R-3 Repository :: Browsing by Author "Sherman, William"

Browsing by Author "Sherman, William"

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Align between language, thought and architecture
(1992) McKee, David Williams; Sherman, William
The Modern Epoch was characterized by a move to control discourse and to achieve a criterion of critique and meaning commensurate with notions of wholeness, consensus, clarity, closure, telos, and order. Yet the postmodernist critique has rendered such a criterion and notions inappropriate and inapplicable. The separation that seemingly existed between words and things has been shown to be but a thing of language. This altered understanding has brought discourse in architecture to a state of crisis. In modern building we continue to push the dualities in which we think and live further apart. Our representations seem divided and our sense of the built world may correspondingly be reduced to an incongruity of doubles. We do not understand the logic of our own language, yet restoration and recuperation of a criterion of critique and meaning is precisely dependent on an understanding of the relationships that exist between language, thought and architecture.
An analysis of the between space in the experimental city (Texas)
(1993) Dokos, Kelli Ann; Sherman, William
Houston is the rebellious younger sibling of the traditional city, a product of the tug-of-war between the amorphous historic past and the open field of future possibilities; this dichotomy contributes to the form of the experimental city which is direct challenge to the traditional city as applied urban model. In the traditional city urban meaning and architectural form are innately linked, in the experimental city it is not building which embodies the urban iconology, but instead the Between Spaces, the direct, although inadvertent, spatial results of Houston's construction processes. Thus, architecture and urban meaning are disassociated, and through this schism meaning is physically relocated outside of architecture in the Between Space of the experimental city. Through the analysis of two case studies, Transco Tower/Lamar Terrace, and Sam Houston Tollway/Memorial Bend, an alternative experiential and perceptual framework through which Houston's urban forms are assessed is determined.
Architecture and photographic framing: Re-framing the building fragment in its context, and the body in a program of use (Roland Barthes, Brassa\"\i, Daniel Buren, Cindy Sherman)
(1993) Wickham, V. Mason; Sherman, William
This thesis explores the phenomenon of contingency inherent in photographic framing for its application to the design of a public building in an urban context. Like the conception of any duality, as stated by Roland Barthes in his essay Camera Lucida; a photograph exists only in terms of our perception of its frame. This project demonstrates these principles as they are examined in the images of Brassai's Paris, the work of Daniel Buren, and the Untitled Film Stills of Cindy Sherman through the design of a post office in Houston, Texas. The city, the site, the building and the program extend beyond the bounded limits of pure enclosure; and the architecture becomes an inhabitable frame in which the referent adheres to the reference, the fragment to the context, the object to the subject.
CiteSurvey: Addressing a Profile: St. Luke's Medical Tower
(Rice Design Alliance, 1988) Sherman, William
Creating the threshold: Between the architectural sublime and the simply terrible (Massachusetts)
(1993) Francis, Mark John; Sherman, William
The program is the development of a library for Smith College to house the collection of poetic works by Emily Dickinson. The library is the result of an examination of creating an architectural space that generates the delight of the sublime and approaches the personal terror experienced by one who suffers from agoraphobia with panic disorder. The siting in the garden and the architectural decisions in the building of the library are chiefly generated with consideration of the work of Piranesi and Hopper, and the writings of Edmund Burke and Thomas Weiskel of such issues of extremes as delight and pain, the infinite and the graspable, vastness and minuteness, light and dark, life and death.
From the arcade to the shopping mall: The transformation of public space
(1991) Schaule, Petra; Sherman, William
An inquiry into the loss of urbanity in the contemporary city initiated a historical study of public space. The public space of today's mall is introverted and isolated from its environment--the disintegrated, decaying city. The political implications of this transformation are the tendency towards privatization of public space and increasing segregation of society. Public space and public services are more and more taken over by profit-oriented private businesses and no longer available to everybody, e.g. the 'central business district' demonstrates the replacement of the public realm by the corporate realm. The Houston tunnel system exemplifies this tendency: it is owned by private corporations, accessible to the public only from their buildings. The Design Thesis attempts to return this part of the urban infrastructure to the public realm. Entrances from the street are intended to make the pedestrian tunnels more easily accessible to the individual.
In this place with no names (Houston, Texas)
(1992) Hofius, W. Douglas; Sherman, William
This investigation begins and ends with conditions present in the city of Houston, which in many ways typify processes at work in other urban centers around the country and around the world. One senses, in the vast empty ring which surrounds downtown Houston, the infinity of the great plains, in the midst of a highly urbanized context. The complete lack of hierarchy or figure inherent in this landscape seems to be a fascinating architectural problem. How do we build in such an area, and how do we come to grips with this vast emptiness which surrounds it? The conditions of emptiness and dematerialization inherent in the territory led to an investigation of the aesthetics of silence. Silence can be defined in three ways: first of all as a literal refusal to tell us anything. Secondly, as a condition of presence or immanence, and finally, as a condition of exhaustion, at the end of the line. All three conditions appeared to be present in the territory bordering downtown Houston to the East. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)
