Browsing by Author "Finley, Dawn"
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Item A Framed Construct(2020-04-21) Miyajima, Shinji; Schaum, Troy; Finley, DawnThis thesis explores a new technique for design through perspective which produces a phenomenon that reorders our perception of the familiar effects of lightness, heaviness, flatness, and depth within the same framework. The methodology allows representation to become a design tool through which one’s understanding gets incessantly updated, escaping from a static framework of conventional construction techniques. Located in a dense urban environment of Chicago, where the synthesis between technical inventions and aesthetics has been exhibited in the modern history of architecture, the thesis demonstrates the technique and representation of its resulting effects with an office tower to challenge its typified organization and composition under functional constraints.Item a project for: A Mega Meeting House(2024-04-17) Burran, Alexander; Vassallo , Jesús; Finley, DawnThe megachurch is not a new phenomenon; however, a longstanding Protestant ideal. The ubiquitous American megachurch is the result of Protestant fever of evangelism and mid-twentieth century American social dynamics. While the American church is shrinking these congregations are growing both in number and attendance year over year. The majority of these congregations burdened by their size inhabit architectures such as theatres and warehouses. These architectural types, while well suited for the uses to which they were originally designed, are far from the physical and spatial significance of historic ecclesiastical architecture. Megachurch structures are largely unmotivated by any deep theological thought or reference, instead they simply exist as space to be occupied. This thesis reflects on historic Protestant views on worship and architecture focused specifically on the Dutch Reformed and the Puritan sects. This reflection provides a rubric with which to critique contemporary megachurch architecture as well as a foundation for the proposal of a new typological hybrid for the American megachurch.Item Action potentials: Building an urban landscape through discreet moments(2004) Williams, Katherine; Finley, DawnA need in Houston exists---to encourage thickening of existing older neighborhoods. This thickness, the haphazard nature of events and performances found in everyday living, is fostered by building types that define our experiences within the city and build relations to one another. These qualities exist in discreet forms, sometimes dormant and out of focus, yet create openings for invention. Sites and cultures about Washington Avenue, found through close readings of site, contain latent potentials. However, with an influx of new townhomes and gated communities in the area failing to consider present conditions, these sites and cultures will soon disappear. This thesis projects that the architect's responsibility is to act through a light touch in unearthing the forces shaping latent sites and communicating unrealized potentials throughout the community. Deployed site vignettes become a tactical, bottom up overture---a poster campaign.Item After Beaches: Designs for Unstable Grounds(2024-04-18) Brancaccio, Anna Sophia; Utting, Brittany; Finley, DawnBeaches are highly dynamic, shifting hourly, and seasonally with changing tides and weather. This relative instability poses issues for coastal development which relies on fixed ideas of land ownership and construction. As a result, massive coastal defense infrastructures, such as sea walls, jetties, dikes, and bulkheads, have been deployed across these shorelines to fix the ground in place. Rather than preventing change, these fixed or fixing infrastructures accelerate certain kinds of movement, drawing distinct patterns of erosion, flow, and sedimentation into the grounds they occupy. Set in Galveston Bay, on the northeast Texas Gulf Coast, After Beaches: Designs for Unstable Grounds is a proposal for alternative methods for designing and constructing coastal ground based on movement rather than fortification, imagining how a dynamic understanding of ground could shift strategies of coastal development towards more seasonal and provisional approaches. Sediment is borrowed for the construction of temporary public beaches and recreational facilities.Item Allegories of Repair(2024-04-19) Sanders, Christopher; Geiser, Reto; Finley, Dawn"Allegories of Repair" explores the complex dynamics of marginalized communities, focusing on West Dallas. Embracing Donna Haraway's "situated knowledges," the thesis proposes a resilient methodology to understand the intertwined context. Utilizing storytelling tools, the narrative unfolds, depicting the challenges faced by West Dallas, from industrial proximity to rapid displacement. This causes for the rejection of