VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "Dunay, Robert J."

Browsing by Author "Dunay, Robert J."

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118 Jefferson Street
Limer, David W. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1996)
2 Questions: what becomes architecture
Lambert, Joseph Edward (Virginia Tech, 1998-01-13)
For several years, certain personal efforts relied heavily upon an essential belief in Lou Kahn's masterful answer to a student's question, because Architecture is. Kahn's spiritual awareness brought about a poetic significance to the studying, learning, and actualizing of our environmental efforts. Through his profoundly simple answer of architecture's essential existence, Kahn suggested that our works could never reach this state of being (even reason being unable to reach to far), leaving us only the ability to aspire towards it- with works ever to it, never with works of it. In the despair of our Modern response we set to achieve an end worth of its recognition which simply fails to acknowledge that the question was one of why, not one of what. His answer, and its suppressive conditions of existence, is no longer solely acceptable to a student's question. To my Master I say, reconception is necessary; the answer requires a more dynamic essence. As it is with the nature and dynamic flow of all 10,000 things- one can never exist, though one is always existing; one can never live , though one is always living, and in our cultural and social attempts to assimilate and accommodate our environment- our attempts will never be, only ever becoming. In other words, Mr. Kahn, I would like to supplicate and supplement, because Architecture becomes.
4 urban houses
Scott, Keith A. (Virginia Tech, 1994)
This thesis is a search for a position about architecture. The position which I have been exploring is found in the simplicity of the forms, geometry and conditions in the architecture of the Shakers and the Ticino architects in Switzerland. The formal simplicity of this architecture allows for a clarity in the relationship between light, construction and space. This position 1s investigated through the design of four contiguous houses which are one point “..in the slow unfolding of form.”. This project looks at autonomous architecture and its generation as the manipulation of simple geometries. Inherent in the idea of architectural autonomy is the notion of architecture as an object of pure form. As formal objects, these houses explore the ability of architecture to be generated from within. However, realizing that form and geometry alone do not necessarily equal architecture, these houses find architecture within the complex relationships between geometry, light, space and construction.
930 sqft of Architecture
Clark, David B. (Virginia Tech, 2008-10-20)
There is no primacy to Architecture. For centuries architects have posited formulaic approaches to creating spatial environments. Bold maxims for design have defined entire periods and styles of architecture, and each subsequent postulation attempts to disprove the former by challenging its theories against imperfect realizations. Yet nearly all have the same fault; they prioritize characteristics of architecture, attempting to design according to absolutisms of thought and process. I believe this to be a dangerous mode of operation, as absolutisms can be extremely complex and difficult to grasp conceptually, let alone to manifest into realities. Reducing architecture to processes of selection, generalization, singularities, and priorities is just clever ways of dealing with complexity in an attempt to make the intangible tangible. This "reduction" and "simplification" can only hold value as a tool for the study and analysis of architecture, not its practice and execution. Although architecture is universally conditional, it has been assigned universal qualities over time in theory and practice. I believe time requires that those qualities be subject to change and reinterpretation so that architecture may maintain proper relevance, barring one constant: all qualities must exist by virtue of the others and cannot be seen independently; one quality is no more than an aspect of the others. To better explore this notion, three criteria (qualities, generators) have been identified as a measure for critical analysis of three architectural research projects. They are built from a history of pre-defined criterion, named and redefined in an attempt to elevate a personal study and practice of architecture at a period in time. These projects have a high degree of personal influence and involvement, and so this becomes in a way a self-analysis in the study and practice of architecture. The intention of this compendium is to gain insight towards a personal definition of architecture through an analysis of architectural theory and precedence in comparison to work that is reflective of personal architectonics. In time, I hope it will have continued to develop.
