Browsing by Subject "Architecture"
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Item Achieving normalcy: possibility and permanence in a workshop for artists(2012-08) Ford, Joseph RobertItem Addressing the barriers to sustainable design in the process of developing multifamily affordable housing in Minnesota.(2011-12) Dolata, Rosemary DawnSustainable design balances the economic, social, and environmental needs of today with those of the future. This is not an abstract concept. Examples of very sustainable developments exist today. If design professionals possess the skills to design sustainable projects, and the benefits of being sustainable are so clearly accessible, why do sustainably designed projects remain the exception rather than the norm? Focusing on affordable multifamily rental housing as a project type, this paper documents the specific barriers that deter the incorporation of sustainable design in the development process. Examples of tools that successfully promote sustainable design and recommendations to further improve the incorporation of sustainable design practices are also included. The paper begins with a review of existing scholarship citing research from England, Scotland, and Saudi Arabia. These findings provide a point of reference for the author’s original research, which was gathered through interviews with well-established nonprofit developers of multifamily affordable housing in Minnesota. Barriers uncovered include: funding limitations, site and project specific issues, limited data and expertise, regulations and requirements, relationships/collaborations, sustainable design standards, and issues unique to Minnesota. Examples of successful tools for promoting sustainable design include: community involvement, statutory regulations, demonstration projects / competitions, sustainable design standards, and local expertise and integrated design / design charrettes. Recommendations from previous scholarship and Minnesota developers focused on the following: awareness and education, building occupants, research, replicating success, collaboration, and funder opportunities. The author concludes with five specific recommendations: increase funding, expand education, support research, promote collaboration, and change the funding process.Item Affordable Housing Alternatives: Analysis of Community Land Trusts(2012-04-18) Grzywa, AshleyHousing affordability continues to be a dramatic problem in the United States. As of June 2010 1.6 million homes nationwide (one of every 78 units) were in foreclosure. Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are organizations created to hold land for the benefit of the community and individuals within the community. The Institute for Community Economics (ICE) published The Community Land Trust Handbook in 1982 as a model by which CLTs might operate. This model can be used to evaluate the success of CLTs in providing perpetually affordable housing for their community. In order to better understand the affordability potential of CLTs I conducted an extensive literature review of CLTs, specifically two case study organizations serving urban communities in the Midwest. I interviewed the executive director of each organization to gain a more specific understanding of the business operations and organization of the CLT. I utilized interview responses and findings from literature reviews to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the different methods of organizing and operating CLTs. Using this assessment I compiled a series of recommendations for all CLTs to use as a guide to improving the organization’s ability to provide affordable housing for the community.Item AIRS : an architecture for interactive real-time systems.(2010-08) Neilsen, Michael L.Interactive real-time systems lend themselves to a variety of applications including entertainment, education, 3D modeling, art and design, security and surveillance, and medical training. These types of systems may be implemented as interactive simulations, virtual and augmented reality systems, computer and video games, and artistic installations. In this paper, an architecture called AIRS (Architecture for Interactive Real-time Systems) is presented. AIRS is a client-server architecture. Its aims are to provide a flexible framework for light-weight clients to collaborate and communicate with a server through message passing. The server's role is to maintain state, access local or remote data, and facilitate media output, such as playing audio and displaying video. Examples of systems that could use this architecture are presented. In the spirit of working toward a concrete implementation of AIRS, a prototype called Duck was developed. Duck is an interactive real-time system that allows users to create and position geometric objects in a 3D scene, associate audio samples with them, and interact with them indirectly through a physics simulation. Three test sessions were conducted. Each user was prompted with audio that a scene produces and was instructed to create a scene that matches the audio. Three such scenes are included, progressing in difficulty. On average, users spent 1.5 minutes and 1.3 attempts to solve the first scene and 3 minutes and 2 attempts to solve the second scene. No users solved the third scene.Item The Bell Museum: a significant modern building.