Urban, Community and Regional Planning Commons^™

Absorbency In Tidal Resiliency | The Thickened Pier, Shauna Strubinger

Architecture Senior Theses

The inevitable truth of climate change has placed coastal cities at great risk. Past natural disasters in the United States such as Hurricane Sandy and Katrina, displaced many people because these communities’ only protection was their failed infrastructure.1 Although hard and soft infrastructure strategies have addressed the rising sea level, architecture at the building scale creates static surfaces and divisions that are slow to adapt to flooding and leave little to no room for the ambiguity of tidal flooding and storm surge. Though numerous areas are at risk of sea level rise across the globe, the Chesapeake Bay area is …

Phasing Permanence Through Flux, Estefania Maldonadov, Andrew Filkoff

Architecture Senior Theses

The "post-industrial revolution" has, in its wake, given rise to a swath of cities suffering economic decline and social deterioration. These "shrinking cities" have experienced a loss in population to their surrounding suburbs and other dormitory settlements. Once thriving cities have been reduced to functioning as overdeveloped business parks where people come to work for five days a week - but then leave each evening to return to suburban ideal. It is unreasonable to assume that any masterplan alone can promote the future success of a shrinking city. Rather, this thesis contends that by dissecting the historical narratives and spatial …

China's New Weird, Bangyuan Shi

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis offers a critique of the diminishing communal life int he contemporary Chinese city which is created by the gap between large-scale master planning strategies and the contemporary need to focus on the individual instead of the structure of communities.

China's New Weird proposes an alternative to large-scale urbanism through the use of micro-urbanism strategies that preserve the relative scale and character of traditional urban settlements, like those of the "hutong", while also addressing the contemporary need to increase inner city population densities. The intention is to adapt the patterns of space and use that are found in these …

Redeveloping Commerce | Comuna 20 As The Commercial Gateway Of The City, Carlos Restrepo

Architecture Senior Theses

Colombia has long been suffering a debilitating civil war. Lasting more than 51 years, this continuing conflict has brought suffering and hardship to millions of people. Indeed, countless civilians have been forcefully displaced from their rural homes into informal settlements on the outskirts of major cities. These densely populated, ad hoc constructions surround the cities as unstructured enclaves festering with crime and disease exacerbated by isolation and government indifference. The vast social, economic, and cultural divide between these settlements and the contiguous cities pose a major problem for contemporary Colombia that must be addressed. In spite of these conditions, the …

Memory + Architecture | The Act Of Forgetting, Mariel Mora Llorens

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis proposes the activation and repurposing of buildings associated with traumatic memories as a means of studying the ways in which architecture embodies memories and aids in the process of forgetting. Architecture and the built environment are linked to the creation and recollection of memories because they trigger four of the senses that are related to memory.

To forget is an active, not passive endeavor. Conscious forgetting is not an act of erasing memories, but transforming them by removing the emotional responses that are produced by our recollection of these memories. Like memories in our brains, buildings that have …

Anarchy City, Zhuocen Yao

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis is a political manifesto that seeks to address the current chaotic and undesrable politcal environment on the border between Hong Kong and Shenzhen (Anarchy City). Acknowledging that:

-Anarchy City has evolved from political borders whose purpose was to create division.

-Anarchy City possesses width and depth, is a 3-dimensional space of physical presence.

-Anarchy City is a "zone of exception" independent from the entities it sets out to separate.

-Anarchy City is anarchic, free of formal rules and regulations and thus free for interpretation.

-Anarchy City is deliberately distinguished from, and …

Private Room Of The Wheel | A New Form Of Transient Dwelling, Kathy Teng

Architecture Senior Theses

The cross-country highway and road trip are deeply rooted in the American psyche, supported by the rapid growth in ownership of automobiles by American families since the 1940s, establishing a sense of freedom and leisure in their mobile lifestyles. However, other highway users have less control and freedom over their daily routine. These users are part of a vast network of international commerce reliant on the long haul.

The time long-haul truck drivers are away from home is prolonged, with the end of each day spent sleeping in fixed truck cabins and eating at banal truck stops. “ ‘I can …

The Synchronous City, Patricia Olivera

Architecture Senior Theses

Architects’ conceptualizations of cities reference and reflect trends in contemporary culture. During the early 1900's, architects such as Ebenezer Howard, and Tony Garnier speculated on modernist visions of cities, while in the mid-late 1900's radical visions of cities by Archigram, and Archizoom emerged. This project will operate along the framework of previous visions of cities by architects and envision a city rooted on the use of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs).

