Architecture Commons^™

Private Room Of The Wheel | A New Form Of Transient Dwelling, Kathy Teng

Architecture Senior Theses

The cross-country highway and road trip are deeply rooted in the American psyche, supported by the rapid growth in ownership of automobiles by American families since the 1940s, establishing a sense of freedom and leisure in their mobile lifestyles. However, other highway users have less control and freedom over their daily routine. These users are part of a vast network of international commerce reliant on the long haul.

The time long-haul truck drivers are away from home is prolonged, with the end of each day spent sleeping in fixed truck cabins and eating at banal truck stops. “ ‘I can …

The Synchronous City, Patricia Olivera

Architecture Senior Theses

Architects’ conceptualizations of cities reference and reflect trends in contemporary culture. During the early 1900's, architects such as Ebenezer Howard, and Tony Garnier speculated on modernist visions of cities, while in the mid-late 1900's radical visions of cities by Archigram, and Archizoom emerged. This project will operate along the framework of previous visions of cities by architects and envision a city rooted on the use of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs).

In order to best engage the provocation of a city based on ICTs as the primary means of exchange and interaction between citizens (as opposed to cars, pedestrians, …

Ambient Intelligence | Cognizant Architecture For The Restless, Anne Judkis

Architecture Senior Theses

In recent decades, technology has proliferated throughout our architectural spaces, from personalized handheld gadgetry to smart systems and appliances. This constant barrage of screens and interfaces that humans interact with for large portions of our day has grown to define our very living conditions, particularly by disrupting our circadian rhythms. It is well documented that lack of sleep can lead to numerous long and short term health problems such as weight gain, irritability, to more sever acute conditions like hallucinations and organ failure. This thesis will address architecture's potential to interact with individuals utilizing smart environments that drive kinetic architecture. …

An Escape | Threshold Space Design In Bath, Xihao Chen

Architecture Senior Theses

Threshold, conventionally referring to the line of the door jamb, serves to mark the transition between exterior and interior, or between two separate spaces. Contemporary thresholds are most often underplayed, being deployed as a thin surface, or intentionally minimized in terms of thickness. This thesis argues that the term threshold should be applied to a broader sense of architectural space. When a threshold is stretched and thickened conceptually from a surface to a volume, it can become a threshold space.

This thesis argues that threshold space is simultaneously a place, a puncture in an architectural boundary, and as the in …

Performative Architecture | A Measurable Means Of Evaluating Formal Systems, Garrett Marini

Architecture Senior Theses

The Gothic, Baroque, and Rococo architectural styles relied on perception and an underlying adherence to classical formulas to provide merit and deem an architecture valid. Up through the 19th century before the emergence of modernism these established canons would reemerge both in isolation and as an amalgam of styles. Henry Russell Hitchcock describes this latter episodic phase of building as exhibiting an eclecticism of style, where features of different styles are used together on a single building like those in the Beaux- Arts tradition. In the early 20th century, Louis Sullivan’s modernist dictum of “Form Follows Function,” while seemingly providing …

The Internet Of Things User Interface | Navigating Physical And Virtual Information Spaces, Nhan Bui

Architecture Senior Theses

It is projected that the boundary between our physical and virtual environments will be further blurred through the emergence of the "internet of things" (IoT). The IoT is a network of physical objects embedded with electronics, software, sensors, and network connectivity that enables its objects to collect and exchange information on the internet. The most prevalent example of IoT today is your mobile phone. The mobile phone is an electronic device with software that tracks your location via GPS and your preferences based on your interactions on the internet. The collecting and exchanging of information in today' centralized internet infrastructure …

Never-Land | A Parasitic And Accumulative Approach To Urbanization In China, Xiaoyan Dong

Architecture Senior Theses

Ever since 1960s, European situationist and Japanese metabolist architects constantly reject the uniformity and totalitarian of modern architecture/urban design, seeking parasitic and dynamic approaches to post-war urbanization. Projects such as the Plug-In City and the Tokyo Bay dream of alternative urban scenarios by reversing traditional perceptions of infrastructure’s role in the city, combining architecture, technology and society together. However, these megastructure projects not only neglect the existing urban context but also lack political and economic driving force. As a result, they are considered utopian by many contemporary critics.

