Architecture Commons^™

Parameters For Permanence: Planning Independent Settlements For Syrian Refugee Reintegration, Katherine Barymow, Jacqueline Morin

Architecture Thesis Prep

Syrians, previously housed in camps, will be returning to Aleppo in the new ISIS-free zone, a utopian oasis for women, children and war veterans. How can architecture recognize this oscillation from the temporary to semi permanent typology?

Character & Features: Reframing The Everyday Through What It's Not And What It's Near, Paul Lee

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis reconsiders Quatremère de Quincy’s definitions of character from his Encyclopedia by synthesizing it with discussions of character in the discourse today, specifically as written by Bob Somol and Andrew Zago. Using these recontextualized definitions, this thesis takes a second look at the photographic series of Bernd & Hilla Becher to reframe the everyday with digital media. This thesis proposes to analyze and design architecture through a focus on architecture’s features as opposed to its formal and spatial composition. Quatremère described character in architecture as “the idea of an alphabet composed of abstract units that can endlessly be combined …

Rethinking "Stuff", Jonathan Anthony

Architecture Thesis Prep

Re-thinking Stuff is a manifesto for the study of material culture and a new way of looking at the ‘stuff’ that surrounds us and makes up so much of our social and personal life. This thesis contends it is time to acknowledge and confront the lack of attention to how we store our stuff - most importantly what are the architectural effects of rethinking stuff in storage.

Urban Amnesia, Teriya Lee

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis is a response to Kevin Lynch's claim that "in the process of way-finding, the strategic link is the environmental image, the generalized mental picture of the exterior physical world that is held by an individual." Specifically, the thesis deals with those parts of the urban fabric which are imageless - the unidentified, or, the forgotten. It asks the question: what can architecture do to clarify spatial identities? The thesis will explore Hong Kong's identity as it relates to memory and space.

The Public Sky-Spacer, Piotr Jankowski

Architecture Thesis Prep

We have reached an era where architecture has to prepare for the alarming changes affecting our modern society. Predicted urbanization will lead to cities becoming denser and taller to facilitate the needs of housing and workspace for the growing world population. High costs of rent and scarcity of real state land in city centers will force developers to build skyscrapers. Taking into account the impact of larger populations, skyscrapers will have to offer more efficient spaces and follow strict environmental regulations while contributing to the production of energy and necessary resources. Focus on human comfort and sustainability will play an …

Gold: Stories Of A City, Vivek Vijayan Njanappilly

Architecture Thesis Prep

The thesis explores the latent influences of gold and its value systems on the urban geo-politics of a South Indian city. It is an anthology of sporadic narrations recording the growth and transformation of a city over time. These narrative compositions contain traces of the past, the city of the present and speculative futures. They indicate change without erasure. Their values are embodied in gold. Malleable, ductile and fungible in its different forms.

Atlas Of Walls: Wall Speculations, Casiana Kennedy

Architecture Thesis Prep

The project lies at the intersection between the wall as device of separation + text as narrative of separation. The wall is re-examined as a LIVING architectural element that acts as an ACTOR - a necessity - in the translation of text to architecture within a city palimpsest. The wall’s capacity to create limit and separation (walled sanctuary) will be explored within the dense context of the contemporary city, wherever that might be.

The wall is not passive, it is not a given, but a constructed entity that addresses problems of space defining and ritual in a direct/efficient/explicit way that …

What Is Sacred, Maxwell K. Baum

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis aims to reinterpret the notion of sacred space and explore architectures role in the creation of sacred space. Stripped of the religious connotations of the sacred, this thesis hopes to create an architecture that balances between the individual and the collective, fosters both introspective reflection and extrospective contemplation, and proposes architecture for the experiencing of the sacred. Ultimately this project will make sacred architecture and experience out of a normal, mundane, and profane program and elevate the users experience to that of a transcendental one.

Provisional Permanence, Ian M. Jackson, Matthew J. Marinelli

Architecture Thesis Prep

The oceans take up 71 percent of our planet. For the east coast, Barrier Islands are the first line of defense against storms and will become the most affected areas because of sea level rise in the next hundred years. There is no stopping sea level rise and the time and money spent thus far has not been efficient and requires a different approach.

