2009
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ItemRegional Architecture: A Sustainable Archetype for Kaho'olawe( 2009-05)This project aims to demonstrate that Regionalism integrated with a focus on Sustainability and Culture creates place specific, sustainable, and culturally appropriate architecture. Regionalism and sustainable design methods are essential to creating appropriate meaningful architecture of place that people can identify with. All the contextual forces of a region such as, climate, resources, culture, economics, historical context, and technology, inform design. Cultural values are sources of inspiration for creativity to approach design. Cultural values are represented through architecture Regionalism is a well suited design method that when coupled with strategies of sustainability and cultural integration can provide a holistic approach to architecture. Regionalism’s framework assists the architect in addressing all the contexts for a project specific to place especially aspects of sustainability and integrating cultural values. Kaho‘olawe Island represents the Hawaiian cultural heritage and revival. The restoration effort on Kaho‘olawe could be appropriately communicated through a regionalist design approach to help Hawaiians, Restoration Staff, and Volunteers better understand the value of the Island past, present, and future. The following research defines Regionalism, Sustainability, and Culture to develop a hybrid regional design methodology. Three specific case studies analyzed and evaluated the design process of architecture with a respective focus on Regionalism, Sustainability, and culturally sensitive design. This research uses these definitions and examples to develop a hybrid design method termed Culturally Sustainable Regionalism. The ability of this hybrid design methodology to create place specific, sustainable, and culturally appropriate architecture is demonstrated in an application located on Kaho‘olawe.
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ItemGoing Zero( 2009-05)Correctly guessing the future costs for energy is like winning the lottery. No one really knows how high prices may rise, but once it is revealed, future energy costs could be life changing. Now, imagine owning a home where it does not matter how outrageously high energy prices become. Remodeling or designing a home to achieve net-zero energy will lessen the burden of fl uctuating energy prices. Today it is easy to create a comfortable home that is not 100% dependent on an electric company but making the commitment towards change may be the most diffi cult aspect of the whole process. This Doctorate Project will explore the procedures for creating a net-zero energy home (ZEH), including an overview of the issues that were encountered as the research unfolded.
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ItemEmotional Space: An Approach for Balancing Historic Preservation and New Construction in the Redevelopment of Chinese Culture Museums( 2009-05)We cannot avoid the confrontation between old and new in the redevelopment of Chinese cultural museums. How to balance the two of them becomes a problem in China. However, the current expansion or renovation of Chinese cultural museums remains far from the goal of balancing old and new. Most approaches have employed western museum design strategies to create a place for Chinese art, which delivers a western spiritual and emotional space that differs from the appropriate space for a Chinese cultural context. This mental disconnection not only causes the result of imbalance, but also obstructs the complete access to Chinese art. Therefore, this study focuses on the definition of the Chinese spatial conceptions both in buildings and gardens, demonstrated by an alternative design proposition for the New Suzhou Art Museum in employing the concept of Emotional Space as the primary design principle. Emotional space allows communication among buildings, the environment, and human beings through people’s various senses. Both the old and new parts of museum projects require making the architecture speak to the public. The employment of emotional space becomes an approach to establish the basic design elements for the incorporation of the old and new. This common ground, emotional space, not only provides a possible solution to solve current confrontations, but also points out an approach to ensure cultural museums tell their own stories.
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ItemCreating Better Projects Through Rethinking Architectural Practice( 2009-05)This doctoral project outlines the evolution of architectural practice, presents standards that have influenced the practice of architecture and the built environment, and introduces an alternative model to providing better projects. Because the built environment is largely composed of architecture, the understanding of architectural practice is important in the quest for creating better projects. The processes, strategies, and standards by which architects practice ultimately affect each project. How can the practice of architecture enhance environments for the end user, lead to an improved means of providing their service, and create better value architecture? The research for this project consists of three parts. Section one outlines the historical evolution of architectural practice from the “master builder” to the contemporary architect. The evolution investigates the changing roles of the architect over the years, the purpose of the architect in society, and the development of a professional practice of architecture. This section begins to evaluate the social implications that affect the design and production of the built environment. The second portion questions how the practice of architecture can create better projects. Part two sets the criteria for project quality, determined by defining standards that make a project “better”. In addition, this section will investigate current influences in architectural practice that impact project quality. The five influences I introduce are: the client and consumer, industry members, professionalization, the design and delivery process, and education and training. The goal of this section is to understand the architect’s challenges within practice that affect the quality of a built project. Section three of this study is a compilation of the research that rethinks the practice of architecture, formulates an alternative path for creating better projects, and poses further questions for the continued evolution of the architect.
