Architecture Commons^™

Skip The Grid: Installing Solar Systems For Residents Of The Navajo Nation In Arizona, Joshua Zepeda Montero

Construction Management

An interdisciplinary service-learning program called Skip the Grid provides solar energy systems to Navajo Nation homes without consistent access to electricity. A group of 20 California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) students from different majors that include Construction Management, Mechanical Engineers, Business, and Electrical Engineers traveled to Arizona from March 23rd to 27th, 2025, to install Goal Zero solar energy systems on over 40 homes from the Navajo Nation. This project was made possible through the generous support and collaboration of SOLV Energy, Heart of America (HOA), Goal Zero, Chinle High School, and Cal Poly. These solar systems help give …

Skip The Grid: Empowering The Navajo Nation Through Solar Energy, Gerardo L. Luna

Construction Management

Skip the Grid is an interdisciplinary service project through California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly), aimed at providing sustainable energy solutions to underserved communities. In Spring 2025, I participated as a rooftop safety lead and solar installer in Chinle, Arizona, where our team partnered with SOLV Energy, Goal Zero, and Heart of America to bring solar power to 40 off-grid homes across the Navajo Nation. As a member of Red Team #3, I was directly responsible for ensuring safe ladder setup, supervising rooftop work, mounting solar panels, and managing exterior cable routing for 8 successful installations. Beyond …

Designing Augmented Reality (Ar) Simulations For Construction Scheduling Education: A Process-Based Approach, Luke Sutherland

Construction Management

This paper presents the design and implementation of an augmented reality (AR) testing protocol developed to assess construction students' planning, sequencing, and real-time decision-making skills. Using Microsoft HoloLens, the simulation exposed students to realistic jobsite scenarios that required them to interpret plans, develop task sequences, and respond to evolving conditions in the field. The protocol was conducted with over 30 construction management students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and included three progressively complex scenarios focused on underground utilities, concrete formwork delays, and overhead MEP coordination issues. Data was captured through AR interaction logs, time tracking, instructor observation, …

Assessing The Impact Of The Women In Construction Leadership Course And Disc Training On The Construction Industry For Students And Recent Graduates, Amanda E. Mcdowell

Construction Management

This study examined the impact of the Women in Construction Leadership Course, paired with DISC training, on students transitioning into the construction industry. The DISC instrument classifies behaviors into four personality types (i.e., Dominant, Influencer, Steady, Conscientious) and the training helped students identify each personality type to improve their communication skills. Although technical skills are essential for completing daily tasks, effective leadership and communication are crucial to project success. This research explored how DISC training can improve new hires’ perceptions of their abilities to interact and communicate with their project team members. Through a survey of course participants, the study …

R.A.C.E. Matters Precast Concrete Bench Construction, Jack Alexander Ritchie

Construction Management

This senior project details the collaborative design, fabrication, and installation of three precast concrete benches for the nonprofit organization R.A.C.E. Matters in partnership with the San Luis Obispo Conservancy. The benches were designed to act as platforms for public art, amplifying diverse racial narratives through murals. A multidisciplinary team of students from Construction Management, Architecture, and Architectural Engineering worked together, with each discipline contributing to distinct phases of the project. Bench installations took place at the Pismo Preserve, the Octagon Barn, and Kathleen’s Overlook. This paper reflects on the hands-on construction process, the challenges of interdisciplinary coordination, and the real-world …

Untold Stories – Precast Concrete Bench Construction And Installation, Lucas Llodra

Construction Management

This paper outlines the design-build process led by an interdisciplinary team of Construction Management students from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, to construct four concrete benches. In collaboration with faculty, concrete specialists, and the non-profit organization R.A.C.E. Matters, the project launched in Winter 2025. R.A.C.E. Matters initiated the effort by requesting the design and installation of benches at scenic, high-visibility locations managed by the San Luis Obispo Land Conservancy: Pismo Preserve, the Octagon Barn, and Kathleen’s Overlook. The full project scope included design development, structural calculations, prefabrication, on-site construction, and final installation. Each bench will serve as a …

Renovations At The Ranch Slo, Gerardo Valenciano-Valdivia

Construction Management

The Ranch SLO is a non-profit organization that hopes to aid adults with developmental disabilities by providing outdoor employment opportunities. In the ten-and-a-half-acre property, the employees engage in a variety of different activities, ranging from planting and growing different plants, to caring for farm animals. Some of the structures in the ranch have a long time in service and need reinforcing/renovations, this project focused on two main areas where renovations took place. The first area was a garden table area equipped with a total of 10 garden tables and a shade structure covering exactly half of the tables. The main …

