ABSTRACT by Taehyung Kim Contemporary architectural discourse commonly invokes the term framing. Derivative phrases contrived in education and practice are seemingly inexhaustible: framing the view, framing space, framing an idea, frame of reference, framework, window frame, body frame, space frame. The polymorphic nature of the term is perplexing, and despite its frequent and casual mention, the rich potential of framing in the architectural design process is often overlooked. Framing is a primal phenomenon. It shapes...
ABSTRACT by Emma Ma The City of Shenzhen was created as a part of the Chinese economic reform in 1978. The existing undulating topography was bulldozed and flattened, as agrarian fields were transformed into a world-class megalopolis. The state-backed initiative saw the accelerated growth of the city from a population of 300,000 to more than a million in one decade. The new city was split in two by the fenced and guarded Shenzhen Special Economic...
ABSTRACT by Virginia Fernandez Rincon Striving for subsistence, the growing population of Caracas has radically transformed the city in the course of the past fifty years. The inability of the city to respond to the accelerated growth that resulted from mass rural migrations left millions to provide land, shelter and basic services for themselves. The barrios, once thought to be a provisional solution to the housing shortage, are now home to more than half the...
ABSTRACT by Samantha Oswald Brick. A simple object, but one that has been a base unit of architecture for over 6000 years. It carries connotations of labour, of energy, of the fundamental desire of humanity to give form to the substance of the Earth. However, current tendencies in manufacturing and construction are challenging the prevalence of the traditional brick-and-mortar system. Automated manufacturing, large-scale prefabrication, and digital simulation are becoming standard practices. This thesis posits that...
ABSTRACT by Renee Kuehnle The outport is in the midst of great change. Twenty years since the moratorium on cod fishing, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is experiencing rapid economic development in another industrial resource boom. While some outports are growing, others continue to decline. This development is based on wealth gained through exploitation of non-renewable resources, and as such, is not sustainable. Investing a portion of these short-term gains into the development of...
ABSTRACT by Sonja Vangjeli In a context of rapid urbanization and increasingly standardized built environments, urbanism must find new methods of creating appropriate conditions for the variability of contemporary urban life. The city, understood as a system of interconnected processes in constant change, offers a relational way of thinking about urban design. This thesis explores the concept of Relational Urbanism through a strategic design approach that engages the complexity of the site to create variability...
ABSTRACT by Shannon Ross During the 1960s large trenched expressways were introduced into our urban centres to accommodate the booming vehicular traffic. These expressways were built on an enormous scale, often traversing entire cities. Unfortunately, some neighbourhoods have been divided and now share a noxious physical boundary. The Vine Street Expressway in Philadelphia, the Cross Bronx Expressway in New York and the Décarie Expressway in Montreal are examples of such thoroughfares. They are noisy, polluted...
ABSTRACT by Emad Ghattas Québec’s historical attachment with Roman Catholicism is obvious through the great amount of churches throughout the province. Changing attitudes in Québec (in parallel with other regions around the world) are leading to a chronic desertion of spaces of worship. Conceived as the heart of a community, churches successfully imposed their presence onto the built and social fabrics of the neighbourhoods they serve. In today’s context, this relationship is shifting, and communities...
