VTechWorks Repository :: Browsing by Author "Jones, James R."

Browsing by Author "Jones, James R."

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500 feet of Sunset
Sridhar, Vidusha (Virginia Tech, 2020-09-15)
The Sunset is a natural phenomenon that occurs every single day. Arguably, the sunset is one of the most romanticized natural event in all forms of art. In this wider context, the hypothesis posits architecture as an instrument to amplify specific visible aspects of the setting sun. The guidance for development relies on deconstructing and intensifying a specific spatial condition that interacts with effect the rays of the evening sun. Set in focus are three particular elements of the sunset, color, light, view and the subsequent darkness. In this architectural array, the chosen aspects of sunset are awarded a specific presence in their dedicated spaces. The spaces presenting those specific aspects of the sunset are organized as a sequence in the architectural construct of a long tunnel-like pathway. A culminating moment of totality emerges after the encounter of the specific aspects.
AeroVolt Shading: Wind-Piezo Kinetic shading facade
Khojasteh far, Faraz (Virginia Tech, 2024-06-25)
This research delves into the feasibility and effectiveness of utilizing wind-powered shading systems in architectural design to enhance energy efficiency and promote environmental sustainability. With an ever increasing demand for energy in commercial buildings, particularly in heating, cooling, and lighting, innovative solutions are crucial in addressing these challenges. The proposed solution centers on dynamic shading systems that adjust autonomously to environmental factors, thanks to advancements in construction and information technologies. Piezoelectric wind harnessing devices are at the heart of this investigation, powering kinetic shading systems that offer a renewable and eco-friendly alternative to traditional energy sources. However, implementing such systems presents technical challenges such as device optimization, compatibility with dynamic movement, and reliability in real-world applications. Through empirical research and experimentation, these challenges are comprehensively explored and addressed. The study seeks to assess the practicality and effectiveness of wind-powered shading systems in reducing energy consumption, improving thermal comfort, and enhancing overall building performance. By considering factors such as architectural integration, heat, light management, and adaptability to environmental conditions, the research aims to contribute to the advancement of sustainable building practices. Ultimately, the findings provide valuable insights into the potential of wind-powered shading systems to mitigate energy usage and promote environmental stewardship in architectural design.
The Aesthetic of Love
Blissett, Brandon (Virginia Tech, 2008-04-29)
Indigenous architecture is a loving response to the natural conditions surrounding ones inhabitation of architecture. It is designed and built by those who will inhabit it and is necessarily designed in coordination with both environmental considerations and practical (or use-oriented) considerations. The product of such a building shows the love present in it both as an independent architectural entity and as an inhabited structure. The late 20th century has seen a revival with regard to appreciating this aesthetic. The 'green' movement had hoped to open people's eyes to a certain aesthetic of conservation but unfortunately has lost sight of the ideological foundations of its existence. My proposal is to look back to these roots of architecture. Not to revert architecture to mere building, but to find the aesthetic through the love put into the creation of a purposeful structure intended for a specific set of criteria and inhabitants for an intentional duration in a specific spot. We must look intently at the indigenous builders for how to find the balance of sustainability, response to environment and the physical aesthetic.
Alexandria Underwater Museum For Sunken Monuments
Hafiz, Dalia O. (Virginia Tech, 2011-04-06)
This thesis is a study of a journey in the deep mystery of the eastern harbor on the Mediterranean sea in the city of Alexandria. For Herodotus, the four major elements for civilization's development overtime are water, air, land, and fire. In this project, the effort is made to connect three of the four elements within an architectural context: "Underwater museum". The building orientation, shape and location allow a discovery of the building elements and shape consequently while participating in the building visit. From street level, the building can be seen as a simple curved wall on the harbor facing the sea. While pursuing the passage in the journey, the building shape and components start to build the experience. Different lighting conditions, vertical and horizontal circulation methods, building form and structure are used to direct the journey starting from sky and land, through water, to underwater, then finally discovering the ruins at the seabed.
