Category: ARCH 793AB: Practice Make Performance

Air quality poses a fundamental challenge in nearly all urban contexts. Especially within high-density residential communities, utilizing the built environment (i.e., buildings) to improve air quality and enhance quality of life becomes crucial.
The thesis project proposes a design solution to reduce smog impact in Shenzhen’s urban village. Origami techniques are applied to maximize surface area to capture and neutralize pollutants; Titanium Dioxide coating filters are applied to the folded surfaces.

This approach addresses unique challenges in the urban village while enhancing aesthetics and functionality. By implementing the air filtering forms on the rooftop, added programs alleviate high-density living issues. By focusing on Shenzhen’s urban village, the project highlights urban disparities and offers a scalable solution for similar communities globally.

Human civilization has long found sanctuary in Mother Earth’s embrace. Now, technology enables us to transcend Earth’s limits and explore uncharted territories. Space agencies are preparing missions to Mars, focusing on humanity’s future on the Red Planet. Despite technological advancements confirming interplanetary travel’s feasibility, many designs overlook the emotional and social needs crucial for society. Designing public networks on Mars to address these human experiences is vital.

The project selects Hera Planitia on Mars for its geography to establish a safe habitat. Design considerations include creating adaptable spaces of various sizes to meet Mars’ harsh conditions, ensuring comfort and well-being. The goal is to explore how physical conditions can enhance human relationships within habitats, fostering growth in challenging environments. Plans include constructing circular buildings and accessible link structures, utilizing local resources. Future investments in advanced equipment will enable larger, sustainable structures, expanding society’s scale and exploration possibilities.

As the economic conditions of cities have chosen to favor capital interests over egalitarian needs, low-income communities have been displaced for the benefit of stakeholders. Hyper-development of trendy business models and unaffordable housing have forced residents to give up their agency, resulting in them being stripped from their habitats. How can design reclaim the lost lands in a gentrified urban context?

Sunset Junction in the city of Los Angeles provides an opportunity to explore how design can be used as a form of resistance against inequity in affordable housing.
By taking advantage of the low density of LA relative to other cities, this thesis proposes to eliminate five lanes of traffic and occupy that territory with housing, local businesses, and promenades. Selected unoccupied lots will be filled with lightweight parts that can be freely moved around to meet individual and communal needs. The proposal therefore serves as a prototype to be deployed in neighborhoods with similar infrastructures and patterns of displacement.

The 20th Century oil-fueled global economy enabled faith in infinite growth. Climate disasters, conflict, and increased extraction costs pose an existential threat to the carbon-based way of life. Contemporary visions of dystopia imagine the end of this carbon age is the end of progress itself. The inevitable sunset of the carbon age will overturn human relationships with space and speed. I believe the physical remnants of the carbon age can be repurposed to serve the changing needs of future civilizations.

I am designing a system to deconstruct obsolete transportation architecture into mass-customizable architectural components. Although I can only speculate on future programs and forms, the post-carbon era will undoubtedly be defined by a surplus of defunct machines. I believe future architects will quarry these boneyards to create intentional, even beautiful, structures for human habitation.

Carl Elefante says, “The greenest building is one that is already built.” (1) Modern buildings are designed to last 30-60 years – what if we renewed and built to last a minimum of 250 years? This thesis champions terra cotta for its low-carbon properties, compressive strength, ease of maintenance, and aesthetic possibilities. Some of the oldest artifacts that tell our evolutionary story are ceramic vessels dating back to 10,000 BCE.

Architectural terra cotta manufacturing has almost disappeared in the US. By designing a terra cotta innovation and production facility, and retrofitting a 1928 industrial building, the project introduces terra cotta as a viable architectural and structural building material for low-rise construction and adaptation. Optimization strategies and new technology make it a compelling alternative to concrete and metal.

Within the field of architecture, the design process is predominantly driven by the sense of sight, a dominant force in shaping our perception and appreciation of architecture. In our visually-focused environment, there is a critical need to heighten the importance of our sense of smell, as it evokes memories and emotion, therefore elevating users’ overall experiences.

Promoting awareness of our olfactory sense is essential due to the intricate connection between olfaction and neuroscience, which plays a pivotal role in shaping our interpretations, recollections, and emotional reactions. An olfactory museum is an effective approach to this education. It offers a curated environment where visitors can explore and appreciate a wide range of scents. This immersive experience not only enhances their comprehension of the olfactory sense but also deepens their insight into its influence on perception and well-being.

In a world with incessant natural and factitious disasters, how equipped is mankind to intercept unpredictable catastrophes? Of these, repeated flooding has become more frequent and severe in recent years leading to mass destruction and high fatality rates. Adaptable structures with responsive technologies and iterative design strategies, cater to environmental needs and human comfort. Vulnerable places like Cianjur, Indonesia, underscore the urgency for resilient urban design for flooding. The thesis designs a system that can be deployed in the town of Cianjur to minimize damage from floods. It aims to introduce resilient and customizable structures with ingenuity and precision. It focuses on structures accommodating disaster-hit victims, in the most efficient and optimizable forms possible.

This thesis employs architecture as a tool to foster cultural exchange and historical resonance through storytelling. It reimagines the bathhouse as a transformative medium for communication, cultivating empathy and connection within communities. The architecture creates a dynamic storytelling space that conveys narratives and emotions of individuals affected by war trauma from the Russian conflict in Ukraine.
Visitors navigate a carefully crafted spatial journey transitioning between baths to immerse themselves in others’ narratives, fostering deeper connection and empathy. Rooted in the humanizing nature of bathhouses, this typology encourages therapeutic interaction, providing a setting for individuals affected by conflict to process experiences and share stories. This perspective transcends architecture’s role as a mere backdrop and sees it an active participant in shaping a more communicative and empathetic world.

Amidst the expansive desert terrain, where horizons extend endlessly, lies an urban challenge: how does urbanism start in this Flat where there is no distinction between what is within and beyond the boundary? This exploration delves into intricacies beyond urbanism’s conventions. It begins by questioning flatness’ ontological essence, perceiving it not merely as a spatial attribute, but as an abstract concept. It probes the interplay of form and materiality, interrogating whether flatness is a formative attribute or is a quality nestled within the materiality of spatial creation.

Navigating the ontological depths of flatness in the Arabian Desert, the study confronts cities adhering to rigid gridiron models, limiting response to the unique changeable morphology of its context. This formal exploration develops an urban strategy from the distinctive qualities of the Dahana Desert, Saudi Arabia, and it evolves around socio-spatial aspects forming earlier vernacular urban conditions. It encompasses material constraints such as form and substance, and intangible social dimensions, blurring boundaries between existing and emerging elements within this Flat realm.