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ItemMaterials for a Prototype Human Habitable Bridge( 2009-05)A review is made of the general non-construction specifications for innovative as well as construction specification literature available for these materials. This innovation and utilization of advanced composite materials (ACM’s), in the architectural and construction industry, allows for shapes and forms never before available. These ACM's were originally (1930’s and 40’s) known as fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) and glass reinforced polymers (GRP) 1 . Their evolution into ACM's (1960’s) has not yet gained total acceptance in the architecture and construction industry, although many forms of these materials are heavily used in the automotive, aerospace and sports industry. To begin we will look at how these material fibers are made, bonded together with various types of matrices and their structural characteristics for construction. Through new research, ACM's durability, light weight and strength has created a new interest for architects and engineers. We will look at the “Thermo-plastic” and “Thermo-set” processes as well as the newly developed 3-D weaving process, allowing for the weaving of structural shape sections for use in construction. An analysis of these components and their characteristics will illustrate their future potential for architects and engineers as a viable material for use as both a structural member and as an applied veneer for the exterior of a structure. And finally, we will address what the future might look like with these new materials. 1. Engineers Guide to Composite Materials, 1987
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ItemReinventing Our Social Spaces( 2009-05)
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ItemEcological Consciousness as Place: Exploring Ecovillage Design in the Valley of Manoa( 2009-05)The goal of researching the Ecovillage as a model for human development is to better define sustainability on both the physical and metaphysical planes in order to understand what interdisciplinary approaches to sustainable design would bring us closer to healing the environment. It is important that our current efforts to protect the natural environment are not stolen, like much of our culture, by commercial entities and trivialized beyond recognition. Already this can be seen in “Green” consumerism which enables people to continue their current patterns of consumption as long as they purchase the “appropriate” products. The same is being seen in the design and construction industry. New industrial standards are encouraging “Green” building techniques that feature everything from water catchment to composting toilets. But is changing our design and construction techniques enough to save us from the further degradation of the Environment? Many believe that answer is no. It is becoming clearer to those of us working to protect the environment, that our culture, social institutions, and personal philosophies play a far greater role in this movement towards sustainability than previously given credit. It is true that in order to heal the Environment we must heal our built environment, but to truly heal our built environment we must heal its source, the human soul. E.F. Schumacher warned us decades ago that this revolution of sustainability must be a metaphysical one, not one based on the current dominant paradigm of consumerism and unlimited growth. This is a call for an ecological consciousness to sweep the globe. What is this ecological consciousness and how does it apply to our personal belief systems, our cultures and our built environment? What would it mean to apply the concept of ecological consciousness, or deep ecology, to a design problem? Is it possible to create a place that allows for the learning and teaching of this ecological consciousness? Part 1 takes a historical look at worldviews and how they continue to shape our built environment and our personal philosophies in regard to the natural environment. Modernism has proven to be enemy number one to the natural world, therefore moving xii away from this worldview towards an ecological worldview could offer many benefits to the sustainability movement. Part 2 explores in-depth what ecological consciousness means at the spiritual level, the social level and the physical/ecological level. This section summarizes the various concepts that apply to ecological consciousness and examines how these concepts are currently and historically played out in our daily lives, particularly in the daily life of an ecovillage. Ecovillage case studies are presented throughout this section to better demonstrate ecological consciousness in action. Part 3 takes the concepts gathered in the previous sections and applies them to a physical design project in the back of Mānoa Valley on the island of Oahu, Hawai`i. The design concept is to create a place that allows for the learning and teaching of an ecological consciousness. The physical design is based on passive design strategies, local/recycled materials, and renewable energy opportunities while the educational program and the layout offer multiple opportunities to develop a culture of sustainability at the personal and social levels. The theories of ecological design, cultural ecology, education, and self-realization were applied to the design of Ecovillage Mānoa, resulting in a place to learn and teach an ecological consciousness. Due to its location in the much loved and world renowned ahupua`a of Waikīkī, Ecovillage Mānoa has the potential to demonstrate and spread ecological consciousness throughout the globe.
