Architecture Commons^™

Scalar Resiliency In The Age Of Disruption, Brandon Aultman

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Natural storm surges and global sea level rise cause devastating effects, whether it’s leaving over a million of residents homeless or dooming an entire

coastline ecosystem with little to no hopes of recovery. Current responsive methods consist the issue of unequal priortization within coastal resiliency

design because of site scalar characteristics. A design that incorporates an equity of attention towards all elements of resiliency will lead to a responsive

solution that can transcend any scale of site. I will begin to analyze the elements of effective resiliency; adaptation, affordability, community, sustainability

and customization, in order to provide a balanced solution …

Genealogy Of Theories Of The City: Spatial Components As An Index Of Socioeconomic Capitalism, Zachary Grewe

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

Starting after the industrial revolution, the city has increasingly represented the spatial components of capitalism and has increasingly been conceived of as a built form of capital. To understand the lineage of ideas that has led to the current understanding of the city, this study creates a genealogy of theories that cites six significant projects starting with the Garden City in 1898 and concluding with the Yokohama International Passenger Terminal in 2002. The spatial components of capitalism; production, consumption, and housing are used as an index to better understand the socioeconomic influence of capitalism on the city as well as …

Emergency Homes, Denise A. Lee

Architecture Senior Theses

“Designers cannot just stand by and watch as the refugee crisis unfolds,” and although architects and designers can’t save the world, through design, we can alleviate consequences of scarcity. It’s not about creating a structure that will withstand the ends of time or endure the most extreme climate, it’s about how to respond in an emergency with the most geographically intelligent prototype that utilizes the utmost importance of on site materials so the bare minimum of an instruction manual or few key tools to offset distribution obstacles. This thesis is aimed to design for the 99 in disaster relief.

@The_New_House: An Online-Offline Manifesto, Ana Paola Hernandez Derbez, Domenica Velasco

Architecture Senior Theses

The house, is one of the most fundamental architectural archetypes, has long been used as unbuilt or built manifestos to declare the avant-garde of the discipline. As designers, we need to re-visualize design concepts to create architecture that integrates and corresponds to the way we dwell. Innovating design in the same way technology and digitalization have been innovating production and the way we live. This thesis investigates a return to the design of a house as a manifesto, focusing on today’s advanced modes of fabrication and evolving ways of living to challenge the current design mindset.

Learning From The Informal: Designing A New Housing Typology For Informal Development In Cairo, Cherif Farid

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis examines what to design when designing for the informal and questions the role of the architect. The project combines the inherent qualities of the informal; self-built, incremental construction, and flexibility of spatial uses, with alternative urban design strategies.

The design strategy is to control the ground plane and roof scape, while leaving an open frame in between to be incrementally filled with housing. This frame allows residents to voice their identity by physically constructing their homes. It introduces an urban system that is composed of blocks that consist of an aggregation of identical units. The blocks are connected …

The Impact Of Walkability On Home Values: Findings From Neighborhoods In Three Bay Area Citites, Jonathan Turner

City and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

Regenerative Refugee Housing: Creating Temporary Housing With Low Environmental Impact, Erika Guldner

Architecture Thesis Prep

Refugee settlements often have a negative environ­mental impact; by promoting options for sustainable development from the outset, this can be avoided. A plan for a refugee settlement was made, along with a plan for the individual residential units. To expedite the construction process, units were divided into compo­nents. These components could be easily assembled on site. Once the refugee settlement is no longer needed, components can be used for other purposes, such as, affordable housing or the components themselves can be broken down to be either recycled or used for other purposes.

Open Source Architecture: Redefining Residential Architecture In Islamabad, Mariam Yaqub

Architecture Theses and Projects

Islamabad, a planned city, has grown rapidly since its conception in the 1960’s but it has not followed its predetermined fate but rather grown haphazardly due to the lack of infrastructure available to implement Doxiadis’s master plan. The city was unable to meet the housing requirements of the people causing them to build gated communities on the outskirts of Islamabad and its sister city, Rawalpindi. The market demands caused city prices to rise exponentially, increasing the economic divide between the social classes. The city which was once supposed to reflect diversity of social classes became home to the elite and …

Voices Of Cully: A Case Study Of The Living Cully Weatherization And Home Repair Project 2.0, Lucy J.T. Cultrera

