MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2010, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of)

The relationship between farmers and the land is a conflict of ecological conduct. Current agro-industrial landscapes have distorted the contextual relationship between artificial and natural landscape signifiers. As a result, contemporary agricultural models have become ethically deficient, producing unified monocultural cultivations in place of once diverse networks of polycultural ecologies. The stability of agricultural communities can no longer be seen as an isolated rural problem. At the cultural expense of damaged environments, depopulating communities, decomposing buildings, and faded traditions, agro-industries have extracted vast amounts of wealth from rural areas. As Wendell Berry wisely said, „Eating is an agricultural act.„ A simple but illuminating message; we are all a part of the rural communities that grow our food; we need to become accountable for the effects our purchasing and eating has on the agricultural environment. More than any other input, technology has overwhelming reshaped how and what farms produce. New technologies delivered to farms need to be inherently architectural; derived not from physical objects such as devices, implements, and buildings but from the social patterns that objects generate, along with the displacement of activities that such patterns produce. This thesis establishes architectural strategies for restoring social and ecological resilience within agricultural communities. It defines alternative ways of thinking about farm ecologies as a methodology for architectural alterations to the existing rural landscape. These ideas are applied to the [re]design of a once productive family farm in Northern Minnesota, generating a catalog of potential architectural alterations intended to restore sustainable production, ethical determinism, and cultural significance to the working farm- landscape.

PhD, University of Cincinnati, 2019, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

ABSTRACT This dissertation introduces architecture as an active platform in the process of structural conflict transformation for positive peace in post-war and conflict contexts. It is an interdisciplinary research in which architecture operationalizes the theories of peace and peacebuilding. Architecture for/of positive peace is also a response to the United Nations' objectives in its 2030 agenda for sustainable development through a subject as distinct as architecture and relates it to the process of conflict transformation and sustainable peacebuilding. This research is initiated by questioning whether architecture can be employed as an active platform for positive peace. Further, it considers the role of architecture in the process of peacebuilding, its key devices, and operating characteristics. This dissertation analyzes both the existing discourses of `architecture and war' and `architecture and peace' to derive a set of themes and implications that reveal the role of architecture in the process of peacebuilding in post-war and conflict contexts. The research emphasizes theories of peace and peacebuilding, specifically the propositions of Johan Galtung and John Paul Lederach from the discipline of peace studies, in the aim of building a theoretical framework for peacebuilding through which it is possible to activate the role of architecture for positive peace. Based on the concluded theoretical framework, architecture for positive peace is distinguished from architecture for negative peace, and its characteristics are defined. Architecture for/of positive peace is a complex, inclusive, belonging, and common-ground platform. It manifests either as an `assemblage' (the physical visible form of architecture), as a space of `relational identity,' or both.

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2015, History of Art

Cem ceremonies are the primary communal assemblies of the spiritual lineages of the Alevi Muslim minority living in Anatolia, the Balkans, and the surrounding regions. Alevis designate settings for the cem known as cemevis or cem evis (literally “houses of the cem”). Cemevis may be purpose built structures or buildings temporarily converted for ritual observance. The essential requirement of the cemevi is that it be suitable for the cem, both spatially and in terms of the intentionality and appropriate moral background of the host and participants. The setting must permit all in attendance, men and women, to have equal visual and aural access to each other and to their Dede, the elder spiritual guide who descends from the family of the Prophet Muhammad. This leaves the cemevi open to a wide variety of design schemes, materials, furniture and decor, all of which make the ceremony possible, yet do not determine or confine its liturgy. The emphasis on community and comportment allows symbolic imagery and reenactments to activate and envelop the space in a meaningful, albeit often temporary, manner. Both the increasing visibility of purpose-built Alevi centres since the late twentieth century and the hidden nature of cem sites during periods of persecution dating back to the sixteenth century are related to Alevi resistance to elements in mainstream Islamic culture in the region. Alevis sometimes refer to the practices and ideologies of their Sunni neighbours as “cami kulturu” (“mosque culture”), differentiating this from themselves and their own cem-centred worship. This project explores the development, use, meaning, and changing role of the Alevi cemevi and its iconography from the thirteenth century to the present within the geographical region framed by the Turkish Republic. Through a combination of architectural site visits, the collection of oral histories, and an analysis of the historical setting, this study examines the relationship between ceremony and (open full item for complete abstract)

Master of Arts (MA), Ohio University, 2022, Art History (Fine Arts)

The Sea Ranch is an architecturally significant resort community on the north coast in California's Bay Area, with a master plan and aesthetic that is renowned for its treatment of the local site conditions and rural built environment. This study seeks to demonstrate that the Sea Ranch can be understood through the lens of settler colonialism in the United States not in spite of its ecological and site-specific credo, but indeed precisely because of it. In untangling the relationship between architecture, landscape, and vernacularity at the Sea Ranch, so too does the relationship between its visual and cultural antecedents begin to unravel the myth of the place. In reading the Sea Ranch's environmental and aesthetic citations through the experiences, histories, and means of survival of the land's original stewards, the Kashaya Pomo, the settler colonial framework undergirding the project complicates the ways in which the Sea Ranch's utopian beginnings were conceived of and are recounted in architectural history.