Fifty years later in China, fast urbanization process creates problems for both …

Green Blot District | Considering Low Density Neighborhoods, Tom Arleo

Architecture Senior Theses

By adjusting the texture of now declined early 20th Century outer-urban neighborhoods to adopt low density blocks, new zoning and its resultant architecture can produce an intricate spatial fabric that mediates between individual customization and collective suburban image essential to American detached dwelling. Overlapping functions, spaces, and surfaces offer a new cohesion necessary for developing physically and socially tight-knit communities in a thinning, object-made fabric.

This thesis rethinks suburban practices at the scale of the house, lot, and block, in order to speak directly to issues of building autonomy, non-spatial surface and volume conventions, and residential-program-only zoning. Creating the scheme …

Another Milstein Hall, Daniel Lin

Architecture Senior Theses

A certain Chinese encyclopedia wrote: Animal are divided into: (a) belonging to the emperor (b) embalmed (c) tame (d) sucking pig (e) sirens (f ) fabulous (g) stray dogs (h) included in the present classification (i) frenzied (j) innumerable (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush (l) et cetera (m) having just broken the water pitcher (n) that from a long way off look like flies. –– Jorge Louis Borges

Jorge Louis Borges’ list of animals supposedly drawn from his fictional Chinese Encyclopedia the Celestial Emporium of Benevolent Knowledge, highlights the potent absurdities and lacunae to be identified in …

Philep | A Self-Sufficient Pod, Brenna Merola

Architecture Senior Theses

Since 2011 civil war has erupted in Syria causing many Syrians to flee the county. About 9 million people have been internationally displaced causing disruption to the surrounding countries, which have had to create new accommodations. Primary issues have been shortage of basic such as shelter, food and water. Through analysis of disaster situations and refugee conditions, the types of infrastructural systems needed for survival can be better understood. This analysis can determine how to integrate systems into an architectural solution to this global issue: temporary housing pods.

Michael McDaniels, EXO Reaction Housing founder, has created a prototype of a …

Hijacked | Reclaiming Legislative Loopholes, Lara Moock

Architecture Senior Theses

ARTICLE 1: GENERAL PROVISIONS.

SEC. 100. PURPOSES.

San Francisco’s current political legislation has critical loopholes that have constructed a predominant shift in the city’s identity and urban fabric, as well as an obvious neglect of the public realm and social agenda. The recent move of the Silicon Valley tech headquarters to the city’s center has dramatically changed the architectural landscape as well as reinforced a growing push for corporate privatization. This thesis aims to expose and confront the hidden political and social dynamics of the constructed environment and reclaim the existing loopholes in order to propose a project without major …

Algorithmic Settlements | Modeling Informal Settlement Through Automated Generative Design, Ben Anderson-Nelson

Architecture Senior Theses

The position of the architect when designing is to arbitrate which information is relevant and which is not, and to do so across a broad spectrum of fields. Considering this, Christopher Alexander claimed as long ago as 1964, that “design problems are reaching insoluble levels of complexity.”This thesis focuses on informal settlement growth and how architects can investigate growth as a part of master-planning new housing. Drawing on case studies of settlements, video game logics, and existing architectural tools, a tool was developed to study the growth of settlements. This tool is based on cellular automata, a spatial and algorithmic …

Communicating Through Space: An Exploration Of Interdisciplinary Relationships Between Architecture And Theatre Through Practical Application, Erin E. Hunter

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Space as an expression of ideas is a relevant topic both in theatrical design and architectural design. Both create worlds, places in time, and experiences. The theatre is a platform where architectural ideas can be explored on a real scale. Audiences can make associations based on representation on the stage and connotations from popular culture. Theatre is more temporary than architecture by nature, and therefore theatre can reference architectural ideas in temporary settings to tell a story. By analyzing the physical characteristics of a space and the societal and cultural conditions that created it, a theatre set can isolate moments …

The Ottoman Han: Recovery Of A Lost Typology, Asli B. Germerli

Architecture Senior Theses

Developing countries around the world are coping with rapid population growth, the negative effects of globalization and the resultant political stress. Many of these cities have unique historical heritages and cultural identities that are being compromised by the monoculture and sameness of architecture that has come along with globalization. To preserve this historic fabric and cultural legacy, these cities must be willing to shape their future through self-expression driven by the local context. Yet, change is inevitable. The challenge is to find a balance between safeguarding the historical heritage while building new layers of history. In brief, the challenge is …

Free Encounters | Giving Form To The Informal Workplace, Ryan Williams

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis contends that the "office" as a solely economic construct is no more: Its utility as an engine driving productivity and the accumulation of capital has stalled in our present age of information where value is constructed through knowledge exchange and interaction.

