MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE C L A S S OF 2020 University of Cincinnati
College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning School of Architecture and Interior Design
Acknowledgements
SAID Director: Edward Mitchell M.Arch Program Coordinator: Vincent Sansalone Program Coordinator: Kimberly Lawson Thesis Chairs: Michael McInturf and Elizabeth Riorden Exhibit Coordinator and Design: Vincent Sansalone This publication accompanies the 2020 DAAPWorks Master of Architecture Digital Exhibition.
Catalogue Design by Kenna Gibson. Special thanks to Rachel Kallicharan. Sponsored by SAID Graduate Student Association
All images are cocpyright of the artists, reproduced with the premission of the artists. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any manner without permission of the University of Cincinnati School of Architecture and Interior Design.
Introduction
by Edward Mitchell Director, University of Cincinnati School of Architecture and Interior Design Every year is different. But this one has been more different from the rest. I have rarely encountered a class like this in almost thirty years of teaching. The diversity of backgrounds, interests, and achievements in this group is something many of us have never seen before. Several members of the group have won national awards for their work in the Urban Land Institute competition, they have been recognized for their professional achievements, they have proven to be self-motivated leaders to the younger students in our programs, and have, like many quiet stories that not all of will know, succeeded despite personal hardships, responsibilities to family, moments of self-doubt, and uncertain times. The broad scope of the topics they have wrestled with for over a year are evidence of their qualities and aspirations – applying the Green New Deal into a neighborhood in Cincinnati, addressing global warming and its impact on Guyana, the questions of meaning in a commercialized world that includes Pizza Hut colonies, settlements in Vietnam, and the rapid changes of the next New York. They have also asked how these large impactful changes to their world might construct re-imagined futures in the black communities of Atlanta and Washington, DC or the Indian immigrant communities of Chicago. Others have stayed close to home exploring ideas in health care and prison reform or returned to their home communities of Detroit or Akron or Cincinnati and proposed modest, thoughtful, interventions or broad sweeping changes. Sometime in March we all got a look at their work. Faculty never say many positive things before the work is complete. We never want to curb the hunger to succeed. But we quietly were whispering to one another that this class will make our School, with all its rich history,
very proud. Visitors to the program have noticed that there is something special about this class. And then the world changed. Three days later we were told that we had to close down the campus, send everyone home, and run the School remotely. COVID-19 had momentarily shut us down. Many of us have experienced personal loss during the last few weeks and unimaginable anxiety. But on that last Friday in the building, one of the students came into the office, looking bewildered. We all realized that we would not officially see each other face to face as a group again. No good byes, no celebrations, no Friday celebrations of a good, hard week of work at the neighborhood bar, no more of the comradery of a studio atmosphere buzzing with young talent. We took it as a positive sign that she really did not want to leave. As I write this I eagerly await seeing their last work in our broadcast reviews. I know that it will be strong, because I know what this group is capable of. If there ever was a collection of individuals who know how to succeed under any hardship, it is this class. They may not get the typical final accolades that has been the rituals of this two hundred year old institution, but they will not be forgotten. Whatever the future holds, for all of us, it is in the good hands of this group. Congratulations on all your achievements. You can count on our School to support you as you continue to reinvent our world with all your gifts and fortitude and talents
Table of Contents
Construction Processes Civic and Cultural Conditions Urban Regeneration Sustainable Practices Theory and Religion Post-Industrial Landscapes
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Lillian Acree Regrowing Madisonville: A Proposal To Create Positive Redevelopment Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch One of Cincinnati’s most unique features is the abundance of first-ring suburbs. Among them is Madisonville, a neighborhood from the early 19th century which has remained one of the city’s most densely populated areas for decades. Demographics and economic levels have fluctuated continually over time to create a uniquely diversified community. However, in recent years Madisonville has seen dramatic changes in its business centers brought in by years of economic pressure from neighboring towns. Transplants are making room for themselves through a disruptive pattern that is bulldozing the current community. While this change can be seen as a positive economic move, ultimately the loss of community this is causing will negatively impact the neighborhood. The limited financial means of Madisonville residents matched with the pressures of such economically imposing neighbors has made the full prevention of this disruption impossible. However, if the current residents were able to gain the means to rise with the tide of the area it is possible for them to help protect the culture of the area. Retrofitting the existing homes of Madisonville can create opportunities for residents to find savings and potentially profits in the face of a rising cost of living. The roots of change have already begun to segment Madisonville. Instead of working to reseal the cracks that have been made, this can be seen as an opportunity to provide means for the existing community of residents to rise up and enjoy the benefits of the new Madisonville.
