Architecture Commons^™

Bradford Higgins House: Agreement Contract With Ross Brudenell

Documentation

Agreement contract submitted to Ross N. Brudenell by Anne W. Baker on February 28, 1981. It includes shipping contents, transportation, reconstruction, restoration, work to be completed by contractor-carpenter, payment schedule, history-description of Bradford House, Appraisal and Relocation and Re-erection.

Bradford-Higgins House: Letter From Brudenell, January 25, 1981

Documentation

Letter dated January 25, 1981 from Ross Brudenell to Anne Baker mostly concerning material and transportation costs.

Sustainable Urban Planning: Turning The Concrete Jungle Into Green Buildings, Danielle Richardson

Student Theses 2015-Present

This paper addresses the issue of greenhouse gas emissions – particularly those from buildings – within New York City and discusses ways to construct new sustainable buildings and retrofit existing buildings to both minimize greenhouse gas emissions as well as act as carbon sinks to absorb some of the emissions. Reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions is critical to NYC meeting its climate target goals, as detailed in the mayoral administrations’ PlaNYC and OneNYCenvironmental plans. This paper analyzes sustainable architecture and construction and presents various options and policies as to how to turn the city into a green city through …

Reinventing Educational Spaces, Angel Coleman

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

Problems always existed in our educational system, but many issues intensified in the pandemic. One of the biggest is the mental impact on the children, with those in high school tripling in numbers. The spaces these students spend their time has a great impact on their mental well-being. Our schools need to create places for the students to make communities and feel a sense of ownership. Giving students a place to belong and making them proud of their work helps build their self-esteem, relieving some mental health issues.

My thesis is redesigning these environments to create classrooms, schools and a …

The Role Of Temporary Installations Towards Permanency In The Built Environment, Paul D. Spittle

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

Heralding a new wave against “business-as-usual” planning, design and development practice that had in part brought about the Global Crash of 2008 (Marcinkoski, 2016), the rise in rapid and temporary design typologies, like Park(ing) Day or Better Block (CNU Next Gen, 2010), suggested a new direction that recognized that if you wanted to make a positive change in the built environment, it was easier to act first and apologize afterwards (Lydon et al, 2012). Taking the responsibility of living in the city into their own hands, a new guard of designers looked to the unfinished skeletons of civic construction to …

Incremental Formality: Where Formality And Informality Meet, Rodrigo Neyra Velarde

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

1500’s colonization and it is now home to one of the fastest growing informal settlement cities in Latin America. These settlement cities are often characterized by their lack of accessibility to clean water, unsafe living environments paired with lower-quality, or non-durable materials, as well as a general lack of recognition by governments. With Lima being located in the middle of the desert, sustainable design in general has been difficult to implement. This thesis looks to explore methods to create a low-cost mixed-use building with implantations of urban farming the people of Villa Maria Del Triunfo. Though the Peruvian government has …

Flexible Dwellings, Petra Basic

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The reality of any situation is that things don’t always go as planned. We need to adapt and change. We graduate college but can’t afford the homes we expected, so we settle for what we can get even though it may not really suit us. We get new jobs that require us to move somewhere else. We start our families, and our current homes no longer meet our needs, and we are forced to sell and move. We constantly go through this process of trying to meet our ever-changing needs. The closer we get to graduation, the more I have …

Collective Modularity: A Modular Design For Disasters, Bishop Boening

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

With factory-built, prefabricated components, modular architecture is at the forefront of modern design. Architecture is becoming more cost-effective, movable, and uniform. Modular homes have traditionally sacrificed character in order to be more cost-effective, energy-efficient, or trendy. Developers, advertisers, and engineers use budgets and market data to design them, not an architects’ dream or vision. Architects who have been schooled to design with concept, passion, and poetry choose to design conventional homes because it has proven challenging in the past to adopt a modular construction plan while keeping design authorship. Architects see modular building as a violation of this fact, as …

A Kit For Kids - Revitalizing Low-Income Communities By Embracing The Younger Generation, Anirose Burge

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

How often do we consider the physical, emotional, and social needs of youth when determining ways to better society? When deciding actions in a community, the needs of the next generation should be put as a top priority. This thesis will research and develop ways of doing this through architecture.