The Application of CFD to Building Analysis and Design: A Combined Approach of an Immersive Case Study and Wind Tunnel Testing
Kim, Daeung (Virginia Tech, 2014-01-23)
Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) can play an important role in building design. For all aspects and stages of building design, CFD can be used to provide more accurate and rapid predictions of building performance with regard to air flow, pressure, temperature, and similar parameters. Generally, the process involved in conducting CFD analyses is relatively complex and requires a good understanding of how best to utilize computational numerical methods. Moreover, the level of skill required to perform an accurate CFD analysis remains a challenge for many professionals particularly architects. In addition, the user needs to input a number of different items of information and parameters into the CFD program in order to obtain a successful and credible solution. This research seeks to improve the general understanding of how CFD can best be used as a design assistance tool. While there have been a number of quantitative studies suggesting CFD may be a useful tool for building related airflow assessment, few researchers have explored the more qualitative aspects of CFD, in particular developing a better understanding of the procedures required for the proper application of CFD to whole building analysis. This study therefore adopted a combined qualitative and quantitative methodology, with the researcher immersing himself into a case study approach and defining several lessons-learned that are documented and shared. This research will assist practicing architects and architecture students to better understand the application of CFD to building analysis and design.
Architecture as a Constellation of Elements
Surty, Abdul Dayyan Abdul Wahab (Virginia Tech, 2021-07-01)
The thesis seeks to uncover making of architecture as a constellation or cluster of elements which assemble to form spaces humans inhabit. In doing so, it explores the architecture of incompleteness, where fragmented elements combine to form a dialogue with their adjacent elements, intensifying the user's encounter with the structure. Plurality of elements is exposed by increasing their number from single to multiple in varying levels of transparency with the surroundings. The subtraction from a volume to reveal the additive quality of the structure is an effort to amplify the role of structural assembly that elevates the act of visual containment. Agglomeration of members and layers is vital to realize architecture. The programmatic aspect of this thesis manifests itself in a resort town where the proposition of three types of cabin, opposing in character, take shape. The relation of architecture with the ground is primarily observed as resting, floating and sunken. This connection is nourished by exploring the orders, rules and patterns offered by the context. It's an act of revealing and concealing clusters of members in action and assembly.
Architecture as Connector to Nature
Tomaselli, Devon Hannah (Virginia Tech, 2019-07-11)
How can architecture connect us to our environments? Is architecture responsible for connecting its user to their surrounding context? Can our spaces inform us about the world around us? There are numerous ways that humans can feel a connection to nature. But, what ways are more universal than others? What aspects of the natural world cross geographical and cultural boundaries? Perhaps, architecture can connect us to our environments by revealing the universal passing of time through natural daylighting by way of structure, materiality, and texture. As the primary instrument, daylighting will be used in this body of work to explore time on an hourly and seasonal basis. It will do this by housing two light-sensitive programs, a painting conservatory and gallery space. By pairing these programs together, the architecture will investigate time by comparing and contrasting two user types and their corresponding needs from each program. Finally, by setting the architecture in the center of a urban block, the thesis can draw upon this high contrast to reinforce the connections it has constructed and made between the user and the natural environment.
Architecture At War: Rebuilding After Destruction
Palazzolo, Joseph Robert (Virginia Tech, 2024-05-15)
War is a perpetual shadow cast over human history. It brings forth unparalleled destruction, leaving behind a wake of devastation that scars both the land and its people. Its relentless march leaves cities in ruins, families torn, landscapes transformed and the built environment obliterated. War affects an individual, a community and a country's identity. Destruction both leaves a memory and shapes it. The process of rebuilding raises complex questions: How do we rebuild after that has which been destroyed? What should be rebuilt? Is rebuilding necessary? There are no easy answers and the choices made will reverberate through generations, influencing what endures in collective memory and what is forgotten. This thesis aims to explore the relationship between memory, destruction and architecture.
