Architecture Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2743
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Item LIVE, LEARN, WORK, WALK: CREATING RESILIENT MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING IN DETROIT, MICHIGAN(2023) Edwards, Joseph Chase; Kelly, Brian P.; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Detroit, Michigan, and its residents have suffered through economic, social, and environmental hardships from the fall of industrialization since 1950. Some of the largest issues within the city of Detroit are high vacancy rates, high unemployment rates, poverty, and overall lack of acknowledgement to its residents. However, in recent years, organizations within the city have begun to implement various outreach programs to beautify Detroit, improve its current housing situation, and promote community engagement. This thesis proposition looks to help aid these efforts through the introduction of a vertical smart growth architectural hybrid typology used as a catalyst human-centric, resilient urban housing. This is accomplished through the introduction of a community-focused and supportive building program. Overall, creating a self-sufficient, live-work micro-ecosystem to bring life back into the city center.Item A New Chapter...Refugee Housing: From Enclave to Hub(2020) Neugebauer Peters, Taina; Williams, Joseph C.; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Ref.u.gee (noun): “A person who has been forced to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster.” 30,000 refugees were resettled to the United States in 2019. Coming from countries all around the world, refugees experience the tough reality of leaving their homes in search of a better life in a distant and unfamiliar place. With little knowledge and understanding of new customs, many struggle to establish daily routines and complete simple tasks. Resettlement Agencies also struggle to find adequate accommodations, especially in California, where the current housing crisis has led to a shortage of affordable housing. This thesis proposes an affordable housing model that facilitates refugee integration into new communities by providing housing options that meet their needs as well as community spaces that educates and promotes cultural diversity throughout the greater urban community.Item Re-thinking Residence: How to Mass Produce Diversity?(2020) Ahmed, Mansoor; Noonan, Peter; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Due to shortage of housing, Pakistan has launched a project to build five million new dwellings within the next 5 years, through public-private partnerships. Currently, in Pakistan, only 0.3 million units are built in one year and this project would increase that number drastically, greatly impacting the environment and the built fabric. This thesis looks at an alternative to the simple idea of repeating one house to make many. It is a vision to reimagine Pakistani cities through this expansive development: mass produce dwellings that are responsive to environmental and contextual conditions, minimize the impact on existing infrastructure, energy consumption, and the environment. The proposal is an optimized system of construction that has the ability to mass-produce customizable and personalized units. The aim of this thesis is to showcase a balance between mass production and personalization.Item [CREATIVES] Housing, Design for Innovation and Entrepreneurship(2017) Akpedeye, Nicole A.; Hill, Joshua; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Globally, the technology revolution is still expanding, coupled by a rise in entrepreneurship in many parts of the world. With the growing interest in technology, innovation, and entrepreneurship, housing must advance to meet the demands of these creative individuals and families in order to enable them to succeed in their professional endeavours as well as support their future families at the same time. Maximizing one’s time requires housing that enables living and working in close proximity. There are opportunities to create diverse, mixed-use communities for both living and working in derelict or abandoned areas of cities. Cities, such as Baltimore, historically enabled people to live in close proximity to work, but due to zoning laws and flight to the suburbs, many workers spend too much time commuting and away from their families. This thesis will explore master planning, creating a place and housing types that allow for innovation and entrepreneurship within a city. By re-creating the work-life balance historically present in cities, derelict areas can have a chance at a second life. The emergence of innovation districts in many parts of the country is a precedent that shows how compact areas with various amenities and services can be established to benefit start-ups, entrepreneurs, and the whole community. Thus, mimicking cities of old.Item Seeking Wisdom in Tradition: The Promise of Future Housing(2015) Kim, Ju Eun; Koliji, Hooman; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)As a result of rapid development in the last 40 years, modern Korean housing has experienced the indiscriminate vertical growth of high-rise slab construction which has overlooked both the traditions of the Korean family and society that were embodied in the traditional house. This has compromised cultural and generational relationships, created conflicts among neighbors, and isolated people from nature thereby causing disconnection between Koreans and their own unique cultural elements. Contrary to the current housing conditions, Korean desire for a healthier environment and cultural standing in the world keeps rising. This thesis will introduce design strategies and concepts to help mitigate these problems in contemporary housing by proposing a new type of housing in Seoul, Korea that supports the tradition and characteristic of Korea. It will identify the essence of tradition embodied in the traditional house, and re-envision contemporary design ideas for Korean society that can lead to new types of and more enlightened