Architecture Commons^™

An Archaeological And Spatial Exploration Of Yard Use At The Oval Site, Stratford Hall Plantation: A Mid-18th-Century Mixed-Use Site On The Northern Neck Of Virginia, Delaney Resweber

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

The Oval Site (44WM80) is located on the grounds of Stratford Hall Plantation in Westmoreland County, Virginia and was excavated by the Department of and Center for Historic Preservation at Mary Washington College/the University of Mary Washington between 2001- 2014. The Oval Site was one component of a larger eighteenth-century plantation and is comprised of four structures. These buildings are currently interpreted as an overseer’s house, a barn, a kitchen, and an unidentified building. The kitchen had also served as a quarter for the enslaved Africans and/or African Americans that worked on this site. Using methods developed in landscape archaeology …

Unveiling Women’S Needs And Expectations As Users Of Bike Sharing Services: The H2020 Diamond Project, Andrea Gorrini, Rawad Choubassi, Federico Messa, Wafaa Saleh, Augustus Ababio-Donkor, Maria Chiara Leva, Lorraine D'Arcy, Francesco Fabbri, David Laniado, Pablo Aragon

Articles

Within the objectives of the H2020 DIAMOND project, the paper investigates women’s needs and expectations as users of the bike-sharing service managed by Syndicat Mixte Autolib et Velib Métropole in the territory of Paris Region-Petite Couronne (France). The paper presents a thematic literature review focused on gender inclusion in bike-sharing schemes. The proposed methodological approach is based on (i) Geographic Information Systems for the analysis of geolocated open datasets related to land, sociodemographic and mobility characteristics of the areas surrounding each docking stations. This was aimed at identifying a short list of suitable bike-sharing docking stations, which were further characterized …

Improving The Livability And Therapeutic Properties Of Hospital Campuses In North Texas By Integrating Artful Rain Design And Heat Island Mitigation, Reza Mabadi

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

Despite these efforts and signs of progress, such design and planning efforts have failed to thoroughly integrate restorative design principles and sustainable strategies into the landscape architecture of healthcare facilities. The case studies presented in this research illustrate this phenomenon. Currently, sustainable approaches to evidence-based research on health and well-being necessitate a reexamination and reinvention of design methods and recommendations for hospital landscapes to improve their therapeutic properties. The main goal of this research is to investigate strategies to improve the livability and therapeutic values of the constructed landscape of Clements University Hospital through an evidence-based approach and to examine …

Classifying Desire Paths Utilizing A Campus Master Plan Study: A Method For Recognizing Urban Design Flaws, Michael Shuey

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

Desire paths are the informal pathways created from the erosional effect of repeated foot traffic. These footpaths come in many shapes and sizes and can occur in spaces where there are no formal pathways for pedestrians. However, in many developed urban and natural areas, desire paths may appear within a landscape that has been intentionally designed. In some perspectives, desire paths can represent user dissatisfaction with the pedestrian landscape, as well as a failure of the urban design process. Recent literature on this topic considers the environmental, economic, and social impacts caused by desire path occurrences. However, desire paths are …

Evaluating Dallas County Landfills For Public Amenity: Repurposing The City Of Grand Prairie Landfill Through Landscape Architecture, Elena E. Naccari

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

The state of Texas produced more than 36 million tons of waste in 2019. Currently, there are 198 active landfills of varying size and capacity in the entire state. Overall landfill capacity within the state is decreasing over time, while the size of landfills on average is increasing, creating quite the contradiction and clear picture of the average consumer’s increase in waste production (Municipal Solid Waste, 2019). The state of Texas is on an unfortunate path to meet landfill capacity in 53 years (Municipal Solid Waste, 2019). Of the almost 800 landfill sites (active and inactive) in the state of …

See Me: How Architecture Can Change Our Care Of The Elderly And Orphaned, Caleb Hester

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

According to a 2017 study published by the child welfare department of the government, “there were an estimated 442,995 children in foster care” (Welfare). This is in America alone and not calculating the number of children in orphanages across the world. Additionally, in a report from the CDC, there is almost 1.3 million residents of nursing homes as of 2015. Again, this is in America alone and not accounting for the global number. The census departments average the national population to be roughly 329 million. This means that a little over 1% of the population is in nursing homes and …

Medkit: Modular Emergency Deployment, Christian Ladefoged, Zamila Karimi

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis began with exploring low-cost prefab dwelling units to be implemented in struggling communities with extreme poverty, homelessness, and unemployment. The initial research on modular units shifted to focus on our healthcare infrastructure challenges here at home given the COVID-19 crisis.

“Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has had a substantial impact on racial and ethnic minority populations and essential workers in the United States …”¹ This disease disproportionately impacts poor and rural communities in the United States, showing double the mortality than urban areas simply due to the neglected environment². Emergency assistance is needed to expand the …

Community In Crisis: A Reformation Of Behavioral Health Hospitals In Atlanta, Georgia, Niki Crawford

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Behavioral health hospitals in America are failing to treat their patients with lasting success upon patient release. These facilities appear to be safe, sanitary, and pleasant, but our state behavioral health hospitals in the United States are still cold, stark prisons to those trapped within their walls.

Impersonal and insufficient for caring for those with mental illness, these institutions meant for treatment can do more harm than good at a time when an individual is most vulnerable. Used as holding cells where sedated patients are kept until their crises pass, the spaces are no more than prisons designed to maintain …

Retrofitting The Future, Lindsay Pannell

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The architectural world has felt the push toward building more efficiently and more environmentally-friendly. Programs such as LEED acknowledge well designed, energy efficient buildings that have done their part to build structures that don’t further damage the environment. However, many buildings are being torn down and replaced by these energy efficient buildings. The demolition process and the waste and disposal of materials from these older buildings are negatively affecting carbon emissions. In many cases, the new environmentally efficient buildings would take decades to offset the carbon emissions from the demolition and reconstruction process, while retrofitting buildings can cut back on …

Revitalized Complex: The Redevelopment Of Abandoned Malls, Kyle Mccormick

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis explores two issues with one solution.

The first issue revolves around a large number of dying malls across America. While some still survive, others have become a deserted wasteland. It is reported that close to 2,000 stores will be closing in 2020. According to Business Insider, over 9,300 stores were closed in 2019, breaking the record of 2018, which was an estimated 8,000 stores.

The second issue involves large cities pushing the limits for population density. In cities such as Atlanta, Dallas, and Phoenix the rise in population cannot keep up with the current housing options provided in …

In Process: Storytelling Through Architecture, Rourke Brakeville

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

How can stories be told through architectural space? For millennia, humanity has told stories, passing narratives down from generation to generation through dance, song, sculpture, and other art forms.

Today, architecture is conceptualized as a series of characters: form, space, program, materials, codes; characters that are then stitched together to generate a design. Yet in the current era of architectural formulation, there is a dereliction in the importance and beauty from the previous ages.

Through examining historical precedents that communicate a narrative, this research outlined techniques of metaphor, allegory, and symbol that translate a story into architecture. Primarily, allegory was …

Creating A Home: Designing A Supportive And Meaningful Intergenerational Environment For People With Intellectual And Developmental Disabilities, Sally Murtadhi

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

According to the CDC, Individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I.D.D.) face numerous issues that prevent them from being self-sufficient such as, lack of accessible environments, lack of employment opportunities, and a negative stigma in society. Due to these obstacles, individuals with I.D.D. are isolated and dependent on direct family members which contributes to poor well-being. The aim of this thesis is to create design solutions that will allow individuals with I.D.D. to live meaningfully and independently. This topic will be approached in two parts: a research and design component. The research component includes: 1) Analyzing obstacles individuals with I.D.D. …

Spatial Transformations, Ze Meng

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The thesis explores the potential for spatial transformation of the superstructure by taking the Olympic main stadium as a typology of the research. I propose to carry the knowledge and discoveries of the potential, to revitalize the stadium and serve the community it displaced.

Encapsulating Sound, Jackie Soto

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis aims to identify the acoustic anomalies of Cannon Chapel by understanding how its visitants typically occupy the flexible space, the use of materials, and the shape of the spaces, and therefore to accurately resolve those acoustic anomalies, improving the auditory experience of those visitants and advancing architectural acoustic research.

Remembering A Hidden Space: Stitching Memorial Architecture With A Subterranean Tunnel System Of The Slave Trade, Olivia Harrell

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

To my ancestors. Imagine the British raiding your homeland in the middle of the night… being taken away from your family all to be taken to the dungeons of Cape Coast Castle…being forced on a dark ship, stacked on top of another flesh, praying to God to survive the long voyage. Gracefully, you reach landfall, only to be examined and sorted, to have your last name stripped away from you…seeing the sick woman that lied next you on the voyage, be dumped into the Atlantic Ocean and left to drown…being forced to build the underground barracks, that you would live …

Vacated Spectacle: Inhabitance Of Abandoned Stadiums, Jalaal Malik

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

I personally have experienced the drama of thousands screaming and celebrating at once for the home team or heard the roar of the crowd from outside the stadium. But where does the community connection go when the teams move on? In cities across the world, sporting venues are abandoned as national events depart and hometown teams relocate. Dan Meis expressed in Death of a Stadium that “NFL stadia host less than 20 events a year with 30-year lifespans. This equates to $25 million per event. “First, I questioned what can be done with the facility at the end of the …