Via the use of new technologies, millennial workers' transition from the college campus to the office has become more seamless and, this thesis argues, it is in this paradigm shift that it is possible to identify a blurring of the public and private spheres. The millennial worker-turned-freelancer's life exists forever suspended between work and play, place and …

Uncreative Construction | Domestic Mutations In America, Sean Morgan

Architecture Senior Theses

A shift in residential patterns in American cities have fostered a breeding ground for mutant buildings. Owners split, manipulate, and expand their houses as they create idiosyncratic constructs of great visual and spatial complexity. Originally developed for a middle class population, single-family homes have become mixed-use or multi-family complexes thanks to the resourceful implementation of commercial materials.

This thesis aims to develop a new strategy for transforming the normative American house by using the conventions of platform frame construction. Variations will emerge from a set of design constraints, which—unlike that employed for typical houses—are based on data that disregards style …

Other Wildernesses, Other Realities | A Framework For Shrinking Cities, Alyssa Goraieb

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis is an experiment to imagine the possible realities that emerge from a redefining of the "idea of wilderness".

Wilderness is an idea.

Its definition is slippery. It is neither a physical place nor a state of being (as the "-ness" suggests). Wilderness is a human construct defined by varying cultural and social attitude. This fluid meaning drove numerous paradigms throughout American history - from eighteenth century romanticism's sublime doctrine to today's environmentalism.

Inspired by past American paradigms, this thesis invents five other wilderness ides that exist as a parallel alternatives to our own. Each produces a …

New Beijing | A Renewed Vernacular, Bowen Victor Zhang

Architecture Senior Theses

What does the term "vernacular" means? In an increasingly flay world, this thesis seeks to define the essential elements of the vernacular architecture of Beijing in order to propose a contemporary residential archetype.

In the past century, China has experienced unprecedented economic growth and development. Along with the many influences introduced by cross-cultural interactions, the phenomenon of architectural and social gentrification has begun to affect many of the populations living in urban centers. The same gentrifying forces that have drastically changed Greenwich Village and other New York City neighborhoods has rapidly moved to China and has replaced centruries-old vernacular communities …

Anyone Can Architect, Christine Wright

Honors Projects

Because people often assume that one has to know architecture in order to study it, this interactive text makes it more approachable. Anyone Can Architect is an interactive sketch book introducing the basics of architecture to anyone from middle- and high-school students who are starting to explore different fields of study to those already studying and practicing architecture who might want to have fun with some of the basic principles. Not only does this text provide useful definitions of terms alongside some well-known examples, but it takes readers a step further by asking them to complete some specific tasks that …

Daniel Libeskind's Three Lessons In Architecture, Charles T. Weak

UCARE: Research Products

IN 1985, STUDENT’S AT CRANBROOK UNIVERSITY CREATED THREE ARCHITECTURAL MACHINES FOR THE VENICE BIENNALE. THE THREE MACHINES WERE LOST IN A FIRE IN VENICE. THE ONLY REMNANTS OF THE MACHINES THAT ARE LEFT ARE PICTURES FROM THE BIENNALE. THIS PROJECT FOCUSED ON THE READING MACHINE, ONE OF THE THREE MACHINES THAT WAS DESTROYED. IN AN ATTEMPT TO BETTER UNDERSTAND THESE MACHINES AND THEIR ROLE IN ARCHITECTURAL DISCOURSE, WE SET OUT TO SEE WHAT WE COULD LEARN FROM RECONSTRUCTING THESE MACHINES.

Usc South Campus: A Last Look At Modernism, Lydia M. Brandt, Paul Haynes, Andrew Nester, Robert Wertz, Ana Gibson, Margaret Mcelveen, John Benton, Adam Bradway, Hatara Tyson, Caley Pennington, Carly Simendinger

Faculty Publications

This is a class project from ARTH 542: American Architecture taught at the University of South Carolina by Lydia Mattice Brandt in Spring 2016.

With more Americans attending college than ever before; urban renewal; racial integration; the expansion of coeducation; and the architecture community’s advocacy for holistic relationship between planning, architecture, and landscape architecture, the American college campus developed rapidly and dramatically in the mid twentieth century. Using the University of South Carolina’s Columbia Campus as a case study, this project explores the history of American architecture in the mid-twentieth century.

