Architecture + Design

Historically, the profession has relied on the period of architectural internship to enable graduates to integrate professional practice issues into their design-thinking. However, as the profession looks for ways to shorten the licensure process, eliminating the timeline between graduation and licensure, it is necessary to examine how these issues may be addressed in a more multi-dimensional manner within the academy. This paper documents pedagogical research, supported by the 2013 NCARB Award, that investigates an experiential, hybrid classroom and field-based model for integrating issues central to practice in curricula. Original course objectives focused on introducing students to the relationship between concept and technical execution by reviewing project documentation and then visiting construction sites to discuss issues of constructability. However, testing the format across varied project types, delivery methods, scales of operation, and practice models with a range of pra...

This paper and presentation will discuss the development of an interdisciplinary design collaboration seminar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst that included both architecture and landscape architecture students. The seminar was developed concurrently with field research conducted with leading design practitioners on the topic of collaboration in their practice. Themes that were important to design projects featuring architect-landscape architect collaborative teams led to particular seminar modules and exercises. The paper analyzes data from two years of student course evaluations and from design studio faculty feedback, and considers the impact of intentional skill-building in collaborative practices on beginning designers in their first interdisciplinary design studio.

In the summer of 2014, the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB) announced its intention to provide a structured path to licensure upon graduation to qualified candidates. As the period of internship becomes embedded in the academic curriculum, with students eligible to become licensed upon graduation, identifying pedagogical methods that navigate the relationships among theory, design, construction, and practice becomes essential. This paper documents pedagogical research, supported by the 2013 NCARB Award, that investigates an experiential, field-based model for integrating issues central to architectural practice in curricula to better prepare architectural students for future practice. The paper considers coursework carried out over two semesters, with varied project types, delivery methods, and practice models to evaluate the method’s efficacy addressing recurring themes identified in the 2012 NCARB Practice Analysis recommendations. The ongoing research...

As the profession develops ever more collaborative project structures and delivery models, it is necessary to consider how the ultimate value of these models will be transmitted to current and emerging practitioners. This paper documents pedagogical research that employs an experiential model for integrating these professional practice issues into design curricula. Original objectives of the Voices from the Field course focused on introducing students to the relationship between concept design and technical execution. Testing the format across varied project types, delivery methods, scales of operation, and practice models with a range of practitioners, however, addressed a much larger realm of concerns than initially hypothesized. The focus of the course has thus expanded, with an increasing emphasis on examining the connection between the quality of collaborative working relationships and the successful manifestation of design intent. The paper posits that, among professional prac...

What are the implications of digitalization on the role of architecture and our understanding of space? The digital experience is one that is highly customizable, responsive, and interactive. Physical buildings strive to become more connected to their environments and their users, by incorporating these same qualities. Traditional building methods and design principles produce static structures with a defined function and program, an approach which is in conflict with virtual space where functions which once were separated now easily flow and merge into one another. Buildings have the potential to become even more situated within their local by incorporating ideas of interactivity and responsiveness as they become uniquely shaped by their users and local climates. Digitalization therefore has ironically brought the design industries closer to the fields of biology and chemistry as information is seen to be at the core of everything. My proposal is for a public innovation space situated in the new innovation district in downtown Springfield, and will explore issues of privacy, openness, materiality, transparency, and the integration of technology with architecture such that the space itself becomes an interface for exchange.

Symmetric vortices are shed in the wake of a cylinder that is free to oscillate in the direction of flow. At lower flow velocities (left) these vortices stay parallel to each other in the wake. At slightly higher flow velocities (right) the vortices are shed simultaneously, but their size and direction of motion in the wake alternate in each cycle of oscillations. We call these vortices alternating symmetric vortices.

In recent years, the popularity of AI-enabled conversational agents or chatbots has risen as an alternative to traditional online surveys to elicit information from people. However, there is a gap in using single-agent chatbots to converse and gather multi-faceted information across a wide variety of topics. Prior works suggest that single-agent chatbots struggle to understand user intentions and interpret human language during a multi-faceted conversation. In this work, we investigated how multi-agent chatbot systems can be utilized to conduct a multi-faceted conversation across multiple domains. To that end, we conducted a Wizard of Oz study to investigate the design of a multi-agent chatbot for gathering public input across multiple high-level domains and their associated topics. Next, we designed, developed, and evaluated CommunityBots - a multi-agent chatbot platform where each chatbot handles a different domain individually. To manage conversation across multiple topics and ch...

Mining is the primary method through which modern society obtains the
minerals needed to fuel the global economy, provide for modern energy requirements, and support the built environment. Presently, mining accounts for nearly 1% of the global ice-free land surface, with a dramatic increase anticipated in the coming decades. Mining permanently changes and often destroys the pre-existing topography, hydrology, and ecology of the ground, and efforts to reclaim mining landscapes—with the aim of encouraging reforestation and soil replenishment—are often unsuccessful,
rendering the land of abandoned mines both unusable and uninhabitable.

This thesis addresses the current state of mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and focuses specifically on a cobalt and copper mining complex within and adjacent to the town of Kolwezi. This is a complex site that is crucial for the global transition to renewable energy, and yet contains many of the climate and social injustices currently implicit with mining. This research formulates a novel model of
mine reclamation for the landscapes of Kolwezi, and, in the process, introduces new options for the symbiosis of extraction and inhabitation: the results of which will challenge many of the existing narratives within architecture. This model is guided by concepts of geologic and deep time, with an emphasis on long-term holistic solutions and uses the opportunity of building in terraformed land as a practice to invert traditional relationships of vertical space and hierarchy. Finally, this thesis works to
create an alternative design for living, one that accounts for our outsized impact on planetary ecologies, ultimately redesigning and restructuring our relationships to our sacred ground.

Symmetric vortices are shed in the wake of a cylinder that is free to oscillate in the direction of flow. At lower flow velocities (left) these vortices stay parallel to each other in the wake. At slightly higher flow velocities (right) the vortices are shed simultaneously, but their size and direction of motion in the wake alternate in each cycle of oscillations. We call these vortices alternating symmetric vortices.

In recent years, the popularity of AI-enabled conversational agents or chatbots has risen as an alternative to traditional online surveys to elicit information from people. However, there is a gap in using single-agent chatbots to converse and gather multi-faceted information across a wide variety of topics. Prior works suggest that single-agent chatbots struggle to understand user intentions and interpret human language during a multi-faceted conversation. In this work, we investigated how multi-agent chatbot systems can be utilized to conduct a multi-faceted conversation across multiple domains. To that end, we conducted a Wizard of Oz study to investigate the design of a multi-agent chatbot for gathering public input across multiple high-level domains and their associated topics. Next, we designed, developed, and evaluated CommunityBots - a multi-agent chatbot platform where each chatbot handles a different domain individually. To manage conversation across multiple topics and ch...