2020-2021 Senior Honors Theses
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This collection contains theses produced by Class of 2021 Honors students
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Browsing 2020-2021 Senior Honors Theses by Department "Architecture and Design, Gerald D. Hines College of"
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Item Extractable Units of Bywater(2021-05) Flick, ArianaWilliam Cronon argues that incoming settlers to the New England landscape could only define their findings in terms of their marketable value rather than their collective value as a system of growth. The danger of extracting profitable elements from an existing ecosystem is that it not only detracts from the overall richness of the place, but hinders any potential for future growth. The Bywater neighborhood in New Orleans is an ecosystem facing this same calculated extraction of its profitable parts: it lays on a natural levee; its located on the Mississippi River; it is in close proximity to downtown; there is cheap property due to the devastation of Katrina. Developers moving into the area buy out parts of the land based off these marketable values without understanding the complexity of the urban fabric. The Bywater neighborhood has a rich history of development from plantation lands to industrial barges to its current identity as an art and residential district. This thesis will seek to develop a rich and equitable infrastructure for the cultivation of both old and new cultural communities while still allowing space for growth in a place that has been historically defined and divided by its profitable parts.Item Freeway Architectures Of Biopolitical Disobedience(2020-05) Polkinghorne, Katherine H.IH-45 is an inconceivably large ribbon of infrastructure that acts as a border between political and geographic communities. IH-45’s margin shelters socio-politically marginal architectural programming. If we take space to be a material reiteration of power, then the contested and marginal territory of the NHHIP is a critical site for architectural consideration and engagement. Through non-hegemonic site analysis and the imagining of counter-futures at four sites along the NHHIP’s extent, this thesis re-conceives of the freeway’s marginal territory as site for liberatory praxis and theorizes modalities of activist engagement with megastructures and megaprojects.Item Learning from the Non-Place: The Urban Surface of Pasadena, Texas(2021-05) Cruz, Cynthia P.“This new world of non-place privileges the fleeting, ephemeral, and contingent”, Marc Auge, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Super Modernity Pasadena developed as a small working-class bay area in the early 1900’s with strawberry fields as its identity and economic structure. The shift in the 1930’s to a petrochemical base grew the economy exponentially, and the city developed as a typical post-war urban sprawl. Denise Scott Brown and Robert Venturi used Learning from Las Vegas to embrace sprawl and the commercial strip as a meaningful way to read the city. They state, “Each city is an archetype rather than a prototype, an exaggerated example from which to derive lessons for the typical. Each city vividly superimposes elements of a supranational scale on the local fabric…” The character of the commercial strip is validation of meaning in the growing a-spatial American urban context. Pasadena’s idealized strip and petrochemical industry amalgamation create a destabilizing city structure. Learning from Las Vegas in Pasadena shows a late 20th century space, dependent on oil and gas in production and consumption. Pasadena resembles the Non-Place. As defined by Marc Auge, the Non-Place refers to anthropological spaces of transience where the human beings remain anonymous and that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as “places”. Pasadena suffers from past celebrations of the sign and strip, forming its existence as Non-Place. However, Alex Wall does offer an alternate way of describing the city- the urban surface. This thesis challenges Pasadena’s reliance on the non-place through the study of the urban surface and its barely visible structures that can support a post-petrol city. To stitch together and develop the urban surface of Pasadena, Texas, a solar park research and practice facility works to joins academia, profession, and commerce within the non-place.Item Rammed Earth: Synergy of Natural Material in Artificial Earthscape(2021-05) Fajtl, Michael J.This thesis explores the use of Rammed Earth, a traditional and sustainable building material, in the context of an abandoned surface quarry mine. It illuminates some of the historical precedents and developments in its technology which is argued, merit further research into, and the future use of this building method. The thesis analyses the McCoy limestone quarry as a theoretical site and its soil’s suitability for Rammed Earth construction. To demonstrate the techniques’ viability, the thesis proposes a conceptual vocational campus which provides a testing ground for application and research of Rammed Earth construction and serves as a proof of concept that brings awareness of this building technique.Item Redesigning the Deconstructed: Chapels of St. John(2021-05) Niño, Stefan MartinThis thesis project