Skip The Grid 2025: Providing Power In The Navajo Nation, Daniel R. Lombardi

Construction Management

Skip the Grid is an interdisciplinary initiative aimed at supporting the Navajo Nation by providing access to off-grid power to improve quality of life. This year, the Skip the Grid team centered its efforts around the Chinle Unified School District in Chinle, Arizona. This collaborative effort was composed of an interdisciplinary team of California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) students, along with industry partners including SOLV Energy, Heart of America, Goal Zero, and Nextracker. Many families in the Navajo Nation still live without access to reliable electricity. Between March 23rd and March 27th, 2025, the Skip the Grid team successfully …

R.A.C.E. Matters Precast Concrete Bench Construction, Camryn E. Berger

Construction Management

This paper presents a narrative detailing the design and construction process undertaken by an interdisciplinary team of students from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, representing the Construction Management, Architecture, and Architectural Engineering departments. The team collaborated to design, fabricate, and install three precast concrete benches for the nonprofit organization R.A.C.E. Matters. The project began in Fall 2024 and culminated in the installation of the benches at sites managed by the San Luis Obispo Conservancy: Pismo Preserve, the Octagon Barn, and Kathleen’s Overlook. Each bench will serve as a platform for murals, visually depicting diverse racial experiences. This paper …

Assessing Fire Risks In San Luis Obispo: The Impact Of Building Construction And Landscaping On Wildfire Vulnerability, Zachary A. Pollock

Construction Management

As wildfires grow in frequency and intensity across California, understanding and mitigating residential fire risk has become a public safety priority. Communities in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), such as San Luis Obispo, are especially vulnerable due to their proximity to natural vegetation and the prevalence of older housing stock. While state and local agencies have introduced regulations and educational campaigns, there remains a need for accessible, scalable tools that help identify fire risks at the individual home level. This project assessed wildfire vulnerability across 140 homes in San Luis Obispo, California, using a custom visual grading rubric informed by academic …

The Third Annual Hasslein Caed Collaborative, Marianne Nicole Bishai

Construction Management

This paper details the planning, development, and impact of the third annual Hasslein CAED Collaborative Student Competition. The intention of the Hasslein Cup is to engage the students of the five College of Architecture and Environmental Design (CAED) majors in an industry-like scenario. The five majors, Architecture, Architectural Engineering, City and Regional Planning, Construction Management, and Landscape Architecture, make up the workforce of the construction industry, yet there has been very little opportunity for the students to work together and replicate a professional scenario. The competition began from research conducted by Greta Stout, class of 2022, which explored the benefits …

Caed Support Shop North Wall Project, Mateo Gonzalez

Construction Management

The CAED Support Shop North Wall Project was a student-led initiative aimed at reclaiming and enhancing valuable courtyard space within the CAED Support Shop. The existing wall, originally built to enclose a now-removed dumpster, had an irregular shape that disrupted the flow of the courtyard. With the dumpster gone, the wall no longer served a purpose and took up space that could be used by students. Our interdisciplinary team comprising of five Architectural Engineering students and one Construction Management student collaborated to plan, design, and constructing a new masonry wall that preserved the character of the original structure while improving …

The Arch And The Looking Glass: Umbli Cu Cioara Vopsitǎ, Ana Popescu

Masters Theses

The Arch and The Looking Glass: Umbli Cu Cioara Vopsită (You Are Walking Around with a Painted Crow)

A thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics in the Department of Ceramics of the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island.

By Ana Popescu, 2025

Approved by Master’s Examination Committee:

Lesley Baker, Shoji Satake (Chair), Heather Bhandari, Tucker Houlihan

Date: May 17th, 2025

Location: Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, Rhode Island

To be opened for self-reflection in 10 years, on May 17th, 2035:

I’ve been mulling over how to make …

Untitled, Seung Ho Jeon

Masters Theses

We are, by our very own nature, confined within our own lived experiences. To transcend our inherent loneliness, we seek ways to fulfill a fundamental sense of belonging through symbolic interactions. The external world we navigate is a subjective framework constructed through repetitive, mundane interaction, and as actors, we participate in such monotonous performances as a means to create shared meaning.