(2011-02) Friendshuh, Johanna R.This thesis researches the possibilities of adaptive reuse of the Bell Museum, by first using the criteria provided by the National Register of Historic Places to determine if the building is fit for local and national designation and second, documenting the building’s energy efficiencies and water usage for further study and providing some design solutions and third, discussing how the current space can be reprogrammed to be more efficient and effective for either the museum or another program. This research is done through written and visual documentation. KEY WORDS: James F. Bell Museum, Heritage Preservation, Sustainable Design, Green Design, Programming, College of Design, University of Minnesota.Item Item Children: a place for their care in Suburbia…comfort, spirit, wonder and understanding.(2011-02) Unick, Lori K.This project searches to develop a special place for children – a place for discovery of both themselves and their surroundings; a place to feel a level of comfort and security that allows for inner peace, leading to thought, growth and development - both physical and emotional. To do this, this project is generated not as much from a formal architectonic viewpoint, but rather from shaping an environment based on human behavior and needs. Such an environment for children welcomes human contact and enables a sense of community at many levels; within each home room, within the inner community of the facility and within the greater community of the suburb. This facility situates itself in the suburban context by connecting to other components of daily life such as the recreation center, civic services, and commerce, aiding in “place making” for people. The project looks at models from other countries to better understand how the architecture and design of the facility can enhance the learning for the children. This project looks at the facility at many scales and creates an environment of learning. The following objectives and design opportunities were considered when designing this project: 1. Connection between the facility and the surrounding community: nature, street life, community activities 2. Experiential qualities as they enhance the learning experience for both children and adults; light, space, time 3. Tectonics which enhance the experience of learning; construction detail, the window, the door, gravity, material, surface, texture 4. Human behavior and child development as it shapes the plan, section and detail This 12,000 sq. ft. Child Care Facility is located in the suburb of Lino Lakes, Minnesota. The site is within the proposed town center currently under development by the City. In a previous exercise a master plan and zoning diagram were established. Locations for civic and community oriented uses were denoted. The site for the facility is adjacent to the city park and a regional nature reserve and is adjacent to community services and recreation.Item Christians of the Western Desert in Late Antiquity: the fourth-century church complex of Ain el-Gedida, Upper Egypt.(2009-06) Aravecchia, NicolaThis dissertation examines the fourth-century church complex excavated, between 2006 and 2008, at Ain el-Gedida, in the Dakhla Oasis of Upper Egypt (project directed by Professor Roger Bagnall). The church and the set of interconnected rooms that form the complex are one of the earliest examples discovered in Egypt thus far. Therefore, they provide valuable information on the development of Christian public architecture, not only in the region of the Western Desert but also throughout Egypt. Furthermore, the uncommon layout of the church itself, its location within a cluster of rooms serving more utilitarian functions, and the evidence of different phases of substantial architectural alterations make the complex a particularly significant case study. One goal of this dissertation is not to discuss the church complex as an isolated building, but to contextualize it within the topographical framework of the settlement. The archaeological evidence from the complex is not presented in the form of a standard report; rather, it is used to approach more general issues, regarding the chronology of the site, its abandonment, and the nature of the settlement, particularly the social structure of its inhabitants. This work first examines the architectural history of the complex and sheds light on its different phases, thanks to the study of the evidence gathered in the field. Furthermore, it discusses the results of comparative analysis between the church of Ain el-Gedida and other examples of Early Christian architecture inside and outside Egypt. In particular, it emphasizes the considerable typological similarities shared with the Small East Church at the nearby site of Ismant el-Kharab (ancient Kellis). The investigation of the typological origins of the church of Ain el-Gedida includes comparisons with the earliest known examples of Christian architecture, even from relatively distant regions, such as Dura Europos and its well-known domus ecclesiae. Furthermore, methods of spatial analysis, in particular access analysis, are applied to the church complex and its immediate surroundings, with the aim of investigating patterns of access control and use of space at the site in Late Antiquity. The results are offered as a valuable ingredient in typological analysis, integrating the available archaeological evidence. In its last section, this dissertation examines issues of chronology, both relative and absolute, in relation to the church complex. It also takes into consideration the highly debated question concerning the nature of the complex and, more in general, of the site of Ain el-Gedida, with the goal of shedding light on its people and their social identity. In addition to the monastery/village readings, originally brought forth by scholars, further interpretations are proposed, analyzing the available evidence in favor or against any of them.Item City as Theatre: an architecture of passage, the center for innovative art Milwaukee, Wisconsin(2013-03) Blank, Scott AllenThis thesis explores the inherent relationship between program type and