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ARCH 793AB: Cultural Assembly

Instructor: Andy Ku

Retrofitting Urban Play

The unregulated rise of privatized open space in urban high-rises has deepened economic inequality, pushing communities away from opportunities. This exclusionary model calls for urban renewal through a new framework, one that fosters a balance of cultural identity with advanced infrastructure. My thesis addresses this problem by exploring how modern stadiums provide more than just […]

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ARCH 793AB: Cultural Assembly

Instructor: Andy Ku

Sports Mixed-use

“Sports Mixed-use” focuses on providing physical health and active social space that adapts and improves the current LA Lifestyle. The LA city planning caused the car-dependent commute mode. People sit for hours in their cars to travel between each bubble. Having the space for home and work fixed, people need the third spaces and physical […]

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ARCH 793AB: Cultural Assembly

Instructor: Andy Ku

Reflected Curve

In the effect of climate change across the world, each city near the coast has to account for sea level rise, and how humans will evolve around it. The proposal is looking to create dynamic, multi-functional hubs that have sports facilities, retails, housing, and that could be raised as the water rises. The flexibility of […]

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ARCH 793AB: Cultural Assembly

Instructor: Andy Ku

Sport & Cultural Densities: Using Sport for Intruding Formations to create a Cultural Unifier

Sports have become a manifestation of values and traditions in modern American culture. Looking at the relationship between sports and culture, this thesis explores how this relationship realizes itself in the different cultural densities of urban, campus, suburban and rural. Understanding sports as both formal and informal spatial assembly, the relationship between Architecture and culture […]

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ARCH 793AB: Cultural Assembly

Instructor: Andy Ku

Extending Gay Asian American Culture in West Hollywood

While John Chase’s design contributions have helped establish West Hollywood as a haven for queer identity through its inclusive, flexible mixed-use outdoor spaces, the built environment still lacks meaningful representation of people of color. By incorporating Yona Friedman’s principles of flexible, adaptable structures and José Muñoz’s vision of queer futurism, a tensile canopy inspired by […]

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ARCH 793AB: Cultural Assembly

Instructor: Andy Ku

Choreographed Spaces: Capturing the Ephemeral

Both dance and architecture serve as spatial arts that shape and define human movement, with dance embodying fluid, ephemeral structures in motion and architecture providing the physical framework within which movement occurs. This thesis explores the symbiotic relationship between the two disciplines, examining how architectural design influences choreography and how dance, in turn, informs spatial […]

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ARCH 793AB: Cultural Assembly

Instructor: Andy Ku

The Cracked Egg

Contemporary sports arenas in Asian cities remain introverted, bounded by orthodoxal stereotypes and limited in function beyond primary purpose. Much like an unhatched egg, domes have the tendency to distinguish clear boundaries, mirroring cultural tendencies to wander within familiar comfort zones. Much like an unhatched egg, domes delineate rigid boundaries—symbols of containment that reflect a […]

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ARCH 793AB: A Model for Later

Instructor: Ryan Tyler Martinez

A Model for Later

In this section, we discussed “A Model for Later” as a framework for the thesis. We evaluated this through four topics: Problem (What), Context (Where), Technique (How), and Theory (Why). These topics were used to create an architectural thesis proposal. The aim was to create a body of work that operated in parallel with traditional […]

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ARCH 793AB: Cultural Assembly

Instructor: Andy Ku

Aesthetics of Exclusion: Tennis, Minimalism, & Gentrification as Systems of Illusive Accessibility

What makes an environment socially inaccessible? Rooted in affluence, tennis perpetuates environments of exclusivity through its refined aesthetics and longstanding association with the social elite; minimalism operates behind a veil of universality that conceals to create illusions of simplicity; gentrification leverages minimalist design principles to manipulate the social contours of marginalized neighborhoods through sleek developments. […]

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ARCH 793AB: Hallucinations and the Fabrication Gap

Instructor: Lisa Little

Hallucinations and the Fabrication Gap

Prominent theorists and critics within the discipline contend that architecture is once again approaching a paradigmatic shift, catalyzed by the rapid proliferation of artificial intelligence tools. Yet, a critical disjunction remains between the generative potential of computational design and the material realities of fabrication. This section of the thesis investigates and develops novel design methodologies […]