Browsing by Author "Colopy, Andrew"

Now showing 1 - 10 of 10
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Beyond the Self (Storage): Belongings in the 21st Century
    (2019-04-16) Aguillard, Francis Drake; Colopy, Andrew
    Does the architectural act of assembly prioritize the individual or the collective? Is there a way of aggregating architectural units such that they both support and express individuality and render a coherent collective? Drawing on political theory, this thesis provides possible solutions to end the stalemate between self and group expression vis-à-vis the (formerly) personal storage unit. The methodology embraces entropy and automation and leverages gravity-based 3D physics simulations. A larger than average square footage for each storage “unit” reconceptualizes the building as collective-based rather than subject-based. In considering the main tenets of the site’s zoning, the building acknowledges a particular collective’s will, but also pushes back, for example in its liberal interpretation of the setback rules. This push-and-pull suggests continual revision and debate, as does the execution of the program; collectively, democratically, it aspires to be continually in definition and redefinition.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    C.W.N.S.P.O.S.
    (2017-04-14) Yee, Anastasia Xi; Colopy, Andrew
    Computation tends to produce discrete, self-similar parts and aggregate them together, a common concern in recent projects that we think of as computational. How can we think about using the computational techniques available to us, but in a different way than they have been studied? This thesis is an exploration about the usefulness of these techniques at a greater diversity of scale than what is seen in digital fabrication or product sets. Reversing the logic of aggregation in order to produce wholes that subdivide into parts, it poses the experiment of producing a Closed Whole with Non-Standard Parts produced as an Object Set. It takes as a platform the issue of a housing model in the city of Houston. The work begins as a formal investigation to explore what the potentials of these techniques might be, and posits that we can respond to an architectural condition at the scale of part-to-whole relationships and to an urban condition at the scale of the object set, both intrinsic to a singular methodology.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Place for Entourage
    (2021-04-30) Wei, Alfred; Colopy, Andrew; Finley, Dawn
    People are often read as entourage in architectural representations, while in real cases, as Mies van der Rohe once claims, architecture is the infrastructure where life may take place. This thesis investigates the relationship between what is considered as “entourage” and architectural elements in drawings, representations, and their manifestations in the reality. In the most extreme scenario, when a mass demonstration takes place, the public space is reorganized by the over-occupation of people. The subject-object relationship of the entourage and architecture defines the core value of the demonstration. This thesis sets on the premise of further objectifying the built environment through manipulating reflectivity, normative materiality, and bodily relationship, to seek the possibility of a democratic public space.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Projecting the Ringstraße-Building
    (2015-04-09) Wang, Liang; Colopy, Andrew; Wittenberg, Gordon; Colman, Scott
    1. Architecture and urbanism works at a scale today like never before. We tend to make building out of certain scale, as we attempt to make building at larger scale, they separate and become independent buildings, and that structures the logics of how we understand the scale of spaces. Whether or not it is a single building, collection of buildings, a city, or urban landscape…Because of the continuous landownership and the aggregation of capitalism in the case of Foxconn, it makes the building at a large scale plausible. This thesis explores the possibility when a single building operates at the scale of a large part of the city, and the ramifications with respect to its effects to the city.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Right to Never Leave
    (2022-04-21) Widner, Jared; Colopy, Andrew; Finley, Dawn
    Housing in New York City has come to mean many things. In the past decade, the number of commodified high-rises have proliferated while over 200,000 people are on the waitlist for NYCHA apartments. Concurrently, the repercussions of the pandemic has led to an all-time high in unleased office space, presenting opportunities for a new source and form of housing in the heart of the city. “Right to Never Leave” proposes a new typology of housing that leverages the expansive floor plate of existing office towers. The thesis challenges the binary social spaces currently omnipresent in all NYCHA housing projects by offering spaces with a gradient of privacy, sharing, and enclosure. The project also begins to question the role of adjacent buildings in cities like New York and how they may provide a source of relief and dignity for people that may have to be temporarily displaced from their home.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Rites of Passage
    (2022-04-21) Harrienger, Jeremy; Colopy, Andrew
    This design for a material-focused culture center monumentalizes the use of timber, and catalyzes a change in the way forest resources are distributed while creating new ties between the local community and its resources.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Skin Deep
    (2017-04-21) Stevenson, Sean; Colopy, Andrew
