Architecture Theses and Dissertations

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2743

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    HELTER SHELTER: RETHINKING DISASTER ARCHITECTURE AS THE FOUNDATION, NOT THE FEATURE
    (2018) Shah, Zain; Williams, Joseph C; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Natural disasters are an ever-present threat to humanity, so why should there not be an ever-present solution? The goal of this thesis is to create a proposal for a new typology of structures that are designed primarily as permanent disaster shelters. These structures would focus on housing and defending evacuees during the initial stages of a natural disaster as well as provide services to those within it such as medical services, warm food and communication with those outside. This thesis to a lesser extent also will explore and critique current practices with assigning locations as disaster shelters by highlighting their failures and then provides solutions through the design of the final product. Finally, this thesis will define a potential solution through design explorations on a selected site in New York City’s lower Manhattan. This project can act as a template for how future designers can create similar structures specific to their sites.
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    Design for Disaster Displacement
    (2014) Kandigian, Christine; Bovill, Carl; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Due to the increase in occurrence of natural disasters, it is imperative for our society to learn to maintain resiliency, while also preparing for the aftermath of a disaster. The major tasks of this proposal include providing emergency and permanent housing, within a condensed timeframe to a medium density while providing communal spaces and activities for long term use. New York City, the epicenter of the region and the country, can be catastrophically damaged by an earthquake or hurricane, particularly because of the density of population and lack of awareness of seismic risk. The quality of pre-disaster planning immediately results in a more successful post-disaster reconstruction, which directly impacts the future resiliency of the community. In order to decrease the timeframe between the disaster, emergency response, the relief phase, and the recovery of the community, a new building assembly system must be developed to solve this problem.