Architecture Commons^™

Blueridgelivin' : Environmental Development And Suburban Sprawl, Chris Villalta

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on investigating how precolonial Blue Ridge Cherokee construction was resilient to time and weather, integrated place, and respected the environment, traditions, and politics, to better integrate landscape, climate, ecology, and regionally specific architecture.

Uncanny Genericism, Eamon Wagner

Masters Theses

For the past two decades, disciplinary discourse on con­sumerism has been largely focused on vast commercial spaces - the shopping mall, the airport - the "Junkfood" of architecture . When it has ventured into the realm of the do­mestic, it has largely been in service to the specific object. This thesis attempts to reconsider the role of representation relative to ideas of the generic object, and understands these objects as sources of authorship that can be architec­turally generative in a time when objecthood evades clear definition.

Relocation Community Revival, Zhan Zhang

Masters Theses

The thesis tries to revive/re-imagine the public spaces of relocation community in Jiangsu, China by re-designing the in between spaces of the existing apartment buildings, dealing with the misfit of relocated residents to their new living environment during the rapid urbanization process.

Possibilities In Void, Fangyu Wei

Masters Theses

The interaction between architecture surfaces and urban environment is being more active, this transient boundary demarcates the inner core and external diverse environments to provide a different experience for human. The uncertainties in attitudes that have existed over time to the interior and exterior conditions, thus, the spatial tension between these 2 surfaces naturally form into several void spaces. As I observed that through individual action, ideas, and criticality, urban voids have become catalysts for social interaction and creative experiments. Re-appropriation of vacant sites by means of inhabitation or (new) subtle ecologies to emerge in the Taipei urban area. Residents …

Reviving The Hollowing Rural Village: Research On The Coastal Mountainous Region Of Kaihua, China, Rui Tao

Masters Theses

My research focuses on one county in China and the regional and local structure to understand the existing flows between urban and rural areas, including both ecological, industrial and social exchanges. Kaihua county, located in north-west Zhejiang Province, is currently the poorest county economically in this region and has more migrant workers and a more severe hollowing degree.

This thesis aims to revive the hollowing rural village and improve the village’s value as a hybrid public realm - a space encouraging reciprocal flows exchanged from both “rural ground” and urban “new comers,” strengthening the ecological and social ties among water …

Energy Convergence, Xiaoyu Xu

Masters Theses

The current state of our urban systems and infrastructure is untenable in light of ongoing urbanization, population growth and complexity of modern life, including the problem of the city’s deactivation. Current systems lack the level of integration and shared intelligence that our technology advancements allow and modern life requires.

And if we understand landscape and its systems as inherently integrated and self-sustaining and essential to the optimal functioning of our cities, then we can position urban landscapes as the foundation and framework for all future urban system redesign and development.

Green Arteries, Jiapan Wei

Masters Theses

My thesis asks how transportation infrastructure in a shrinking city such as Detroit, can be redefined as a malleable, generative, efficient synthetic system that can develop, manage and distribute urban resources, production, knowledge and skilled labor.

To achieve this, the highway system can be entwined with other systems in the city, such as food, energy, media, education, and water and waste. In the process, it will be reinvigorated as an engine for the city, a center of productive energy versus mere connective tissue linking former factories to outer suburbs, ports and distant markets.

The thesis uses a “cradle to cradle” …

Dynamic Landscape: The Theatre Of Time Unfolding, Mo Kong

Masters Theses

Human’s particular perspective and scale couldn’t allow them to perceive the ever-changing quality of the landscape through their senses. As landscape architects, we lack tools to communicate and work with not only time but typically experiment with the representation of time in physical landscape images. To create a dynamic experience, what tools of representation allow landscape architects to respond to time? This thesis explores many different types of representational techniques in terms of videos and drawings and uses them in a series of experimentation back and forward to make the unfamiliar familiar. The goal of the thesis is to build …