This project will create a modular and transportable structure that will focus on teens ages 11-15. The structure will be developed using a kit of parts so that it can be placed onto any site while also containing a site-specific program. The program will contain three categories with subcategories to …

Green Dream: How Nature Can Inform The Design Of A Performative Skin System, William Cottrell Iv

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Reducing our planet’s carbon footprint has become a very powerful debate throughout global society. A sustainable approach in how we construct our buildings can make a major impact on the longevity of mother nature. Buildings are the main destination for the nation’s power supplies. High-rise buildings due to their large scale require much more materials for their construction compared to smaller scaled buildings. In addition, they use more energy and emit greenhouse gases; as a result, they have major environmental impacts. Therefore, high rises seem to be non-sustainable. 25% of the world’s energy usage comes from buildings. Of that 25%, …

Service Hub: An Adaptive Reuse Advancing Communities And The Hidden Population, Biancha Claritt

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Why continue to approach the homeless community from the same angle? As cities grow and systems change, we as the housed community adapt to that and welcome these new forms of doing activities into our lives. But for the unhoused populations, we continue to do a lot of the same things which include shelters, providing special services within shelters, food pantries, and clinics all of which are vital to the homeless community but are places that the individuals have to go to which can become dangerous. As cities grow, redevelop, and economically improve a homeless person becomes a threat continuously …

Design For Our Lives! Defensive Design Strategies For School Shootings, David Wolf

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Viewer Discretion is advised. This thesis serves to analyze tragedies that have been running rampant in America since roughly the 90s. Looking at them from an architectural standpoint and how design elements incorporated into the modern way schools are design can create a safer environment for the students and staff alike.

Transformative Architecture Through Kinetic Mechanisms, David Feregrino Rodriguez

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis started with an interest in transformable architecture which will allow it to become adaptive. Zuk and Clark, in “Kinetic Architecture,” argued that modern architecture was outdated because of its static nature. Architecture can address these challenges in a simple and intentional manner if kinetics are included. This removes demolition and expensive remodeling. Plants and animals adapt kinetically, such as growing cells in the opposite direction in which they were bent, sets of muscles that flex and extend to kinetically move a limb, or transforming its whole body and positioning each limb strategically to maximize the range of movement …

Modularity And Architecture: A Framework For Space, Hanny Marone

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis focuses on the role and use of modular design within the field of architecture. Modularity is the use of smaller, less complex units in an organizational framework in order to create a more complex whole system. Modular systems can broken down into three components that make the system: elements, rules (organizational logic), and connections. Within this project the use of parametric design allows for the creation of simple and complex rules which allow for manipulation of the basic elements. These manipulations ultimately result in impacts on the form, spatial quality and tectonic expression.

Nature, Growth & Design: Architectural Investigations Into The Role Of Space-Making, Tate Baker

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Nature and natural spaces have an inherent logic to them. Related to this logic is the inherent and characteristic ability of nature to create a sense of belonging. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the inherent logic found in nature in order to better understand the process of space-making, and to co-opt these natural principles in order to create a design intervention that mimics the natural experience.

Seaport City Adaptation: Buenaventura's Settlements, Mariana Corredor

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Buenaventura is one of Colombia's most important cities, it houses one of the biggest ports on the continent and covers more than 60% of Colombia's sea imports and exports. Unfortunately, most of the population is impoverished and lives in improvised shelters made up of wood, trash, and debris with no access to potable water, electricity, and sewage systems. How can architecture be used to create better conditions? How can we use local materials in Colombia to design affordable and aesthetically pleasing settlements for the inhabitants of Buenaventura?