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, 2022, Integrated Bioscience

Continuously expanding urban environments compete with and negatively impact natural ecosystems. Building processes consume numerous resources including materials which need to be extracted, transported, shaped, and disposed of. To reduce this negative impact and instead potentially positively affect natural ecosystems, the built environment needs to perform ecosystem services originally in place and sustainable building practices should be employed for their entire life cycle. The principle of biological growth has architectural potential including adaptation, resilience, dynamics, differentiation, and continuous functionality. Biotechnology and biomimicry serve as integrated bioscience methods to transfer biology into architecture by integrating living organisms into the manufacturing process and applying abstracted biological principles into technological systems. This PhD explores the solidification of aggregate materials through both methods to show their potential and limitations: growth of fungal mycelium on agricultural byproducts to produce building materials and design of foundation systems inspired by tree roots. Mycelium-based materials are of increasing interest for their potential in generating biodegradable building materials with tunable properties from waste products through clean manufacturing processes. Before their implementation into permanent buildings, numerous aspects have yet to be researched. This PhD primarily focuses on: the optimization of large-scale manufacturing processes, effects of the manufacturing process and material compositions on mechanical properties and outdoor durability, and utilization of local species. Root-inspired foundation systems can enhance traditional foundations by reducing resources utilized and integrating new functions to serve the built environment and natural ecosystems. Conceptual designs present how root strategies are abstracted and transferred towards the future of building foundations. Biolog (open full item for complete abstract)

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2019, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

Architecture is essentially considered as a visual experience and is arguably categorized under visual arts. The built environment around us with which we interact with daily, is often designed and perceived visually, which accounts for the visual bias in architecture. The space confined by architectural boundaries is often mistaken as emptiness, devoid of any medium. Visual qualities of our built environment are often prioritized over the architectural experiences it should be creating through collaboration of our senses. If we consider space as a living entity capable of stimulating our senses, it opens a whole new world of sensory cues waiting to interact with the inhabitant's senses. This world of sensory information includes light and shadow, color and contrast, scale and proportion, textures and materiality, reverberating sound, varying temperatures, smells that seduce us, and many more. Our senses interact with this sensory environment, which in fact, instills a sense of place in our brain, thus creating a permanent memory which pins ourselves to the location through proprioception. The architectural experience created by built environment plays a major role in imparting this sense of place within us, and that's the reason why architects should identify and perceive the experiential quality of the spaces early in their design process. Through this thesis project I'd like to address the issue of visual bias in architecture, and design a Museum curating natural elements, with focus on creating an experience by encouraging its users to interact and perceive with one or all of their senses, the unity of senses. The different physical states of matter and other material properties that enables natural elements; Earth, Air, Water, and Fire; to stimulate more than one sense in our body will be used to create more-than-visual sensory experiences within the museum. The Winter Garden combines all these perceptions into one holistic sensory experience by engaging (open full item for complete abstract)

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2017, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

My goal is to design a home for user-directed change. Studies of kinetic architecture have tackled this in different ways, often not overlapping multiple methods for the sake of design simplicity. I intend to merge three usually separate scales of kinetic architecture (the scale of the whole building, the scale of the exterior skin, and the scale of the interior program) to create a completely new flexible housing option. This will provide the user with the ability to control their location, the interior of their home, and the connection they have to their site. With this new design type, I will offer informed predictions for the ramifications and impacts this design would have on its user and on whole communities.

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2014, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

The continued growth of online shopping has forced retailers to rethink strategies and brand identities. While much has happened in the way of integrating retailers into technology, the design of the spaces remains stagnant. The design and ambiance of a real space, such as a store, is one key difference of online retailing. The brand identity and core values can be better portrayed in real space than in virtual space. While retailers such as J. Crew control all of their inventory through their own highly controlled sales channels (online or in-store), not all retailers have this luxury. The successful retailer of the future will be able to change their physical store as quickly as they can alter their website.

