Art and Design Commons^™

Design For Conspicuous Transit, Peter Bain

Theses and Dissertations

My creative project explores design for transit advocacy; aimed at shifting a car-dependent society into one where transit helps meet climate change, energy, and land-use challenges. It incorporates my research into aspects of designing for transit, an understanding of urbanism in Richmond and New York, and an appreciation of planning.

Building Blocks Retreat Center, Kelly Warner

Theses and Dissertations

In a perfect world, teamwork just exists. People function harmoniously with each other & their environment. Although we do not live in a perfect world, people and environments can always change and adapt to better their relationships. The Pumphouse was abandoned 41 years after the project was completed because it no longer met the needs and performed the functions that it needed to perform. It no longer serves the same purpose that it once did. And while acknowledging its past, it must also address its new functions and become a piece of beautiful, usable architecture once more. This space will …

Nourish, Sara Streeter

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the design of a food service space in an historic building in Richmond, Virginia near the campus of Virginia Commonwealth University. It is a result of retrofitting an awkward 1850s building by transforming it through the modern concept of a fast casual style restaurant, based in whole ingredients. The thesis is about the process of designing to rebalance the relationship between food and consumer in a modern era.

Blood & Thunder Classics, Vol. 2, Brian Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

A MAGAZINE – A game of Chutes and Ladders – a network of pools connected by streams, rivulets, creeks and rivers. Concerns: aluminum, sculpture, film, an endless image or an image-object, cork, shoulders as the center of movement, archery, wicker, nystagmus, darkness or the penumbral near-darkness, constant movement, beer, tone, musical forms, bells, gongs, The Titanic, purple, black and white, indeterminacy, Ghostface, yodeling, John Smith, John Adams, David Hammons, Beyoncé, Honda CR-V’s, Har-khebi, Ahnighito, Hermann Doomer, Prince, Yvonne Rainer, perception, double rainbows, composers from Transylvania, Los Angeles, and chandeliers. “Everything is everything.” and “A woman is the first teacher.”

Connectivity, Jennifer Farris

Theses and Dissertations

Create a place for learning Develop an interior system that addresses the under utilized spaces in existing higher education schools directed towards distance learning Design a place for one and a place for few, within a place for many Traditional classroom/school environments were developed around a specific program that addresses the needs of a teacher-class environment. Distance learning programs are introducing a new approach to higher education and require a new approach to learning environments. The goal of this project is to understand the development of the traditional classroom environment in order to assess the changes that need to be …

Paper Tricks, Edward Gardner

Theses and Dissertations

Prefabricated post disaster housing

Culture And A Connection, Chris Arias

Theses and Dissertations

Culture and a Connection In the Spanish province of Asturias, many homes built in the16th and 17th centuries are constructed of dry-stacked stone and large timbers for floor joists, rafters, decking. They are topped with large, irregularly shaped roof slates. Alongside many of these homes stands a rectangular granary called a cabazo. The cabazo, similarly constructed, is a stand-alone structure about twenty feet tall, six feet wide and twenty feet long. The main portion, (the storage area), stands ten feet off the ground atop two large, tapered columns. The upper level is typically separated form the lower level by a …

An Adaptive Reuse Design For Faculty Living., Valentina Moore

Theses and Dissertations

Adaptive reuse of historic buildings is often a good way to make use of empty unutilized spaces that are architecturally valuable to function as desirable and pleasing environments. The inherited architectural features, large amounts of craftsmanship in the details that usually accompany these older spaces are the appealing traits, which make them exclusive. The design idea of faculty housing in an early twenty’s century Baptist church currently used as the Virginia Commonwealth University Music Center represent an alternative option to it’s existing use. The faculty housing idea in this thesis, as a second adaptive reuse option does not try to …

Like Alike, Jill Zevenbergen

Theses and Dissertations

Like Alike explores notions of pleasure and beauty through an examination of mundane activity. Pleasure is simple, uncomplicated niceness. Pleasure is forgettable and related to the norm. Beauty is complicated and hardly predicted. Finding beauty in the banal provides an escape from mundane life. The banal, then becomes unforgettable. The nondescript, everyday experience becomes important and gains meaning. Like Alike's electronic format is adapted from the original format of an artist book.