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The Cully neighborhood is situated in the Northeast quadrant of Portland, Oregon. It is 2.75 square mile plot of land and home to roughly 13,000 people. In addition to being one of the most diverse neighborhoods in Portland, it is the most densely populated, with the smallest amount of parkland per capita. Over the last two decades, home value has increased 203% in Cully, compared to a 90% citywide increase. Amidst these development trends are stories of incredible resilience, resistance and activism from the affected community. My project is a case study of one anti-displacement initiative, which was developed and …

Revitalizing Downtown Springfield Illinois, Adam R. Tregoning Mr.

ASA Multidisciplinary Research Symposium

Looking to revitalize the downtown Springfield area, this abstract outlines the benefits of an urban park as a catalyst for housing and commercial development. In order to combat the issues presented in the capitol city, Springfield hopes bringing people back to its core will restore the area.

Public Domesticities, Taylor Hagan

Architecture Thesis Prep

In a lecture entitled ‘The Room, The Street, and the Human Agreement,’ Louis Kahn argued that the room is the beginning of architecture. Looking to engage in a similar conversation, this thesis recognizes the significance of the ecologywithin the domestic realm. Domesticities are constructed between walls, windows and doors, but are filled with furniture, materials and stuff that connect to personal preference, evoke a sense of intimacy and set the stage for a flux of activity. While explicit architectural form of a house or dwelling may express certain programmatic designation and usage, the user is ultimately king. Through personal selection …

Learning From The Informal, Cherif Farid

Architecture Thesis Prep

Architecture could learn from the socio-cultural norms of informal Cairo and could implement professional expertise to create a new housing typology that achieves the people’s needs.

Housing 20 million people and still growing, Cairo mirrors the global phenomenon of unplanned urban growth. The people have been forced to construct their own dwelling units as the government fails to provide them shelter. Approximately 65 percent of the population of Cairo lives in so-called informal housing: four to ten story concrete and brick infill structures built without legal permits in the desert or on former agrarian land. These informal housing projects are …

Accessory Dwelling Units In College Towns: An Innovative Option To Increase Housing Supply For Students And Seniors, Emily Clare Foley

City and Regional Planning

No abstract provided.

The Crisis In Housing Has Deep Roots And Supply Alone Will Not Resolve It., Tom Dunne

Conference papers

Ireland is suffering a housing crisis which will not be easily solved. This is not the first generation to struggle with housing problems. A review of history shows that property markets have pronounced cycles and a continual struggle to provide affordable housing with much direct state provision and extensive subsidises for home ownership. Part of the current crisis results from the abandonment of direct provision of housing by the state but the gradual withdrawal subsidies for owner occupation, has also made a contribution to making home ownership less affordable for many.

A crucial part of dealing with the crisis is …

Deployable Domesticity, Daniel Hopkins

Architecture Senior Theses

Deployable homes have characterized the survivalist origins of our species, the lifestyles of disenfranchised populations, and the luxurious retreats of others. Still, a predominance of contemporary domestic space relies on the ‘permanently’ stationary and situated object. As the social and ecological conditions of our society are rapidly and continually fluctuating, we must reaffirm our association with deployable culture and expand the utilization of mobile and adaptable unit. Further, architecture must negotiate the contrasts between ephemerality and permanence.

Through speculation of the social and sustainable implications of the deployable unit, issues of flexibility, material selection and afterlife, economics, ecology, and efficiency …

It's Not Easy Being Whole | Reevaluating The Relationship Of Part Whole In Pursuit Of A New High-Rise Vernacular, Josh Bransky

Architecture Senior Theses

Architecture has the power to structure societal relationships. Specifically, architecture's form can bring the balanced relationship between community and individual identity, as exhibited in vernacular single-family homes, to the housing tower. This thesis plans to achieve such a social orchestration through a nuanced understanding of formal part-to-whole relationships, or "differentiated" parts within the whole, exhibited in a 300' housing tower in Seattle, WA.

By carefully balancing the relation, material, scale, and form of each part, this project will achieve this difficult whole (of differentiated parts). Mining this middle ground will produce a housing tower in Seattle, which actively balances the …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Monhegan: A Prescription For Resilience, Kenneth Paul Kiel Gross

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

Monhegan, like many island communities, is threatened by the loss of population as its young adults migrate to the mainland. The purpose of this study is to develop a resilient population on Monhegan Island.

