40004 research outputs found
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Interlocked
Full text linkThe ceramic forms in Interlocked capture a version of iterative drawings that are con-
stantly in motion in my mind. Dynamic, fluid shapes move across the wall, shifting as
they rotate, warp, and divide. Taking on a three-dimensional form that expands and
multiplies beyond two dimensions, Interlocked becomes a time capsule, referencing
past renderings and suggesting future variations of itself
From In to Out
Full text linkIn contemporary Korean society, where uniform ideals and social pressure often dominate, individuality—especially emotional individuality—can be difficult to maintain. This loss of personal agency has real consequences: mental and physical health challenges, including eating disorders, are on the rise.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), around 3 percent of the global population is affected by such disorders—roughly 1.55 million people in South Korea—despite the country having the lowest obesity rate among OECD nations. The increase, particularly among women in their teens to thirties, reflects the emotional toll of conforming to rigid societal standards.
Architecture is not merely a backdrop for social narratives, but an active medium that can convey unspoken emotional realities. The study begins with a question: Can space communicate that you\u27re not wrong, just different—not through words, but through space?
Situated in Seoul’s Gangnam district, the K Museum of Contemporary Art (KMCA) lies at the epicenter of this pressure—an area where intense academic competition and fast-cycling trends expose adolescents and young adults (ages 10–30) to relentless norms of perfection.
While most traditional museums rely on didactic, text-based displays, this thesis challenges that model by designing a physical participatory environment—one in which space becomes a tool for conveying the invisible social narrative at the KMCA and beyond. Informed by Donald Norman’s emotional design theory, the project reimagines the visceral–behavioral–reflective model through three phases:
A. Break - out of the standard thinking and investigate the visceral psychosomatic symptoms triggered by Korea’s societal uniformity pressure.
B. Weave - a behavior-based exhibition flow that speaks an empathetic spatial language, which is a story sequence with personal turning points.
C. Release - the reflective stage at the KMCA, where the exhibition functions as a spatial artwork through which contemporary issues surface and are emotionally processed.
By withholding fixed meaning, this approach opens room for self-understanding and emotional ownership. The exhibition journey becomes a quiet canvas for personal reinterpretation—an invitation to reclaim what has long been suppressed. In doing so, this thesis affirms both the dignity of personal thought differences and the empathetic potential of architecture
Post Occupation Amnesia
Full text linkOn August 2nd, 1990, Iraqi forces invaded and occupied Kuwait in an attempt to expand borders and acquire resources. The occupation lasted for seven months. Even after liberation on February 26, 1991, many prisoners of war had not been found or returned, oil wells were still on fire, and buildings were left damaged or destroyed. The immediate recovery period focused on restoring what was lost and reclaiming a sense of cultural and national identity. Different buildings received different treatment, and analyzing what remains now, 35 years later, is essential in understanding the impacts of occupation on a nation.
To gain a deeper understanding of the invasion itself and its continued consequences on Kuwait, this design research thesis examines the growth of Kuwait from Bedouin settlement, through the oil boom, to post Iraqi occupation. By examining the context of this history, we are able to begin developing conclusions as to why certain buildings were destroyed, restored, or reused in the years following the invasion.
What does an inconsistent approach to recovery––from restoration to erasure––tell us about post-occupation identity and heritage? This design research thesis aims to examine pre-invasion Kuwait, what was impacted by the Iraqi occupation, and what remains decades later. Contextualizing this data and mapping it will help illuminate the different forms and effects of Adaptive Reuse that emerged, including deconstruction, restoration, and preservation
Soft Stickers
Full text linkThe United States has long maintained an extractive relationship with national forest land, leaving a dwindling number of old-growth forests and an overabundance of young, small trees. Waste byproducts of the industry, such as sawmill offcuts, are typically burned or chipped for groundcover; but what if they were reconsidered as viable building materials in their own right? Opting for stuffed and strapped connections over conventional notches and nails, Soft Stickers proposes a building ethos that accepts and accounts for material variation and dimensional change over time through supple materials and a long-term maintenance commitment. Green wood offcuts dry and shrink slowly, and require their straps to be tightened to remain structural. A Soft-Stickered Shed embodies this approach in the form of a classroom / storage space containing forestry tools on managed forestland
The Afterlife of Walls / Reimagining the Museum Beyond Possession
Full text linkWhen artifacts are returned, whether to their original sites or to communities with enduring cultural and ancestral ties, what might museums become in their absence? Once defined by possession, these spaces could shift toward empathy: not through institutional authority, but through shared presence and living memory.