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Haingo Andriamasilalao Pro-poor Tourism in Madagascar: Rural Development Through the Tourism Industry Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch How can the tourism industry of Madagascar bring an economic, cultural and architectural survival to the rural area of the country? Becoming one the most famous touristic countries in the world, the tourism industry of Madagascar has become a vital asset to the economy of the country. Tourism is one of Madagascar’s sources of growth along with agriculture, textile and mining. Unfortunately, because of the poverty and the on-going political crisis of the country, the tourism sector suffers which only impedes its potential to greatly develop and to be fully exploited. According to the World Bank however, the sector has displayed impressive resilience and the economy of the country is forecast to grow positively in the future. But even so, for a developing country like Madagascar, where the rural poverty of the country is widespread, it is not enough to assume that the benefits of economic growth will trickle down automatically to the poor. Tourism can contribute to development and the reduction of poverty in a number of ways. This thesis will focus especially on Pro-Poor Tourism (PPT) which is defined as tourism that generates net benefits for the poor. Benefits may be economic, but they may also be social, environmental and cultural. The strategies for this kind of tourism looks specifically on unlocking opportunities for the poor within tourism and making sure that tourists’ travel money is to stay and benefit the local people. The main problem is the non-relationship between the formal and the informal sectors. To assure “professionalism” the private/ formal sectors (hotels, lodges, restaurants, tour operators and transport providers) feel the need to shield tourists from the locals (the poor) therefore, the villagers are denied significant access to participate in the tourism market resulting in them hawking and touting as the tourists pass by them on the highways and many others touristic sites. How can this, then, be changed through architecture? 22
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Alan Bossman Poche of Domesticity Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Poche, the black part of an architectural plan divides the plan into two distinct zones, the black and the white. These zones represent the solids and the open space. The American singlefamily dwelling has become a building typology constructed to house a family along with their stuff. Their stuff takes up space and begins to bleed into the poche of the house. Buildings can be defined by their layers of site, structure, skin, services, space plan, and stuff, as conveyed by Stewart Brand in his book How Buildings Learn. These layers hold varying longevity and impact the adaptation of the building over time. These building components are layers of the poche, often appearing permanent but are flexible to varying degrees. The poche creates physical space that molds the household’s activities just as the household molds the space. The components of a building are assembled to create space, and space in the dwelling is defined as components of the house, each holding unique functions. These functions of domesticity are supported by a series of these layers, including stuff, space plan, and services. Assembling the house as a series of components allows full integration of building layers into modules of function. Through the lens of poche, a series of components of domesticity are defined. The composition of these components into modules of use, both public and private, create unique layouts throughout a neighborhood setting. Designing these modules as prefabricated units allows for unique adaptability by each household and the creation of a responsible housing typology for the future.
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Christopher Brown Redefining the Face of America Abroad: Architecture of Diplomacy Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch United States embassies are essential to managing the everyday diplomatic relations with countries around the world. These buildings which are located in foreign countries are representative of the United States and provide a presence abroad. Embassies are a base of communication or a point of contact between two countries that is used to preserve diplomatic relations between the host country and the country being represented. The United States’ collection of embassies has allowed the nation to develop strong relations with nearly every country. However, the emphasis of these buildings has been placed on efficiency and security in recent years. This design approach which put security first, promotes separation and isolation rather than uniting an embassy with its host country. “Redefining the Face of America Abroad” can be achieved through the design and architecture of United States Embassies. American embassies are more than just a building that provides services for foreign travelers and communication with host nations. It is a symbol of the country. It is the only physical representation of the United States located in nearly every country in the world. United States embassies are an opportunity to make a statement and represent the United States. Through architecture, these buildings can depict democracy and show that the United States is at the forefront of design. This opportunity has been forgone in recent years resulting in embassies that could be mistaken for your everyday office building if it wasn’t for the unsightly fence. By redesigning existing embassies to symbolize the ideals and values of the United States, we can establish an architecture that is better for diplomacy and strengthen the foreign relations of America.
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Bintou Coulibaly Fasso Town: A Place Where Immigrants Can Reinvent Themselves Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Member: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Racial injustice in America throughout history has created many culturally rich thriving neighborhoods, where people can feel safe and protected during their transitional immigration process. Chinatown, Little Italy, and Little Poland, what do these culturally rich communities all have in common? A new place where locals and tourists are transported through historic cultural sites, architecture, open-air markets, and some of the most sensational food. Merging the African American and African Immigrant cultures will create a Fasso Town, a re-envisioned modern-day Little Africa that will bring the thriving African communities out of the “Ghetto.” Many African Americans cannot connect back to their African roots due to America’s history of slavery. For many decades the world has tried to desegregate schools, cities, and neighborhoods. However, what does owning something that you can never afford mean? A lack of educational and economic growth. All these factors have only created a larger cycle of self-segregation. In some areas, so much so that it has led to gentrification. Instead of fixing a system that has been broken since African American history was born, this project will create a place that embraces this cultural history that has been hidden from society long ago. Imagine a place where people of African descent would be welcomed and encouraged to grow as a community together. This place will require the manipulation of an abandoned lot in the Washington, D.C. area, in a pre-existing historic African American town. I will revitalize these spaces by creating a new typology for the mixed culture of Blacks, African Americans, and African immigrants to share and build businesses representative of this new culture. Thus, redesigning a new dialogue of what it means to have a thriving African American and African immigrant community that will enrich these cultures that already exist. Fasso Town will be a neighborhood that locals, visitors, and its new citizens can embrace as one, a place where race is not one’s identity.
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Cheyenne Culp Contextualizing the Use of Palimpsest to Reconstruct an Ephemeral Past Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Every place has a history, but not every place has a future. What happens to a place once its time has run out is usually always a mystery and this mystery grows when the reason a place loses itself is sparked from tragedy. In certain cases, these places struggle to hold on to what once was, or an attempt to rebuild happens. But in other cases, these “lost� places are overgrown and forgotten, leaving the areas to disappear along with all the memories and stories of those that lived there. By creating a palimpsest landscape using the future terrain created by surface mining along with aspects of historical pieces of the borough of Centralia, the new overall landscape will be able to play homage to the town, while helping clean up the surrounding areas and waterways, and contributing to Pennsylvania’s growing tourism sectors. Rather than follow the requirements of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 which states the land must be restored to its original state, the Abandoned Mine Land (AML) program is used to better solve the current underlying and possible future issues that the mining causes. This program allows for more leeway to better utilize the land for activities that can reduce pollution or other environmental damage that would not otherwise be solved if the land was simply restored.