An abstract study of light in architectural design
Reiss, Mark Fredrick (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1992)
Light is, just as space is. Neither can be created. Both are omnipresent Light and space need not be the heart of an architecture, but they are its soul. Space exists, light exists. Light exists to penetrate space. Light sails through space effortlessly, indifferently illuminating its course and leaving generational light in its wake. Space offers no resistance, only to be discovered. Space cannot be illuminated. A wedge of light traverses the concavity of darkness. The carnet, ice and stone hurled through space; inorganic but alive in its syphilitic journey. This is the extreme contrast: light and dark, matter and void, existence and nonexistence. It is the sun's mass that gives the ice and stone its orbital existence, but it is the sun 's rays that make this ice and stone a carnet. The sun's rays reveal the carnet's spirit, a spirit to which we have given cultural relevance rich in history, religion and art. Construction can be likened to the orbiting ice and stone, architecture to the carnet. When the metamorphic powers of light are consciously inherent in architectural design, the ordinary becomes the extraordinary, the temporal becomes the sublime, the brick of dirt becomes the brick of gold. Left to its own devices, light may transfigure or it may not, but a significant design opportunity has been left to chance. And it is likely that architecture empty of designed light will be more cerebral and less soulful; architecture that exists because of light not through light. We perceive that which exists because of the sensory dependency of sight on light Beyond physiology, space and materiality become architectural tools through light Looking should be elevated to seeing, and seeing elevated to understanding. " ... We were born to light. The seasons are felt through light. We only know the world as it is evoked by light, and from this comes the thought that material is spent light. .. " Louis Kahn Light is as much a building material as are wood, stone and mortar. It is a free but discriminating material: available to all, elusive to many, controlled by few. And light is not captured, but impeded. Through its penetrating, permeating and perpetual nature, light reveals the relationships between form and space.
Advancing the Global Land Grant Institution: Creating a Virtual Environment to Re-envision Extension and Advance GSS-related Research, Education, and Collaboration
Hall, Ralph P.; Polys, Nicholas F.; Sforza, Peter M.; Eubank, Stephen D.; Lewis, Bryan L.; Krometis, Leigh-Anne H.; Pollyea, Ryan M.; Schoenholtz, Stephen H.; Sridhar, Venkataramana; Crowder, Van; Lipsey, John; Christie, Maria Elisa; Glasson, George E.; Scherer, Hannah H.; Davis, A. Jack; Dunay, Robert J.; King, Nathan T.; Muelenaer, Andre A.; Muelenaer, Penelope; Rist, Cassidy; Wenzel, Sophie (Virginia Tech, 2017-05-15)
The vision for this project has emerged from several years of research, teaching, and service in Africa and holds the potential to internationalize education at Virginia Tech and in our partner institutions in Malawi. The vision is simple, to develop a state-of-the-art, data rich, virtual decision-support and learning environment that enables local-, regional-, and national-level actors in developed and developing regions to make decisions that improve resilience and sustainability. Achieving these objectives will require a system that can combine biogeophysical and sociocultural data in a way that enables actors to understand and leverage these data to enhance decision-making at various levels. The project will begin by focusing on water, agricultural, and health systems in Malawi, and can be expanded over time to include any sector or system in any country. The core ideas are inherently scalable...
The African burial ground
Edge, Kay F. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1996)
This thesis is tripartite. It is at once a search for the universal principles of good architecture, an architect's personal search for what is valuable, and the exploration of some particular ideas in a particular project. The successful thesis joins the universal and the particular and calls into use the rational and the intuitive. The thesis began with an attempt to name some of these universals and from them to distill some "clear and distinct"² ideas about the making of architecture. Together these ideas make a manifesto, not in a positivistic sense but rather as a way of beginning this "creative dialectic" between universal and particular. They are ultimately to help address the issue of significance in architecture.