In order to best engage the provocation of a city based on ICTs as the primary means of exchange and interaction between citizens (as opposed to cars, pedestrians, …

Never-Land | A Parasitic And Accumulative Approach To Urbanization In China, Xiaoyan Dong

Architecture Senior Theses

Ever since 1960s, European situationist and Japanese metabolist architects constantly reject the uniformity and totalitarian of modern architecture/urban design, seeking parasitic and dynamic approaches to post-war urbanization. Projects such as the Plug-In City and the Tokyo Bay dream of alternative urban scenarios by reversing traditional perceptions of infrastructure’s role in the city, combining architecture, technology and society together. However, these megastructure projects not only neglect the existing urban context but also lack political and economic driving force. As a result, they are considered utopian by many contemporary critics.

Fifty years later in China, fast urbanization process creates problems for both …

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 …

Philep | A Self-Sufficient Pod, Brenna Merola

Architecture Senior Theses

Since 2011 civil war has erupted in Syria causing many Syrians to flee the county. About 9 million people have been internationally displaced causing disruption to the surrounding countries, which have had to create new accommodations. Primary issues have been shortage of basic such as shelter, food and water. Through analysis of disaster situations and refugee conditions, the types of infrastructural systems needed for survival can be better understood. This analysis can determine how to integrate systems into an architectural solution to this global issue: temporary housing pods.

Michael McDaniels, EXO Reaction Housing founder, has created a prototype of a …

Hijacked | Reclaiming Legislative Loopholes, Lara Moock

Architecture Senior Theses

ARTICLE 1: GENERAL PROVISIONS.

SEC. 100. PURPOSES.

San Francisco’s current political legislation has critical loopholes that have constructed a predominant shift in the city’s identity and urban fabric, as well as an obvious neglect of the public realm and social agenda. The recent move of the Silicon Valley tech headquarters to the city’s center has dramatically changed the architectural landscape as well as reinforced a growing push for corporate privatization. This thesis aims to expose and confront the hidden political and social dynamics of the constructed environment and reclaim the existing loopholes in order to propose a project without major …

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 …

The Ottoman Han: Recovery Of A Lost Typology, Asli B. Germerli

Architecture Senior Theses

Developing countries around the world are coping with rapid population growth, the negative effects of globalization and the resultant political stress. Many of these cities have unique historical heritages and cultural identities that are being compromised by the monoculture and sameness of architecture that has come along with globalization. To preserve this historic fabric and cultural legacy, these cities must be willing to shape their future through self-expression driven by the local context. Yet, change is inevitable. The challenge is to find a balance between safeguarding the historical heritage while building new layers of history. In brief, the challenge is …

Free Encounters | Giving Form To The Informal Workplace, Ryan Williams

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis contends that the "office" as a solely economic construct is no more: Its utility as an engine driving productivity and the accumulation of capital has stalled in our present age of information where value is constructed through knowledge exchange and interaction.

Via the use of new technologies, millennial workers' transition from the college campus to the office has become more seamless and, this thesis argues, it is in this paradigm shift that it is possible to identify a blurring of the public and private spheres. The millennial worker-turned-freelancer's life exists forever suspended between work and play, place and …

Uncreative Construction | Domestic Mutations In America, Sean Morgan

Architecture Senior Theses

A shift in residential patterns in American cities have fostered a breeding ground for mutant buildings. Owners split, manipulate, and expand their houses as they create idiosyncratic constructs of great visual and spatial complexity. Originally developed for a middle class population, single-family homes have become mixed-use or multi-family complexes thanks to the resourceful implementation of commercial materials.

This thesis aims to develop a new strategy for transforming the normative American house by using the conventions of platform frame construction. Variations will emerge from a set of design constraints, which—unlike that employed for typical houses—are based on data that disregards style …

Other Wildernesses, Other Realities | A Framework For Shrinking Cities, Alyssa Goraieb

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis is an experiment to imagine the possible realities that emerge from a redefining of the "idea of wilderness".

Wilderness is an idea.

Its definition is slippery. It is neither a physical place nor a state of being (as the "-ness" suggests). Wilderness is a human construct defined by varying cultural and social attitude. This fluid meaning drove numerous paradigms throughout American history - from eighteenth century romanticism's sublime doctrine to today's environmentalism.

Inspired by past American paradigms, this thesis invents five other wilderness ides that exist as a parallel alternatives to our own. Each produces a …

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 …

Hacking The Urban Village | Architecture As Board Game, Xuyun Liu

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis proposes the board game as a new research methodology and platform for the study of southern China's urban villages.

Hacking the Urban Village examines the urban villages that have, in recent decades, become a common but informal settlement type in China as a result of China's unprecedented period of urbanization.

