Browsing by Author "Albright, Kathryn Clarke"
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- A Citizen Plaza in BlacksburgGuo, Bingfei (Virginia Tech, 2013-07-10)This thesis is a study of architectural language for a place through the design and development of a citizen parking and plaza project. The site is located in the downtown Blacksburg area and not far from the Virginia Tech main campus. By utilizing the idea of a lifted groundmass, the project creates a new place both for the town and the university. The space underneath the mass is a parking garage embedded in the ground, while the top surface of the mass is designed to be a hard pavement citizen plaza. This thesis aims to create more than just a space alone, but a memorable place that people will use and care about for years. The design of the groundmass addresses the issues of its boundary, materials, structure and other issues in an architectural language.
- Community NarrativesAlbright, Kathryn Clarke; Choudhury, Salahuddin (2018)Virginia Tech highly values its diverse community of faculty, staff and students. The Community Narratives Project is lead by Kathryn Albright, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Professor in the College of Architecture and Urban Studies (CAUS). The project grew organically with a small exhibit in the college highlighting the concept last year. Later, individuals within the Hokie Community inspired by this earlier exhibit had their portrait taken and added their stories. Working with Kathryn, photographer Sal Choudhury, Professor of Architecture in CAUS, created the photo-narratives on scheduled dates throughout the past year. The project concept is designed to spark conversations and create an ongoing dialogue in response to this question: Based on your lived experiences, what does diversity mean in your life? The photo-narratives highlight individuality. Participants decide how to showcase their identity, their culture, their own perspectives on diversity as they reflect on personal life experiences.
- Exploring the Architecture of Place in America's Farmers MarketsAlbright, Kathryn Clarke (University of Cincinnati Press, 2020-04)Exploring the Architecture of Place in America's Farmers Markets draws attention to the simple but elusive architectural space of public and farmers markets. It discusses three seminal types of markets—heritage building, open-air pavilion, and pop-up canopy—demonstrating the characteristics of each type using a mixture of narrative and illustration. The narrative combines historically informed architectural observation with interview material drawn from conversations the author has had over the years with market managers, vendors, and shoppers. The illustrations include an appealing variety of photos, diagrams, and drawings that enabled the author to view each market through an architectural lens based on eight scales of measure—the hand, the container, the person, the stall, a grouping of stalls, the street, the block, and the market's situation within the neighborhood. Some of the architectural elements discussed include walls that layer, openings that frame, roofs that encompass, and niches that embrace. While each of the case studies illustrates shared characteristics of one of the architectural typologies, each farmers market is distinct in the specific ways it reflects the local culture and environment. Ultimately, in viewing markets through these three types and eight scales of measure we are able to better appreciate how farmers markets foster social interaction and community engagement. The book concludes with a broad look at the way of life and living that public and farmers markets have spawned, while looking ahead to what the author sees as an emerging new typology – the mobile market – which takes the bounty of local farmers to neighborhoods underserved with fresh healthy food, and otherwise known as food deserts. Market vendors speak enthusiastically about the qualitative benefits that farming life allows, and the greater good their individual choice provides for the general public and region. Likewise, a spectrum of governmental, commerce and community leaders champion the economic development farmers markets catalyze through allied business development and civic commitment.