Aperture
Tenace, Stephen M. (Virginia Tech, 1991-01-01)
In the beginning God created the world. Waste and void, waste and void. And darkness was upon the face of the deep. And when there were men, in their various ways, they struggled in torment towards God. Blindly and vainly, for man is a vain thing, and man without God is a seed upon the wind: driven this way and that, and finding no place of lodgement and germination. They followed the light and the shadow, and the light led them forward to light and the shadow led them to darkness, Worshipping snakes or trees, worshipping devils rather than nothing: crying for life beyond life, for ecstasy not of the flesh. Waste and void. Waste and void. And darkness on the face of the deep. Choruses from "The Rock" T.S. Eliot
Appliance Architecture in the Invisible College: a Pedagogical Text
Grinham, Jonathan Lorne (Virginia Tech, 2011-02-02)
This thesis presents a pedagogical framework for understanding dynamic Parametricism within the new media culture. As indicated by the title, 'Appliance Architecture in the Invisible College: a Pedagogical Text', this paper will serve two purposes. First, appliance architecture will construct the theoretical framework that will provide the context for the four case studies presented within this thesis: an interview with Rob Ley, designer of the Reef Project; the design and development of the Eclipsis Screen for the Solar Decathlon house, Lumenhaus; the development of an architectural robotics design laboratory, Prototyping in Architectural Robotics for Technology-enriched Education (PARTeE); and workshop > no.1, a physical computing workshop held at the College of Architecture + Urban Studies (CAUS). Second, the invisible college will serve as a pedagogical framework for teaching dynamic Parametricism within appliance architecture. The invisible college will explore the emergent design typologies developed through the PARTeE laboratory's first year and will culminate in the application of the teaching methodologies used for the physical computing workshop. The following serves to establish the architectural discourse within which 'Appliance Architecture in the Invisible College' is embedded. In the broadest sense, this discourse is that of kinetic architecture. The word 'kinetic' is used to denote motion, or the act or process of changing position of over time, where time is the unit of measurement or relativity. The 'appliance' is defined as any consumer object or assembly with embedded intelligence; it does not shy away from the modern connotation of objects such as a coffee maker, refrigerator or iPod. The appliance as an assembly, therefore, presents a part-to-whole relationship that is understood through GWF Hegel's organic unity, which states: 'everything that exists stands in correlation, and this correlation is the veritable nature of every existence. The existent thing in this way has no being in its own, but only in something else, just as the whole would not be what it is but for the existence of its parts, so the parts would not be what they are but for the existence of the whole' (Leddy, 1991). It is this part-to-whole relationship which provides an understanding of the emergent typologies which structure the foundation for learning within the invisible college.
Architectural Kinetics: A Study of Operable Mechanisms for Different Types of Envelopes
Mousavynejad, Reza (Virginia Tech, 2014-03-13)
Accepting that one of the main duties of an architect is mastering the tectonic expression of the building and its architectural effect, could there be a mechanism that allows a building or object to change its expression? Could the envelope of a building respond to its exterior context or internal function by changing its appearance? How can the elements of a building screen - whether in wall or roof - change their orientation and configuration to express a response to environments inside or outside? We know that the modern ideas of "wall-free structure" and "transparency" have begun to change the concept of building envelopes. These changes have allowed envelopes to become lighter, less opaque, and more flexible; and as a result the architect has more freedom in exterior expression. In the Seagram Tower, for instance, while I-beams emphasize the vertical effect of the tower, the glass envelope allows the building to change its surface effect from day to night. Having more freedom in the exterior expression of buildings has not only brought transparency but also opened a door for a greater interaction between inside and outside. If, in the past, the exterior walls of a building, limited by structural needs, had to carry its weight, today, analogous with living nature, the use of a structural skeleton gives much more freedom of expression and interaction to the exterior envelope of the buildings. Rooted in the ground and running through the building's mass, instead of outside it, the skeleton takes on the load of the building, and masonry walls can be replaced with partitioning envelopes that are open to freer interpretation. Influenced by engineers and architects like Chuck Hoberman and Santiago Calatrava, my areas of study since 1997 have been focused on the subject of movement in structures and kinetic architectural elements. I have approached this subject from two points of view. While my first study models explored the ways structures can be folded and transformed, this book is about the investigation and study of envelopes and tectonic planes that can be manipulated through operable mechanisms to change their interior or exterior expression. This study is based on the separation between the mechanisms which are the cause of the movements in the models and the kinetic planes in envelopes that have the duty of interaction between inside and outside. If folding of structures in the early stages of my studies resulted in "metamorphosis", my current work is about studying mechanisms that change the surface of an envelope and result in "transmutation".