This research forms the contextual core of a board game where game settings present the current urban conditions and players may explore alternative forms of urbanism. The board game offers players the opportunity to investigate both he formal conditions of the urban village life along with it attendant …

Sponge Logics | Rethinking Thresholds Through A Porous Mass, Tanvi Sanghvi

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis contends that the separation and distinction between the envelope and the mass in contemporary architecture is to be resisted. Architect and theorist, Greg Lynn, argues that mass “is not only the outward shape of a building; it’s also the projection of shape, plan organization, spatial and sectional type, and façade”1.This critical reevaluation of the mass, and its relationship to the interior spaces and the building’s face, is particularly pertinent to the modern construction in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India. The character of the historicist and postmodern buildings that make up Jaipur is made solely based on the applied façade. This …

Releasing The Unconsciousness | Visualizing The City, Taihui Li

Architecture Senior Theses

This thesis explores how subway stations lost their identity as strategic node of connectivity which constructed the prevailing image of New York City. In Civilization and Its Discontents (1930), Sigmund Freud famously compared the human mind to the city of Rome. He argues that both contain strata of memory and history which have accumulated over the years through a messy and ad-hoc process. Like Rome, New York City also has a layered history, albeit not as deep.

This thesis contends that the subway entrance serves as an experiential entre into the unconscious experience of the unknown elements of the past. …

The Question Of Slim | A Critical Look At Manhattan's Recent Trend Towards Slenderness, Raymond Sova

Architecture Senior Theses

Manhattan’s real estate market since the turn of the 20th century to present day can be characterized as an extreme optimization of the economical elements of architecture. Most of the buildings in Manhattan’s diverse and complex skyline share a tenacious desire to maximize the profitability and feasibility of a site while minimizing overall building expenditure. This concept is defined in Koolhaas’s ‘Delirious New York,’ as the relationship between “the Needle” and “the Globe.” Seemingly immeasurable wealth and investment have given rise to a new sub-typology of super-tall strikingly skinny (Slim) residential skyscrapers that may very well result in the demise …

Housing In Zurich, Switzerland, Edward Asfour

Architecture Senior Theses

Housing in Zurich, Switzerland

Britton Award Winner, Thesis Board.

Field Urbanism: Collective Form And The City, Pt. 2, Ann O'Connell

Architecture Senior Theses

This project employs a tactical approach to the design process. Spatial patterns and local relationships regulate form and program to facilitate these hybrid social constructions. The development of field elements re-organizes in terms of interrelationships and functions, creating infinite possible combinatory logics in the evolution of the neighborhood. These logics negotiate the threshold between figure and field, accommodating programmatic indeterminacy with architectural specificity to thicken and intensify, producing an alternative "collective" urbanism.

Field Urbanism: Collective Form And The City, Pt. 3, Ann O'Connell

Architecture Senior Theses

This project employs a tactical approach to the design process. Spatial patterns and local relationships regulate form and program to facilitate these hybrid social constructions. The development of field elements re-organizes in terms of interrelationships and functions, creating infinite possible combinatory logics in the evolution of the neighborhood. These logics negotiate the threshold between figure and field, accommodating programmatic indeterminacy with architectural specificity to thicken and intensify, producing an alternative "collective" urbanism.

Field Urbanism: Collective Form And The City, Pt. 1, Ann O'Connell

Architecture Senior Theses

This project employs a tactical approach to the design process. Spatial patterns and local relationships regulate form and program to facilitate these hybrid social constructions. The development of field elements re-organizes in terms of interrelationships and functions, creating infinite possible combinatory logics in the evolution of the neighborhood. These logics negotiate the threshold between figure and field, accommodating programmatic indeterminacy with architectural specificity to thicken and intensify, producing an alternative "collective" urbanism.

Illegal Linkage: Transition Of Beijing Informal Economy, Wanjing Xiao

Architecture Senior Theses

"This project contends that the transitional urban fringes are places where the informal economy grows in the most spontaneous and efficient form. By investigating the transitional urban fringe, one can study its informal urban behavior at local and long-term effects, enabling the social awareness and political force to manifest in an informal linkage leading illegal economy towards legalization, while encouraging a new form of 'formal'"...

"This thesis proposes a statistic informality that is able to resist the clearance from urbanization. The new paradigm will be extracted form existing informality models acting as a field condition to bridge the formality and …

Intensity Without Density, Nicole Blasetti

Architecture Senior Theses

"Within the field of residual space, a reactive public infrastructure is the setting for intense public intervention."

Traversing The Urban Landscape: Connecting The Pedestrian Grid, Carly Augustine

Architecture Senior Theses

"I contend that the advent of the super highway, reliance on the automobile and large scale infrastructure has further disconnected the shrinking city of Baltimore, Maryland by creating borders, barriers and vacancies within the pedestrian grid directly affecting the vitality of cultural street life, cohesion of communities and future densification."

The Overgrown Grid: An Alternative Zoning Proposal For The Island Of Manhattan, Thomas Day

Architecture Senior Theses

"This thesis proposes to restructure the primary agenda of the collective monument from a homogenizing force at the local scale, to an object celebrating diversity and multiculturalism. By establishing a continuous mass connecting and collecting the city's currently isolated collective monuments, the new monument will be adjusted to regain formal and cultural contrast to the urban fabric."