Username Tab Password Return, Andrea Nia Burks

Theses and Dissertations

USERNAME TAB PASSWORD RETURN

Social Networking Site, User Generated Content, Screen Identity, Gender, Sexuality, YouTube, Booty Video, Reaction Video, Digital Culture, Archive

Kingdom Compossible, Ryan Lauterio

Theses and Dissertations

Does God exist? Can we know for sure? What might it mean to know this? Furthermore what might it look like to make works of art while also seeking to find answers to these questions? This thesis details my personal experiences growing up in a world steeped in postmodernism and my move to answer such questions while looking to develop a meaningful, clear worldview and body of work. I have turned my focus on specific episodes in my life, which significantly illuminate a progression of thinking and experience. Together these thoughts and experiences have become the impetus for both questions …

The Bird, Katherine Ann Kisicki

Theses and Dissertations

I have always approached my paintings with confidence. Mark making has always been my strength, particularly in drawing, and I feel this comes through in my gestural use of the paint. I also believe I approach paintings in a trial and error manner, where experimentation has precedence over concept. To remain in the moment and focused on what I am doing at that moment is a fundamental base of both my process and, interestingly what the resulting image translates to the viewer. To know this, and to remain suspended in this moment requires a foundation of trust within my capabilities …

Spontaneous Knotting Of Agitated Strings, Anthony Klotz

Theses and Dissertations

The nature of perception and discernment through an examination of hypotheses and theories considered peculiar in their time but which had at least some popular, scientific or social support.

Media To Medium: Representations Of Violence, War & Women In Pop Culture, Althea Georgelas

Theses and Dissertations

My work is inspired by the mass Media and how it affects the world around me. I am interested in how violence, war and women are represented in popular culture and how this has trickled down into social behavior. I also wonder how much entertainment media reflects deep social ideals. I define mass media as the viral proliferation of ideas using television, cinema, video gaming and the Internet. I am concerned about the social and psychological affects of violent media and how it impacts the lives of women and girls. This is of particular interest to me because I am …

The Beekeepers, Richard Robinson

Theses and Dissertations

The Beekeepers complements a film/digital video of the same name. It documents my process in creating alternative films/digital videos while pursuing my MFA at Virginia Commonwealth University. It starts with my first film/digital video, “Redemption,” and traces my progression over two years culminating with the 25 minute experimental documentary, “The Beekeepers

Find Meaning Make Meaning, Karen Stein

Theses and Dissertations

Employing the designer William Morris as a source of inspiration, this project seeks to explore the call for nature and beauty as a part of our lives. Moreover, it interweaves the necessity for experience of the sensual world (the five senses) with the cerebral world (a requisite to igniting the internal imagination)—a concept embodied in the form of the book. It advocates a redefining of the book as an imagination sculpture (the external and the internal) reflecting this new definition.

A Space For Absence, Timothy Dalton

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis focuses on the evolution of my work created during my two years of study at Virginia Commonwealth University. Although I touch upon my influences what I am writing is a reflection after the fact that does not necessarily encompass my original intent or inspirations for these works. I find my inspiration from personal discoveries within my daily life. Light flickering through the rails of a fence as I walk by makes me more aware of my body's movement in space. Watching the steady condensation of water droplets forming on a fountain creates a moment of pause within the …

The Open Road, Bryan Condra

Theses and Dissertations

In our journeys on the open road, we travel through a landscape of visual imagery composed of patterns, rhythms and a spectrum of changing colors. Our previous experiences, mental and physical attitudes and expectations, shape our perceptions. By visually interpreting and presenting my experiences of the journey on the open road I hoped to tell a story of how the open road energizes the creative spirit. My goal was to explore how the landscape is altered by motion and speed as we pass through it, and how the journey can be experienced in various ways. I wanted to investigate and …

Self-Reference Through White Space In Graphic Design, Can Birand

Theses and Dissertations

In the graphic design, successful use of white space provides the designed object with a strong reference to its material quality and internal structure. Showing the paper breaks the wall between the design and the viewer, and gives the audience a better understanding of the construction of graphic design. White space is devoid representation, which leads the work to become completely honest about its materiality. This project explores different methods and processes for creating aesthetic/conceptual integrity in graphic design by using white space as a primary device.