architecture, hypothesizing that type is made up of unique principles, patterns, and sequences that serve as influntial reference towards architectural form, expression, and solution. The program focuses on experimental art and performance, examining the ritual of theater and the fundamental relationship betwen performer and public. While traditional performing arts provide formal divisions in the ritual, experimental art serves as counterpoint in that it requires the public to enter the performer's realm for participation as part of the experimentation process. The project explores the convergence and interaction of the two realms, and focuses on the celebration of movement through the component sequence of passage, threshold, and exchange. Architectural resolution comes through emphasizing certain and bridge as ordering elements that assemble the physical building into a stage set, facilitating connections and overlaps of the participants as the catalyst for the event ritual.Item City of Montrose Highway 12 Redevelopment Plan - Exhibit I: Design Standards(Minneapolis: Center for Urban and Regional Affairs, 2009) Geer, SamItem Creating scalable, efficient and namespace independent routing framework for future networks.(2011-06) Jain, SourabhIn this thesis we propose VIRO -- a novel and paradigm-shifting approach to network routing and forwarding that is not only highly scalable and robust, but also is namespace- independent. VIRO provides several advantages over existing network routing architectures, including: i) VIRO directly and simultaneously addresses the challenges faced by IP networks as well as those associated with the traditional layer-2 technologies such as Ethernet -- while retaining its "plug-&-play" feature. ii) VIRO provides a uniform convergence layer that inte- grates and unifies routing and forwarding performed by the traditional layer-2 (data link layer) and layer-3 (network layer), as prescribed by the conventional local-area/wide-area network di- chotomy and layered architecture. iii) Perhaps more importantly, VIRO decouples routing from addressing, and thus is namespace-independent. Hence VIRO allows new (global or local) ad- dressing and naming schemes (e.g., HIP or flat-id namespace) to be introduced into networks without the need to modify core router/switch functions, and can easily and flexibly support inter-operability between existing and new addressing schemes/namespaces. In the second part of this thesis, we present Virtual Ethernet Id Layer, in short VEIL, a practical realization of VIRO routing protocol to create a large-scale Ethernet networks. VEIL is aimed at simplifying the management of large-scale enterprise networks by requiring minimal manual configuration overheads. It makes it tremendously easy to plug-in a new routing-node or a host-device in the network without requiring any manual configuration. It builds on top of a highly scalable and robust routing substrate provided by VIRO, and supports many advanced features such as seamless mobility support, built-in multi-path routing and fast-failure re-routing in case of link/node failures without requiring any specialized topologies. To demonstrate the feasibility of VEIL, we have built a prototype of VEIL, called veil-click, using Click Modular Router framework, which can be co-deployed with existing Ethernet switches, and does not require any changes to host-devices connecting to the network.Item The de-territorialized zone: ill-defined spaces and unclassified behaviors.(2010-08) Vandervelde, Jonathan RogerThis thesis deals with de-territorialized spaces, urban spaces in which ownership and responsibility are unclear. In such a zone we are not restricted to simply observing. A person can handle the environment; the potential exists to make changes with little fear of doing “damage” or infringing. You might kick a can, make stacks of cinder blocks, or drag a piece of metal along the ground to a new position. You may prop a lawn-chair on a pallet and listen to the game on the radio. Of course, the next day the chair may have been pulled off the pallet, or a pile of railroad ties may have buried the entire south-end of the lot. We only control the zone while it is actually under our hands, but although the internal conditions are transient, the zone itself persists. When there is little space for any activity that is not either officially sanctioned, or commercially viable enough to “support itself”, whole classes of endeavor are effectively forbidden. Within an urban milieu, the de-territorialized space becomes the sole venue for all behaviors which fall outside these boundaries. My thesis involves intentionally creating and modulating such a deterritorialized area, potentially allowing such “transgressive” activities to take place. It will first attempt to identify aspects of the built environment that contribute to de-territorialization, then, working with an existing site which exhibits some sympathetic characteristics, the project will try to generate and modulate deterritorialization within that space.Item Design in Oaxaca: Understanding the Architectural Process and Critical Regionalism in Mexico(2013-02-05) Peterson, Rachel;The purpose of this research is to examine how critically rethinking architecture through the lens of region can further explore and develop the potentials of twenty-first century design. Specifically, it is meant to uncover and highlight current architects that are able to create a cultural belonging and strong deference to a particular physical context without the desire to design avant-garde form. The architectural community’s misconception in the value of such architecture demonstrates its fixation and addiction to rule-challenging originality. If the discipline could