Architecture Exists Between Man and Time
Aitani, Koichiro (Virginia Tech, 1997-10-13)
The light is the giver of presence. Nature is eternal in time. Man's life is transitory. Architecture is the joint between man and light, man and nature.
Architecture: as a matter of fact
De Moya, Francisco Vicente (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1988)
As reality continues to shift from the made fact to the idea: We conclude that creativity is a state of mind; measured by what is made. It is only when extended beyond oneself that an idea can become real to more than one. We Extend thru our talents and skills. The significance of that made is its Presence measured in time
An archive: housing the written history of the citizens of Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Graeff, Michael (Virginia Tech, 1998-05-15)
The growth of any community is marked many times over by the coming of progress which may be regarded either with promise or as a threat. The history of Doylestown records the arrival of train travel as an event. It would be a remarkable change that could put a small town on the map by opening doors of travel and communication in the heart of rural farmland. The tracks entered the town from the southwest and ended a few blocks downhill from the original crossing of Main and State Streets at its center. The rail line would now be the demarcation between town and country - an edge. A passenger station was built as were an array of light industrial and farm trade buildings, splayed out in rows along the lengths of track. The empty lots between center and edge became a weave of streets lined with town houses constructed to acknowledge the train with large front porches open wide welcoming the arrival of both the familiar and the stranger. The ebb and flow of pedestrians descending and ascending from town to train and train to town became the daily ritual established by such progress. It is in this routine and the willing communication between buildings that lay a complimentary existence defining the character of a neighborhood. It is a further part of progress that centers of activity with their subsequent community of buildings become obsolete. Yet from obsolescence may be found rebirth, and the rail yard was no exception. Commerce waned and then shifted from industrial and agrarian means to service oriented trade with each vacant structure quietly resurrected under adaptive re-use. The commuter line still operates though continually threatened with closure. A truth made evident by the perpetually locked doors of the station. The only activity that has a direct connection to the rail yard's past is the ritual of the commuting passengers. Pedestrian traffic into town still beats its daily walk up the stairs and sidewalks along the same streets. The numbers are now supplemented though by a stream of vehicles as evidenced by the number of parking spaces fit neatly into the available open nooks of the old freight house. Despite these progressive changes what is of greatest significance is that none has occurred to the detriment of the fabric of the existing neighborhood. It remains a distinctly vibrant edge only because new activities were necessary in offering new opportunities and a feeling of continuum. The site for the archive therefore lies at this edge of town.
An argument of the overwhelming: architectural forms in Prospect Park, Brooklyn
Proffitt, Pilar (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1996)
This is a thesis investigation of the potential of architectural form in its ability to overwhelm. Architecture cannot be measured by bolts or decorative elements; it must be measured by its capacity to move us. Technological feats, humanistic comforts, or historical legacies will never yield the ultimate expression of man. Expression is a controlled, deliberate act which carries out a concept to fruition. The basis of this proposal is to emphasize an act, an essence, a process -- an accentuation which subjects a new layer that reveals, distorts, and produces anew. It is to change the original by means of its own devices, yielding a further sense of harmony with a place. A gate, walls in a clearing, a bridge, a moat, four towers, a plaza, a "passeggiata," many benches, and stepping stones are the elements that are collaged with a "greensward, " a "hilly land covered with plantations, " and a " low plain mainly occupied by a lake. " Three acts are proposed : the elements, all strict geometric forms , are placed to contrast their setting; the land where they lie is trenched or terraced to perceptually remove the parcels of earth from the Park; the enclosing roads weave in and out, emerging within the Park, to determine the position of the elements.
Artifacts of Questions Asked
King, Jonathan Lee (Virginia Tech, 2009-05-06)
The cyclic trajectory described here exemplifies a loosely defined, continuously evolving set of questions, results, and methodologies that have emerged during the process of design by making. Through a series of prototypical building components and assemblies this collection presents a design process that began with a top-down program-specific design process that informed the development of a unique building system and enabled a bottom up formal exploration. As the design thesis for the first professional Master of Architecture degree, this exploration surrounds the design, fabrication, and deployment of a series of component-based building assemblies. One example, the SEEDS Pavilion At Hawks Ridge, serves as a remote base of operations for a local youth organization that supports field-based environmental education. The pavilion continues an investigation of user assembled construction and is based on a component group that can be assembled on-site by camp children. Each building component was manufactured using on campus fabrication laboratories and was assembled on-site by a group of supervised SEEDS camp student-volunteers during a two-day design-build workshop at the Hawk's Ridge Preserve in Floyd, Virginia. The form of the structure is derived by the limitation of component number, size, and assembly sequence and represents the conflict between a parametrically derived prescriptive shape and the forms that result from the bottom up exploration of the physical system itself. The component-based construction is made possible by a series of nodal linkage assemblies designed to accommodate variations in on-site conditions using a strategic 'sloppy detail' that enables a high degree of assembly and deployment tolerance. The following collection of sequential images outlines construction of several prototypical components and assemblies and is intended to represent a continuance, not an end, to a long-term effort.
As time passes: garden, monument, ruin
Shannon, Edward J. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1992)
Groundspace to bury the deceased has become a rare commodity. As an alternative, cemeteries are beginning to build large high density mausoleums to house the dead above ground. As I began to study the building type of a mausoleum, an issue perturbed me: As time passes, the loved ones of the deceased will pass on and no longer come to visit or care for the building. Most likely there will be a lack of funds, the building will no longer be maintained. The building will eventually deteriorate and become a ruin. What happens to the mortal remains? The conventional cemetery does not have to consider this issue, as the bodies are simply allowed to deteriorate in the ground, and the grave marker is able to withstand much more abuse than a building. The manner in which I have addressed this issue is to design the mausoleum to potentially become a ruin, and thus the mortal remains are returned to the earth. “FOR DUST YOU ARE AND TO DUST YOU WILL RETURN.” (GEN 3:19 NIV)
The Ashes and the Portal: An immersive stereoscopic experience on Cyclorama
Liu, Xindi (Virginia Tech, 2019-08-05)
the Ashes and the Portal is an immersive stereoscopic animated short capturing the burned library after a fire disaster at Mzuzu University, Malawi, Africa, and it also witnesses the new design of the library from Virginia Tech architecture students. This animated short recreates the burned library and presents the new library design with photo-real image sequences which can immersively bring the audiences onto the site. The Ashes and the Portal utilizes the Cyclorama system, which is a 32 feet diameter and 16 feet tall cylindrical screen with four projectors that can display visual content. The surrounding panels with rendered footage could provide an immersive experience within this semi-public space. This is a collaboration project between the School of Visual Arts and the School of Architecture + Design, also with technical support from the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology. This project explores the potential use of Cyclorama system as a platform for CG works, especially for stereoscopic animation.