    This is a thesis that confronts the role of the facade in reclad scenarios. A facade that attempts to go beyond the role of just delimiting enclosure along the perimeter of the building to one that begins to operate deeper within the domain of the building floorplate to construct organizational relationships deep within the interiors they enclose. Reclad strategies are arguably becoming more pervasive as societies trend toward city fabrics where second and third generation building is underway. Within these current scenarios, development is being driven by efficiencies in resource and cost reductions, practices of morally sustainable construction methods, and/or sensitivities concerning historically grounded first generation buildings. So as a consequence, demolition and total redesign strategies tend to be a non starter and are slowly becoming superseded by reclad schemes. As we all well know, NYC is in a housing crisis, and most of it’s current estates are in dire need of repair. Basically, it’s a city with a public housing stock prime for reclad strategies that culturally reconnect outdated housing projects back into the city context they inhabit. Taking into consideration sensitivities to FAR in high density urban areas, this proposed strategy operates within the perimeter of the existing building envelope. A strategy that pulls the facade inward, fundamentally transforming interiorities deep within the existing building. Through the operation of folding into the building, new experiential conditions crack open previously enclosed, dark, compartmentalized, and confined pre-existing spaces and attempts unify them into new moments of collectivity. These new moments, are new aggregates created through the folds emittance of light and color into the interiors. They are a middle and regional aggregate that is between the scale of the unit and the domain of the building floor plate as a whole. This new aggregate is the mixing and fusion of colors between individual units. As these colors blur together, spaces blur together and the perception ownership accompanying such spaces comes into question. What is private and what is public? The light and color that is received through an adjacent neighbor’s apartment redefines notions of shared space, and domains coded through area. It is a permanent perceptual experience of cohabiting individuated spaces through the form of affect. As long as light and shadow accompanied with color are present, so too will the presence of collectivity.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    [ Space Available ] reinventing the suburban strip mall
    (2018-04-19) Koesters, Haley Ana; Colopy, Andrew; Wittenberg, Gordon
    The thesis investigates the urban periphery as it relates to ideas of architectural significance, legibility, and identity. It is focused on reimagining the traditional strip mall typology through considering its formal language, program, and relationship to the surrounding context. Throughout the country strip malls are commonly underused and falling into states of foreclosure and vacancy as a response to online competition. The strip mall is now transforming from convenience driven retail to quality based services. In conjunction, the role of the individually owned vehicle is diminishing, allowing for previously zoned parking to be reclaimed for the pedestrian. The existing strip malls are still economically and functionally viable, but a new configuration of the current components is needed to revitalize and extend their use. The boundless edge of the strip mall can evolve to produce more intimate spaces of connectivity and gathering, improving the general experience of this generic condition.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The Synthetic Museum
    (2020-04-17) Hilchey, Jack; Colopy, Andrew; Finley, Dawn
    This thesis instrumentalizes scrutiny of data in architecture in order to move beyond efficiency as an end in-and-of itself.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Towers Of Skywells: Restoring The Historical Lineage Of Collective Living For Displaced Rural Communities In Hefei
    (2024-04-18) Zhang, Juchen; Colopy, Andrew; Finley, Dawn
    The rapid urbanization in China has drastically reshaped numerous rural communities, where their inhabitants' means of sustenance and cultural values were often lost. One such case is the transformation of thousands of acres of farmland into a lakefront district of planned zones of dense housing, working, and recreation in Hefei, which displaced farming families from their villages during construction. The development ended in bankruptcy and abandonment of major office towers. “Towers of Skywells” proposes to repurpose these abandoned towers into a new type of dwellings for the displaced rural population through adapting a historic vernacular typology - a two-story house with a skywell. The skywell is a small courtyard that not only draws light and passively cools the house, but acts as a connector to adjacent units. When aggregated, these homes form a shared living environment for various family structures. As a basic module, the historic house is repeated on existing tower structures, creating an array of interconnected two-story units that blend communal and private spaces. A continuous band of unconditioned space ties the units together, sponsoring recreation, production, and planting. This part-to-whole relationship increases in scale, grouping two sets of two floors to form communities sharing programs in the building core. These communities are separated by levels housing larger collective programs for the entire buildings. In opposition to the principles of homogeneous density and separation of working and living promoted by the modernist towers, the project reinterprets and allows enduring values such as familial ties and communal collectivism to manifest in built space. In doing so, it amends the broken link in the architectural lineage of the region and suggests a way forward for continuing the cultural heritage of collective living for the local community.