- Micro-aggression Stories at Virginia TechAlbright, Kathryn Clarke; Iorio, Josh (2018-09)Micro-aggressions are everyday verbal and nonverbal slights, snubs or insults that have a negative long-term impact. Many individuals who experience micro-aggressions have learned to ignore them out of necessity, but their cumulative effect can lead to frustration, anger, conflict, isolation, and withdrawal. Over time, these effects can create a negative climate where faculty, staff, and students feel unwelcome and are unable to thrive. This exhibition includes a series of fictionalized stories based on narratives submitted by CAUS faculty, staff, and students about how microaggressions impact their daily lives. The stories include micro-aggressions focused on race, ethnicity, gender, age, mental health, and political affiliation. They include examples that result from explicit bias or from systematic discrimination and most stories include micro-aggressions that result from unconscious bias. Our intent with this project is for exhibition visitors to see themselves and their own experiences in the stories, which we hope will lead to awareness and open conversations. These conversations can be awkward and difficult; but very necessary. It’s opening a dialogue and having the courage to participate. It’s realizing what we say matters; and acknowledging what is said to us, affects us. This exhibition demonstrates that micro-aggressions are a shared experience for most people. Regardless of who you are, what you believe or where you’re from, you’ve probably been a micro-aggressor and have been micro-aggressed. This shared experience brings us all together, which is a good place to start the conversation.
- Objects of Desire: The Foot as a SiteBraaten, Lia Marie (Virginia Tech, 1998-05-08)The purpose of this study is three-fold: First, to use the foot as a site for a study of form, materials and joints. Second, to investigate the form by studying it as a transformable group of component parts. Last, to ask the question, how does a product become malleable and changeable in terms of intent,transportability and its relationship to the body?
- Taking Turns: A Conversational Approach to Ecological DesignRapp, Peter Edward (Virginia Tech, 2002-05-08)Better integration of human cultures and ecological communities is needed to sustain the health of people and the land. The inherent difference between concepts and things themselves, and the cultural disconnection between intellectual-conceptual and physical-material work, are implicated in environmental problems. Landscape designbuild is an opportunity to reconnect words, actions, and the land, to set convincing, practical examples for clients to follow, and to foster a mutually beneficial 'culture of habitat' (Nabhan).A collaborative home and landscape design project was undertaken with a family of three. Fieldwork involved a variety of interactive design techniques combining dialogue AND direct experience. The project ended with the completion of a conceptual design but did not reach construction stage before the close of fieldwork.'Embodied conversation' describes the design process, characterized by alternating modes of interaction, turn-taking, negotiation of differences, and emergence of meaning and purpose. This approach heightened participants' awareness of their environment and generated a variety of useful design ideas, but better procedures were needed for moderating the pace of interaction and for making durable decisions. By balancing dialogue and direct experience, a 'conversational' approach to ecological designbuild work can help participants make sense of and use of their habitat in a way that reconciles human needs with ecological functions.
- UmbauKennedy, Sharlee McWhite (Virginia Tech, 2005-05-11)This thesis begins by transposing two specific architectural design approaches upon the design of residence quarters for a school of architecture. There are numerous approaches in design conception. Any one of these can assist in an architectsâ building design, from the organization of the spaces inside, to how the form is generated. However many of these are confined to the architectural type in which they are derived. This project explores the possibility of transposing two approaches in museum design toward a different â typeâ of building. The Labyrinth is a design approach which focuses on the intent of the architect to direct the patron through a museum building on a designated path. The building is conceived as a container to house the art and give the patron a defined path of movement through space. Although, from the outside, the building would appear simple the path on the inside increases in complexity through a series of interconnected spaces. The â white boxâ approach is based upon an idea of creating a building as a palette for the artist. The building lends itself to giving the artist boundaries that they must explore in order to express their individual work. The artist uses the space to portray their artwork as they wish the patron to encounter it. The building doesnâ t exist as a silent landscape, but creates a dialogue between the artist, the work, and itself. From these thoughts, the design of the residence building began. The intent is to design a structure which allows the students to discover a new interaction with their residence. The concept of the â transformation of a lineâ , questions the depth of space that can be created by the cut and shift of a single line in a two-dimensional plane. The form quickly evolved into complexity, making the architecture a frame for a dynamic quality of life.
- Urban CadenceJohnston-McIntosh, Jamail (Virginia Tech, 2005-07-06)Walls encasing equivalent modules of space form a structure visually connecting individual elements into a single organism. The placement and form of these walls allows each module of space to retain distinct lighting qualities conversely drawing the individual out of the whole.