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Vincent Cusumano ReGen Detroit: Architectural Rejuvenation of the Motor City Through Mobility and Modularity Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch ReGen: Detroit will look to occupy a unique space between the balance of old and new in the Motor City. Vacant American post-industrial cities are an ideal design “tabula rasa” and architectural stage. The architect can project their own ideals to create a new city that is more efficient, vibrant and harmonious with its historical context. If correctly applied, architecture can work effectively with nature that has grown from urban decay. ReGen will encapsulate three aspects: Modularity - Detroit has mass produced, prospered and was diminished by the automobile, one of the most prolific and successful modular inventions known to man. By embracing the modular ingenuity that embodied Detroit during its prosperity the city can be made anew. Modern construction capabilities allow us to design modular spaces that can lower overall building costs and are less environmentally invasive making the possibilities for architectural intervention limitless. Detroit’s existing infrastructure, which originally supported a city for over 1.8 million people, can provide ample opportunity for modular units to be transported via car or truck anywhere in the city. Urban Agriculture - Similarly to many US cities within the last decade, Detroit has embraced different forms of urban agriculture with relative success. However, unlike many of its counterparts, Detroit has an enormous amount of vacant land due to the widespread destruction and abandonment. This land, that has been vacant since the late sixties, can still be utilized for the betterment of the people of the city.
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Iconic Pairing - Much of Detroit’s urban architectural history has been erased thanks to riots, subsequent urban destruction, and decay. Pairing new design with specific historically important urban areas can bring activity and life back to them. ReGen will focus on sites in close proximity to Michigan Central Terminal, Book Tower, and the Eastern Market. The goal of these sites is to both raise awareness for landmark architecture and create activity hubs. Over time the energy from these sites will generate life through the rest of the city.
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Kristen Dillenburger DEcarceration: Breaking the Cycle of Recidivism with Societal Prison Architecture Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Member: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Prison architecture is a direct reflection of how society views those individuals and conveys a very distinct tone toward their value. Typically hidden away from society with dark, heavy structure, the aesthetic of the architecture communicates to inmates an attitude of degradation and condescension. In actuality, prisons act as a cloak of invisibility of the inhumane conditions that lay within the barrier walls. If you remove that cloak to reveal the true conditions of our prisons and offer society complete transparency, a new wave of prison reform movements would be imminent. If society was educated on the negative effects of our current prison architecture, if they knew how truly detrimental it is, and how changes could not only improve our communities but save taxpayers millions of dollars, which could then be reinvested back into our communities, change would be imminent. Instead, we preach rehabilitation, but our primary concern, first and foremost, is punishment. That seems slightly hypocritical. Our prisons are built on a foundation of punishment. To assume rehabilitative programming - in an obsolete prison architecture, one built for punishment which is contrary to the goals of rehabilitation – is enough, suggests a severe disconnect between ideation and reality. If prison architecture embraces a multi-disciplinary and holistic approach, recognizing the mental and social issues emanated within prison walls, then it can help reconstruct the identity and personality of the inmates to better align with what is necessary to be a productive member of society. Instead of the architecture communicating ideas of degradation and condescension, it can communicate ideas of self-actualization and hope. The prison walls act to “protect” society from the “criminals”, but perhaps it’s the criminals who need protection.
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Tyler Duty Renewal in the Mountains: Revitalization of Neglected Surface Mines and Coal Communities Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch The natural beauty and the environment of the Appalachian Mountains have been decimated by contemporary methods of coal extraction known as surface mining or mountaintop removal. In order to preserve the natural environment moving forward, architectural integration must raise awareness surrounding the issue by revealing the surface mining process to the public. In order to accommodate architectural designs that accentuate the natural environment, biophilic design principles must be implemented. Biophilic designs transcend the conventional purpose of the urban built environment by connecting society to the natural world. Embedding environmental characteristics into each design will help mitigate ecological decay by reducing building footprints and limiting energy consumption demands. At the heart of the rich coal-filled Appalachian Mountains lies Madison, West Virginia. Madison is nestled at the basin of the Little Coal River valley, where coal was discovered in 1742. Over the years, the picturesque landscape and the rich history has been diminished by the socioeconomic disparity of the coal industry. Madison, like many other coal towns throughout Appalachia, will serve as the primary case study for this analysis. As the percentage continues to decrease, abandoned surface mines are becoming more prominent throughout southern West Virginia. Surface mines are the most common form of coal extraction; however, this controversial method has generated social, economic, political, and environmental problems. Due to the devastating environmental and economic impact of an abandoned surface mine, the Department of Environmental Protection provides incentives for future economic development. The Appalachian landscape surrounding the reclaimed surface mines promote architectural interventions that support eco-tourism, community engagement, coal heritage, and renewable energy production. Design components address an issue surrounding the mountaintop removal process while challenging the public’s perception of renewable energy alternatives. 36
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Josiah Ebert Intergenerational Architecture: Bridging the Age Gap Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch People of all ages inhabit architectural designs; sometimes these designs are geared toward their specific needs, but more often they are built for some predetermined average person. Although this has its benefits, it tends to encourage the already natural problem of age segregation within spaces because each space is designed for a specific age group, such as children in a preschool or elderly in a nursing home. While such spatial segregation is easily navigated by most adults who freely move between these spaces, the young and old who are less able to move between spaces and who have more distinct spatial requirements and barriers to entry can become isolated. Such isolation can lead to decline in health as well as slower development of social skills for children. At the same time, the most affected groups are also the ones that are currently growing the most, with the elderly and youth populations expanding at a high rate. While spaces of overlap have long been considered a way to bridge the gap socially, intergenerational advocates have recently recognized the growing need for attention to the physical setting of overlapped programs and spaces. It is here that the architectural study of this project is focused. By analyzing the research in how spaces are designed for specific age groups and then refolding this information back into the fabric of overlapping spatial design, a clearer picture of intergenerational space can begin to arise. Through the medium of a combined care facility for the elderly and preschool age children, a type that has arisen in recent years due to much social research, principles of navigation, light, sound, scale, and rules of engagement are mapped and brought to life in the architecture. In the end, redeveloping spaces of overlap through the viewpoints of differing generational user groups, barriers to intergenerational exchange can be mitigated and such exchange can begin to be supported rather than impeded by the spaces it occurs within.