My research starts with materials that are sustainable, economical, local, and recyclable, that …

Chattahoochee River Front: Creating A Public Space For The City Of Atlanta, Samantha Manders

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The city of Atlanta lacks public spaces. Atlanta is characterized by many high-rise buildings, and a bare urban fabric that is accessed by automobile-oriented roads rather than pedestrian streets. Dense city centers such as Buckhead, Midtown, and Downtown, lacks proper public places that support social cohesion. While the city is renowned for its green spaces and the tree canopy, much of the public space is dedicated as green parks rather than plazas as extension of the street network. When the development of Atlanta began, it was designed as a railroad city. This took the focus off its natural course of …

Reconnecting A Disconnected City : Through Placemaking Strategies, Gabriel Arroyo

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

My thesis is motivated by a growing interest in our urbanized landscapes and their effect on social behavior. Developing a term that refers to a places lack of engagement with the people it serves, aids in capturing the necessity of a project like this today. The modern era of today’s cities have unconciously enabled this term “Placelessness”, this lack of a defined sense of place, be a recurring problem due to urban sprawl, economic imbalances, and technologies negative influence on social patterns. Our public assets are losing distinctive characteristics such as its Identity, Belonging, and Coherence; thus, amplifying the notion …

Hope Is Scarce: Designing An Orphanage To Create A Sense Of Belonging, Mehmet Arif Ozelgul

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

When a child comes to life without the guidance of a mother and a father, they are sentenced to grow up in places where they can’t perceive as “home”. A child being placed in a situation where they live without their parents is not the ideal location for self-development. According to research, there are 2 million children in Mozambique who are living without their biological parents, and they are forced to child labor (22%), early child marriage (48%), violence (33.3%), prostitution (22%), and early childbearing (52%) along with mental health issues. The primary school graduation rate in Mozambique is only …

Big Problems, Small Solutions A Solution To The Housing Crisis Through Prefabrication., Connor Smith

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Coronavirus has come as America is in the midst of a crisis-level affordable housing issue. In 2019, 37.1 million households were identified as “housing cost-burdened,” spending 30% or more of their income on housing. 63% of Americans have been living pay-check to pay-check since the pandemic. And in addition to that, it has been estimated that we as a country have a deficit of at least 1,000,000 single-family homes. This is affordable housing as it stands today, with a huge percentage of Americans searching for permanent housing and unable to find any, and if they do, unable to afford it …

Urban Mitigation And Adaptation: Ecological Design Strategies For Flood Resilient Environments And Community Health In Athens, Makenna Chambers

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

According to FEMA, flooding is the most frequent and costly natural disaster in the United States (National Flood Insurance Program and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2010). The risk it poses to both people and property will only increase in the coming years due to the increasing effects of Climate Change. Additionally, the effects of Climate Change mean that areas that were once safe from flooding are now in danger and their current infrastructure was not designed to withstand the impact and effects of the more frequent and dangerous flooding occurrences. Climate Change effects temperature, sea levels, and the increasing …

Transparency In Architecture: Reflecting The Practice Of Democracy In City Halls, Ana Mendoza

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The last election cycles of 2016 and 2020 became a tumultuous time for many Americans. More than ever, Democracy has been tested through recent events and has had many doubting the integrity of our governmental structures and the strength of our civic buildings. The events of January 6th unfolded before all of America’s eyes as we witnessed the breaching of the United States Capitol, which was supposed to be the most secure and honored building in Washington. America’s cultural diversity brings different opportunities within distinct contexts. So how do we reflect our ideals and necessities into the city halls that …

[F]Ree-[Dom] Space: Trauma-Informed Planning And Place Making Within Women And Children's Rehabilitation Centers, Rodolfo Alcaraz-Navarrete

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis researches and understands the struggles of domestic violence survivors and implements design strategies to provide a safe and stable shelter for those affected by domestic violence in Georgia. The design methodology and research will include literature reviews and precedent studies to observe and better understand the challenges that need to be met in order to provide a safe haven for victims of domestic violence to grow and succeed when the time comes to return to the world. The goal is to, through architecture and design, provide an opportunity to engage and bring awareness to the public of the …