This thesis critiques how Eurocentric museum practices have long sustained a colonial logic by detaching artifacts from the cultural, spiritual, and embodied contexts that gave them meaning. In doing so, museums render objects static, symbols of conquest rather than continuity, and reinforce historical narratives rooted in domination and erasure. Centering the British Museum as both a site and a symbol of imperial collecting, the project imagines the full repatriation of its holdings to the communities and landscapes from which they were taken.
Drawing on cultural theory, museum studies, and postcolonial critique, this thesis proposes a shift toward the post-museum: a spatial and ethical framework where heritage is not preserved behind glass, but lived, interpreted, and hosted by the communities to whom it belongs. These spaces would no longer function as monuments to imperial memory but as forums for cultural expression, shaped, governed, and sustained by those who carry their meaning. In the returning agency, the museum becomes a space for relation, repair, and multiplicity. This approach insists that museums must not only return objects but also reconfigure their foundations: how they relate to history, to ownership, and to the communities they have long excluded.
Rather than offering a new master narrative, this thesis intervenes through strategic exposure, opening walls, leaving scars visible, and resisting seamless renovation. Architecturally, these wounds become a refusal of closure. The result is not a resolution, but a framework: an architecture that remains open, fractured, and unfinished. A space that holds memory not in permanence, but in relation, evolving with those who inhabit it
Foundations of Belonging
Full text linkIn the early 1900s, hundreds of thousands of immigrants displaced by World War II sought refuge in the United States, drawn by the promise of a new life and the hope of finding community in an unfamiliar land. To navigate the challenges of a new country, these immigrants formed ethnic social clubs that provided essential support, including housing, employment, and spaces for social connection. Over time, as later generations assimilated and established new identities, these once-thriving social hubs diminished, barely operating their original functions and transitioned into bars, event halls, or restaurants. Since the early 2000s, a new wave of refugees fleeing global conflicts has arrived in the U.S., in search of the sanctuary. Most refugee centers today focus on diverse programs, including placement, integration, and training. However, the fundamental aspect of resettlement— establishing a connection with the local community— remains absent due to issues of locational isolation, lack of shared spaces, and a lack of cultural understanding or openness within the existing community. Recognizing that both immigrants and refugees are migrants seeking sanctuary from past to present, this thesis proposes architectural additions to existing ethnic social clubs, creating social communicative spaces that bridge the gap between refugees and the surrounding neighborhood. By inserting spaces that encourage interaction between newcomers and local residents, these interventions aim to revitalize the clubs as dispersed community anchors—collectively operating as a new urban typology for social integration. The additive spaces will host a multiplicity of social integration and support programs tailored for refugees, fostering inclusive environments while simultaneously revitalizing existing ethnic social clubs for members of the existing community. Through a shared architectural language of addition, these interventions will unify fragmented identities and invite broader neighborhood participation. These programmatic additions will be applied to 12 ethnic social clubs located in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, demonstrating how strategic programming and spatial interventions can establish a systematic distribution of community hubs throughout the city. This approach aims to induce human connection, generate seamless urban links, and gradually expand social bonds within the cityscape. From an architectural perspective, this thesis explores strategic approaches to creating additional community spaces that blur spatial and cultural boundaries. This is achieved through five distinct strategies for generating architectural thresholds—through, intersection, addition, flexibility, and shell—which are manifested in four types of building extensions: vertical, horizontal, storefront, and insertion. These strategies will be applied and tested on three representative sites, selected from a total of twelve ethnic social clubs, to reflect a diverse range of spatial conditions at small, medium, and large scales. By situating these interventions within the broader context of twelve ethnic social clubs serving as host buildings, the thesis proposes a scalable framework for spatial integration. This approach offers a prototype for expanding architectural engagement with cultural remnants across the United States, fostering a more inclusive and interconnected urban fabric
Lingering Loading
Full text linkIn a culture that values speed, seamlessness, and instant clarity, Lingering Loading investigates how graphic design can slow down our ways of seeing and knowing. As technology, internet culture, and social media continue to condition us to expect immediate answers, we have become more passive in how we receive meaning. We scroll, absorb, and move on—often without time to ask what we truly think or feel. But in the increasingly rare moments of pause, something undefinable can happen.