will focus on completing an unfinished puzzle that will tie together memory, culture and a future vision. John the Beloved traveled throughout the Mediterranean and eventually settled in Ephesus where he spent the rest of his days, later passing away and being buried in Ayasuluk Hill. Over his tomb today sheep roam. He is the only apostle who does not have a proper tomb over his body or a place for people to celebrate and worship, to read his writings while going through the ritual of the mass that he helped design. This project seeks to rectify this by creating a series of chapels that will allow for the three original denominations of Christianity to worship. Around the 4th century, a few hundred years after St. John died in Ephesus, a church was built atop his tomb. The Basilica, whose ruins are still visible today, was built by Emperor Justinian in the 6th century. In the 13th century, Tamerlane’s Mongol army leveled the site, leaving the Basilica in ruins. The ruins sit at the base of Ayasuluk hill as part of the renowned ruins of Ephesus. The campus will create a place for rest, for meditation, celebration and worship. It finds its inspiration in the writings of John where love is the key element. The word “love” appears 57 times in the Gospel of John and 46 times in his First Epistle. The concept of love and affection will be driving themes throughout the project as they are driving themes in St. John’s writings. This thesis will provide a reconstruction of this site allowing for the three original denominations of Christianity to worship. There are three important rules guiding this project. The first, is that it protects and respects Saint John, by creating a proper space of worship for him. The second, is to touch the site as little as possible so as to not disturb the ruins and bring respect to the physical site. The third, is for the project to have a clear distinction the ruins so that you can clearly define what is old and new. The three pillar denominations of Christianity: Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Armenian Apostolic, will all have their own places of worship surrounding the tomb, allowing for interreligious dialogue similar to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. They will all be con-nected through the tomb of St. John, who has been present through their readings.Item The Coin, The Crack and The Cistern(2021-05) Denari, Franco“On Tuesday, X crosses a deserted road and loses nine copper coins. On Thursday, Y finds in the road four coins, somewhat rusted by Wednesday’s rain. On Friday, Z discovers three coins in the road. On Friday morning, X finds two coins in the corridor of his house. […] It is logical to think that they have existed - at least in some secret way, hidden from the comprehension of men – at every moment of those three periods.” Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius by Jorge Luis Borges. Pg 9. Borges describes the distance between our realist world and the idealist planet Tlön as incalculable. However, he identifies objects that operate as fragments that connect the two worlds. His encyclopedia, where the world of Tlön is described, is one of these objects. A crack in a utilitarian structure constitutes much more than a link, it is a door that allows us to step into a mysterious reality. The crack dared to create a space that exists contingent on perception and idea, as a fragment of Tlön in our own world. A drawing describing how to slice monoliths exists as another link, as Robin Evans articulates in The Projective Cast, by binding the architect's world of ideas and the stone cutter's world of building together. Two disparate elements, a crack, and a drawing allow both worlds to exist simultaneously. This thesis makes manifest the forces that makeup that utilitarian structure: a past of service, an unhealed wound, and a new idealist identity, in order to diminish, however slightly, the distance between Tlön and our world.Item The Office, Pennzoil Place And Drift: The Information Age(2021-05) Jones, Patrick AaronThe Houston Central Business District (CBD) is overwhelmed by existing tow-ers that consist of class “A” offic e space. Petroleum companies initially occupied these buildings, such as Pennzoil Place, developed by the real estate investment firm Hines. The recommendation proposed is an unconventional mixed-use program that redevelops the present Penn-zoil Place. As a response to the problem, the recommended design concept hinges on the existence of a flower or nature. The flower concept opposes the oil industry, plus the fascination with petroleum as a pri-mary fuel source since the Industrial Era. Moreover, the concept disrupts the oil and gas industry’s bond to class “A” off ice space. The existence of nature is not permanent. Similarly, class “A” office space and pe-troleum as a primary energy source do not eff ectively serve the Information Age compared to the last age. A mixed-use highrise design creates a living, working, and entertaining environment in one space that can be scaled and duplicated throughout the CBD. This solution will transform Houston’s downtown into an interactive space re-gardless of time, crisis, and economic condition. This approach will produce a more successful use of space which is the purpose of architecture in every age.