After August: Museums As Mirrors, William Pinholster

Theses and Dissertations

The After August Museum collects and exhibits an open, user-generated body of content. Its primary objective is to help heal the post-Katrina Lower Ninth Ward community. It is respectful and considerate of the area's established traditions, present concerns, and future goals. The museum assumes multiple shapes and plays multiple roles as it acts as the center of the transitioning community.

Making Time, Christine Coffey

Theses and Dissertations

We are living in an age where the quantity of information has exceeded its quality. No doubt the digital and information revolutions have provided the world with countless positive improvements, but they have also increased the speed at which we live and work to the detriment of the heath of our world. This project explores ways in which designers can aid in an effort to slow down in order to reinvigorate a more sustainable graphic design product.

Typography As Performance: Bringing The Stage Into The Design Process, Ann Ford

Theses and Dissertations

Graphic design is historically a visual language consisting of text and image composed for the purposes of sending messages in print format. The voice of graphic design is typography—structuring and arranging letter forms into visual language. Over the past two decades, new communication formats such as motion and interaction have frequently been related to performance. My intention, however, is to explore how performance can influence typography in two and three dimensions, and even in digital environments.

Fundamentals In Nature, Andrea Quam

Theses and Dissertations

This project explores innovative methodologies for design education. It is an investigation of teaching design fundamentals in an outdoor classroom.

Mods: Collaboration And Play In Design, Margaret O'Saben

Theses and Dissertations

Located in Richmond, Virginia, MO Design is a small design/build company founded by Molly O’Saben. Ms. O’Saben received her bachelor’s degree in Craft & Material Studies and her master’s in Interior Environments from Virginia Commonwealth University. MO Design was founded in 2010 with a team of fellow alumni from VCU.

We make objects that inspire inventiveness. Our reconfigurable components offer our clients the unique ability to adapt their environments to life’s ever-changing needs.

We make MODs: Make your Own Designs.

Our products are for people who appreciate efficient spaces, are open to exploring possibilities, and like to play. Just as …

What Is A Partition?, Lee Dijoseph

Theses and Dissertations

Buildings from the nineteenth century are rich with history and tradition in their materials,design and construction. Over the past few years in Richmond, many of the formerly vacant buildings have been converted into residential “lofts”. These spaces have the potential to teach and serve us in a way we could never duplicate today. The space we live in has the power to determine how well we function. I believe this is one of the keys to happiness. I like to think of these buildings holistically in terms of past, present, and future . I will supplement the space with partitions …

Corporate Housing And Training, Cojo Gerardo Del

Theses and Dissertations

Corporate Housing & Training is a hybrid project that promotes the future use of living-and-working environments in the same site offering the amenities of a hotel, apartment and an office in one. The challenge of approaching this type of project is the way the program works and how it flows together with different users and different needs without even getting out of the building at the same time. This project helps the actual local and global needs because it would be a big impact for the traveling executives and companies by promoting business, exchange of ideas, and socializing; due to …

Healing, Learning And Play, Kangana Bhatnagar

Theses and Dissertations

Research suggests that the first five years of life are critical for building the foundation for children’s success throughout their schooling and life. Throughout these first years of life there are a number of essential windows of opportunity during which certain kinds of stimuli are needed to help the brain develop and maintain critical connections necessary for learning. This project is a unification of a Child Development Center and a therapeutic center. This center includes children who suffer from bereavement; a broken home, death of a parent or child abuse. These children are provided with therapy by a specialist, and …

On Zeitgeist, James Sham

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an exploration into the possibilities and repercussions of articulating zeitgeist, that is, the spirit of our current age. The parameters and ramifications of such a project are, in this writing, analyzed in reference to the notion of historicity, and the narrative gaze that it perpetuates. The mechanism of canonization, and a discourse's capacity to be viral are examined.

Argent Sound Recordings: Multimodal Storytelling, Matthew L. Klimas

Theses and Dissertations

ARGENT SOUND RECORDINGS explores the integration of visual, written and sonic elements to tell a story. "The Silver Bell," a fairy tale, is delivered through the internet – providing users an opportunity to experience and interpret a constructed narrative under the guise of an independent record label website.

Lucky Strike Branch Library, Vanessa Yvonne Vinsant

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis project is an examination of how design can reinvigorate interest in reading through the creation of a branch library. The primary focus of this study is to generate a space that successfully binds intellectual interests, social and economic groups to re-establish community.