Architecture Commons^™

Uncovering Emotional Contamination: Five Sites Of Trauma, Abigail Zola

Masters Theses

“Emotional contamination,” describes residual feelings associated with a space where a negative or tragic event occurred to an individual or group either personally, historically, or politically. Emotional contamination affects people’s associations with place and informs their willingness to spend time in them. This project considers a set of design principles rooted in uncovering and acknowledging the lifespan of a site, and considers how this acknowledgment can exist as an urban system rather than an individual architectural artifact. My thesis work analyzes five case studies in Berlin where political and economic factors determined the result of intervention, and how these sites …

Cohabitation X Adaptation, 2100: A Climate Change Epoch, Kyle Andrews

Masters Theses

Some seventy-seven odd years in the future, the world as we know it will only be recognizable by those who are willing to accept it. The bustling metropolis of Boston Massachusetts has been transformed to appease the tides of Mother Nature as a consequence of human intervention. In the decades prior, humanity viciously fought to contain the effects of climate change, until many realized the colossal undertaking of such a battle. Municipalities across the globe had begun to accept that fighting the earth was no longer an option. Instead, the only hope forward was to adapt to a reality in …

Country Tech: The Adaptive Reuse Of A Former Theatre In The Catskill Mountains, Isimamwen Imarhiagbe, Calvin O. Walters Jr., Cheriyah Wilmot

Publications and Research

Our research centers on the birth, life, abandonment, and a proposed adaptive reuse of an early 20th-century former social hall theatre in Shandaken, a former company town for manufacturing furniture, within the Catskill Mountains. Adaptive reuse involves renovating a building or space by repurposing the existing structure and inserting a contemporary design/function. The building housed a variety of purposes throughout its lifetime: a theater, social hall, bowling alley, artist studios, and residential apartments. Our proposal is to return the building to its original purpose as a social hall, performance space, and a flex space for year-round use for art exhibits, …

Arce 415 Portfolio: The Green Bird Of Paradise, Kristofer R. Rickansrud, Ryan Chan, Brendan Peers, Joel Santoyo

Architectural Engineering

A design project creating a Polyshell sunshade structure for the Leaning Pine Arboretum.

Development Of The New Hasslein Caed Collaborative, Catie Dines

Construction Management

This paper outlines the development and execution of the new Hasslein CAED Collaborative student competition which engages students of all five majors in the College of Architecture and Environmental Design in a Request for Proposal style competition. CAED houses students studying Architecture, Architectural Engineering, City and Regional Planning, Construction Management, and Landscape Architecture. There is little opportunity for interdisciplinary collaboration within the CAED, despite our future career paths being heavily intertwined. This competition followed research by Greta Stout, class of 2022, on the benefits and support of interdisciplinary collaboration at Cal Poly SLO in CAED. The competition is named after …

Architectural Education And Targeted Skills An Evaluation Study Of Scientific Research Influence As Of Mechanisms Of Teaching And Learning, Heba Mahrous Ali

Mansoura Engineering Journal

The Engineering Study offers students an effective and technologically built education, considering the future prospects of science and technology. It also provides the technical knowledge and skills necessary to solve problems that allow future challenges to be addressed. Architecture is based on knowledge and skills in humanities, physics, humanities, and fine and applied arts. Therefore, what is taught about engineering subjects affects the extent of students' perception and this is evident in the extent of its interaction in the form of examinations or research. Scientific research is of great importance in he understanding of the student's understanding of scientific material. …

Reorientation, Soleil Nguyen

Masters Theses

A non-linear narrative to understand the place and character of my neighborhood.

A Knowledge Management Based Framework For Enhancing The Learning Culture In Architectural Design Firms In Developing Countries, Ayman Ahmed Ezzat Othman, Mirna Mohamed Elkady

Architectural Engineering

Purpose – In spite of the active role of continuous learning on improving organisational performance, the construction industry generally and architectural design firms (ADFs) in particular are criticised for their inability to use organisational knowledge to foster learning culture towards enhancing their performance. This paper aims to develop a framework based on knowledge management (KM) to enhance the learning culture in ADFs in developing countries.