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2009, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of)

Architectural design in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic regions of the world faces unique difficulties: a simultaneously fragile and antagonistic physical environment, great distance from production centers, and a shortage of infrastructure and skilled labor. The region also faces a tradition of cultural, programmatic, and contextual disconnect from design centers located to the south that control architectural discourse and often substitute a lack of understanding of place-ness with a methodology of place-making, the result of which can be a type of under-representation of place. This thesis explores a methodology in which architectural form is directly generated from the stringent constraints and challenges of the region. These ideas and methodologies are tested in the Yup'ik Eskimo village of Newtok in Western Alaska, an indigenous community being forced to move en masse by coastal erosion resulting from climate change. The design project is an Evacuation Center for the new community site.

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2009, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of)

Full of languishing, historic buildings, underemployed people, and the highest crime rate for miles, Over-the-Rhine has procured an undesirable notoriety in the greater Cincinnati area. This once vibrant, thriving neighborhood of Germans has become an affliction on the city. This did not happen overnight; white flight, prohibition, anti-German sentiments from World Wars, street widening, and the suburbanization of America have all contributed to its downfall. A recent initiative by the City of Cincinnati has produced a master plan, but not much tangible evidence of progress. It is a distinct possibility that the government alone cannot cure Over-the-Rhine. This multi-faceted problem results in pursuing various avenues for a solution. First, according to Grogan and Proscio, authors of Comeback Cities, there are four factors that make an inner-city recovery possible including grassroots organizations and the breakdown of government agencies such as welfare and public housing. Second, an investigation into self-help housing provides an avenue in which residents of this neighborhood may help themselves with limited government interference. Grassroots organizations in the Bronx borough of New York City literally brought neighborhoods back to life over a twenty year span because of a diligence to keep working one building at a time. Similarly, the Savannah College of Art and Design revitalized the city of Savannah by transforming vacant industrial buildings into a college scattered throughout Savannah. An examination of these themes in conjunction with Over-the-Rhine's unique circumstances results in a holistic approach to people and architecture. A [grassroots] organization will put residents to work via construction on vacant Over-the-Rhine buildings rehabilitating them for occupancy by workers or for rent to other residents of the neighborhood. The organization not only trains citizens in construction skills, but how to run a salvage center, and encourages the growth (open full item for complete abstract)

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2006, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of)

The modern Napa Valley winery must be more than a rationally designed manufacturing facility for wine. Its role has expanded to become a place for visitors to experience the winemaking process and its intimate connection with the surrounding landscape. Hence, the winery becomes a convergence of process, place, and experience. Many wineries have resorted to the replication of historic forms and images pulled from outside sources, forcing the winemaking process into a predetermined stylistic shell. As a result, the focus of the visitor's experience is diverted away from the true essence of the winery, the process itself and its connection with a specific place. To attempt to truly integrate process, place, and experience into a comprehensive formal and material gesture would require an investigation into the design process, and the various ways in which these factors are dealt with. An exploration of selected projects by Alvar Aalto, Tadao Ando, Herzog and De Meuron, and UN Studio attempt to uncover strategies for achieving poetic results from the integration of rationalities associated with program and site. Architecture is the harmonizing of function and art. For the sake of the winery, concept of function is broadened to include issues of site and experience, while art comes in our experiencing of the poetics of the space. This thesis will provide an example of the assimilation of the functional requirements of site and process with a poetic expression of these ideas in a project that physically and metaphorically integrates key concepts in wine and winemaking into the design of a Napa Valley winery.

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2006, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of)

The world is in the midst of an environmental crisis. Global warming and mass extinction are looming threats, which research has proven are the results of human activity. Specifically, human activities that deal with the construction and subsequent operational energy requirements of our built environment contribute more to environmental degradation than any other factor; more so even than automobiles and power plants. This is a fact that the general public often overlooks, largely because the damaging effects of our built environment are either completely invisible or immediately destructive only to distant locations. This results in a false sense of security that has become the foundation of a severe disconnection between humans and the natural world, as well as an educational gap between the general public and the tangible positive alternatives that currently exist. All of this leaves Architecture with an enormous opportunity to not only physically demonstrate best practices from a design and construction standpoint, but also to act as a tangible educational tool to encourage the behavioral changes that our society needs.