simplistic architectural solutions. Instead, a network of interventions is proposed, including adaptive reuse and small-scale creative spaces. The thesis emphasizes subtle acts of redistribution and reorganization to promote community care. Despite diverse outcomes, the interventions collectively contribute to fostering a new collective attitude in West Dallas.Item Amplifying Atlanta(2020-04-22) Nazli, Mediha Aylin; Colman, Scott; Finley, DawnEmerging from Atlanta’s historical rail line infrastructure, the Atlanta Beltline, a twenty-two-mile ring of multi-use trails, parks, and light rail system is shaping a new way of life within the city’s urban core. The Beltline is challenging critical issues such as suburban sprawl and traffic congestion through strategies of connectivity, walkability, and environmental sustainability. This thesis embraces these challenges, amplifies the city’s existing urban fabric and capitalizes on emerging infrastructure to provide a possible framework for the city’s future growth. This speculative framework provides a platform for a scalar approach to increasing density, implementing a patchwork zoning strategy, preserving prominent characteristics of the city, and prioritizing space within the urban core for a new type that represents the “missing middle”.Item An Infrastructure for Aging: Multigenerational Housing at Houston's Park & Rides(2021-04-30) Gullick, Kati ann; Utting, Brittany; Finley, DawnAging is inevitable; it comes with changes not just physical, but also social. Networks of informal care become critical for the wellbeing of the elderly and increasingly challenging for the young. Risk of isolation and loneliness are exacerbated by ageism, segregated housing typologies, and limited mobility. This thesis seeks to address these challenges through a new type of multi-generational suburban housing located at existing commuter transit hubs in Houston, TX. The project centers on the needs of both the elderly and people who make up the networks of informal care that they are a part of. Age-segregated housing models represent one third of the housing units for people over 55 in the US. These developments range in scale from the assisted-living home to entire suburban developments like The Villages in Florida. Deed restrictions and community by-laws keep the young out, while a decreased mandate for equally accessible outside spaces keeps the old in. In addition to this spatial divide, age-segregated housing drives social and economic wedges. The effectiveness of informal care networks is limited and the burden on caregivers is increased. In many cases, hired domestic care becomes necessary - something that the vast majority of America’s elderly cannot afford. This project exists in opposition to these housing types. Occupying the Park & Ride flat lots dotting Beltway 8 in Houston, TX, it proposes an intentionally multigenerational development. Private units center around shared amenities while also offering privacy and independence for individual residents. Spaces for planned activities, childcare, and work activate outdoor areas and provide opportunity for consolidation of domestic labor and community building. The entire project is elevated above a level of parking to both preserve the existing functionality of the Park & Ride, and in response to Houston’s propensity to flood. With 300 units of varying sizes, it introduces diverse density to the existing suburban fabric. The site - an existing commuter hub operated by Houston METRO also allows for the potential of car-free living in an otherwise car dominated suburban landscape. An Infrastructure for Aging does address the physical realities of aging through grab bars and elevators, but more importantly it exists as a piece of social infrastructure - supporting not just seniors but also those who care for them.Item Architecture for Hiding People(2023-04-21) Weeks, Rebecca M; Schaum, Troy; Finley, DawnHiding is a crucial part of the architectural lineage of the oppressed – in particular, the act of hiding in plain sight. So, what is hiding? Is it always physical? Is it always centered around the act of going into hiding? Is it always domestic, focused on contortion and survival in someone else’s cellar or attic? The answer is overwhelmingly no. In the case of a violent group that hunts people based on their identity, hiding is an act that implies a sense of safety, of maintaining autonomy, of self-hood. It keeps you alive which is an act of both passive and active resistance. But our day to day life is not always one of active crisis. There are many other conditions that render people “hidden”, and they are overwhelmingly mundane. In this installment, Architecture for Hiding People focuses on the fictional institution, The New Center for Housing Equity, Palm Springs. Through defining spatial relationships and utilizing narrative creation, it