Knowing the problem is easy, as is asking the obvious question, “How do we get people to move to this area?” This is a problem that confronts not only Monhegan, but also other Maine islands and even Maine itself.

Several factors make Monhegan’s future uncertain. The first is the gradual shift from commercial fishing, the mainstay of its economy, as it becomes more reliant on tourism …

Towards A Localized Form-Based Code For Abu Dhabi Urban Neighborhoods, Arwa Khalid Sabri

Theses

Form-Based Code (FBC) is a sustainable planning tool that helps realize sustainable urban form and sustainable communities from different perspectives, including mixing of land uses, diversifying housing types, achieving walkability and cycling as well as permitting community involvement in decision making and design processes. It is therefore considered as a comprehensive tool that regulates different planning scales from master plan to individual buildings. Locally, Abu Dhabi Emirate lacks a FBC that could help achieve its sustainability-orientated 2030 vision and thus promote its envisaged sustainable urban identity. This research aims at studying to what extent the present form-related standards and guidelines …

Cooperative Housing Systems, Shane Madden, Andrew Mcallister, Kieran Brady, John Flynn, Emma Conway, Holly Carton, Yi Shi, Benjamin Cooney, Sean Conlon-Smith

Students Learning with Communities

No abstract provided.

Self Made City, Noel Brady

Other resources

A review of cohousing policy and projects in Berlin as published in "Self Made City” – Self Initiated Urban Living and Architectural Interventions

The Self Sufficient Pod, Brenna Merola

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis presents a typology of temporary relief housing that will be self sustaining and will better address the procedure and process of housing individuals affected by disasters. The proposed pod will be adaptable in order to fit the needs of different types of environmental conditions, while still encompassing the architectural necessities of light, heat, and energy.

Housing In Zurich, Switzerland, Edward Asfour

Architecture Senior Theses

Housing in Zurich, Switzerland

Britton Award Winner, Thesis Board.

Student/Artist Housing, Jeanne Stoney

Architecture Senior Theses

Student/Artist Housing in Washington, DC.

Britton Award Winner, Thesis Board.

Renting Trouble: Current Government Policy Of Relying On The Private Rented Sector To Deliver Social Housing Is Unlikely To Succeed, Tom Dunne

Reports

A review of the history of housing in Ireland shows that owner occupancy and social housing were policy choices by successive governments. Owner occupancy was heavily supported through a system of grants and tax breaks and social housing was directly provided through local authorities at subsidised rents. In recent years policy has changed and tenure neutrality is now guiding the government’s attitude to housing. This is a significant change which has not been sufficiently discussed and has consequences which are not appreciated. Relying on the market to provide rental housing for people on low incomes and who may be in …

Use Of Accessory Dwelling Units As A Housing Strategy: A Case Study Of Lawrence, Kansas, Travis M. Hulse

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

Accessory dwelling units have long been utilized as an alternative strategy of homeowners within single-family neighborhoods of the United States in response to changing needs in living arrangements. The American Planning Association defines an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) as either a self-contained living area located within the walls of an existing home or a freestanding structure on the same lot as the principal dwelling unit. While it is difficult to accurately identify all of the municipalities that allow the creation of ADUs in single-family neighborhoods, their presence was long established prior to the enactment of zoning regulations in cities across …

Precarity And Gentrification: A Feedback Loop, Samuel Stein

Graduate Student Publications and Research

How do rent hikes and labor precarity conspire to reinforce each other against tenants and workers? Samuel Stein explains the mechanisms that link these two trends affecting citizens and calls for a tightening of rent-control laws to stop the spiraling descent of American residents into poverty.

Towards A Collective Spatial Form:An Analysis Of Achill’S Deserted Village, Noel Brady

Conference papers

This paper examines an earlier study by Bob Kingston and along with onsite observations develops an environmental theory behind the particular siting and location of the deserted village in Achill, Ireland. The paper relies on the survey conducted by Kingston in the first instance but then by translating the material into a different format has concluded on statistically significant evidence of willful and careful planning and design in the construction of the houses.