Bio-Symbiosis: Reconnecting To Nature And Each Other Through A Biological Lens, Melissa Holder

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that we spend 93 percent of our time indoors. For decades, the design of space has kept exterior environments separate from the interior conditions we have engineered for ourselves. This design process limits our ability to interact with other forms of life. According to Stephen Kellert’s principles of biophilic design, which defines an innate desire to interact with other forms of life, it is imperative that our spaces be designed to interact with each other and nature on an intimate and spiritual level. As humans have a hard-wired tendency to seek out relationships with other …

Embedded Form: Using Structure To Inform Engaging Spaces Responsive To The Human Experience, Huntington Brown

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis takes a look at the basic understanding of structure as expressed in nature in the form of the catenary curve. This curve produces a funicular structure in response to gravitational loads. When inverted, this tension-based cable becomes an optimized arch in compression. This FORM as a result of gravity is the basis on which any material can be used to make a space. Understanding spatial qualities and expression of structure, the psychology component is embedded, along with the secondary structure, as a design component that can be dialed in to produce a spatial quality that, in theory, should …

H2opulent, Reese Zimmerman

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This project is an experiment on resilience, in an attempt to set forth guidelines for a new architecture that is designed with water, for water, and against water. The intent of this project is to create a self-sustaining architectural model that will exist entirely detached from dry land in order to mitigate the affects of flooding and water level rise.

For this project I am analyzing projects in three categories: land, water and hybrid. Land includes projects built along the coast on solid ground, water includes projects that either float on top of the water or are built on stilts …

Black Holistic: A Response To Respiratory Health And Equity Through K-12 Environments And Community - Based Design, Azha Parker

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

The overarching aim of this thesis is to investigate the causes of higher amounts of absenteeism due to asthmatic disease within African American students as it pertains to building-related illness and environmental harms. With this information, design decisions will be made to respond to asthma symptoms amongst students and introduce new outlooks towards health within the communities non-intrusively. Looking at Lakeview Elementary School in Portsmouth, Virginia as a case. This majority African American school sits adjacent to a preexisting landfill that has been capped before construction of the school. This site will act as an example, showing the relationships between …

[Re]Discovering Nature | Ecotourism & Natural Resource Conservation: The ‘Potential’ For A Sustainable Symbiotic Relationship, Amber Bennett

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Humans are more disconnected than ever from the natural environment. Architecture and ecology, both providing distinct conceptual frameworks for the city, one for nature and one for culture, these thesis explores the frameworks that call for them to be intersected to further an actionable ecology for the city and its architecture. Interaction with the natural environment is crucial to human well-being and development, but sadly this connection has diminished drastically due to the over-reliance on modern-day advances and technology. This severed relationship attributes to the lack of awareness of pressing environmental issues that are threatening our shared communities. Islands, remote …

Insert Community: A Revaluation Of Space, Joshua Ramirez

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis is an attempt to question the way in which we understand and create housing. Currently, there is a growing issue with lack of space within our major and developing cities, creating an increase of demand for higher density buildings, which is especially true for housing. Apartments are typically the answer for higher density, smaller square footage needs, leaving large amounts of uniformly small and repetitive housing units, slowly forcing people to abandon their individuality. The question is, are there no available options for creating more expressive and freeing units for people to be able to live in?

It …

Rethinking The Needs Of The Invisible Society Through Empowerment, Jada Ross

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

This thesis addresses the issue of homelessness and is intended to spark an open conversation about how we can redefine our perceptions of families who experience homelessness. The proposal aims to explore and establish an transitional intervention for “invisible” families to live and develop into contributing residents of society. In the United States, the most vulnerable population are families with children, accounting for 33% of the homeless population. As Covid19 cases continue to rise, and policies continue to neglect affordable housing options, the number of families experiencing homelessness will continue to grow in the future. Through the analysis of case …

Contemplative Retreat: Examining The Fundamentals Of Spiritual Orientation Through Architecture, Daryl Rowe

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

With over 4,200 faith practices documented all over the world and 84% of the world's population identifying with one of them, the studies of the Pew Research Institute clearly show that there is a need for spiritual spaces worldwide. Throughout history, these places were held as sacred and the land and building of these structures were treated as such. They offered a connection with the energy of the earth and orientation of the soul. All religions have their own defined religious rites that aid in the continuation of your practice of the faith. These involve rites of passage, affliction, fasting, …

Revival Of The Dead Zone- Ecotourism Within The Chornobyl Exclusion Zone, Angelina Damaj

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Since the nuclear accident, Chernobyl has been abandoned for 30 years. 30 kilometers around Chernobyl was evacuated and it has left the area to become a dead zone. In actuality the dead zone is full of life. Plant and animal populations have expanded and thrived, and people have slowly started to reenter the zone. The exclusion zone has become a new ecosystem.