explores the topics of institutional visibility and representation.Item Better Pedestrian City(2022-04-20) Zhu, Beixi; Finley, Dawn; Colman, ScottThe image of high-rise buildings sitting on an isolated island has become the desired format for new urban developments in Chinese cities. This thesis proposes a new kind of city, that by freeing the ground plane of traffic and commerce, permits the realization of urban qualities unexpected in the current metropolis. In the time of new media technologies, culture has undergone a radical transformation that has yet to be reflected in the realities of the city. The proposal, based on an existing site in the Hongkou district of Shanghai, assumes current urban trends in urban circulation, demography, and density. By reimagining the movements and uses of the contemporary city this thesis envisions a possible new urban reality.Item Breaking Cycles, Building Connections: Rethinking Market Edges in Abidjan for Sustainable Urban Transformation(2024-04-17) Ndoumy-Kouakou, Isabelle Nora; Colman, Scott; Finley, Dawn; Jimenez, CarlosMy thesis focuses on markets in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire, specifically the reworking of the edges of the Marché de Marcory to better serve the market, its people, and the city as a whole. The different elements comprising this new edge can be implemented in other markets throughout the city to reconfigure their edges as well. The ground floor of this new edge is dedicated to the market, incorporating infrastructure such as storage, sinks, and refrigeration spaces to support the day-to-day activities of the market. The first floor is dedicated to the women of the market and their children. Since the markets are predominantly run by women, and unfortunately, many of them lack formal education, they often enter a cycle from a young age. Initially brought to the market by their mothers, who are working there, they gradually assume more responsibilities and eventually take over their mothers’ stalls. This perpetuates a challenging cycle, making it difficult for them to break free as they, too, end up having their own children.Item Calibrated Roughness: An Ordinary Architecture on the Urban Periphery(2019-04-15) Zhou, Yixin; Vassallo, Jesús; Finley, DawnThis thesis approaches material considerations in architectural design not as an afterthought to form or program, but as an active component in shaping our environment and living experience. Despite our need to name the spaces in which we live, we do not actually live in the space of language, but rather inhabit a reality of materials with qualities that interact with bodies and lives. The project, named “calibrated roughness”, deploys a set of calibrations to bring out the positive meanings of the term “roughness”. It aims to unfold experiences that will vary according to the time of the day, the activities and events occurring, the occupation of space and characteristics of the inhabitants.Item Capsizing the flagship: A study in PHARMETICS(1999) Finley, Dawn; El-Dahdah, FaresP H A R M E T I C S dispensary is a prototype retail facility developed by combining one drugstore chain conglomerate and one international cosmetic company. The dispensary is sited as an operational component in commerce, utilizing economic and regulatory systems, marketing strategies, and cultural identification conditions as means to investigate and articulate a physical retail environment. Strategic cross-industry exchange results in innovative hybrid products and services, while expanding the categorical particularities of practice.Item Cast of Civic Characters(2015-04-14) Altshuler, Joseph; Finley, Dawn; Wittenberg, Gordon; Colman, ScottThe Cast of Civic Characters is a civic complex for Houston that couples municipal service counters with other public amenities including an auditorium, dining hall, outreach center, gym, and pool. Each program is housed in a separate small building that takes on the likeness of an animate creature. The collective “herd” occupies a single city block. This thesis posits that creature-buildings intensify architecture’s communicative and storytelling potential; by soliciting a fictional vitality, they mythologize architecture’s agency and enable public institutions to craft narratives about their identities. Formally, each Character is generated from an extruded profile that is broken along a central seam, hinged, and partially rotated according to a shallow angle. This technique conjures an image-able figure that is graphic and immediate, but also temporal and modulating from multiple vantage points. The simple act of slightly rotating the elevation condenses both pictorial and sculptural perception into a single architectural form.Item Claiming the Line: Ephemeral Boundary(2019-04-12) Gomez, Veronica; Finley, DawnThis thesis claims architecture (and specific forms of architectural