42nd Soundscaping: Sound As Media For Reshaping Urban Ecology, Chao Li

Masters Theses

This proposal aims to draw people’s attention to our surrounding acoustic environment and shift people’s awareness from “hearing” to “listening”. In urban areas, to enrich our living experiences, people choose to get rid of the noisy environments. I believe landscape architecture always has the power to connect human’s different senses with our environment. As the most dynamic and abstract phenomenon, sound has the potential to guide landscape spatial design and modify our ecological system. The investigation focuses on 42nd Street as a primary study area which is historically one of the most iconic streets in the midtown of Manhattan, connecting …

A Material Cooperation Over Time, Diana Marcela Gallo

Masters Theses

The use of materials like clay, concrete and biomaterials have given a meaning and identity to the outcomes we produce through time. Materials absorb and release energy that passes through them. Transformation processes in materials can be revealed when they get in touch with a phenomenon like infiltration of water. Changing stages in materials and weathering, should not be considered as a negative condition but as a new opportunity to feel and perceive the same surface differently.

The illusion of permanence should be replaced by a more fluid idea that nothing lasts or keeps the same condition forever. Since all …

Flowing Garments: Textile Waste Reutilization In Landscape Design, Fengjiao Ge

Masters Theses

This thesis has focused on creating a localized response to a global problem related to globalization and fast fashion. Both our amount of post-production waste and the carbon footprint left by the garment industry’s response to a global desire for novelty and affordability, and their dependence on cheap labor, loose environmental regulations, distributed raw materials and production, and markets far from places of manufacturing has created an unethical and unsustainable supply chain model.

The strategy proposed here began with one of the places that receives much of the world’s garment waste. As a country that both produces these garments and …

Mountainous City, Yixuan Hu

Masters Theses

My thesis studies how glaciation and vegetation systems define the landscapes of Mount Gongga, and asks how these and their modes of relation and zonation might provide a model for more sustainable and fully adaptable structures to support urbanism. Using mountain systems as the metaphor, I proposed a mountainous city model focusing on efficient urban ecosystems and spontaneous human activities. By the methods of deconstructing and mimetic modeling, they triggered a series of rethinking about the formation and relation of urban spaces. The mountainous city has four distinctive vertical layered zones, which integrated with hydrological and ecological systems and vertical …

Urban Storytelling: Rebuilding The Understanding Of Place Via Immersive Narrative, Xue Gao

Masters Theses

This thesis explores a hyper reality- in this case, virtual and augmented reality- storytelling system, focused on individual readings and experiences, as a new method of place understanding.

Maker's Village / Reviving Material Consciousness, Stephanie Balga, Stephanie Balga

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

Taking from Richard Sennett’s book, The Craftsman, “Skill is a trained practice; modern technology is abused when it deprives its users precisely of that repetitive, concrete, hands-on training. When the head and the hand are separated, the result is mental impairment” (p.52) This separation that Richard Sennett is talking about is the disconnect that our modern society has found due to the large amounts of mass production, social media, and technology abuse. In order to find this connection again, humans need to become more aware of their surroundings. This reconnection can occur through what is called material consciousness. This is …

An Overview Of Vehicle-To-Infrastructure Communication Technology, Muath Altuijary

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

As a part of solutions to reduce problems associated with transportation in cities, technologies can have noticeable impacts. Due to efficiency and low costs, innovative transportation technologies can reshape and improve human’s transportation. This research aims to explore Vehicle-to-Infrastructure communication technology (V2I) and its benefits to safety, mobility, and environment. In addition, it explores the planning aspect of deploying V2I technology and its opportunities, challenges and concerns, and implication to communities. The research will also look at several case studies including pilot projects that have been taking place in the United States and studies that have been done to have …

Architecture And Geography Of China Proper: Influence Of Geography On The Diversity Of Chinese Traditional Architectural Motifs And The Cultural Values They Reflect, Shiqi Liang

Culture, Society, and Praxis

This article examines regional geographical differences and their reflection in the diversity of Chinese traditional architectural motifs within China proper. This article specifically focuses on how regional geographical differences lead people to prioritize different cultural values and how those values were reflected in their respective architectural motifs.

