Category: ARCH 502A: STORIES OF THE SECOND DECADE

By using ceramics as a framework to influence architectural spaces, this thesis explores the transformative potential of ceramics in architecture structurally and aesthetically. Between these two fields, coexist fundamental principles about their longevity, typology, and the transformative nature of their processes. The exploration of form, space, structure, and materiality are all relevant discussions between both mediums. Much like the arduous labor of transformative processes clay undergoes to become ceramic, architectural projects undergo varying degrees of transformative processes through the form of transferring ideas through sketches, to programs, and ultimately into the built environment.

This thesis seeks to expand the concept of Architectural and Spatial choreographies by drawing inspiration from the art of Dance. Through diagramming human movement across different environments and contexts, the project unveils formations, patterns, and anomalies that individuals use to personalize their surroundings. Central to this exploration is the notion of ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ – or ‘total work of art’ – which fuses multiple artistic elements into one cohesive space. By utilizing Industrial Design, unconventional furniture pieces emerge, initially appearing ‘lumpy’ or ‘sad’. However, this staging captures the essence of ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’, challenging conventional choreographies through the synthesis of material and form like a ‘Dance’.

My thesis supports the idea of adding bridges and walkways to the Los Angeles Downtown area for connectivity, accessibility, and facilitated pedestrian routes that assist the public in populating LA. Bridging and connecting buildings would be an innovative approach to urban renewal, demonstrating how disused infrastructure can be repurposed to create valuable and aesthetically pleasing public walkways and spaces that allow the public to experience lateral connections through LA city. With elevated walkways pedestrian accessibility would ensure individuals, including those with mobility challenges can easily reach and navigate through bridging pathways without the conflict of elevated streets and going through trafficked streets. The goal of designing alternate walking routes is to have pedestrian accessibility through existing billings, and transfer floors that create inclusive and enjoyable spaces for people to engage with their surroundings and the Los Angeles skyline. Incorporating this into the design process of projects would contribute to urban revitalization, providing, having availability to private secluded spaces and bringing people to Downtown Los Angeles.

Verseluft is the desire to experience a fantasy environment for a planned amount of time and from that desire came the creation of “portals” that would act as the doorway to fantastical places. In this project, these portals exist around campus opening up places of wonder for users to fully immerse themselves in and take a break from our everyday routines. During these whimsical breaks, you can travel to dimensions unknown to us or that are typically out of reach. Bringing mysterious environments to viewers and giving them an awe- inspiring moment in time, Gateway to Fantasy aims to defy the constraints of common architecture and enrich the architectural landscape by engaging with our imagination in a new way.

This thesis project endeavors to scrutinize a decade of American trauma through an architectural lens.It begins by investigating seemingly innocuous architectural elements and structures that harbor darker implications. Among these it includes commonplace facilities like restrooms and bedrooms, where traumatic occurrences have challenged conventional notions of their purpose, morality, and ethical boundaries. By exploring the design and codes of these spaces, which anticipate and sometimes amplify these dark undertones, the study seeks to shed light on the significance of mundane architectural features. Furthermore, the project delves into specific incidents, analyzing the spatial configurations involved to understand how events unfolded and uncover the underlying design principles shaping such spaces.

My thesis studies the urban potential of pixels in digital content, which are quite literally the building blocks of our media-consumption and thus our hyperrealities. The project utilizes cellular automata as 3D representations of these pixels, where each cellular block embodies an individual image or piece of content. These automata, by nature, exhibit emergent complexity, randomness, and mass expansion—mirroring the algorithms and graphics fundamental to the internet and how we absorb massive amounts of information. I see this infinite growth as a kind of maximalism that can encapsulate everything: all forms of media– from high art and serious topics to utilitarian, low-budget advertisements and memes. Through this maximalism, we can examine how digital excess could become a kind of repetitive urbanism, or simply a user interface.

Throughout the 20th century, new freeway construction divided the city of Los Angeles. Where neighborhoods were once together, concrete and asphalt scars separated communities. Some of these freeways are built on creeks or in valleys and as a result, they lay beneath ground level flanked by embankments on either side. My project proposes constructing new surfaces above these sections of freeway, connecting either side at grade, and capping the roads beneath. These new surfaces would create an artificial space for urban amenities, in neighborhoods where they would count the most, in a city otherwise too crowded for such public developments.

To study sensorial density in architecture is to understand ocularcentrism and its ranging impact on the five senses when designing space. The five-part project targets the sub-genres of sensory design, where accessible design, defensive design, universal design, and sensory overload become the main topics in discussing why designers should not see these categories of studies as ways that limit their creativity. Studying forms and interactions between ways of design, a reinterpretation of the House of the Future performs new levels of sensorial understanding within all people. Plans and elevations become interchangeable and enhanced for synergistic movements.

The counter-canon stems from both critical and canonical attitudes in architecture.

The counter-canon acknowledges that the field of architecture has developed its own theoretical frameworks and guiding principles to regulate itself, further distinguishing it from other forms of art.

The counter-canon speaks to this separation of architecture from other cultural narratives, creating a bridge between the two.

The counter-canon looks out to the worlds of theatre, fashion, television, film, and other forms of cultural narratives and applies critical attitudes from these fields to recontextualize how architects and designers think about architecture and its purpose.

And in doing so, the counter-canon may produce a new form of cultural meaning altogether.

This thesis is dedicated to the examination and appreciation of the culture and individuality intrinsic to the ethnic lineages of the Igbo people in Nigeria, with the aim of challenging the prevailing narrative of dehumanization that is ingrained within the delineated borders of the African continent. Historically, architecture has frequently been wielded as a tool of dehumanization, manipulated to serve political agendas. This project endeavors to repurpose architecture as a conduit for fostering connections and celebrating the diverse fabric of humanity and design. Rather than perpetuating divisive distinctions, it aspires to serve as a cultural testament to the richness of human experience, transcending the narrow confines of political categorization.