Such performance manifests as a collective entity - an intangible force that is not bound by institutionalized systems, emerging organically from grassroots beliefs and practices. Throughout the performance, there are symbols - artifacts, space, and interactions. And these transformative …

Coarse Woody Debris: Growth & Decay, Cody W. Young

Masters Theses

Coarse Woody Debris is the felled wood from trees. When branches break off and trunks fall down to the ground, the wood from the tree begins to decay. Humans need to acknowledge the importance of this regeneration and habitat building process to help protect it. The debris from coarse wood decay provides multiple benefits to the surrounding ecosystem. It is important to leave the woody debris in the context in which it fell so that the cycles of growth and decay can be preserved. My project is a public service announcement about the values of coarse woody debris. Instead of …

Rural Dreams, Zongda Wu

Masters Theses

With the rapid development of urbanization in China, people's connection with nature has weakened, leading to an increasingly common phenomenon of nature-deficit disorder. The high-paced, information-saturated lifestyle of cities has further reduced people’s sensitivity to natural rhythms. This is especially true for the younger generation, who are accustomed to fast, dense information flows and find it difficult to slow down and engage meaningfully with nature, even when visiting rural areas.

This study uses the ruins of Puji Temple, located about 50 miles from downtown Beijing, to explore how spatial design can offer urban youth opportunities to reconnect with nature while …

Cohabitation At Threshold: Carpenter House Reimagined For Multispecies Living, Zhixiao Yang

Masters Theses

With the rapid growth of the human population, we are encroaching further into wildlife habitats, particularly those surrounding urban environments. This accelerating urbanization leads to biodiversity loss, the degradation of ecological services essential to human health and well-being, and a diminishing connection between city dwellers and the natural world.

Today, urban planners, architects, economists, and other advocates for the future of humanity and the health of the planet are actively questioning how we might build greener, more resilient cities. While much of the focus has been on large-scale interventions — such as the use of sustainable materials, the creation of …

Unseen, But There, Xinyu Dong

Masters Theses

Pedestrians often arrive at the Michael S. Van Leesten Memorial Bridge in a hurry—rushing through daily routines—only to slow down or stop at its center. Here, they are drawn by the openness of the view, the rhythm of the wind, and a sense of pause that floats above the surface of the Providence River.

This thesis is an ongoing experiment in direct, sensory experience. It centers on this pedestrian bridge not just as a site of circulation, but as a space of unintentional stillness and layered perception. While many passersby are drawn to its scenic beauty, few pause to consider …

Buddha, Resituated, Min Sun

Masters Theses

The Asian Arts Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art presents significant cultural artifacts in a minimalist, neutral environment that disconnects them from their original historical and spatial contexts. By proposing display techniques that emphasize the origin and background of objects, it asks whether audiences from diverse cultural backgrounds can be enabled to connect empathetically with and learn from the heritage represented by these objects displayed out of context.

This thesis explores how exhibition design can reframe decontextualized artifacts to restore cultural meaning. By unpacking the room chronologically and geographically, and drawing from the spatial language of the Yungang Grottoes, …

Stranded In Time: Reawakening The Crook Point Bascule Bridge Through Temporality, Zhipeng Wang

Masters Theses

Many urban structures fall into a “stranded” state—physically present, yet socially invisible. The Crook Point Bridge in Providence is a prime example: a decommissioned piece of industrial infrastructure, too large and symbolically heavy to vanish entirely, yet gradually fading from public awareness. This thesis explores how temporary, experience-driven interventions can reawaken the social relevance of such neglected spaces. Rather than proposing a fixed future, the project seeks to prompt public reconsideration through fleeting spatial experiences that require no irreversible transformation. The first intervention utilizes balloons—fragile, inflated, and inevitably collapsing—to embody the theme of accelerated disappearance, echoing how memories fade faster …

Silent Witnesses: Reconnecting Landscape Through Lost Narratives, Abeer Aljohani

Masters Theses

In the heart of the vast Arabian desert, a forgotten tale of tragic love unfolds. Aja and Salma, figures from two different tribes in pre-Islamic Arabia, embody a romance that has long faded into obscurity. The two mountain ranges in Hail, Saudi Arabia, bear their names, standing as silent witnesses to a love story that ends in tragedy—one in which each is killed on separate peaks. Over time, the story has faded, leaving a gap between the landscape and its cultural significance. Could a narrative-based tourism experience revive this link, blending the mountains’ natural beauty with their forgotten story?

This …

'Manch' Beyond - Museum, Dhwani Bapna

Masters Theses

In contemporary India, the museum remains a symbol of cultural prestige, yet according to national cultural surveys, fewer than 1% of Indians visit museums annually, a statistic that reflects not only structural and spatial exclusions, but also psychological barriers shaped by class, language, and institutional codes of conduct. These institutions are far from neutral: they embed expectations about how to see, move, and behave, privileging a didactic framework. In the absence of intimacy, dialogue, and belonging, the museum becomes a space visited, not inhabited.

