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Finley, Dawn Wittenberg, Gordon Colman, Scott Altshuler, Joseph 2015-06-25T19:53:17Z 2015-06-25T19:53:17Z 2015-05 2015-04-14 May 2015 2015-06-25T19:53:18Z Altshuler, Joseph. "Cast of Civic Characters." (2015) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/80776">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/80776</a>. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/80776 The 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. application/pdf eng Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder. civic characters character Houston narrative storytelling animate creatures graphic Hejduk Somol municipal delight Cast of Civic Characters Thesis Text Architecture Architecture Rice University Masters Master of Architecture open.access