Evaluating Second-Order Effects In Rigid Wall-Flexible Roof Diaphragm Buildings, John W. Lawson, Maria Koliou

Architectural Engineering

When evaluating seismically induced second-order effects in buildings, engineers and researchers are most familiar with these concerns in the context of multistory buildings with rigid diaphragms. However, similar concerns are valid for short single-story concrete or masonry-walled buildings with larger flexible diaphragms, which is a significant portion of the building stock in the United States. These rigid wall-flexible diaphragm (RWFD) buildings may have significant diaphragm drifts causing induced second-order effects. The stability coefficient currently found in ASCE 7 has traditionally been used by practitioners to evaluate the relative risk of P-delta instability in multistory buildings, but this indicator can be …

"To Cement The Bond Of Friendship":The Joan Of Arc Statue In New Orleans, 1958-2020, Megan A. Miller

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a study of the importance of statuary related to historical memory and influence focusing on the Joan of Arc Statue in New Orleans, Louisiana. Gifted to the city in 1958 and installed in 1972 officially in the wake of Charles de Gaulle’s visit, the Joan of Arc Statue has been the subject of controversy and a costly reinstallation in the French Quarter. This thesis, using primary evidence from court cases, interviews, and newspapers, traces Joan’s significance and use as a site of memory and link between France and the City of New Orleans.

Two Black Utopias Of The United States: Self Determination And Survival, Makaveli Gresham

University Honors Theses

In line with Charles Davis III's assertion in regards to the formation of black space and it’s spectral qualities representing the "material conditions of black survival", two black utopian projects: Soul City, North Carolina and the unrealized work of Architects Renewal Committee in Harlem (ARCH) in New York City are analyzed to explicate to what extent that the United States built environment is compatible with "black survival". These two case studies are used to inform an understanding of the anti-black nature of Modernism and the cultural relationship between the construction of "whiteness" and "blackness" in the United States. This relationship …

Urban Hostility: Cpted, Hostile Architecture, And The Erasure Of Democratic Public Space, Matthew M. Carr

University Honors Theses

Free and open public space is essential to the health of urban living. In theory, it is purely neutral, acting as a social equalizer providing those of all backgrounds space to co-exist within the confines of the built environment. However, truly democratic public space has consistently been threatened and reduced in cities, affecting none more heavily than marginalized and impoverished populations. The creation of the Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design agenda gave birth to hostile architecture, a detrimental form of urban exclusionism. By using hostile design typologies, cities can render public spaces unusable to undesirable citizens, and subsequently erase images …

Plastic Paradise: Reconstitution Of Plastic Waste Through Design Of A Module, Janel Stitt

Bachelor of Architecture Theses - 5th Year

As a material, plastic has many redeeming qualities, but as waste product, it is detrimental to our environment. This thesis aims to advance the encapsulation of plastic waste within a new building component: cladding material and/or modular design element. To see plastic as a one-time use material is short-sighted and doesn’t account for the potential which is inherent in this material composition. By examining any given city, you will find a surplus of plastic waste -- whether it is at a landfill, recycling center, or littered throughout the streets. This plastic waste has the ability to be something more. Buildings …

Insertion Of ‘Green Webs’ – A Holistic Approach To Urban Tree Planting In Dallas County, Texas, Niveditha Dasa Gangadhar

Landscape Architecture Masters & Design Theses - Archive

The urban space poses many challenges for the growth and survival of trees. The urban fabric is often knitted with concrete, stone, copper, and iron, in the form of sidewalks, parking lots, buildings, wires, and pipes, which displace elements of the natural environment. This has given rise to urban heat islands, polluted air, ineffective water management, and other social problems (Nowak et al., 2010). Currently, efforts are being made worldwide to bring back the natural environment through green infrastructure strategies. Ecological inserts in the urban fabric called ‘Green Webs’ can provide environmental, economic, and social and ecological benefits. ‘Green Webs’ …

This Caught Our Attention: Very Big Dig, Colby College

Colby Magazine

No abstract provided.