The barrier islands may be the first line of defense against storms, but they are more than that. There is a long standing allure to the islands that we’ve come to know as beach culture. For …

Charon's Passage: The Journey To Nimiety, Nicholas Kronauer

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis aims to reconsider the possibility and potential of the mausoleum as an architectural contradiction by reconceptualizing the mausoleum as a typology for public space, thus inverting the traditional objective of introspection and the object-form, interior-exterior dialectic of funerary architecture. By engaging the mausoleum with 21st-century urbanization, traditional notions of permanence, meaning, and tectonics can be renegotiated through the juxtaposition of a foreign object that activated by the appropriation and integration of a social program. Through this thesis, the mausoleum is no longer a place for reflection or solidarity but will operate as a stage set to frame and …

Cyber Security In An Age Of Insecurity, Angela Copes

Architecture Thesis Prep

By combining the structure and space of Gothic Revival churches with the programmatic elements of a data center, two problems can be addressed. First, the churches avoid a fate of abandonment and obsolescence. As the Christian population declines and consolidates, these monuments are given a chance to maintain significance.

Second, through design, data centers can become a more integrated piece of the communities they serve. Instead of data centers being isolated warehouses in the middle of nowhere, people can have a better understanding of what allows their internet at home to connect them to the global network.

White Out, Hye Rim Shin

Architecture Thesis Prep

“White Out” explores ideas about architecture that seeks ephemerality rather than legibility, eidetic effects rather than demanding of focused attention and atmospheric or emotional spaces rather than conventional spaces.

From Sun Mao To Emergent Structure, Yang Song

Architecture Thesis Prep

With the exploration of the cultural meaning and structural capacity of the traditional Chinese joinery, Sun Mao, the intent of this thesis is to propose a joinery-driven design system, which merges architecture and structure, and bridges the vernacular Chinese culture with the contemporary fabrication technology.

A Re-Application Of Neo-Plasticism: De Stijl Architecture In A Contemporary Context, Tyler Holdren

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis will apply the principles of neo-plasticism to a contemporary building and site. The aim of this project is to extend de Stijl architecture into a contemporary context, making use of modern building methods and materials in an effort to express the full potential of the neoplastic project.

In order to achieve this one must select a site that is contextually scarce as well as one that will allow the building to be experienced from all sides. A site that is not contextually rich will enable a sense of self-referentiality within the project which is a critical theme to …

Life As A House: A Manifesto For The New Iconic House, Ana Paola Hernandez Derbez, Domenica Velasco

Architecture Thesis Prep

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.

Library To Nowhere, Anna Sernicki

Architecture Thesis Prep

Using the metaphor of the pyramid and the labyrinth as a precedent, I am interested in deconstructing existing programmed spaces into the essential spatial qualities of architecture.

Is it possible to question the nature of a space, while at the same time experiencing that space?

Food Function Form, Travis J. Telemaque

Architecture Thesis Prep

This study suggests that solar design strategies can influence a more sustainable approach to food production, focusing on New York City to determine a potential site in which an urban farm can be integrated. Specific case studies are presented to determine whether urban agriculture can be developed in an economical and sustainable manner. Additionally, Several factors were analyzed including solar exposure, renewable resources, site accessibility, and development potential. This prototype urban farm will expose people to three categories of food production; controlled environment agriculture, productive vegetated facades, and rooftop agriculture.

Integrating food production into dense urban areas can reconnect us …

Pleasurescapes: Mechanized Conveyances As Agents Of Alternate Urban Experience, Elias Varon

Architecture Thesis Prep

This thesis inquires the possibilities of creating pleasurable destinations in a city that engage their urban environment through the deployment mechanized conveyances - conveyances that offer an alternative experience to the day-to-day “mobilities."

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 …

Urban Design Proposal For Nispero Parkway, City Of San Miguel Allende, Study Abroad Fall 2016, Tommy K. Chong

Other CRP Student Work

No abstract provided.

Extending The Season For The New White Salmon Pool, Chris Jones, Matt Stockstill, Yost Grube Hall Architecture

Research-Based Design Initiative

The city of White Salmon will be home to a new outdoor, public pool in the coming years in hope that the community's identity and participation can continue to grow. While the design in nearly complete, a new challenge has been set to investigate ways in which this new aquatic facility can host an extended season via a temporary enclosing structure. During the past few months, the White Salmon team has been investigating various options for enclosing systems and researching how, if at all, an extended season is possible using Sefaira simulation software and energy performance data.

