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Students pursue a final thesis design of a project of their own definition, as developed during the fall semester in Thesis Prep I and Thesis Prep II courses. |
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Samuel Walusimbi: Immigrant Hostel Inspired by Italo Calvino’s imaginative story about Venice, ‘Invisible Cities’, the project is an attempt to tell an imaginative story of the old West End through architectural representation. The drawings are intended to depict not only the void and empty characteristic of new West End but also offer potential alternatives to how the current void could be filled with voices and memories from the old West End. The name ‘Immigrant Hostel’ (rather than Immigrant Museum) was based on two facts; The metaphoric relationship between an immigrant in exile and a prison as a place of exile seemed fitting for the projects siting, which is on one of the few remaining artifacts from the old West End, the Charles Street Jail (now The Liberty Hotel). Because so much physical built evidence of the old West End was erased, the drawings try to express this erasure by curving out parts from the old Charles Street Jail building until fragments are left as its remnants. Within these fragments are the last stories of the old West End. There are five fragments/buildings; The Irish Wing, Italian Wing, Mixed Wing, Memory Cube and an Observation Tower. The Wings exhibit stories of their respective names, the Memory Cube serves as a reminder of the void left after erasure while the Observation Tower signifies the resilience of the old West End. |
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Samantha Altieri: 4D A Gaze at the Performative In modern day society, we are immersed in a world with distractions that neglect the present, limiting our ability to understand our existence within a space at a particular time. These disruptions, magnified by a media-consumed society, prevent the mind from understanding its place in the environment. This investigation has led to an exploration of architecture as performance, aiming to reveal the often overlooked temporal qualities of place. Temporality constructs differences in how we view or understand the same objects, places, and spaces at different times. This constant shifting within the environment provokes a discussion about temporality that raises the question, How can architecture not only construct an atmosphere, but also frame particular moments in time? |
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Liem Than: Voyeurism and Other Deviances This thesis investigates the interstices of public and private relationships through an analysis of voyeurism in architecture. Through this framework, this project aims at critically investigating the dialectic between these two spatial domains and thus exploring the inherent volatility of their relationship. In context, at what point can the metaphysical line between public and private be manipulated, to where it induces a shift from a notion of deviant pleasure to an uncanny sense of alienation? |
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Corey Roberts: 2077691 Light breaks where no sun shines / Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart / Push in their tides / And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads / The things of light / File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones |