Interior Architecture Commons^™

Strata: Portraits Of The Alvarado & The Southwest, Kayla R. Duncan

Masters Theses

History isn't the past; it is a continuing unfolding of the moment, yet we cannot feel time. We see traces of age through patina on copper, the wrinkles on a face from decades of laughter, or the holes in your favorite shirt. Similarly within architecture, what remains: ruins and fragments serve as layers that indicate the passage of time. In what ways are these layers exposed? Hidden? Erased? How do we determine what layers are worthy to be erased, maintained, or glorified as use of a structure or place continues to evolve through time?

The history of Albuquerque spans the …

Lace Memory Lab, Xinyu Han

Masters Theses

Lace, originally developed from European religious garments, has long been treated as a decorative and secondary textile craft. With its delicate hand-weaving, intricate patterns, and lightweight quality, lace has been widely used in clothing and furniture, it has always remained at the edge of spatial design. This thesis focuses on lace as a material memory, exploring how its characteristics can be translated into architectural language and integrated into the spatial practice of adaptive reuse of old buildings. When I think of lace, I notice the similar nature of its craftsmanship and spatial concepts.

What happens when lace is no longer …

Healing In The Flow: Reimagining Public Well-Being Through The Adaptive Reuse Of The Heritage Park Visitor Center, Yaqi Zhang

Masters Theses

This thesis proposes the adaptive reuse of the Heritage Park Visitor Center in Fall River, Massachusetts, as a community oriented environment for rest, care, and social connection along the Taunton River waterfront. Although the park provides public access to nature, the existing building does not support everyday forms of well being such as pause, reflection, quiet recovery, or informal gathering. In many public spaces across New England, wellness remains separated from civic life and is often treated as private, specialized, or secondary.

In response, the project rethinks self care not as a private luxury, but as a shared spatial condition …

Within The Ruin: A Modern Brewery Rebirth, Karim Asarzadeh

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis project focuses on the revitalization of the historic ruins of the James River Steam Brewery in Richmond, Virginia. The project transforms the forgotten industrial structure into a modern brewery with a second-floor restaurant addition and community gathering spaces while preserving the historic masonry ruins. It showcases a holistic design approach that considers all aspects of the building, including its connection to the urban context and landscape, as well as its architecture, interiors, and furniture. The project demonstrates how a holistic design approach can create stronger spatial connections and more cohesive environments. In particular, it offers a strategy for …

Cohabitation At Threshold: Carpenter House Reimagined For Multispecies Living, Zhixiao Yang

Masters Theses

With the rapid growth of the human population, we are encroaching further into wildlife habitats, particularly those surrounding urban environments. This accelerating urbanization leads to biodiversity loss, the degradation of ecological services essential to human health and well-being, and a diminishing connection between city dwellers and the natural world.

Today, urban planners, architects, economists, and other advocates for the future of humanity and the health of the planet are actively questioning how we might build greener, more resilient cities. While much of the focus has been on large-scale interventions — such as the use of sustainable materials, the creation of …

From Industrial Building To Affordable Senior Housing: An Idea Book Beyond Code, Weiyi Ma

Masters Theses

This thesis envisions a proposal to adaptively re-purpose Rhode Island’s extant industrial building stock into affordable housing tailored to the needs of its older and more vulnerable citizens. Architectural dignity, in terms of older citizens amidst this housing crisis, is the creation of living environments that honor their autonomy, comfort, and identity through design interventions that provide accessible, luminous, breathable, and socially enriching spaces, reaffirming their rightful place within the community. With humanistic care and logical rigor, it establishes a mathematical framework for assessment and execution, anchored in five criteria: light, air, space, accessibility, and livability, and presents itself in …

Post Occupation Amnesia, Zainah Alwuhaib

Masters Theses

On August 2nd, 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and occupied Kuwait in an attempt to expand borders and acquire resources. The occupation lasted for seven months. Even after liberation on February 26, 1991, many prisoners of war had not been found or returned, oil wells were still on fire, and buildings were left damaged or destroyed. The immediate recovery period focused on restoring what was lost and reclaiming a sense of cultural and national identity. Different buildings received different treatment, and analyzing what remains now, 35 years later, is essential in understanding the impacts of occupation on a nation.

To gain …

Reclaimed By Roots, Dongyang Chen

Masters Theses

Within the context of the symbiotic relationship between architecture and natural plants, as greenery intertwines with manmade spaces over time, creating what I define as a 'Gray Space'.

My thesis seeks to explore the diverse forms this 'Gray Space' can assume at the intersection of architectural forms and natural entities through human intervention. I focus on converting an abandoned factory building, where camphor trees were intentionally transplanted and have since flourished, into a hotel.