shift its ideals to also emphasize place-based design rooted in cultural understanding, there could be a dramatic and positive change in the way architects work and think. Critical regionalism of Mexico has been studied through the work of well-known national architect Luis Barragán, but little has been researched or written about the work of younger contemporary Mexican designers, such as Daniel López Salgado and Renata Elizondo.Item Item Disaster as an opportunity for transformative change in developing countries: Post-earthquake transitional settlements in southeastern Iran, based on the 2003 Bam earthquake reassessment(2014-12) Forouzandeh, PeyvandThis thesis examines the design of post-earthquake transitional settlements in the hot and arid climate of central and southeastern Iran. It is a study of the past, an analysis of the present, and an imagination of a possible future for cities similar to Bam. It observes the spatial, material, cultural, and economic forces that shape the environment, viewing the complex socio-political forces that pressurize issues of post-disaster construction. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the interpretation of "better" for building back in relatively isolated communities within historical and cultural landscapes. It is also searching for ways that local governments can energize the potential for building self-sufficient communities and re-envisioning approaches to establish sustainable cities after disasters.Item Drawing Seeing Making or the intangible nature of tangible things(2010-01) Lund, David William VorachekItem "The Embattled University" Student Protest + Architecture, 1960s-1970s, University of Minnesota(2017-05) Ghoshal, Shreya; Torkelson, JacobThe 1960s and 1970s, often referred to as the ‘protest years’, were a period of great unrest on university campuses nation-wide. Students protested the Vietnam War, the draft, civil rights, and other social equity issues, all of which reflected the shifting ideals of the rising ‘babyboomer’ generation. The scholarship surrounding the student protest movement is often discussed through the lenses of political science or sociology. Analyses of the era rarely acknowledge how architecture influences protests; most discussions of the student protest movement, in fact, completely ignore the physical settings of demonstrations. This study addresses this gap in scholarship by arguing that the design of the built environment contains controls and affordances for protests, using the University of Minnesota as a case study and a microcosm of greater social trends across the nation. It further argues that students repeatedly used certain spaces on campus—whether consciously or not—based on stylistic, spatial, or programmatic factors. The symbolism of the institution —embedded in campus architecture— influenced the locations chosen for rallies, as documented by archival resources such as student newspapers and photographs, and by oral histories of students from the era. Student unions, administrative buildings, armories, and auditoriums were found to be particularly charged spaces that demonstrators adopted or adapted to reinforce the meaning of the protests. These findings were then diagrammed onto University of Minnesota spaces in order to visually represent the information analyzed in a way that could be presented as part of an exhibition on architecture’s role in protests.Item The ‘Embattled University’: Student Protest and Architecture at the University of Minnesota in the 1960’s and 1970s(2017) Torkelson, Jacob; Ghoshal, ShreyaDuring the 1960s and 1970s, universities across the country experienced unprecedented growth and social upheaval as the baby-boom generation asserted its values by protesting for civil rights and student power, and against the Vietnam War. While much is written about student activism during this time, scholars seldom examine these protests through the lenses of architecture and campus planning. This study contends the designed environment of the university embodies the cultural and social values of the institution. Therefore, students used buildings, landscapes, and spaces throughout campus as places of protest against the values embodied within the architecture. Using the University of Minnesota as a microcosm of national trends, this thesis aims to find out why specific spaces on campus are chosen as nodes of protest, in order to understand the role of architecture in shaping activism. These locations—the Armory, student union, administration building, and auditorium—contain controls and affordances for protests that influenced why these spaces were repeatedly chosen for student activism. The design, association, and program of these buildings and the spaces around them, principally elements of massing, scale, ornamentation, and association, created a stage in which protests gained legitimacy and visibility for their causes. Archival materials used for this exhibition—particularly newspaper clippings, photographs, and oral histories—validate and characterize these findings. Further analysis and diagramming were presented with archival materials as an exhibition entitled “The Embattled University”, to highlight the relationship between architecture and activism.Item Emergent Scenery, Narrative, and Music from Experimental Soundtrack Production for Film(2018-08) Hartman, Franklin WA method of sound design has been developed in order to craft the soundtrack for a film meant to express the student experience in the School of Architecture. Fragments from interview and environmental recordings serve as the basis for the compositional elements, creating a holistic representation which is more immersive than objective.
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