practice) as a tool of advocacy to engage relevant political and social issues of great urgency around the world. The project critiques international border walls and the dehumanizing conditions generated urbanistically, economically, and socially through their divisive nature. To address this complex political and social topic, three forms of design research and representation are used to explore, demonstrate and question political futures through architecture. This diverse set of formats —a research map, a medium-scale building and a small-scale object or piece of furniture — are independent trajectories that operate collectively, synthetically, and equally in this investigation.Item Co-op Interieur(2021-04-30) Liu, Tian; Jimenez, Carlos; Finley, DawnToday, our city is developed based on a clear distinction between workplace and housing. This dichotomy reinforces the framework of the 9-5 schedule, narrowing down the possibilities of how people live and work. The thesis proposes a prototype for collaborative living, within which work, live and leisure overlapped within the same space. Situated specifically in the abandoned warehouses, the industrial building is readapted into a new urban infrastructure which encourages the nomadic and uprooted lifestyle, so as to facilitate deterritorialization. The design challenges the traditional definition of domestic space, explores a new way of how people live and work together. Rooms no longer have fixed identity, but being continuously redefined by boundary objects. Within the new homescape, architectural elements including the wall, furniture and roof are reshaped and unified by a dynamic mechanical system, in which the architectural elements regulate the dynamic balance between work, live and leisure.Item Codes of conduct(2019-04-12) Yeung, Hannah; Colman, Scott; Finley, Dawn; Whiting, SarahHeterogeneous public space in Zuccotti Park, NYC.Item Combinatory Modular System for Integral Forms(2020-04-20) Cheng, Yuqing; Castellon, Juan Jose; Finley, Dawn; Colman, ScottThe relationship between form and structure is a topic that, historically, has been broadly discussed in the disciplines of architecture and engineering. Taking some of these precedents as reference, this thesis focuses on the development of a combinatory modular system that integrates expressive forms and structural principles. This is achieved through the implementation of geometric and structural parameters as well as industrial processes and material properties from the early stages of the design process. Through this design approach, expressive forms move away from personal and figurative references. Moreover, this modular system reevaluates the role of industrial mass production and the new opportunities offered by digital prefabrication methods through the development of a combinatorial assembly system of structural modules at multiple scales.Item Commoning on the Ring Road(2021-01-28) Carr, Brendan; Vassallo, Jesus; Finley, DawnThis thesis synthesizes two decaying typologies on the periphery of Houston, the office block and low-rise mass housing, with the ambition to distill different uses and scales of space into a multivalent collective form. The outer edges of Houston house an unexpected degree of density. Largely built during the first oil boom of the late 1960s and 70s, a patchwork of low-rise high-density developments are the naturally-occurring affordable housing stock of the city. However, these developments are reaching the end of their useful life at a time when the city faces a critical need for housing. Contemporaneous to these mid-century low-rise housing projects, the suburban office block faces a different kind of decay. Though physically durable, these sites face increasingly high vacancy rates, only exacerbated by the on-going pandemic. Rather than continue a model of development predicated on unlimited availability of land, these under-utilized sites can be given a new life through the expansion of their use and spatial composition. Operating on a scale somewhere between city and building, the mega-parcels that constitute the exurban environment offer a unique opportunity to reimagine the privatized landscape of the urban periphery.Item Conspicuous Consumption(2019-04-17) Kleeschulte, Daniel W; Costanza, David; Finley, DawnThis thesis explores the symbiosis of artificial intelligence and digitial technologies of the fourth industrial revolution, and the built conditions of the contemporary factory. These technologies are ushering in a future where the human laborer may be rendered obsolete. Assuming that this shift is true, what are the alternative realities for these post anthropocentric labor environments?Item Constellations(2024-04-18) DeFazio, Paul A; Finley, Dawn; Marjanovic , Igor; Jimenez , CarlosMy thesis imagines a crip future for the Bay Area through the design on six interconnected sites.