I propose a balanced adaptive reuse strategy that combines architectural reinforcement with managed tree growth, preserving the historical significance of the building while integrating the natural …

Eviction To Placement: Rethinking The Current Supportive Housing Systems For Hidden Homeless Families, Fang-Min Liou

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on repurposing unoccupied office space into affordable housing systems tailored to meet the unique needs of homeless families. Families with children make up 36 percent of the homeless population overall and children’s homelessness status is almost always “hidden." Architecture and design can play a vital role in addressing social inequity by creating improved living environments for the houseless community through adaptive reuse of underutilized space situated within dense urban areas with the greatest access to resources to support these families, evoke feelings of comfort, security, and hope.

The following thesis accommodates three basic needs of homeless families: …

Adaptive Reuse Of Frosty Morn, Veronika Kalugina, Rebecca Tonguis, Heidi Gabriel, Peyton Kauffman

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Frosty Morn, a former meat packing facility in Clarksville, TN, is now abandoned, dilapidated, and partially demolished. The site sits within the Red River District neighborhood, which consists of a diverse community of artists. The Red River District has been identified by the Clarksville Mayor’s Office as an area with potential for growth, catalyzed by repurposing the Frosty Morn building as an icon and beacon of the community. Highest and best use research, in addition to community voices, indicated programmatic needs of a farmer’s market, makerspaces, small business incubators, park space, and live/work units. Our presentation will describe how this …

Fitness Anxiety: Redesigning The University Of Arkansas’ Health, Physical Education, And Recreation Building To Reduce Intimidation In The Fitness Centers, William Tack

Architecture Undergraduate Honors Theses

The goal of the capstone was to redesign Health, Physical Education, and Recreation (from here on out referred to as the H.P.E.R.) building on the University of Arkansas Campus to make the space more friendly to new users. This redesign consisted of a reworked site plan for the overall building and some significant shifts in the program to accommodate more gym space. The redesign work was based on the following: prior academic research regarding what causes intimidation in gym settings, student opinions shared via questionnaires, spatial/ programmatic standards from the National Intramural and Recreational Sports Association, a photographic journal documenting …

Epicenter: An Investigation Of Interior Design's Influence Of The American Suburban Situation, Lindsay Meyer

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

The suburbs cause isolation and poor physical and mental health for a variety of individuals, including parents, teenagers, and the elderly. Neighborhood design rarely considers marginalized teenagers and elderly, but instead focuses on the automobile. Teenagers show higher rates of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse in suburban areas than in urban areas. Millennial desire for suburbs that are engaging and elderly desire to remain in their homes longer demands reconsideration of the current suburban model. Big-box store blight ravages suburban communities damaging local economies and diminishing community curb-appeal. Closing box stores compounds the suburban dweller’s reliance on the automobile, continuing …

Adaptive Repurposing Of Smith Elementary, Kelsey L. Fields

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

For almost 100 years Smith Elementary School has been an institution of learning and a place of growth for children across the community of Kenmore, including myself. While its closing marks the end of an era it also presents a unique opportunity. Through adaptive reuse, Smith Elementary can have a second life and remain a cornerstone building in the community. The central goal of maintaining the beautiful original architectural details blends with the challenge of making this a functional space where a business can flourish, in the same rooms as hundreds of children have done before. This idea will set …

Reorientation: A Journey Through Spatial Sequence, Eman Alsulaimani

Theses and Dissertations

Introduction | The building for this thesis project is one with a long history. Originally built as the First Baptist Church, it was converted over the years to fulfill a role completely different from its original intent; a student center! During this process and after a series of renovations, the Broad Street main grand entrance lost its place and the arrival into the building became much less choreographed. Essentially, over time one could say that this building had been flipped around, it has lost its original intent, grandeur and purpose. Hypothesis | I challenge the idea of flipping the building …

From Carson Pirie Scott To City Target: A Case Study On The Adaptive Reuse Of Louis Sullivan’S Historic Sullivan Center, Lisa M. Switzer

Architecture Masters of Science Program: Theses

This study provides an in-depth exploration of the adaptive reuse of one of Chicago’s most iconic structures over the course of a year from the Summer of 2011 to the Summer of 2012. The Sullivan Center was converted from a mid-scale retailer to City Target. Through extensive interviews with the Target development team, Chicago city officials, historians and Landmark Commission representatives this study documents the conversion and identifies the successes and opportunities of the project. The study follows the project from design development to completion, and provides insight on the local community perspective on the development.

Advisor: Mark Hinchman