To linger is not to delay progress, but to make space for participation—for meaning to emerge from within, not be delivered from outside. Through delays, visual interruptions, and typographic fragments, this book resists the logic of acceleration. It creates space for uncertainty, imagination, and reflection before meaning is fully formed. I repeatedly return to a passage in Tao Te Ching:
The way you can go isn’t the real way. The name you can say isn’t the real name.
What graphic design makes visible is never the whole story. But perhaps in pausing, in moments that cannot be named or fully defined, we finally encounter ourselves.
Not through clarity, but through ambiguity. Not through resolution, but through rhythm. Not a definition, but a way. The real way
Re-imagining As Re-empowering
Full text linkWhile landscapes designed have been shown to effectively promote healing, foster community, and facilitate social empowerment, the landscapes of domestic violence shelters are woefully understudied.
This thesis explores the potential of integrating and combining existing design elements into the landscape to create a system that fosters a “safe place” within an urban context.
In this thesis, I developed a series of typologies based on existing landscape elements that are not necessarily connected with trauma-informed care or a healing landscape. I examined these in an urban context, specifically at Casa Myrna, a domestic violence shelter in Roxbury, Boston, MA.
Through the thesis, I tailored the typologies to suit the sites’ exceptional conditions and specific needs. This thesis aims to spark a broader discussion about the current practice model and approaches to landscape architecture in DV shelters
Breathing with Water; Rebuilding Coastal Connections in Busan
Full text linkWhat does it mean to live on the edge? Every year, sea level is rising and massive storms are hitting the peninsula of South Korea. With each catastrophic typhoon comes significant social damage due to relocations and loss of life. To these disastrous events, the city seems to have only one response: tetrapods and sea walls. This defensive approach has blinded the public from the severity of the looming climate crisis and kept them ignorant of more productive ways to manage the shoreline.
This thesis explores an alternative narrative for this coast. Working within a 75 year timeline, I propose a range of systems that can rebuild the connection between the water and the public, a link severed by the city’s defensive approach. Using the existing design language of tetrapods and the local culture of sea women, I write a tailored design story for this site: Gwangalli Beach, Busan
Almost Architecture, Almost [ other ] : Examining Approximative Methods of Design Through the Lens of Hydrologic Structures
Full text linkThis thesis is centered in Gallup, NM, a border town to the Navajo Nation Reservation. The town exists amidst a growing water crisis in the four corners region, with around 1/3rd of the reservation not having a reliable source of running water within their homes. The entirety of the area relies heavily on stored groundwater in subterranean sandstone aquifers, with little to no surface water sources to replenish the water that gets extracted. Gallup itself sits in a small pocket, landlocked by the reservations checkerboard of ownership. Amidst an overall increase in scarcity and misuse, this thesis proposes approximation as the pivotal method for transforming essential water infrastructures. Rather than dismantling existing systems, approximative methods preserve ritualistic relationships to collection, consumption, and storage, eventually using them as key metrics for revision. As both an analytical tool and architectural approach, this idea of approximation stands in contrast to abstraction, enabling the preservation of contextual limitations within pre-existing infrastructures while still presenting opportunities for spatial intervention