Rather than viewing space as a container for artifacts, this thesis reimagines space itself as an …

Time In Architecture, Minho Kwon

Masters Theses

This project explores how the environment and time interact with architecture, proposing the potential to foster a deep connection between people and space by using time as a shared interactive factor.

Furthermore, this project seeks not only to explore the accumulation of time within architecture itself, but also to consider its relationship with the surrounding environment.

Ourcraft, Jie Wang

Masters Theses

Industrial-era transportation infrastructure not only bears witnesses to technological progress and urban development, but also carries collective memories and occupies central location in our urban fabric. Traditional urban renewal often tends to tear down and rebuild, but this approach ignores the inherent spatial value, cultural significance and potential contribution of buildings to community networks. As the original function of many such structures fades, they increasingly become physical and social barriers within the urban fabric, hindering interaction and cohesion between communities.

Gamification integrates playful spatial elements and interactive experiences, attracting local residents for leisure and engagement. Gamification, broadly defined, is the …

Bodies Collapsing Together... Together As Dust., Catherine J. Wang

Masters Theses

I welcome you to a pedagogy of collapsing bodies: the teaching and learning practice between surviving occupants of Institutions.

From the villainizing of trans- bodies in K-14 public schools to the bodily removal of Palestinian discourse from universities, the 2025 presidential takeover of the Department of Education unearths systemic urgencies over the fragility, complicity, and agency of academic institutions—survivors of wars, recessions, shootings, climate disasters—that have always been collapsing. As long as educational campuses stage political and industrial performances, Institutional marriage to capitalism collapses the future of the university. Our architectural pedagogy shoulders this weight of confrontation: design education as …

Objects Into Things: The Ordinary Into Extraordinary, Michael K. Yirenkyi

Masters Theses

The most intimate experience of architecture starts at the scale of the object, from the slight grazing past the sofa to the painful bump of the toe against the legs of the sharply angled table. These objects have become a huge part of our everyday life and how we navigate the world around us, especially in the home where we spend the most time with them. Yet how many of us are truly aware when we engage with these objects. In a methodology deeply rooted in the design of objects into things, ideas investigated through this process are situated in …

Soft Stickers, Alexandra L. Croft

Masters Theses

The United States has long maintained an extractive relationship with national forest land, leaving a dwindling number of old-growth forests and an overabundance of young, small trees. Waste byproducts of the industry, such as sawmill offcuts, are typically burned or chipped for groundcover; but what if they were reconsidered as viable building materials in their own right? Opting for stuffed and strapped connections over conventional notches and nails, Soft Stickers proposes a building ethos that accepts and accounts for material variation and dimensional change over time through supple materials and a long-term maintenance commitment. Green wood offcuts dry and shrink …

Wetland Rehabilitation Through Interspecies Co-Design, Charanya Rajan Ms.

Masters Theses

This thesis challenges the notion of Human Exceptionalism by examining the agency of the North American Beaver (Castor canadensis) in rehabilitating a 50 acre parcel of land on the Woonasquatucket River watershed, Rhode Island, USA. By reimagining the site without its current commercial and industrial land uses, the project aims to contribute to the nationwide effort of creating and restoring wetlands degraded and damaged over the centuries by human activity. Finally, a pathway running through the site along the river connects to the Woonasquatucket Greenway further down south, with strategically placed look-out points, allowing humans to witness and, therefore, acknowledge …

Tree Story, Jia Hu

Masters Theses

What is Nature?

Nature is a system of intelligence. It means designing for efficiency—often by learning from strategies that have evolved over time. In my research, I use patterns to interpret and decode nature.

To explore nature, I began with the red cedar tree, aiming to simulate and predict its growth patterns—forms shaped by both internal biology and external forces. By analyzing its geometry, I sought to understand how trees embody the dynamic relationship between organism and environment. These patterns reveal the adaptive logic of life.

Patterns are central to understanding nature. While tree geometry may appear chaotic, it follows …

More Than Her Othering Narrative, Jiayi Zhang

Masters Theses

Following feminist theory and spatial critique, this thesis challenges the kitchen’s traditional function as an enclosed site of invisible domestic labor. It reclaims the kitchen as an open, public, and empowering space. In so doing, it reframes it as a critical site of collective resistance, care, and community building.

Fall River, MA is a post-industrial city marked by disinvestment and food insecurity. This thesis integrates existing food pantries and public landscapes into a network of community kitchens using repurposed vacant lots and an existing bike path. These multi-functional spaces where food is grown, cooked, and shared, become an infrastructure of …