to a mixed culture rich in both European and African traditions. Towards the end of the 1800s, Drought, plagues, poverty and poor colonial rule resulted in forced migrations Westward which still affects the archipelago today. There are more Cape Verdeans living abroad than there are living in the islands. Immigrants in turn have had a major influence …

For A Moment, I Was Lost ; A Visual Reflection On The Process Of Grief And Mortality Within The Home, Adam Chiang-Harris

Masters Theses

Grief is typically experienced following a loved one’s unexpected death. It is human nature to experience grief or bereavement as a way of processing the end of a person's life and coping mechanism of the living. In cases where we have pre-knowledge of a person's inevitable departure due to illness, such as with terminal illnesses like Alzheimers, grief happens in a longer period preceding death. In this circumstance, caregivers, friends, and family, must endure a duration of hardship dictated by the progression of the disease while knowing the fated outcome of a person's life. Typically this period caused by the …

Notes On Institutional Architecture ; Towards And Understanding Of Erasure And Conversation, Liam Burke

Masters Theses

Material Conversations /məˈtirēəl/ /ˌkänvərˈsāSH(ə)ns/ noun 1. derived from an early memory of forming relationships to objects, a way to understand the physical environment through a scaling down process that follows, but is not limited to, space, element, material. 2. the way in which material components are tectonically related 3. a process which would inform one to work with materials in a way which is conceptually informed by both aforementioned definitions 4. an integral aspect of architectural design, Material Conversations enable the architect to establish a language with which to relate to the components of their work, to better speak to …

Community Conservation & Engagement Through The Architecture Of Public Transportation, Liam Costello

Masters Theses

A good public transportation system......should be extensive, quick, and efficient, while also being equitable and accessible as well as environmentally friendly and resilient to cope with climate change and rising sea levels. Until the 1980s, Philadelphia had an extensive streetcar network. From 1977 until 1992, however, all lines serving northern Philadelphia were abandoned, leaving the city’s once-expansive public transit system a shell of its former self. The communities formerly served by streetcar have the lowest average household income in the city and are mainly communities of color. Additionally, many of these residents do not own cars. Therefore, the people who …

Remnants, Sarah Chriss

Masters Theses

Remnants is a revision of our interaction with land extraction through reimagining processes of representation and image-making. By altering perspective and focus, the visual effects of commodity culture shift toward the consequences that occur before and after our consumption. Dependably lost in translation, spatial and temporal information of material exchanges across the globe uphold and preserve the synergy of our commodity transactions. In a field constantly playing with and pushing against the boundaries of representation, remnants aim to redraw lost connections of material transformations through a granite quarry in Rhode Island. Representation is a tool to revise visual narratives that …

Caregivers As Worldbuilders, Caitlin Dippo

Masters Theses

Caregivers as Worldbuilders explores architecture as the relationship between people and the space that surrounds them, looking to memorials, quilts, and forms of gathering to understand how communities use care to shape their built environment. A table was built to host gatherings over the course of the spring semester. Each week new prompts, props, and prosthetics transform the table to meet the needs of those who gather. With the table as a proxy, this thesis considers the in-between spaces that relate and separate us and speculates on how architects can work with communities to gain trust, listen to what is …

Moving Through Time, Anca Gherghiceanu

Masters Theses

Post-communism life in Romania is a duality: people fleeting the country in search of a better life and the simultaneous shrinking cities due to this migration. The built fabric of the city holds distorted nostalgia for those who have left and the burning reality that surrounds the ones that remain. It results in popular villages and cities starting to be abandoned at a massive rate. The migrant story in search of a new life cultivates a journey of loneliness, sacrifice, and sorrow.This thesis will shine light on the physiological effects of mass migration in Romania through satirical editing and storytelling, …

Food For An Island : On The Relationships Between Agriculture, Architecture And Land, Melinda Groenewegen

Masters Theses

Hawai‘i is in a food crisis relying on 85-90% of food to be imported to the islands while 41% of its agricultural lands are unfarmed. My thesis focuses on O‘ahu's broken food system and restoring the community’s identity and relationship to their food and land. On an urban scale, the project maps out the agricultural lands of O‘ahu that are being underutilized and owned by large corporations. Then, the project zooms into a town as an example of how to reinterpret the land. The chosen site was a sugar plantation and is still currently owned by Castle and Cooke. Next, …

Immortal/ Ephemeral/ Versatile, Zhenhong (Brad) Lei

Masters Theses

Imagine 150-year-old building components coming together to form a summertime fruit market. The building is ephemeral, but the parts are here to stay, as well as the building/unbuilding cycle. The immortal ephemerality paradigm embraces the precarious lifespans of buildings and urban environments, alongside the infinite craving for new buildings and urban renewals.

Immaterial Realities, Tyler Lovejoy

Masters Theses

Architects primarily work at a digital desktop, alienated from the spatial byproducts of their collaborative work. Therefore, software is the most influential mediator between these immaterial laborers and projects. Despite architectural production methods evolving, much of the same pernicious labor relations have subsisted. Building Information Modeling has become synonymous with architectural work, yet presents a missed opportunity in addressing and re-imagining labor conditions and power relations between workers.

Today, architects are proposing improved labor structures utilizing cooperatives and unions. Alongside these endeavors, might we reimagine our digital tools as allies? Delivered as a visual essay that is both critical and …

System As A Living Organism, Xinyi Liu

Masters Theses

This is cross-disciplinary research in urban systems, architecture, bio-systems, agriculture, energy supplies, circular economy, and sustainability.

Scaffolding: Medium, Mediator, Mediated, Mono Yingyi Mo

Masters Theses

This thesis investigates, analyzes, and fictionalizes scaffolds, seeing scaffolds as a medium (that which is being neglected and unquestioned), a mediator (that which is actively executing shaping powers), and a to-be-mediated being (that which requires to be reimagined). Scaffolds in this thesis is registered as a polydimensional group of frameworks, tools, and agreements, ranging from scaffolds in the built environment, architectural drawing convention, CAD program interfaces and interaction modalities, and codes and scripts behind the digital programs. Together, these scaffolds simultaneously enable and prescribe architectural design processes. The project aims to make the scaffolds seen, de-familiarized, and rediscovered. The current …

Cycle Of Care: A Study Based On Home-Care Elderly Living In Beijing, China, Wenyue Remi Qiu

Masters Theses

In China, the aging society has accelerated the elderly care industry to grow into three major systems: home-based care, community-based care, and institutional care facility. All these systems receive financial and political government support, yet the later two draw more social awareness. My thesis project investigates the structures of these current systems by focusing on the demographics in Beijing.

Although in recent years the research shows an upward trend in seniors’ acceptance of living in institutional care facilities, the elderly are still more willing to be surrounded by activities and people that whom they are familiar. In order to guarantee …

Flexing Boundaries : Tectonic Strategies For The Multi-Generational Home, Elise Young

Masters Theses

In the near future, a large percentage of the human population will have to relocate due to an ever changing climate. This will create both short-term and long-term housing needs. To support this shift, our cities will be forced to modify their current use of spaces so that they may accommodate an increasing population and their ever-changing needs. So, is there a way to design homes specifically to make increased population density not only bearable, but enjoyable? This project seeks to design non-load bearing modules that provide both partitions and furniture. The modules should be easy to manipulate so occupants …