Architecture for the Imagination: A Study of an Elementary Educational Environment
Henderson, James M. (Virginia Tech, 1999-04-30)
This thesis seeks to create an environment that encourages the learning process by addressing issues of emotional and physical well-being. The concept implies that success in learning can be linked to the environment of an elementary school. The building does not have to teach by itself, but merely facilitate the learning process through the making of a comfortable environment. Designing an elementary school demands that the architect look at the world through the eyes of a child. If the architect considers the scale of the building, both in terms of size and perception, the school becomes an oasis of security for the child that inspires intellectual growth. By integrating environmental design issues that are traditionally ignored in contemporary schools, like natural ventilation or daylighting, the school becomes less of an institution and more like a home.
Architecture is Life... ...Life is Architecture
Snider, David E. (Virginia Tech, 2001-06-04)
When thinking about architecture, I cannot help but think about my life and the things that have affected my life. How does the environment around us effect the daily decisions we make? How do the experiences throughout our life impact who we are and who we become? The people and surroundings we choose will ultimately decide the type of people we become. When we select our surroundings we are in turn selecting our ideal community. Everyone is trying to achieve community in some sense, from individuals to city planners. Council members, politicians, city officials... make decisions everyday based on their idea of what community is to them and their citizens. In the following pages I will design a community and put in place the elements for it to prosper and grow...
An Architecture of Belonging
He, Xie (Virginia Tech, 2021-02-23)
As the placeless globalization is accelerating around the world and especially in China, places that have strong ties to the particularities of a locale are desirable destinations to escape the generic monotony of placeless urbanization. The thesis here stipulates that even in a placeless globalization, opportunities exist to understand, interpret and celebrate local cultural phenomena. While many formal architectural artifacts may have outgrown their purpose and no longer have direct relevance today, a number of desires, customs and rituals persist as desirable conditions to be supported by architectural space. The thesis proposes to seek out an architecture, that embraces and reinterprets targeted aspects of the built form of traditional elements with modern means.
Architecture of Connections
Paik, Sheemantini (Virginia Tech, 2018-07-09)
This thesis is an investigation into the role of architecture as a tool for connections. It explores this idea in four scales: the urban scale, the immediate context, the scale of the building and the interpersonal scale. Architecturally, it addresses the complexities of an intervention in an urban fabric and embraces the contextual it is an attempt to reanimate the core of Downtown Roanoke, through the adaptive reuse of an inert built mass by opening it up to put it in conversation with its surroundings. Programmatically, it responds to a collaborative transient workspace catering to individual entrepreneurs or small groups of independent start-up enthusiasts or simply mobile workers. The thesis focuses on connections as the language through which these stories find their expression.
An Architecture of Light: A Catholic Church for Blacksburg, Virginia
Mendoza, Hector (Virginia Tech, 2008-01-31)
This thesis is an investigation on how in architecture structure and material modulate the perception of light. This idea was implemented in the design of a catholic church for the parish of Blacksburg,Virginia. The vision of the church as a community in constant interaction resulted in the design of a complex, in which the chapel is accompanied by a pre-school and a third building containing facilities for the administration of the parish and the residence for the priest. The plaza on which all the buildings have been arranged allows the opportunity for outdoor activities, as well as the contemplation of the beautiful ever-changing views of the mountains that surround the church. The difference in the nature of the activities that take place in each one of the buildings has been expressed through the way structure and materials interact with the natural light producing a distinctive interior quality.
An architecture of play
Ebrahim, Hajar Mohammad (Virginia Tech, 2020-01-28)
Play is important in a child's development, growth and education. Children must be given a space where--in place of formal education--wonder and the love of play can be fostered and encouraged, allowing them to transition into becoming young individuals. By constructing a building with them in mind, children are offered opportunities to discover, play, and wonder.
Architecture of the In-Between
Cross, Carolyn Page (Virginia Tech, 2022-08-15)
This thesis aims to codify the physical in-between condition to understand how space is perceived in moments of time. The relationship between two dimensional vision and three dimensional space is utilized to direct orientation and give spacial identity to urban outdoor conditions and the architecture that inhabits it. The site is located in Greenville, South Carolina between a single family residential neighborhood and a dense multi-use downtown condition. The land was once used for a sanatorium and then Greenville General Hospital. What remains is a large plot of land amongst small residential plots searching for a sense of identity and orientation. As the neighborhood turns to multi-family housing and commercial development draws near, there is awareness of a fleeting sense of place that will be lost if a firm foundation in historical and contextual identity is not established.