With more people coming into Chernobyl for tourism, there is higher risk of the ecosystem being threatened. My thesis will explore ecotourism within the Chernobyl exclusion zone. My proposal is an urban design that is shaped by ecotourist …

Cultural Landscapes, Historic Preservation, And Cattle Ranches: A New Protocol For Documenting And Preserving Historic Working Cattle Ranches In Texas. Featuring A Case Study At The Dudley Brothers Ranch In Comanche, Texas Using Tx-Clevr (Texas Cultural Landscape Evaluation For Ranches), Bonnie Blocker

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

The Texas cattle ranch is a vernacular landscape of historic significance, threatened by population-driven land use change and unsustainable exurban development (Kjelland, 2007). A vast majority of Texas cattle ranches have not been recognized by any official designation program (THC, 2020), and have no formal recognition as cultural landscapes (Ramirez, 2018). This research explores the cultural landscape of cattle ranching in Texas, a specific landscape typology with very little documented study, in order to promote identification, preservation, and maintenance of these valuable landscapes within the field of landscape architecture. As the standard pathway to designation and documentation of cultural landscapes, …

Treatments Of Contaminants From Hydraulic Fracturing: A Study Of The Attitudes Of Professionals Towards The Use Of Phytoremediation Methods In Tarrant County, Melissa Rubi Lemuz

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

Hydraulic fracturing poses challenges to the environmental stability of the areas surrounding a hydraulic fracturing site due to exposure to the byproducts of the hydraulic fracturing process. (Rahm, 2011; Perry, Sutton, Guo, Yan, & Yang, 2018; Gómez-Sagasti et al., 2012; Richardson et al., 2015). The use of hydraulic fracturing has increased in the United States, notably in North Texas. As the population of the DFW metroplex increases, oil and natural gas companies have begun to construct hydraulic fracturing sites within neighborhoods in the urban setting (Rahm, 2011). As the number of wells created in the urban setting continues to increase, …

Cultivating A Sense Of Place Through Experiential Landscapes: The Redesign Of Downtown Prosper, Texas, Nicole Palmer Simonini

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

Many rural Texas towns are being enveloped by urban sprawl. Former small, rural towns with tightly-knit communities and storied historic places are being replaced by mass residential and retail developments. These enveloped communities are often besieged by an uninviting appearance of monotony; their unique identities are often lost in the expansion. Their rich, shared community experiences are diminished (Andres & Plater-Zyberk, 1992). This master’s design thesis explores the concept of sense of place through the lens of experiential landscapes. This study seeks to identify design attributes that contribute to the creation of experiential landscapes (Thwaites & Simkins, 2007) in Texas. …

Nex-Us, Julianna Decocco

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

A THESIS ARGUING THE BASIC FUNCTION OF ARCHITECTURE IN ITS PRIMITIVE MEANS OF SHELTERING THE BODY AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT SHOULD BE INSTEAD RETHOUGHT TO THE INTERCONNECTION OF THE BODY AS A CONDUIT BETWEEN PHYSICAL EARTH AND THE COSMOS. ARCHITECTURE FOR CONNECTING THE PHYSICALITY AND MENTALITY OF HUMAN’S HIGHER SELF TO ITS SURROUNDING ENVIRONMENT, RETURNING TO WHAT THE ESSENCE OF ARCHITECTURE IS AND REDEFINING ITS PARAMETERS. IT WILL FORMULATE ITSELF AS A MEDIATION, NON-DENOMINATIONAL TEMPLE CENTER. IRONING OUT WHAT ARCHITECTURE MEANS MORE HOLISTICALLY THROUGH THE INTERPRETATIONS OF NATURE, COSMIC GEOMETRIES AND THE TUNING OF CONNECTION IN HUMANS TO THE UNIVERSE …

Technological Augmentation: Creating A Public Center For Making, Timothy Hardeman

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

We live in an era where technology is driving forward at an unprecedented pace. We have access to tools, materials, and processes which weren’t even conceptualized 50 years ago. 3D printing, CNCs, and Laser Cutters allow us to create incredible designs, and at affordable prices. We have carbon fiber, advanced composites, and modern alloys.

But where do we experience these things? In a classroom? Through screens as we read about these intangible leaps in technology? Why don’t we have a place where we get to experience these things first-hand, and experiment with our own ideas about how they could be …