housing for its future.Item Empower Housing(2013) Boliek, Alison Lanford; Bell, Matthew J; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis examines Wilmington, Delaware's low-income urban community and explores through innovative programming and design propositions the potential for future housing to facilitate healthy, responsive living, thereby better empowering the community and the residents it serves. All too often, this disadvantaged demographic lacks access to the most basic of human needs, let alone the more diverse opportunities of upward mobility, self-empowerment, and healthy social and cultural lives. Among the community's most pressing concerns is the limited availability of fresh produce - a vital ingredient for healthy living. This thesis hypothesizes that the pairing of housing with a farmers' market and some basic community amenities in a mixed-use project will yield a result that is greater than the sum of its parts. The primary agenda is to design homes which encourage healthy lifestyles while simultaneously engaging a variety of stakeholders in order to benefit not only residents living in the housing but the greater community. The resulting positive ripple effects will allow the region to reknit itself through these newly formed relationships, creating a stronger empowered community.Item The Promise of Small Cities: Connecting Urban Residents with the Environment and Their Community in Portland, Maine(2012) Meyer, Louise Parlin; Koliji, Hooman; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)As modern American society has progressed, the need to live less expansively, more conscientiously, and more sustainably has become increasingly clear. Meanwhile, reliance on technology has driven urban residents to become further distanced from the environment, and further dissociated from their communities and local cultural traditions. Over the last 50 years, those interested in maintaining and fostering connections to the outdoors and a specific community have largely sought fulfillment in the suburban landscape. While, in recent decades, it has been recognized that the suburban residential model cannot be sustained, urban housing remains deficient. In order to acknowledge both the value of urban living and the potential for learning from the appeal of suburbia, it is incumbent upon designers to explore housing and amenities that better address the needs of the 21st century multi-family resident. This thesis aims to restore situational awareness of climate, community, and cultural traditions, by marrying opportunities for building community with higher density residences that have a strong emphasis on outdoor spaces.Item Recycling Suburban Sprawl: Coming to Terms with an Existential Crisis(2013) Goldman, Julian Hulman; Bell, Matthew J; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The sprawl development which typifies the American landscape has an uncertain future. Mounting costs, changing demographics, and an inherent instability in value threaten to lift some neighborhoods, gut others, and expand sprawl into the countryside in a relentless, destructive march. This thesis seeks to develop a strategy by which increased density and additional land uses may be inserted into existing tract housing developments as a means of protecting and improving our previous investments, rather than bulldozing and replacing them or seeing them laid to waste. These changes to the fabric of sprawl may lay the groundwork for breaking down barriers to further development and modernization which have been put in place by policy, systems of finance and land ownership, and the very nature of the places we have created. Adding density to current settlements may also reduce pressures to sprawl further, protecting the undeveloped wilderness beyond the city limits.Item Re: America. Architecture, Propaganda, and the Dream(2012) Obringer, Justin; Ambrose, Michael; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The American Dream is terribly misleading. The phrase implies a singularity, as if all people share precisely the same dream. "The Dream" implied only success and happiness; it did not dictate the form that housed happiness. The form was inconsequential; it was the symptom not the realization of success. The form was meant to encourage living, not project a status. The resulting suburb may be detrimental to the environment, but the suburban lifestyle was not itself detrimental to the evolution of architecture. It was neither a definitive step backwards nor forwards. Now however, the forms and ubiquitous images associated with the suburbs have caused stagnation and no significant architectural development concerning suburban living has rivaled the 1950s propagandized model. The purpose of this thesis is to reinvent the formal concept of "suburban" living in a manner which does justice to the "American Dream" and the individuality of all the "dreamers."Item Affordable Housing: A Case for Mexico City(2010) Santos Cortes, Claudia Elisa; Kelly, Brian P; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Mexico City is one of the largest metropolitan areas in the world, with a 2000km2 and 22 million people. Due to its globalized economy and dynamic growth, the city offers better life opportunities, encouraging massive migrations from rural areas to the city. Hence, the need for more housing. A rapid result for housing demands has generated the growth of squatter areas as well as massive social housing complexes at the peripheries of the city. The city needs a reinterpretation of affordable housing typologies that address the housing demands of the underprivileged and impede the expansion of the city by utilizing the existing infrastructure into the central area. This thesis will focus on designing an affordable housing project that would relocate low income people in order to provide them appropriate services and infrastructure, thus integrating them to the city life through community spaces utilizing a language of design that reflect the construction techniques of the Mexican culture.