Beginnings
Schmitt, Casey Tyler (Virginia Tech, 1999-05-11)
This book is a beginning. It begins to explore three conditions. First is the idea of the boundary - not simply the boundary as something that fixes limits, but as something that defines the spatial qualities of architecture. For example, a space that has four opaque walls, a dark floor and a heavy ceiling will feel like a closed cell. But what if the ceiling doesn't quite complete the boundary of the box, and instead it pulls away from the walls to let in traces of daylight. The light trickles down horizontal bands of green stone and reflects in a plane of water that is the floor. The light indicates the space beyond the boundary. This room has the quiet, meditative feeling of an ancient cave. It still feels closed, but the slight change in the boundary creates an experience more stimulating to the memory of the senses than the closed cell of the original box.Second is the idea of the core - the core as the life, the center, more importantly, the core as the foundation. It is of a different nature than the parts that envelop it; it is lasting. Think of driving down a long country road on a bright summer day. The surrounding fields are overgrown and lush green. Wooden barn structures inhabit these fields, some in use, some no longer used, but beautiful just the same as the sunlight gleams through the spaces in the weathered wooden boards. From a distance, a tall figure rises from a hillside. It appears at first to be one of the many silo structures of the old farms. The stack pointing to the sky is surrounded by low stone walls. It is the chimney that rises from a hearth. It is central to what was once home. It remains standing, a sight reaching across time to speak of home as a shelter, as a place for family, and hearth as a place to gather.Second is the idea of the core - the core as the life, the center, more importantly, the core as the foundation. It is of a different nature than the parts that envelop it; it is lasting. Think of driving down a long country road on a bright summer day. The surrounding fields are overgrown and lush green. Wooden barn structures inhabit these fields, some in use, some no longer used, but beautiful just the same as the sunlight gleams through the spaces in the weathered wooden boards. From a distance, a tall figure rises from a hillside. It appears at first to be one of the many silo structures of the old farms. The stack pointing to the sky is surrounded by low stone walls. It is the chimney that rises from a hearth. It is central to what was once home. It remains standing, a sight reaching across time to speak of home as a shelter, as a place for family, and hearth as a place to gather.The ideas of the boundary, the core and the light of a place are where this project begins.
Between Synergy and Synesthesia
Kubo, Atsuko (Virginia Tech, 2000-05-08)
We live in a world where most people are inundated with information on a global scale. The world has become smaller and more homogenous, whereas the social composition has become more and more complex, and extremely hierarchical. In such a society, the only way for one to define oneself could be to expand himself/herself beyond all social frames. Through close and dynamic interaction with the outer world, and coexistence with heterogeneous elements around us, we are able to define intrinsic factors within us, within our society. This process challenges openness and full understanding of the world beyond oneself. Only through this process, we might be able to establish a "global culture." Every action we take has some kind of impact on this world. Like the river flows into the bay, it seems that social values on our life and culture are constantly in a state of change. It is very important for me to read this changing flow of social consciousness to understand our world and allow it to inform architecture. Architecture is a great tool for me to expand myself toward society, and people. It allows me to become infinite in a timeless journey in human life searching for the truth.
Between the experiential and intellectual
Neal, Douglas A. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1990)
Great architecture exists by creating an equilibrium between the experiential world and the intellectual world. On one hand these two worlds operate at polar opposites, while on the other hand these two worlds are totally dependent on one another’s existence. Through the conscious pursuit of reconciling these differences, the creation process is open to its fullest realm of possibilities and complexities. Le Corbusier used the intellectual world to gain the experiential. Although, in his later years, this process began to reverse itself. Alvaro Siza uses the experiential world to gain the intellectual. While these processes are pursued from opposite extremes, the final works reach a common goal. That goal being a complete fusion of the experiential and intellectual worlds which allows these works to procure a vital new spirit. One other case needs to be mentioned here. This being the case of Alvar Aalto. Aalto was pure genius in his understanding the significance and consequences of unifying the experiential and intellectual worlds. As a result, I believe Aalto's starting point was where the reconciliation of these two worlds occurs. By starting at this point, Aalto allowed himself the enormous freedom of reaching out simultaneously to both the experiential and intellectual worlds, extracting whatever components were necessary to create his wonderful works of art. A major objective for me is to simultaneously reconcile the experiential and intellectual worlds into a harmonious equilibrium. The moment this harmonious equilibrium occurs is the point where architecture is on the threshold of beauty

Browsing by Author "Dunay, Robert J."

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