Lungs Of The City: B[Re]Athe - Exploring How Architecture Can Improve Air Quality, Jessica Rimmel

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

One of the most critical elements for survival is air. Air pollution and air quality are often seen as an issue that needs widespread intervention to make a difference. It becomes a problem that people think is too big for them to make any meaningful change. There is a lack of education and acknowledgment of the quality of the air we breathe every day. Prolonged exposure to pollutants in the air can lead to lasting negative effects on one’s health. Air pollution affects our communities disproportionately, the young, the aging, and minority community members are especially susceptible to being exposed …

Vida: Community Center In The Heart Of Bogota, Juan Sebastian Mejia Ceballos

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Abstract

Bogota is the capital of Colombia known for its beautiful culture, architecture, music, food, ambiance. All these things are only seen in the northern portion of the city. When looking at the southern portion of the city, this is where the true neglect of a government shows. There is a lack of care, love, and respect for a city. It is noticeable that there is hierarchy where the elite live in the north and the poor live in the south.

This is the first issue addressed in this thesis.

When looking at the city and its relation to the …

Equity In Healthcare Design: Sustainable Placemaking Interventions For Refugees And Displaced Communities, Eunji You

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Since 1990, the city of Clarkston has brought thousands of refugees from Asia, Africa, South America, and beyond. Now, roughly half of the population constitutes refugees that represent 60 different languages and nationalities. In Clarkston, a sustainable healthcare facility is integral for the design of a family-centered medical facility to promote health equity by providing access to care at all levels. Infant mortality is rising amongst minority groups, and advanced care for adults and children of all ages and disabilities in low-income areas is becoming more inaccessible. The design of the healthcare facility aims to strengthen racial-ethnic minority groups in …

Facilitate Learning: Using Architecture As A Teaching Tool, Doron Zarur

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis proposes a new design for an architecture school that looks beyond the verbal and formal way of teaching, engaging students with multiple modes of learning to help them understand the fundamentals of architecture. The thesis looks at the positive impact of this new learning style - providing spaces that visually teach the construction and concepts of building, the foundation of architecture. This research explores visually providing various types of structures in the same space that students learn, strengthening the learner’s understanding and enabling a broader perspective of the content. It also can lead to better solutions for design …

Colloquium, Or The Argument For A New School Of Architecture..., Austin Turner

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Colloquium, or an argument for the new school of Architecture... is an interrogation on the power of Architectural discourse and its impact on the built environment.

The research begins by analyzing the works and theories of four distinct architects: Peter Eisenman, Rem Koolhaas, Zaha Hadid, and Bjarke Ingels. During my investigation, I ask myself, “What happened in their school environment that made them great,” or in other words, “What can a student, like me, do to be like these people?”

To answer this question, I found the best way to analyze this would be to look back on their own …

Proposing A Second Life - (Adaptive Reuse) For Underutilized Condemned Masonry Buildings In Cuba, Fernando Asamoa

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

From 2000 to 2013 nearly 3,856 partial or total buildings collapsed in Havana, Cuba with a 206,000-home deficit thus adding to its severe housing shortage, reported by officials. Officials have also estimate 28,000 people live in buildings that could collapse at any moment and yet some residents refuse to leave structures that authorities have declared unsafe. Locals have described the deaths witnessed from structures collapsing however Cuban officials do not release figures on those killed or injured in building collapses in attempt to minimize the severity of the situation. This thesis aims to investigate an adaptive reuse strategy needed for …

Beirut's Burden, Joelle Osta

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This is a proposal for a waste management facility to be built in the busy city of Beirut to educate the public and prevent further damage to the environment‭.‬

This facility collects‭, ‬transports‭, ‬processes‭, ‬recycles‭, ‬and monitors waste materials from both businesses and private residences‭. ‬There is a sorting and processing wing to separate waste into different categories‭. ‬

Proper incineration of certain types of waste will generate green energy and the gases emitted from the decomposition of trash in landfills can be used as a renewable energy source‭. ‬Through the use of extremely high temperatures‭, ‬trash is converted into …