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Caroline Errico DENSE-city: Intensification of Manhattan’s 14th Street Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Members: Michael McInturf, M.Arch; Vincent Sansalone New York City, like so many great metropolises across the world, faces a great dilemma: as the demand for living there increases, it becomes all but impossible to afford that dream. Storefronts in Manhattan sit vacant as the population has begun to abandon the city for smaller and more reasonably priced markets. Much of the quirky eclecticism that the city is known for is being priced out, moved to far reaching corners of the outer boroughs, and replaced with large franchises and multi-million dollar apartments for the 1%. Manhattan is becoming generic and overly homogenized. The city stands at the brink of losing its identity and needs to adapt to survive. Manhattan’s 14th Street is a major east west axis and transit oriented corridor. The five block stretch between 9th Avenue and Union Square West serves as the transition between the luxurious and affluent Meatpacking/Chelsea neighborhood and the slightly gritty but trendy East Village. In stark contrast to the tranquil tree lined residential cross streets directly north and south, the street frontage of 14th street is a riot of color, context and uses. Walking down the street, one could run the gamut of everything from pawn shops and bargain electronics to boutique eateries and specialized fitness gyms. Despite all of the options however, the nature of the space is very transitional: a place people move through rather than a destination. The street is a stage without a theater to observe it from. For over a century, visionaries have speculated about future models of Manhattan. Many of these proposals explore a dynamic urban landscape through hyper-density and revolutionary architecture. These models remain in the abstract because they are designed in a vacuum without context and cannot be later applied to a specific site. Using West 14th Street as a case study, this thesis aims to address potential densification of New York City through directly engaging with and redesigning one of its major street corridors.
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Kenna Gibson A Community of Memory: How a City’s Past Can Inform Its Future Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Members: Michael McInturf, M.Arch; Heather Bizon, M.Arch Memory represents who we are, our habits, our ideologies, and our hopes and fears, but it also gives an indication of who we will become. How do we move into the future and allow the weight of our past to not diminish, but grow? In 1970, no one could have, or would have, predicted the deterioration of Youngstown, Ohio less than ten years later. The downfall of postwar vibrancy built on steel and the backs of mill workers seemed improbable and impossible. The end of federally-funded rebuilding, and overall lack of federal policy, in 1974 coincided with the beginning of severe population loss and economic decline throughout the United States. These once dense, active cities quickly lost their life, relegated to mere shells of their former selves. Rust Belt cities are defined by extreme post-industrial population loss in a region strongly identified with production and industry. It is because of this industry, the lifeblood of the city and the support of its economy and working-class neighborhoods, that such an abrupt and startling loss was created in Youngstown. Rust Belt cities are a parallel universe where lives, economies, and industries shift but the city remains. Rust Belt cities are essentially unraveling. People connect to a place through their memory of it. Memory of the Rust Belt, the glory days and what has been, is very important for residents of these lost and often forgotten cities. The Rust Belt is a place of loss, despair, and ruin, but connecting with a city and its residents on a personal level is much more telling than simply looking at statistics. Hybridized building programs adapt to revitalize specific sites within the city of Youngstown, Ohio. This hybridization brings together unexpected urban conditions, users, social issues, and building functions. Divergent themes such as the planned and spontaneous, homogeneous and diverse, explicit and subversive, synthetic and organic, create architecture capable of combining unorthodox functions and processes. The final project culminates in the proposal of building typologies and adaptive infrastructure within the greater context of the post-industrial environment of the Rust Belt. 42
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Mitchell Hoelker Provoking the Sublime Through The Expression of Structure in Architecture Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch The sublime is a powerful and mysterious experience often seen in nature, and architects regularly attempt to capture this experience in their work. In Edmund Burke’s treatise, A Philosophical Enquiry Into The Origin Of Our Ideas Of The Sublime And Beautiful, he originates the sublime to natural experiences, and centers his arguments around nature. In Burke’s treatise specific terms with architectural connotations arise from these experiences such as Terror, Darkness, Unknown, Infinite, Scale, Texture, Material, Color, and Sound. For site consideration, the investigation focuses on a space that has existing qualities of the sublime, while allowing for improvement or additions to the site that can amplify the sublime experience. In Cincinnati, Ohio, Eggleston Ave. is home to a vast expanse of overpasses. The massive structural system supporting the network of overpasses appears endless. The conglomerate series of highways covering the site offered a great opportunity in the design to respond to this context through a programmatic element that would utilize the transportable nature of the site. With the increase in the desire for same-day shipping and an expedited shipping and packaging process, a fulfillment center paired nicely with the site. With the addition of a three million square foot distribution center just twenty minutes away from the site, a large sortation and receive center is required to preserve the same day shipping system currently operating in the area. The site is completely covered in massive concrete piers and distribution centers are immense structural skeletons housing smaller structural elements. The multiplicity and boundless nature of the structures analyzed, the site, and the expansive fulfillment center program compounded to form a sublime narrative fulfilled throughout the project.