Resonating orders of landscape and construction
(1992) Gregory, Andrew F.; Sherman, William
The thesis is how resonating patterns of landscape and construction may link a building with its place, producing physically semantic architecture. Visual data understood by patterns offer an approach to relating buildings and landscapes. The potency of pattern resonance is its internal relationship with site and program; communicating fundamentally due to the a priori site experience. The site patterns communicate universally (human perception), not requiring previous knowledge (architectural histories or theories). Analysis of the key qualitative and quantitative orders/patterns of the site and the surrounding landscape document the salient patterns available for interpretive re-used in construction. Isolation of discrete patterns in landscape and interpretive reuse in construction attempts to build an integral order allowing "meaning(s)". An architectural summer retreat program is chosen not as a direct corollary to the idea but a test/control for the idea. The retreat suggests an-other method of viewing buildings and context.
Secular spiritualism evolved: The market as communal sanctuary
(1994) Hussey, Alexandra H.; Sherman, William
Through a comparative analysis of selected modern and contemporary works, both religious and secular, a secular spiritualism is identified. The subversion of representation and suppression of a traditional sacred language, the revelation of the site and its phenomenal qualities, as well as the self-conscious manipulation of tectonics in terms of the relationship between light, material, and construction are the means for challenging the viability of this secular spiritualism at an urban scale. This thesis argues that such a spiritualism can be found in our secular world and proposes that the undefined residual spaces left by privatization become the neutral testing ground for a new urban prototype: the communal sanctuary.
The Architecture of Mario Botta: Narrowed Gates in an Expanded Field
(Rice Design Alliance, 1987) Sherman, William
The melting shed: A Facility for Urban Culture in Houston (Texas)
(1993) Robinson, David Wynn; Sherman, William
The Melting Shed presents the role of the architect as a traveler in the world today. This thesis documents a voyage taken to investigate the work of an artistic vanguard and focuses on the place where its art has been housed for the public. The journey is an exploration of the artistic and cultural life of two cities: Cuenca, Spain and Houston, Texas. The process involves research in both the old and the new worlds, while discoveries remind us of the rewards of searching in far away places. On the way, the architect considers establishing a forum for artistic expression in Houston. The project examines the city and illustrates how the site was selected as a place to shelter the arts. This thesis delivers a manifesto and suggests a design for the architect's proposal of a Facility for Urban Culture in Houston.
The single family house and the institution: Challenging the boundaries imposed by architectural and social constructs
(1993) Kramer, Nancy Ann; Sherman, William
Beginning with the critique of the typological single family "dream house," this thesis incorporates issues of gender concepts, image sustenance and consumerism to expose how the image of the body in the perception of self is manifested and sustained within the contemporary suburban landscape. An analogy is made between maintaining the image of self through the manipulation of the physical body--appearance--and the representation of the single family house--presence. Feminist Theory is employed to investigate how suppressive spatial relationships can control and reinforce predominant architectural and social constructs. The project demonstration challenges traditional design and decision-making processes for the design of an elementary school.
Tools and technology, body and world: An exploration of technology transfer
(1993) Breshears, John Edward; Sherman, William
The tools we choose to perform a given task affect not only the result of the task but also how it is conceived. An examination of tools, tasks, and interdisciplinary technology transfer suggests that new ways of thinking, rather than increased efficiency, are the primary means of technological advancement. The history of the relationship of the human body to architecture can be seen as a progression from embodiment to projection to a new paradigm of extension, or prosthesis. These ideas, together with surveys of bridge types and prosthetic technology, lead to the design of a pedestrian bridge linking two existing buildings. The bridge is conceived and designed using the tools of medical prosthetics and orthotics. Human and animal vertebrae suggest structural principles from which a light-weight, articulated bridge form is developed to satisfy the requisite conditions.
Transformation of the symbolic dimensions of architectural forms found on the Iowa corn belt farmstead
(1990) Fenton, Gregory Eugene; Sherman, William
The thesis formulates a transformation of the symbolic dimension of architectural forms found on the Iowa farmstead. The persistence of these forms, even in the event of their apparent recent absence of their necessity, can form the foundation of future representational and rhetorical meanings. If any stability or foundation can be found in this problem, it comes from these fragments of an older language and tradition. Through an understanding of these architectural forms and symbolic attachment once adhered to, an architecture derived with reference to historical and mythological authority, and function as an constitutive element, exists. To obtain the goal of rediscovering the truths and developing a new conscience of the symbolism and language of the Iowa Corn Belt farmer, the land and agriculture, the following methods will be employed: (1) Tracing the origins of the traditional symbols and architectural forms. (2) Studying regionalist painter Grant Wood and selected paintings depicting his story of rural society, its values and symbols, both physical and spiritual, during the 1920 and 1930's. (3) Examination of a personal photographic case study which reveals contemporary facts and visions currently in place in Iowa.

Browsing by Author "Sherman, William"

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