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Degree

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, Design, Art, Architecture, & Planning: Architecture (Master of), 2004.

Abstract

In today’s Western world, specifically within the United States and its urban environments, preoccupation with the struggle to meet one’s present day economic and social needs diminishes the amount of time an individual feels he or she can spare for self-reflection and self-preservation. The term self-preservation is used in this context to define that which an individual needs to do in order to maintain mental and physical harmony in the modern milieu. This thesis posits that the struggle to meet the needs of everyday life is more pressing upon the individual within the urban environment than in other settings. People who work or live in the city feel that there is little or no time for ‘pause’ or self-preservation; hence, they leave the city in order to escape the temporal obligations imposed on them by modernity and their everyday lives. I am proposing that one does not need to physically leave the city in order to escape its pressures and pace. Strategic design in an urban environment can offset the effects of the temporal demands of modernity, allowing the distractions of everyday life to fade from the mind and creating a place for retreat, self-reflection and self-preservation to occur. In order to provide an environment for ‘pause’ within the city, I am designing an Urban Retreat for the Arts, a project that will enable me to translate my thesis concepts into built form.

Subject Headings

Architecture

Keywords

Time; Experience; Place; Modernity; Self-Preservation; Retreat

Advisor

Nnamdi Elleh

Pages

96p.

Document number: ucin1083346396
Permalink: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1083346396

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