Design/methodology/approach – To achieve the abovementioned aim, a research methodology consisted of data collection, data analysis and action required is designed to achieve four objectives. First, to examine the nature of the construction industry in …

Neurodiversity In Architecture: The Inclusive School, Dominic Paquet

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

Architecture today has responded to the typification of people we saw in the modernist era. While sectors like workplace, healthcare, and residential have responded to the changing needs of people and vast amount of differences educational architecture has been left behind as schools built in the 70’s continue to impact our students today and fail to serve each students differing needs. Schools have become architecture that must serve multiple generations. With the average age of schools rising to 44 years old we must consider how schools transverse how education is taught and learned today as well as consider how that …

The Reactivation Of Desolate Architecture, Logan Dolezal

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

A guiding concept for my thesis is the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi. Wabi-Sabi, as defined by Valentina Marin, “refers to an aesthetic philosophy and vision applied to objects, which alludes to beauty in imperfections and the value of the passage of time, and openly accepts the deterioration and transience of existence, both human and material.”

I believe that this concept can be applied to architecture and that we can utilize disregarded and desolate structures by creating insertions that promote interaction with decaying architecture. This notion eventually led to my discovery of my thesis statement, “The reactivation of desolate architecture through …

A Feminist Approach To Solutions In Urban Development, Lourdes Yessenia Gracia Cantu

Civil Engineering and Environmental Engineering: Sustainability and Development Capstone Projects

Are there ways of occupying space and producing places that somehow contest, challenge, and problematize the dominant modalities of organization, of space and place?

A Feminist Approach to Solutions in Urban Development presents an exploration and proposal of a more equitable and diverse urban design that guarantees the use of public space as a place for economic development. With a focus on the recent theory and social movement concerning the impact of the built environment on women, children and older adults, urban feminist, comes across as a participatory planning process that ensures the involvement of multilevel agendas, to react and …

Interconnective Corridors: From Institutional To Educational, Jaylan Burgess

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The Middle school Architecture of yesterday is not designed for the education of tomorrow. So often, we find the traditional typology of schools to be one dimensional in design by being filled long dead-end corridors, white CMU walls, outdated learning spaces of our parents’ generation, and a disassociation from the surrounding neighborhood. This old-fashioned way of design not only wastes hundreds of square footages on circulation alone but is not conducive of the best possible learning environment of the future.

In this thesis, I will begin to interrogate the existing conditions of the school corridor and explore circulation as it …

Reinventing Greyfields, William Jones

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Since the 21st century began, sports involvement within society has grown as sporting events have become significant spectacles. Thus, major stadia came to be to hold spectators. Unfortunately, many are on the city's outskirts due to the size of their parking lots, categorized as greyfields. Greyfields are 'Underused' land or a 'sea' of asphalt concrete. The problem of creating greyfields within cities harms the urban fabric and the actual relationship between the stadium and the city. They are creating a disconnection between the two. This proposal is to design an urban hub around a chosen existing stadium to enrich the …

Desert Safe Haven, Deja Dortch

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The purpose of this thesis is to inform on the materials, technologies, spaces and structure needed to architecturally and sustainably achieve human comfort and create a mother nature-proof safe haven in the becoming harsh climate of the USA. All the while implementing minimum HVAC, using primarily passive and active systems towards a net zero home. Studies have shown there is a real threat with the rate in which the climate is changing. Temperatures are rising worldwide which is causing droughts, more frequent fires, glaciers to melt, sea levels to rise, more severe hurricanes and storms, etc. Sustainability is a way …

Analogous Architectural Habitat, Brandon Watkins

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The rapid expansion of the urban landscape is destroying habitat and displacing native populations of organisms at an alarming rate. Disrupting bird migratory paths and the danger glazing poses to birds, lowering soil and water access, reducing pollinators are among the large number of issues caused by large buildings. Today's built environment accounts for 39% of carbon emissions globally and it is thought that by 2050 two thirds of the world's population will inhabit urban environments. This all means we must design structures that meet energy requirements while not just thinking about humans as the only occupants. It is our …

Empowering Communities Through Food Entrepreneurship And Creative Placemaking, Bailey Kijek