Framing The Future: Imagining The City Through The Lens Of Film, Sofia Zavala Ferreira

Architecture Thesis Prep

With a great interest in the relationship between film and architecture, this project establishes its subject matter on the possibilities presented in science fiction cinema and speculative design. By extracting attributes from these that would influence design and architectural concerns, a bridge between the disconnected imagined and real, current and future, can be created through the creation of a speculative scenario and a narrative. It seeks to utilize cinematic design and storytelling conventions to successfully convey the desired atmosphere, architectural realities, and life conditions of a fictional city. By utilizing advanced digital techniques often used in cinema itself, including but …

As Above, So Below: Tapping Into The Latent Energy Of Abandoned Underground Infrastructure, Alexandra N. Ramirez

Architecture Thesis Prep

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Abandoned underground infrastructure is an example of an untapped surplus in energy that an architect has the opportunity to reappropriate. Tunnels in particular, can be used as systems to heat or cool a network of buildings above ground to create more sustainable urban environments. In addition to greater energy efficiency, the system could also have beneficial social implications within segregated cities by providing fluid connections between divided neighborhoods.

This thesis will establish a framework for repurposing underground infrastructures. The strategy operates under an umbrella of sustainability and urban improvement which are two concepts applicable to sites far beyond the …

Dinner Parti, Evangeline Soileau

Architecture Thesis Prep

No abstract provided.

Real Estate: Urban Renewal At Shibati Community, Chongqing, Wenxin Zeng

Architecture Senior Theses

The project is a “urban renewal” project at Shibati Community in Chongqing, China. The title “Real Estate” suggested that the land never become “real” until there are activities, communications happened between the occupants. The government did several renovation project in Chongqing, either totally destroy the entire site and build a copy on the site by saying we are preserving the history, or solely refurnished the façade of the houses but leave the inside of the house at a rough condition. The project is a critique of what the Chinese government and other official agencies in China have tended to respond …

Decentral Park, Garrett Wineinger

Architecture Senior Theses

In this thesis, I will contemplate the necessary process of weaving the large landscape into the urban fabric. As stated within Anita Berrizbeitia’s essay, Re-placing Process, in the book Large Parks, “Yet for all their susceptibility to the ebb and flow of urban circumstances, large parks remain fundamental to cities, not only because they take on infrastructural and ecological functions displaced from densely built centers but because they are distinct, memorable places. They absorb the identity of the city as much as they project one, becoming socially and culturally recognizable places that are unique and irreproducible. Those large public parks …

No Landlord Exodus But Still The Same Old Eviction Problems, Lorcan Sirr

Media

There has been a lot of discussion this year about concerns that landlords are fleeing the rental market in the face of rent freezes and difficulties in making a profit — but are they? First, it is important to note that it is not the number of landlords in a market that is relevant, it’s the number of tenancies, which is a measure of the size of the sector. The sector has actually expanded in the past 12 months from about 319,000 tenancies at the end of last year to 324,000 in mid-2016. The number of landlords also increased in …

Daylight Analysis: Analayzing Daylight Autonomy In The Early Phases Of Design On An Adaptive Reuse Project, Lauren Sanchez, Nick Vipond, Nicholas Papaefthimiou, Mike Manzi, Josh Brandt, Sarah Weber, Jacob Peel, Bora Architects

Research-Based Design Initiative

This research investigates methods for increasing the area of daylight autonomy in an adaptive reuse project with deep floorplates. The research employs DIVA simulation tool to assess daylight performance the early phases of design, quantified as Daylight Autonomy (DA), Spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA) and Annual Sunlight Exposure (ASE). Findings from DIVA analysis reveal that light shelves decrease daylight autonomy but help to reduce glare.

Effective daylight design is critical in adapting a historic building with deep floorplates for office use. Activity-appropriate levels of daylight transmission can offset electrical lighting loads, provide comfortable conditions for occupants, and connect building occupants with …

Daylight & Glare, Sergio Palleroni, David Posada, Tucker Jones, Alyssa Brook, Jennifer Moran, Chad Wallace, Bora Architects

Research-Based Design Initiative

We conducted a daylighting and glare study for Bora Architects within their Portland business office space. The project was to examine the quality of daylight, consider the effectiveness of borrowed light, and strive to discover what LEED-compliant daylight autonomy really looks like. In addition we were tasked with running computer simulations to measure excess glare and look for ways to combat its effect. We were able to explore the effects of glare with in Bora’s workspace as it currently exists and look for interventions to improve perceived lighting level contrasts. The control of glare and daylighting can be an effective …

Source To Site: Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Of Central Oregon Material Analysis, Portland State University. School Of Architecture

Research-Based Design Initiative

The object of this research was to conduct a material analysis of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Oregon Church in Bend, Oregon designed by Hacker Architects (Portland, Oregon). This research produced an infographic narrative depicting the place of origin of the raw form of the primary building materials used in the church: wood, steel, stone, and concrete. An investigation of the project specifications and the material submittals developed the basis for this graphic narrative. The providers, contacted by the research students, gave insight into the initial sourcing location of the raw form of the material. This research examined a …