Browsing by Author "Small, Stephen W."

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
  • Thumbnail Image
    The loss of place
    Burton, Michael John (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1996)
    The current crisis of the “American City”, stems from the notion of “The Loss of Place.” This concept of “Place” is defined and a specific project study demonstrating this concept of “Place” is presented. By utilizing new technologies available for methods and means of construction to produce “Meaningful” buildings that convey a sense of “Place” the identity and character of our cities will re-emerge.
  • Thumbnail Image
    "A national imaging arts museum"
    Small, Stephen W. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1990)
    In designing a National Museum for the Imaging Arts, a dual obligation is created. It is to provide an intimate place for the cherishing of manifestations of the individual, while also creating, at the scale of the nation, a symbol of the civilization. Architecture accepts this obligation through the hierarchical scaling of the referents of order, material, space, and light.
  • Thumbnail Image
    The school of craft
    Barras, Jeanette Shannon (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1996)
    A certain amount of care is inferred with the thought of craftsmanship. With a decline in craftsmanship in today’s society, the care and thoughtfulness inherent in the skill of making objects are gradually being replaced by the "ready-made" and the immediate. In order to reverse this trend we must educate the children, teach them the love of craft and making. The children must learn that care and its resultant lasting product are important. To help preserve the care for making lasting and significant things, I have chosen as my thesis to design a school of craft where children are to gain such knowledge. My hope is to design a space which is expressive of the ideas of craftsmanship using the knowledge of today’s technology.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Structure in architecture: a center for the study of world religions and mythologies
    Blish, Melissa R. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1996)
    A center for the study of world religions and mythologies, this project provides an educational center, a place for learning about religions and myths from around the world. This center provides a place to understand the essence of man’s “struggle toward the heights” as well as the history of that labor, its impact on society. Although education is the primary function of the project, worship is supported and encouraged with various areas available for meditation. These meditation areas support both private reflection and congregation. The primary functional areas of the complex consist of: a gallery, an amphitheater, a lecture hall, a library. These very different building types are tied together through a common language of structure that expresses our understanding of man’s place between earth and light, and our “struggle towards the heights”. I chose the site located at the bridge over Rock Creek Park on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington D.C., for its relationship to the city and for its dramatic sense of place. The capital city of a country founded, in part, by people seeking freedom from religious persecution, Washington D.C. provided highly appropriate for this project. Additionally, people of diverse religious backgrounds and national origins inhabit the District of Columbia, making it a multicultural city. Further, known as Embassy Row, Massachusetts Avenue houses a large number of embassies. To support this highly multinational area, religious buildings of various denominations blanket Massachusetts Avenue. Finally the juncture of Massachusetts Avenue with Rock Creek forms a significant boundary within the city.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Suburban housing: living between walls
    Robson, Michael Robert (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1996)
    The site, located in Alexandria, Virginia, is three acres and bounded by a road to the north, existing single family homes to the east and west, and a wooded area to the south. The slope falls away from the road and there is a swale running down the center of the site. The site strategy has three elements. The first is a private drive running along the western site boundary which will allow access to all six dwellings. Large site walls, dividing the site for each dwelling, comprise the second element. The third element is building walls set perpendicular to the site walls which begin to establish each dwelling. Following the site strategy, the dwellings are composed of three basic areas. The public side includes a carport which is set close to the drive, and alongside of it the beginning of the major axis leading through each dwelling. The dwelling itself exists in the space created by the walls established upon the site. The living rooms are composed of indoor and outdoor space separated by large glass walls set into and between building walls. On the private side outside rooms are established, between and beyond the frames created by the building walls, which terrace down the slope. The materials, concrete masonry units and poured in place concrete are utilized as different building elements so the walls reveal their purpose through their form.
  • Thumbnail Image
    To spark imagination: the American Film Institute
    Harmon, Rebecca J. (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1989)
    The purpose of this thesis is to explore the role and influence imagination plays on a building for the arts. The American Film Institute is considered to be a building for the production and study as well as the presentation of film. Because imagination is the most important tool the film maker possesses and is that which the general audience becomes a part of, this thesis strives to produce a building which enhances this tool. Steel and glass have been chosen as two of the three primary materials in the film institute for their reflective properties as well as their specific properties to distort reflections. Concrete was chosen as the third primary material not only for its compressive strength, but for its many possible finishes and its compatibility (being non-reflective) with the other two primary materials. The institute will be created in such a way that even in their permanence they will provide for a changing space which will make for a re-occurring newness each time it is visited, thus sparking the imagination. To the user of the institute, the space will each time be new. It takes on this characteristic as its users encounter their own reflection as well as the reflections - sometimes distorted - of others. This is enhanced as movement occurs not always in a straight line nor only at one level. Shade and shadow from stationary light, as further enhance the imagination. “The spatial area, whatever it may be—room, stage, garden, street—is the screen; the moving objects and people are the picture-in-solution reconstituted as a transient entity in time and space.”³