Architecture In The Humanities: A Biography Of Architect James Hoban, Eileen Gray, Scott Tallon Walker Architects, Mariah J. Tobin

UCARE: Research Products

Architecture In The Humanities is an online database through University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s website. It strives to connect architecture to works of literature, film, theatre and art either through a historical or fictional event that is portrayed as having taken place in or around the architecture. Every year a UCARE student picks an area of interest to research. This year I have chosen to focus on modern architecture specifically designed by Irish architects or Irish architecture firms.

Techne Issue 03, Ting Chin, Michael Duddy, Jason Montgomery

TECHNE

The third issue of TECHNE, an annual publication of student work from the Department of Architecture at the New York City College of Technology. Edited by faculty members Ting Chin, Michael Duddy, and Jason Montgomery, this issue includes contributions from Ramsey Dabby, Ramis Rawnak, Ken Grace, Carlos Villella, Shi Long Yang, Percia Gomez, Jill Bouratoglou, Lia Dikigoropoulou, Francisco Morales, Farhana Rahman, Jianfeng Yao, Ana Perez, Peter Zaharatos, Jenne Li, Janil Castillo, Glenny Desena, Elizabeth Parks, Eileen Gray, Mohamed Yakoob, Mario Estrada, Isaias Garcia, Erjan Kadrakunov, Farhana Rahmancenter, Alfonso Severino, Loukia Tsafoulia, Mimu Sakuma, Asli N. Oney, Tatiana Zh, Esteban Beita, …

Sustainable Architecture Design: Environmental And Economic Benefits, Michael Babcock

Senior Honors Theses

This thesis examines the movement of environmentalism, and its impact on architecture and construction. During an interview with a professional architect, a basis for research of sustainable design was devised, when he explained that “good” architecture attempts to holistically integrate the external and built environment. Presently, the main measurement for sustainability is energy efficiency. Therefore, architects constantly implement new technology in an attempt to unify both the external and built environment in an energy efficient manner. Furthermore, this thesis provides an environmental and financial cost analysis of implementing sustainable design and build. Research shows that the life cycle and up-front …

Sur Les Traces De La Fabrique Artistique : Quelques Réflexions Sur La Dimension Spatiale Et Matérielle De L’Histoire De L’Art, Vincent Veschambre

Artl@s Bulletin

This text gives a reading of the notion of trace in the perspective of a geographer’s scientific trajectory, committed to grasping individual and social relations to space. Applying this notion to art history probes into the identification of who inscribes art in space, and for what purpose. Such an approach bears similarities with archeology, which cares for the lesser known or recognized traces, and is able to recast the wealth of social actors that have been concealed by history.

Multi-Architecture In Saudi Arabia: Representing The History Of Women, Salwa Nugali

Journal of International Women's Studies

The purpose of this research project is to put into context the role of women in Saudi Arabia through reading of symbols and signs of the physical shape of the first sky scrapers: AlMamlakah (Kingdom) and AlFaisalia. The paper analyses perceptions of modern Saudi Arabian architecture and the significance of our visual perception to gender codification is what this project attempts to analyze. The project uses three interlaced lines of investigation. The first is the relationship of architecture to the culture and the population. The research paper will study the architecture of the two skyscrapers. The second line of investigation …

Untimely Thinking Of Alberto Pérez-Gómez, Peter Olshavsky

Architecture Program: Faculty Scholarly and Creative Activity

This is the foreword to the two-volume collection of essays by the eminent architectural historian Dr. Alberto Pérez-Gómez titled, Timely Meditations: Select Essays on Architecture (2016). It examines his work on hermeneutics to reconsider "innovation" in architecture by privileging architecture’s performance of cultural orientation over innovation for its own sake. This shifts attention from action based on information to a hermeneutic position that draws on a less articulate background.

Complicated Agency, Brian Lonsway

School of Architecture - All Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Architecture As Nature’S Canvas, Molly Mcclain

History: Faculty Scholarship

This short article explores architect Irving J. Gill's integration of the natural environment into his modern structures.

Gabe's Reimagined: A Multi-Use Renovation Of An Abandoned Hotel, Alissa Ramburger

Lewis Honors College Capstone Collection

The building, named Gabe’s Tower after owner and public figure Gabe Fiorella, was once an icon of Owensboro. Unfortunately, due to population growth southward and the opening of a rival hotel downtown (The Executive Inn), Gabe’s Tower was unable to remain open. It has since undergone many different ownerships, each of which have struggled to remain profitable. The building has remained vacant for years and therefore has been subjected to becoming a location for crime. This has produced a very negative image for the building and the surrounding area. This negative image drives the purpose of this project. Through the …