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The City of Clarkston is one of Atlanta’s oldest and most diverse communities. The city is currently in need of tactical placemaking strategies to create quality public spaces that can serve and unite the members of the community. This thesis seeks to identify the needs of the city using a comprehensive site analysis and apply that knowledge to determine a program that is best suited for the community. To create an impactful design, applicable placemaking procedures will be identified through literature review and case study analyses. The data collected will inform a design procedural that will yield an outcome that …

A Ludic Generation: Bridging Architecture, Games, And Technology For More Playful Spaces, Jade Lefebvre

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

In a world dominated by mundane environments, this thesis proposes a novel approach to designing public spaces that integrate game design principles and extended reality technology. By embracing the inherent ludic behavior found in human nature and games, I aim to elevate everyday experiences.

This research delves into the capabilities of extended reality technology, psychology of play and its cultural and societal background, psychology of human archetypes, and game design components as an extraction for architectural typologies. Key findings reveal that by analyzing game components, design languages are formed and can be used to develop feasible architectural typologies.

The significance …

Enabling The Intellectually Disabled Mind Through Architecture, Edward J. Voorhees Iv

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

According to the World Health Organization, roughly 10% of the world population live with mental disability or impairment (Fujira, 2005). For the intellectually disabled, finding a purpose and independence as one transitions into yound adulthood can prove troublesome given their unique shortcomings. In 2015, it was estimated 80,000 intellectually disabled adults were held on waiting lists for residential placement in government-funded programs that could take up to 10 years to complete. Autism Speaks approximates that this number will increase by half a million in that same time span (Lutz, 2015). A greater initiative must take place to assist these individuals …

Architecture And Harm Reduction : An Unconventional Approach To Detox, Anna Studdard

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Harm reduction is a principle that stems from countries like Denmark and Switzerland, that implements strategies to encourage safer drug usage, abstinence, and education for users. The National Harm Reduction Coalition implements nationwide programs for substance abusers, such as Syringe Service Programs, rehabilitation programs, detox programs, housing programs, drug testing facilities, services assisting sex workers, and administering Narcan for overdoses, to try to minimize some of the tragedies accompanying substance abuse. The counterpoint opinion of some countries or states is that providing services like needle exchanges and testing centers are encouraging drug usage and doing more harm than good. However, …

Reverence For Life And Death: A New Cemetery Typology, Ashlyn Olmstead

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The current methods and traditions of burial practices and cemetery design are to be examined for architectural opportunities within this thesis study. The current practices of cemetery design and burial methodologies in the United States have shown signs of instability and lack of longevity due to the decreasing availability of land in dense city environments. Additional climatic factors such as rising sea levels also threaten below ground burial. In other countries, cities such as Hong Kong and Tokyo have already begun to research new methodologies surrounding burial due to this concern and the need for US cities to follow suit …

Accessory Dynamic Unit - The Accessory Home To Meet The Needs Of Our Time, Ryan Cheape

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Today, young professionals face increasing debt and uncertainty after graduating, elders aging in place are stuck with homes not suited to their lifestyle, and the rental market is becoming an essential source of income. The Accessory Dwelling Unit represents a solution to these societal issues. ADUs are separate units on the same lot as the primary home while containing full living functions. Space efficiency is paramount; therefore, each facet of the design needs to be multifaceted and reconfigurable. The idea stems from precedents throughout the 20th century, whether Corbusier’s “Machine for Living” to the work of Reyner Banham and Richard …

Designing Home: Pedagogy Of Proportion + Geometry, Connor Joyce

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Architectural education has evolved through the years to conform within the contemporary styles of the eras. Classical styles are typically labeled as outdated. This causes traditional design and architectural history courses to be sidelined into the lecture-based methods rather than the typical studio setting. Studio courses are the prime section of education within architectural universities, and the studio environment fosters the development of contemporary designs, materials, and methods. This thesis project brings traditional, proportionate design back into the studio and hands-on instruction. With a focus on residential design, “Designing Home” outlines a proposed focus studio for upper-year architecture students interested …