Finite Element Simulation Of Metal Cutting Of Aluminum Using Johnson-Cook Damage Model And Shear Failure Model., Mohammed Saber

Mansoura Engineering Journal

This paper evaluates the use of the Johnson-Cook (J-C) damage model and the shear failure model in the Finite Element metal cutting simulations of an Aluminum alloy (Al 1100) using an FE commercial package ABAQUS. For the J-C model, the damage evolution in the model is controlled by the value of the parameter "equivalent plastic displacement at failure", . The value of this parameter is provided to ABAQUS by user. It was found that the value of that parameter, in conjunction with mesh size, highly affects the chip morphology, chip ratio and analysis completion. Therefore, a compromising between the value …

Hybrid Hospitality, John Gassaway

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

In order to understand the proposed coupled system, there must be an understanding of each component and how optimal performance of the system depends on sustainable architectural design. The basics of each component, a brief history and applicable case studies will be explained and presented starting with ground source thermal loops and then thermal mass (concrete walls). This will be followed by a more detailed explanation of how the components couple to form a functioning energy efficient system, how research can prove energy efficiency and how architectural design concepts can merge to influence sustainable hospitality design.

Connecting The Built And External Environments Through Architectural Compositions, Jacob Ellerbrock

Honors Projects

A study regarding architectures' potential to address the separation of humanity and nature.

Testing Reliability Of Biophilic Design Matrix Within Urban Residential Playrooms, Ellen Marte

Theses and Dissertations

Biophilic interior design in urban playrooms has been greatly understudied. We measured inter-rater reliability of the Biophilic Interior Design Matrix (BID-M) and matrix items by quantitatively coding images of 45 New York City residential playrooms. Findings suggest that the BID-M needs to be modified to better assess urban playrooms.

Purposefully Forgetting: Surveying San Diego’S Founding Narrative During The City’S Bicentennial Celebrations Of 1969, Noah Pallmeyer

Keck Undergraduate Humanities Research Fellows

The city of San Diego owes much its success and prosperity to the “victories associated with colonization.” This quote comes directly from the current National Park Service description of the San Diego Presidio. This project turns to the 1969 bicentennial celebrations of San Diego’s founding. This was a rhetorically powerful period in San Diego’s historical remembrance. This project argues that native and other marginalized populations were not properly considered in the narrative of San Diego’s founding during these celebrations. To understand why and how these populations failed to be properly considered, this project turns to the narratives of colonial monuments …

Community: A Neighborhood With A Unification Concept For A More Humane Social Interaction, Jorge Diaz

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

The modern world presents a dilemma in its inequalities of domesticity for people from a low socio-economic background. Public housing can provide a solution for this issue, but the properties of such buildings differ drastically in their architectural sensibilities from the outdated uniform Queensbridge blocks in New York to elite Quayside Village In Canada. The former is an outdated, low-cost living opportunity (Barry). The latter Quayside, on the other hand, is a comfortable residence that grew into a community. (World's 3 Most Successful Housing Projects"). The experience of Quayside Village allows the residents to engage city life by having amenities …

Analysis Of Mixed-Use Affordable Housing In Las Vegas, Maelle Egea

Hospitality Design Graduate Student Capstones

Nevada is ranked at the very bottom of the U.S. with only 15 affordable homes available for rent statewide per 100 extremely low-income renter households. Las Vegas is even worse at 10 per 100. Las Vegas is a Hospitality-Driven city. My goal is to holistically understand mixed-use affordable housing from 4 main topics: Policy, Development, Finances, and architecture. Through an adaptive reuse approach of the travelers motel downtown Las Vegas, I have proposed a mixed-use/mixed-income development solution.