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Jinhui Huang Revitalizing history in the new metropolis: balanced renewal strategy of Zhongshan Road in Qingdao, China. Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Member: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Qingdao (Tsingtao), a top five coastal city in China, is a new town four times as large as the old town with an incredible expansion speed in the past two decades due to the economic boom. But, Zhongshan Road historic commercial district, the original old center (downtown) of Qingdao, had gone through recession while the new town of this city achieved a magnificent success in urbanization progress. It currently suffers from a series of critical problems, such as labor outflow, low-income migrant worker inflow, and incongruent urban planning, due to the lopsided development policies implemented by the local government. Once known as the bustling Zhongshan Road market, Liyuan residences and German-style buildings hosting elder or low-income marginalized residents have been gradually forgotten by capitalists, the government, and the new immigrants. Undoubtedly, when Qingdao lost its identity, the area turned into the next “Generic City” in China. To avoid the tragedy of homogenizing the city and to celebrate the treasures of Qingdao, this thesis explores a new possibility of balanced renewal strategy for the Zhongshan Road neighborhood. It is not only a symbolic design tool to address the marginalized immigrants’ and older generations’ memories about Liyuan residences, Zhongshan Road Market, and German-style buildings in Old Town, but also an experimental apparatus to show the redevelopment possibilities of the Old Town bringing in tourists and citizens in other neighborhoods. Meanwhile, by analyzing the Old Town’s deficiencies and the New Town’s homogeneous commercial building forms, the new renewal strategy aims to revitalize the economy in order to satisfy the interest of main users and stakeholders of this area: residents, commuters, and tourists. Obviously, when capital comes back to Zhongshan Road, the neighborhood can restore its former glory instead of plunging into recession. This design focuses on how to balance opposite values: historic value and economic value within a unique urban context. 46
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Shreya Jasrapuria Immigrant City: Hospitality and the Displaced Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Member: Michael McInturf, M.Arch In this diasporic world as the city starts getting diverse each day, can architecture create a sense of belonging amongst the incoming immigrant as well as the already established resident? “Hospitality” comes from the Latin word; hospes, meaning “host”, “guest”, or “stranger”; it can also be defined as the relationship between the guest and the host. The growing number of international migrant population is often caught in this relationship. Immigrants leave their homes and countries to form new ones in sometimes an unfamiliar culture, which starts transforming their identity. The immigrants or guests are looking for connections with their past identities while trying to become a part of the new host culture and the host culture on the other hand, is constantly negotiating with its security and infiltration issues due to the new guest culture. This interaction comes with the problem of the delicate dialogue between the guest and the host where neither are wrong in their concerns of preserving their culture and gives rise to the question of the extent to which each should accommodate the other. Jacque Derrida explains through his theories on hospitality the relationship between conditional and unconditional hospitality and the restricted nature of national hospitality to legal and illegal immigrants. Architecture when combined with this theory can play an important role in influencing an immigrant’s experience of a new place while reconnecting them with their identities. The aim is to explore conditional and unconditional hospitality through architectural interventions in the planning of cities with a growing immigrant population to help maintain cultural continuity and humanize the present and future built environment. Chicago’s Devon Avenue being one of the biggest South Asian business districts in North America, holds a unique migrant identity, and expresses a necessity for a connection between the “home” and “host” identities. Interventions named The Immigrants (place) in the form of a network of business and recreation is used to create this bridge on this street which is otherwise losing its identity.
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Rachel Kallicharan Edgeless: A Typological Response to Water Management in Georgetown, Guyana Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Members: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch; George Thomas Bible, M.C.E. Infrastructure is the skeleton which gives a city shape, function and order. It includes structures, networks, services and facilities that support the growth of a city. Georgetown, Guyana is a coastal city that operates with the same infrastructure today that was established by the Dutch upon colonization in the early 17th century. With a coastal elevation below sea level, the city is at risk of suffering severe impacts of climate change. Although this network previously sufficed to protect the city, it is no longer an appropriate strategy in the battle against rising sea levels. This proposal re-choreographs the urban fabric of Georgetown through a series of inhabitable infrastructures. This network of interventions operates to promote a denser, ever-evolving and sociable Georgetown. With the introduction of a new typology of infrastructure, this proposal will redefine the way that the city responds to the effects of rising sea levels. In the pursuit of an intervention that sufficiently protects the city from inundation, strategies will include the exploration of several scenarios which aim to respond to one or more pressures. The most successful explorations included one driven by canals, another reintroducing mangroves a third which elevates the street-scape thus connecting the city via bridges. The design drivers deemed most critical to address include: flooding, culture, infrastructure, ecosystem and energy. The scenarios were pushed to their illogical conclusions in an attempt to exhaust their ability to resolve their respective pressures. The ultimate intervention is a purposeful combination of the three. It consists of infrastructural elements lined and fortified by urban spaces designed to embrace and absorb water as opposed to the existing that attempts to reject water. As evident in urban centers all around the world, the strategy of resisting the sea is a decreasingly substantial solution moving forward. Consequently, the new city is a collage of negotiated moments rather than hard edges.