Building Unity; Design Framework For Inclusive New Urbanism, Chad Sharp

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The city of Atlanta has historically embraced isolated growth over integrated density, which has contributed to the city’s limited inventory of inclusive urban centers. This divisive approach to urban design has helped facilitate a city of extremes; with high regional concentrations of wealth and poverty. This phenomenon is worsened by the city’s inherently exclusive transportation network and isolated residential development patterns. As Atlanta continues to grow and densify, it is crucial to adopt planning and design models that prioritize high-density, mixed-use residential developments in equitable locations with easy access to public transportation. To account for the failures of property filtering …

Archi-Comics, Timothy Gatto

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Humor in architecture is not at the forefront of architect’s minds, this comes from architects need to be deemed serious. This way of thinking is what has backed architects up into a corner banal and stagnant architecture. Architecture is the art of context, everything in architecture is referential. Humor is foundationally the exact same way, the incongruity theory makes humor possible by putting a concept into context with things and finding contradictions in the process, thus developing a joke. Each of these arts, humor and architecture, are that of context and when architecture is delivered like humor, it points out …

The Art Of Detailing: An Exploration Of Watercolor, Torrey Tracy

TFSC Publications and Presentations

Second Annual University of Arkansas Teaching and Learning Symposium: Sharing Teaching Ideas

Department of Interior Architecture and Design, Fay Jones School of Architecture

Special thanks to Cat Wallack, Architectural Records Archivist, Mullins Library and Reagan Walters, Bachelor of Interior Design, 2021

Two Churches, One Vision: Sacred Architecture As A Reflection Of Benedictine Values And Liturgical Reform, Katheryn Wethli

Obsculta

This piece compares the architecture of the worshipping spaces of Saint Benedict's Monastery's Sacred Heart Chapel and Saint John's Abbey Church; presenting how the worshiping spaces uplift their monastic communities’ Benedictine values and demonstrate their monastic call towards evangelizing the Gospel in the modern world, highlighting the liturgical reforms of the mid-20th century.

Biodive, Morgana Faucett

Graduate Theses

Humans exist among an intertwined series of ecosystems and environments. As a species, we curate the spaces, these environments, that surround us to suit our internalized visions of the world. While such curation is not inherently negative, humanity’s industrial process of constructing our visions is not always handled with sustainable methods. This paper analyzes my creative work through the framework of architecture’s role in climate change and human impact, highlighting past and present building practices. Solutions for future practices will also be considered, specifically targeting the questions of construction material, building function, and repurposing of older buildings to achieve a …

Designing The American Dreamscape: Suburbs Of Worship And The American Dream, Rebecca Virgl

Masters in Architecture Program: Theses

This thesis explores suburbia as the physical manifestation of the American Dream as a pseudo-religious system. This religious system and contemporary suburban ideology are explained and disseminated through a historical review and analysis of suburban media. Pop culture serves as a signpost that directs public opinion and cultural value; much of media today wrestles with the ideas of the American Dream, fore fronting these cultural values in our collective identity. Once the baseline of socio-economic religious ideology has been established in the American Dream, the extremes of these beliefs were explored in three suburban environments: home, labor, and retail. Each …

Of Word And Stone: The History Of Medieval Spain Through The Lens Of Architecture And Language, Samantha Hernandez

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Medieval Spain is a unique summation of religious and cultural communities. Through the built forms of Al-Andalus, there is unique preservation of societal imprints that parallel the formation of the Castilian language. These two mediums—architecture and language—are a telling of the culture and history of the region. By first observing the historical formation of Spanish, and in turn the various communities which inhabited the Iberian Peninsula, one may find many correlations with architecture created at the same time. After understanding the historical making of the Spanish language, it is important to analyze the language itself and how it differs from …

Designing For Mass Customization Housing Through Generative Design, Tania Salgueiro

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research proposal aims to investigate computational design strategies for sustainable, affordable, and more equitable housing. The study will focus on the use of generative design tools, such as parametric modeling, rule-based modeling, and optimization, to aid architects and designers in creating custom housing complexes for single families in small and medium urban lots. The goal is to develop a computational method that considers sustainability, affordability, and long-term usage parameters to create housing designs that meet the desired spatial qualities. The research question asks how generative design tools can support designers in approaching affordable housing given the increasing demand for …