An Architecture of Verticality
Chuhadia, Shubham (Virginia Tech, 2018-06-28)
One of the chief characteristics of a high-rise building is its verticality. However, it seems that most high-rise buildings do not directly pursue the architecture of verticality. Moreover, verticality is rarely perceived within this building type. This thesis investigates the potential of verticality in a residential high-rise building. Together with the aspect of verticality, the thesis pursues an idea that even in a residential high-rise, the sense of community that typically exists in low-rise settlements on the ground and other connections to the outside can be at least partially preserved. In summary, the proposal aims the architecture to celebrate the verticality of the high-rise as a part of the skyline, expressing the verticality through its facade. For the dwellers, sky gardens offer a sense of verticality with constructed views connecting the outside world. Six two-story-apartments adjoin the sky garden with a double height living room suggesting the apartments in a high rise shouldn't be flats. This double height vertical space extends into the balcony spaces suggesting a local verticality at the apartment level.
Armature: Infill, A Health Care Facility in Verón, Dominican Republic
Parker, Casey Lee (Virginia Tech, 2006-06-21)
The purpose of this book is to explore the idea of duration of physical architectural elements, and how their relative permanence or temporariness affects time and memory. This project takes on the program of a healthcare facility in the community of Verón located in the Dominican Republic. Through the exploration of materials, the identity of the project is defined by a series of walls that bring order and scale to not only the clinic but the surrounding community as well.
An Art-Light Mosaic Light Distraction for the Pediatric Healthcare Environment
Dutro, Anna R. (Virginia Tech, 2016-12-01)
In his classic book, Experiencing Architecture, Rasmussen (1959) noted that architects inspired by addressing problems in built environments created buildings with a special spirit: a distinctive stamp. Recent problems in healthcare facilities, specifically those related to reducing stress and anxiety, have inspired designers to create positive, uplifting distractions to redirect a patient's attention from a sterile environment and/or noxious event. In doing so, healthcare facilities have become special environments with a caring spirit. This study examined a specific aspect of creating a caring environment: determining whether or not a positive distraction, a child's art-light mosaic movie developed by the researcher, would lower pain and distress in children 4, 5, and 6 years old during an immunization procedure. The researcher conducted a randomized controlled study in two locations using a child's self-report pain scale, heart rate, parent/guardian report, and nurse report measures. After collecting and analyzing data from 76 well-participants receiving one to five immunizations, the researcher found no statistically significant difference between the conditions for any of the measures. Thus, the null hypothesis, the art-light mosaic image would not assist in lowering pain and distress in pediatric patients, 4 to 6 years old, during an immunization procedure, was not rejected. From these results, the researcher recommended future studies incorporate training the parent and child on how to use the distraction, combine the distraction with a topical analgesic, provide a clear understanding of pain and distress from the child's point of view, and develop more sensitive self-report measures of pain for children.
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.
assembly of: architectrure: of assembly
Donaldson, James Ellsworth (Virginia Tech, 1999-08-02)
The thesis project was the vehicle for an investigation of prefabrication, assembly, and the design of a lived space. Elements are separated from the building and from each other. This separation is both physically and functionally significant. This separation of elements is presented as the architecture of a joint. The wall is divided into two parts: exterior and interior; creating a wall that is analogous to a double wall system. The exterior wall is the weather barrier, while the interior wall houses the functional necessities for a building, and the extremities of lived spaces. The gap, or joint, is exploited for its ability to be a transportation system. The joint is both vertical and horizontal, separating inside from outside and one unit from the other. The clarity of elements and the method of construction articulates the joint. A well designed element is fabricated and brought to the site. Its independence in construction is a metaphor for the element's ability to stand alone with its architecture, and when assembled underlines the strengths of the unit. The unit presented is one investigation of the varying possibilities of assembly.

Browsing by Author "Jones, James R."

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