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Grant Koniski The Unprogrammed Abstraction Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch The city of San Francisco’s unique mild climate, beautiful landscape and architecture, sociable reputation, as well as the rich 220 public parks create a park atmosphere like no other city in the United States. San Francisco’s parks are commonly populated year round, full of people exercising, playing games, gathering, drinking, reading, playing music and so on, these lively green spaces are one of the trademarks of the outgoing city. This need for a space to gather does not get filled in winter months when the wind and rain pick up and the sun sets early making the once friendly park seem dark and uninviting. This natural transformation into winter is one that decreases the quality of life for those who rely on the park and are living in tight rooms without any communal space to gather. The lively character of San Francisco parks and the utility they provide for the local population at all hours creates an architectural opportunity to intervene and provide the same quality of utility or better for the locals in the winter time. The proposed interventions use an iterative analyze, design, build methodology that can dissect and organize parks and plazas into a standard set of key spatial components, providing a repeatable process for the designing of abstract unprogrammed architectures. Nearly all successful public parks can be organized into 5 key fundamental spatial characteristics: frame, enclosure, path, field, and slope. Identifying these modes of defining space provides a repeatable methodology for the quantification of a park’s organizational systems. Quantifying the spatial aspects of a park yields thoughtfully situated architectural interventions that reinforce and respond to fundamental spatial characteristics of the park. These interventions promote passive recreation within San Francisco parks with the aim to create public living spaces for the population that lacks personal living spaces while expressing a colorful, modular, handcrafted aesthetic that is free from the overbearing influence of technology.
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Trang Le The Self-Adjusting City: From Saigon / Ho Chi Minh City To a New Vision for Urbanism Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Members: Michael McInturf, M.Arch; Edson Cabalfin, Ph.D. Hồ Chí Minh City, otherwise known as Sài-Gòn, like many thriving cities in the East, possesses an intriguing character of duality – an identity straddling opposing forces. The city is both a physical place and a collective consciousness, whose memories are simultaneously written and re-written over by convoluted acts of construction and destruction. This condition of duality is the core theme of exploration in this thesis, with the intent to reveal the underlying forces at play in a city’s nuanced process of self-adjusting. Perhaps one of the most controversial icons of Vietnam’s modern era, the Tân Sơn Nhất Airport holds many different memories and meanings to the people of Vietnam—repression and resistance, exploitation and subversion, or civility and dispossession. The airport has always been in tension, between the thrive for modernization and a global city, against the right to the city for its people. The news about the Tân Sơn Nhất Airport expansion and the scandal around the misuse of airport/government land started the interest for this thesis in finding out what exactly is built there, who is occupying that area day-to-day, and how they use the space. Around the airport the boundary between authority and free will may seem more apparent, yet it speaks to the condition of duality of the city. The self-adjusting architecture proposes the translation of the dynamically temporal nature of movements, actions and interactions of the everyday life into a physical construct that can adjust itself to meet any needs of its user-occupier, while capturing its own course of transformation and re-absorbing the produced form and socio-cultural implications to evolve. The result is a structure-network that performs in time and space on the physical site of the city, while oscillating the role of the person as the user, spectator, and actor of architecture.
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Jianna Jiyeon Lee Eco-Effective Regenerative High-rise Buildings in Benefit of Nature and the Growth of Resilience of a City Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch How can we make skyscrapers environmentally friendly? And what novels will eco architecture bring us in the future? The growing public concerns and awareness of environmental and social problems related to contemporary architecture and industry have led many architects, business leaders, and communities to adopt sustainable practices that remain in effect over the long term. Such strategies aim for ‘green design’, the notion of ‘eco-footprint’, in reducing resource consumption, energy use, pollution, and waste. As a discretion to a new approach to green architecture, an eco-effective regenerative building would not only restore and improve the environment by using renewable sources to generate energy but would also promote the health and well-being of occupants by adaptive design. On the one hand, plant materials such as trees, shrubs, and greenery in the design process spur the potential of architectural strategies that activate sustainable environments and can increase the ecological resilience of the community. Some might argue that the overtly green design is too bland and unadventurous. It can be equally critical to acknowledge that ‘green design’ is ‘green dressing’. However, the bottom line implies that architects who are willing to challenge the experiential paradigm often lead potential for a shift to genuine green opportunism. For the optimistic cause of architectural sustainability, this study focuses on environmentally progressive, eco-effective design solutions that support the high-rise building development of mixed-use density to provide necessary physical and technical support for sustainable architecture.
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Jessica Pfeiffer Datascapes: Envisioning a New Kind of Data Center Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Member: Michael McInturf, M.Arch With our daily routines becoming increasingly dependent on Internet access and data, society has entered a digitalized world. As we enter this digitalized world, our economy and society continue to shift towards increased digital information management. This digital information is stored in data centers which have become ever present – they are found in nearly every sector of the economy - and act as the backbone of the Internet which is vital for today’s digital services. As we continue to adopt digital technologies, the majority of us do not consider the physical ramifications data centers have on the environment. Data centers are energy hungry and collectively account for approximately 2% of the total electricity usage in the U.S. and are responsible for 2% of greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, most of these facilities still get their electricity from traditional “dirty” sources. The work data centers perform produces heat, and a lot of it, which creates an opportunity to recapture that energy and use it to power the local communities they inhabit. Through architectural intervention, the environmental impacts can be mitigated by transforming these high-energy consuming typologies into energyproducing resources through the process of recapturing waste-heat.