MS ARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2006, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of)

Combining a specific educational methodology with a specific approach to building can be an effective way to study the impacts of physical environment on learning capabilities. The outcome of this study will create a better understanding of the connection between Montessori teaching and the built environment. This thesis will investigate the relationship between the concepts of Montessori teaching and the process of building high performance sustainable facilities. The concept of combining Montessori teaching methods with high performance facilities will be investigated in this thesis to create a better system for learning. The result of this system will advance the Montessori teaching methods by better integrating the philosophies with the physical environment, which will make the overall learning experience more meaningful

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2006, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning : Architecture (Master of)

The Finnish architectural approach achieves genuine significance in architecture through continuity and integrity between form and landscape. This Finnish approach to architecture, delineated as an innate respect to landscape, a reliance on the intuitive design move, genius loci, honesty in the use of materials, and an appreciation of Northern light and nature, is a process for designing successful works of architecture. Aligned with these cultural and poetic sensitivities in Finland, the tangible and intangible characteristics can inform architectural process for projects in Chicago. The design project is concerned with the typologies of cultural institutions and high-rises together with Finnish design principles, tradition, and process, specifically a Finnish Cultural Center in Chicago. This is an investigation into how Finnish architectural process and principles inform and adapt the design of Chicago architecture into a unique solution that is both Finnish and Chicagoan in foundation.

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

Because of our need for controlled internal environments, architecture creates a critical disjunction between nature and society. Therefore, architecture is one of the most significant artifacts of environmental and cultural adaptation, playing an important role in our understanding of society's interconnectedness with the natural world. Structures can effectively educate occupants about this complex relationship through the direct demonstration of necessary adaptations to changing conditions in a specific environmental/cultural context. The design project that accompanies this document focuses on an environmental/cultural center on the south side of Chicago. Located within an area known more for its industrial contamination than for it's ecological wealth, the site and project reinforce the notion that we as a society need to better integrate into our natural environments.

MS ARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2003, Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning : Architecture

This research argues that the Art Deco style in the Philippines can be understood both as the imposition of power by the colonizer and the demonstration of resistance of the colonized. The study also proposes that the style can never be neutral, innocent or inert, rather can be embedded within intricacies of ideological practices and political processes. Scholarship on Art Deco architecture outside Europe and the Americas, especially in the Philippines, has remained uncritical as these were often limited to formalistic analysis. Using postcolonial theory, the critical historiography on Philippine Art Deco is to be investigated in terms of three critical categories of mode of production, representation and power. First, mode of production, shows how Art Deco was connected and dependent on the relationship between producers and consumers of the style. The interaction of materials, technologies of construction, patronage, institutions and cultural agents were highlighted in this chapter. Second, representation, explores how Art Deco became the technology of refashioning and re-presenting the different realities. The form, typologies, variants of the architectural style are dissected and problematized according to the politics of representation; Third focuses on power, or the dynamics between the dominated-subjugated and colonizer-colonized. This section established the linkage between the political, economic and social colonial programs and its manifestations in the built form of that period. Furthermore, modes of resistances and empowerment were identified and probed in relation to the power dynamics.

Master of Architecture, Miami University, 2005, Architecture and Interior Design

An architecture thesis focused on designing a project to suit the particular needs and wants of a specialized client group, in this case, nudists. Literary research coupled with years of personal experience and interviews, revealed nudism to be mostly an act of self-discovery. The focus of the project thus became designing a resort that would facilitate the process of discovery and ideally correlate the spiritual nature of the experience of nudism with the architectural environment. Design decisions to accomplish this were primarily based on people's environmental preferences and our predispositions for natural settings as well as material quality. This thesis is experiential and process oriented, not empirical. Conclusions of the successfulness of the finished design are at the discretion of the reader.

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 1926, Graduate School

MARCH, University of Cincinnati, 2023, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture

Modern amenities have isolated modern people from their environment. The source and destination of our resources has become invisible to the point of mystery. This shift has disconnected users from their resources and thus they feel no consequence is using them. A reconnection is needed to bring understanding and awareness back to the minds of end users. This connection should be both a physical and mental endeavor. By interacting with our building physically – changing it for our benefit – we gain knowledge of both our building, the environment, the environment's impact on the building, and the building's impact on our comfort. None of this is achieved through adjusting a thermostat. By critically analyzing the site which a building is meant to be placed, architects should gain insight in to how to best respond to the conditions found there. This response should aim to create a building that is able to both use and protect the site. Understanding what may cause discomfort in the environment and what strategies will best address these issues is the architect's most important role. While there are many ways to solve the thermal comfort problem, doing an analysis into the least invasive and most effective strategies for a given site should give impactful insight into the design of the building. The site this thesis addresses is in the Quinault River Valley of the Pacific Northwest's Quinault Rainforest. This site, bringing and abundance of wind and rain but little sun, dictates many of the design moves and energy sources. As the temperatures do not fluctuate much in the day, preservation and efficiency of heating is pivotal. Passive heating and cooling strategies must implemented to most efficiently warm and cool interior spaces. These strategies, gathered from precedent analysis of architects such as Glenn Murcutt, Tom Kundig, and Lacaton and Vassal, among others, has shed light on the possibilities of living symbiotically with environment.

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 1960, English