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ItemPerception in Motion: Video as a Design Tool for Honolulu's Transit System( 2009-05)This doctoral project introduces perception in motion as a design method for grounded transport networks – roads, pedestrian/ bike paths, and rail systems. To design for circulation networks that dictate the layout and lifestyle of a city, architects and planners need to understand the affects of current mobilescapes, which are environments that evolve from transport networks. In order to identify current issues of mobility this project documents a particular mobilescape in Honolulu, Hawai‘i – the elevated condition. I refer to the elevated condition as a type of transport system - such as the elevated highway, elevated mass transit system, and skyway - composed of two or more levels of movement. The strategy of overlapping is used to separate various modes of mobility that travel at different speeds and in different directions. Although the elevated access network can be an effective solution to organizing mobility, there is a modest understanding of the “experience” of moving through an elevated condition. Because Honolulu will begin to construct a 20 mile long elevated rail system in 2009, I wanted to understand what the experience could be. What will rail riders see and feel? How will the speed 4 of the rail affect what riders perceive? How will an understanding of the rail experience alter the way designers approach mobilescapes? In order to develop further understanding of mobilescape design, this project investigates mobility in two parts. Part one is a historical critique that explores the evolution of mobility in architecture and planning; inquiring about the effects that the automobile and other modes of surface transport have had on the urban environment. The goal is to understand how past approaches to mobilescapes have benefi ted or hindered the experience of urban cities. This exploration is not intended to address the issues of mobility within virtual space, vertical circulation in high-rise developments, nor does it include non-grounded transportation types such as air and sea travel. The fi ndings in the evolution of mobility supplement the second portion of this project that focuses on Honolulu’s elevated rail proposal. The elevated condition, within the existing context of Honolulu, is analyzed and documented in video format. The video is intended to be a simulated understanding of Honolulu’s transit experience; capturing the perception of the elevated condition at both upper and lower levels. The video documentary also highlights the issues of the projected experience and begins to introduce design suggestions that could enhance the elevated condition. The goal of the fi lm is to present planners and architects with a design tool, based on perception in motion, that can inform and influence the Honolulu rail system.
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ItemA Study of Spatial Concepts of Lin An-Tai Dwelling and Lin's Family Garden Toward an Elementary School Design( 2009-05)The physical context and architectural professionalism have drifted far away from the traditional conventions after our society went through modernization. Facing these dramatic transformations, people still hold on to the same unchanged perspective and values toward living environment. To pursuing on this contrasting phenomenon, we found it to be the result of the architectural culture, which is co-establishment by occupational structure and the social values. It is important for me to traced it back in seeking for the significant design prospective that has been exist in shaping and re-shaping the building culture of the Taiwanese house in that traditional period. However, related architecture documentation is rather silent presently, such as architect ure were done by craftsman’s prior experiences or inspired by Chinese landscape painting. This profound “silent documentation” could presumably function as an invisible obstacle to or an impetus for the progress of modernization in Chinese architecture. Traditional building ideology inherited from previous dynasties did not conceive of a “building” as pure “matter” with an objective, external face. Rather, it deemed of a “building” as “becoming” through coordinated activities in everyday life, and “becoming” is always the process of completion. To get this study closer to the core of the phenomenon of “becoming” we raise the hypothesis that there is a real force behind the existence of the substantial action of building which lives through numerous styles of houses. For instance, how did the architects think of the building design in term of its spatial relationship of the building? As a matter of fact, people or the building users from different places and experiencing distinctive events come mingle together in time. They all take part in the building mechanism that we call “becoming” in term of the social significance of building culture. The building users can give some feedbacks or advices after they have been lived or worked in the building for certain time. The feedback is very important information that the architect should be full considered in their future design.