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As our country’s appetite for data continues to grow along with new digital technologies such as IoT, artificial intelligence, and streaming, physical proximity of end users to data centers and the speed of data retrieval will become more important. Digital technologies will find themselves within close proximity to people, which will require the need of a human interface. Designing that interface is designing a new kind of data center. Architectural intervention must raise awareness of the shortcomings and cultural significance of data centers to set a new standard for sustainable data centers. This new data center will incorporate new programs to create a hub of technology and community spaces that blend technology, recreation, and learning where mind and body can be activated. The program is meant to promote human interaction and health, regardless of race or economic status, and ultimately create links between people that would not otherwise connect.
Thesis Class of 2020
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Tess Ryan Oh my grid! The Break from Modular Necessity through the Use of Robotics Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch As robotic labor becomes more prevalent it is only a matter of time before it becomes a convention of architecture and construction. However, with the progression of robotic capabilities a disconnect in architectural design is forming. After years of questioning how ‘could’ architecture be relayed through scripted toolpaths and robotic printing, designers leading the crusade for this next advance in architecture technology seem to be ignoring the question how ‘should’ architecture be relayed through robotics. Many architects working on the development of robotic-built design have only considered the use of their strategies on theoretical environments and controlled installations. Few, if any, have considered the implications and design possibilities of introducing robotic construction to the practical environment. The distinct characteristics that come with the process of robotic printing are evolving into driving forces of design and leading to the development of new architecture. Many people only recognize the transition from manual construction to robotic construction for the ability robots have, to surpass human limitations in areas of precision and material handling, they forget to realize that there are also new limitations that come as well. These limitations vary depending on the type of machine used but often relate to issues of size and dexterity. When applied at larger scales these characteristics and the adaptations used to get around them start to have their own distinct effect on both the use and style of architecture.
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This thesis proposes a method of designing robotic printed architecture in a way that highlights the distinctive abilities of robotics as compared with human labor, while maintaining the goal of constructing a conditioned environment. With the design possibilities that accompany the revolution of robotic construction being seemingly limitless, certain factors of design must still play a significant role when it is introduced to the practical environment. Developing robotic architecture that makes the transition from sculptural to structural is a key step in bringing in the new age of architectural style that is coming with the automated revolution.
Thesis Class of 2020
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Mary Schartman Building Our Collective Future: A Green New Deal in Elmwood Place Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Member: Michael McInturf, M.Arch In the first quarter of the 21st century, neoliberal ideology structures all relations of production and consumption. Within this atmosphere “it is easier to imagine an end to the world than an end to capitalism.� The 2018 IPCC predictions of impending climate catastrophe make this statement darkly prescient as a future where struggle over access to resources becomes imminent. At the same time it opens a gap in the hegemony of capitalist realism: another world must be possible. The Green New Deal presents the beginnings of the necessary alternative vision for a program of systematic change to the existing order to reshape not only our energy and infrastructure systems, but the very economic system that brought us to this brink. The Green New Deal is a design idea. It is a request for proposals to make a generational investment to transform land use and the built environment at an unprecedented scale. It will involve not only the design of individual projects but the design of a process for the collective transformation of the entirety of what and how we design and build. Architecture is necessarily implicated in this. There is opportunity here to transform the very practice of architecture in the process: from a service profession responding primarily to private capital to a profession serving and responsible directly to the public interest both of today and the future. This thesis is an analysis of the implications of the Green New Deal on the practice of architecture. It is also a work of speculative fiction. Instead of climate crisis requiring a future of individual privation, we have the opportunity to collectively build a world of public luxury. The early industrial Cincinnati suburb of Elmwood Place serves as a site for exploring these interventions at a municipal level. Architecturally, what could this new world look like, how would it function, and how do we build it together?
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Nadja Stowasser Waking Up from the American Nightmare: Is the Dream Home the Ideal Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Member: Michael McInturf, M.Arch The suburb, with its large homes, quiet cul de-sacs and happy nuclear families has long been portrayed as an integral part of the American Dream; embodying the freedom and status that accompanies the ideal of middle class homeownership. Yet with the passing of time the rules and regulations that have shaped the suburb, and its homes, became more stringent and restrictive in an effort to create an ever more ideal living space. In doing so, these regulations have created not a pastoral utopia but vast expanses of sprawl that are accessible only by automobile, lack pedestrians and a vibrant street life, and fervently separates the location of daily activities a car ride apart. The individual home has suffered equally, becoming one house that is repeated with only minor alterations and valued more for its size and curb appeal than for its practical functionality. It is these shortcomings of suburban sprawl that will be evaluated using both the application of case studies and the driving principles behind New Urbanism, a movement started in the 1980’s to address the social and spatial characteristics of the suburbs, its subdivisions, and the suburban house. Considerations focus on what has led to the current ineffective and unsupportable suburban sprawl and the McMansion within it, and how the lessons learned from the New Urbanism projects and principles can be applied to existing sprawl to retrofit it into a better, more viable community.
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Jeremy Swafford Sensory Playgrounds: The Architecture of Nightclubs Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Member: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Architecture is rooted in creating spaces that evoke different sensorial feelings. This is explored to its fullest in the architecture of nightlife and nightclubs. These spaces are playgrounds for experimentation for architects and designers and provide escapes from time and typological pressures. Architecture of nightclubs is driven by the feeling the space can evoke. It is the only architecture in which the occupant is immersed into a hedonistic world where the norms and practices of everyday life are skewed and stretched to new highs and lows. It is an architecture that is amorphic, being able to fill any void or space it is giving and yet still be described as a nightclub. The club is a center for cultural expression and creation, a place of exploration and discovery for both the architecture and the occupant. The focus of this thesis is to dive in and dissect the many facets that compose the nightclub and the narrative of the “night out.� Through this research, the goal is to define the common sensorial and cultural aspects of the nightclub and club lifestyle. This work will be applied to crafting a nightclub architecture that will fill the existing void that is the incomplete Cincinnati subway network.
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Taylour Upton The Un-site: by Black Women, for Black Women Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Member: Michael McInturf, M.Arch; Rebecca B. Williamson, Ph.D Black feminism and black female identity have reached some level of success in social progression since the 1970s, but in contemporary artistic and business expression, they have barely scratched the surface. What does an ideal urban space for women of color look like and comprise of? A critical analysis of the societal influences on black women is required to understand the multi-faceted influences that undermine these women as professionals and contributors equally as capable as their white and male counterparts. These observations are also pertinent to formulate an environment that encourages their flourishment and substantive identity in the urban context. To achieve a space where black women of any identity can succeed and attain their career goals, spatial scale and symbolism must be considered. An in-depth look into the lives of such women as matriarchs in the small, domestic space to professionals in the much larger urban environment is essential. Black feminists who paved the way for women of color in a white, patriarchal, western society must also be considered. As a long-established system conducted by patriarchy remains dominant, a prevalent network which supports the endeavors of black female identity also needs to be present. Additionally, utopian overtones and methods utilized in spatial and urban design can provide an abstracted way of looking at this architectural and cultural identity for aspiring black women in the dystopic society that exists.
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In a progressive, “melting pot” metropolis such as Atlanta, Georgia, the cultural, political, and social prosperity of African Americans has taken place for a couple of decades. As a city that hosts top-tiered historically black colleges, it has ample potential for continued and enhanced educational and professional advancement of black women. This city can ultimately serve as a space consisting of multiple spaces—a network grounded via iconographic establishment— where women of color can envision and execute their spatial model to progress their social and economic pursuits. In exposing this phenomenon, an idealized vision of an egalitarian playing field in professional and artistic expressions and in overall society for all can become more of a reality.
Thesis Class of 2020
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Grant Wagner Man With a Chain Saw: Post-Truth Architecture Thesis Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch Committee Member: Michael McInturf, M.Arch “Fake” is a loaded term in today’s post-truth world. Through the lens of cult-like veneration of fast-food architectures, an unhinging is staged by collision of inexact copies; questions of authenticity inherent in architecture’s own micro-culture can themselves be questioned. The toll of in-authenticity has rarely rung as loudly through the character-limited halls of public discourse as it does today. Controversy around “Fake News” guides our current political moment, and the impact of social media on our collective grip on reality is difficult to doubt. We, the voluntary prisoners of these situations, forgo re-establishing authenticity as we collectively craft new realities from discreet narratives within new sets of contexts. Within these alternate realities, typical questions of authenticity are subverted and new possibilities are allowed to take over. As with most things, this will eventually be heard in architecture. What new realities can architecture be a part of if its own conventions concerning authenticity are drawn into question? Digging for meaning, the architect will play the role of cultural archaeologian. Following excavation comes exhibition, during which a narrative is constructed about a constructed reality; artifacts of “fake” architecture are re-staged to unhinge a mise en scène of cult objects. Architecture is the stage set for post-truth society, and is made aware of it under the auspices of cultural milieu.
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Tian Yang Kevin Xu Building Ecotheology: Nature Veneration in Architecture and its Contributions to Environmental Stewardship Thesis Chair: Michael McInturf, M.Arch Committee Member: Elizabeth Riorden, M.Arch As the world ventures onwards dismayed by anthropogenic climate change, the built environment is increasingly complicit in the subjugation and substitution of nature much to the dismay of those who revere nature for its sacredness. Architecture’s ability to mediate this issue will be tested and new opportunities to reinforce ecological conscience must be explored. In the perpetual pursuit for sustainable design solutions it is propitious that architecture would be an instrument to encourage both technological and behavioural environmentalism in faith adherent communities in concert with nature veneration. Much of the world’s diverse populations still deeply adhere to religious creeds that venerate nature which has influenced architectural design and religious materialism throughout history offering a unique perspective on building among sacred nature. Over time, religious attitudes of preservation have been besieged by industrial and artificial realities and institutions of stewardship are undermined by socio-political agendas and intrareligious discord. The employment of ecological values in religious architecture may be the catalyst for energizing these faith communities and in the benefit of the wider environmental stewardship. In recognition and incorporation of ecotheology alongside our architectural initiatives lies the potential for a new basis of design that circumvents modern capitalist anxieties and strives to re-establish the connection between nature veneration and our built environment. Investigations into three different conditions of conflict that encompasses different triangular relationships of architecture, religion, and sociopolitical systems are undertaken to illustrate proposals and difficulties that challenge how religious architecture exists in their changing communities. The appreciation of their potential will provide the basis of a discussion to address the growing environmental movement within different religious communities and their involvement with their built environment in the face of anthropogenic climate change; how architecture can be employed to reinforce or manipulate attitudes of environmentalism and promote environmental literacy; and how aspects of nature veneration can be exported through architecture to the larger society to establish ecotheology’s legitimacy and create a unified alliance against anthropogenic climate change. 72
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University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning School of Architecture and Interior Design