I set out to learn something basic about architecture, something foundational on which to situate the conceptual and rhetorical exercises played within the studio. In settings both academic and professional I had been encouraged to reduce my study of architecture to a cerebral and retinal game of sorts played out via ever-increasingly seductive imagery. It seemed apparent that in order to think about architecture I should have been involved in an act of architecture. My intentions, albeit naïve, were to engage architecture on its own terms, through its own medium, to return to first principles, if there ever were any, and to acquire a form of embodied architectural knowledge inseparable from its material becoming. There was no amount of hypothesizing, theorizing, no amount of digital sophistication that could supplant the basic educational experience gained from involving myself with real materials, in a real place, with a fully engaged being. With this in mind I journeyed into Ontario’s North, with little more than a hammer and saw and a desire for experience, that most brutal of teachers. I would engage in a basic act of building as a method of acquiring a deeper understanding of the subject I had been studying for several years yet whose essence I felt I knew very little about. The resultant document, informed by traditions of the primitive hut, records a journey towards architectural embodiment; it resides as an argument for the reintroduction of embodied forms of learning into the education of the architect.

A study of the importance, elements and techniques of architectural contextualism. Contextual architecture is here defined as architecture that creates relationships with its specific site or its broader physical or visual environment. This study posits the comprehensive definition of architectural contextualism on multiple levels: denotatively, connotatively, historically, philosophically, and in its aspects of critical regionalism. American architects adept at the practice of architectural contextualism during the mid-twentieth century offer principles and techniques. These architects are John Carl Warnecke, E. Fay Jones, and George White and others. This research has yielded the systematic, comprehensive definition of contextualism, a set of metrics which can be used as a basis of design and aid in the evaluation of the degree to which a building or set of buildings and their landscape are contextually congruent.

I set out to learn something basic about architecture, something foundational on which to situate the conceptual and rhetorical exercises played within the studio. In settings both academic and professional I had been encouraged to reduce my study of architecture to a cerebral and retinal game of sorts played out via ever-increasingly seductive imagery. It seemed apparent that in order to think about architecture I should have been involved in an act of architecture. My intentions, albeit naïve, were to engage architecture on its own terms, through its own medium, to return to first principles, if there ever were any, and to acquire a form of embodied architectural knowledge inseparable from its material becoming. There was no amount of hypothesizing, theorizing, no amount of digital sophistication that could supplant the basic educational experience gained from involving myself with real materials, in a real place, with a fully engaged being. With this in mind I journeyed into Ontario’s North, with little more than a hammer and saw and a desire for experience, that most brutal of teachers. I would engage in a basic act of building as a method of acquiring a deeper understanding of the subject I had been studying for several years yet whose essence I felt I knew very little about. The resultant document, informed by traditions of the primitive hut, records a journey towards architectural embodiment; it resides as an argument for the reintroduction of embodied forms of learning into the education of the architect.

No description available.

El proyecto consiste en el desarrollo de una Escuela Gastronómica en el Centro Histórico de Lima. Se plantea en este lugar como punto de partida para un futuro y progresivo crecimiento del turismo gastronómico a esta zona. La estrategia urbana plantea generar una calle pública peatonal, junto con espacios públicos de estar como un oasis en respuesta al caos que actualmente significa el Centro Histórico. Busca integrarse al entorno con los usos mixtos complementarios con vocación gastronómica, que complementen la función principal del proyecto: la escuela, a través de un aprendizaje teórico y sobre todo, experimental. Asimismo, busca integrarse a través del empleo de estrategias propuestas por el regionalismo crítico para de alguna manera, rescatas y potenciar la memoria colectiva del lugar. / The project consists of the development of a Gastronomic School in the Historical Center of Lima. It is proposed here as a starting point for a future and progressive growth of gastronomic tourism to this area. The urban strategy aims to generate a public pedestrian street, along with public spaces to be like an oasis in response to the chaos that the Historic Center currently means. It seeks to integrate into the environment with complementary mixed uses related to the gastronomic vocation, which complement the main function of the project: the school, through theoretical and, above all, experimental learning. Likewise, it seeks to integrate through the use of strategies proposed by critical regionalism to somehow rescue and enhance the collective memory of the place. / Trabajo de investigación

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Utilizing archival research from Berea College's Appalachian Sound Archives and Appalachian State University's Belk Special Collection, more than 45 survey results, 15 extensive interviews, and participant observations from 15 festival field sites, I examine bluegrass festivals as sites of identity production through feminist methodologies and a participatory ethnographic approach. This requires careful analysis of the nature of the genre's audience and audience members' investments in the process of framing the performance of bluegrass music's history through a shared historical narrative. More broadly, this analysis clarifies the nuanced role of bluegrass festivals in constructing generalizations about place-based identities, race, and gender within the performative space of festivals. In this assessment, the political and economic actions generated as a result of bluegrass performances are explored as temporal and spatial organizers for the (re)production and consumption of generalized ideals which are projected onto both literal and figurative southern stages. I perform this research utilizing the conceptual frameworks of theories of space and place, politics of culture, and feminist methods, combined through critical regionalism. My hypothesis is that bluegrass festivals serve as spaces to perform white patriarchal capitalist desires while relying on marginalized and hidden cultural productions and exchanges. My findings reveal that in order to gain a fuller understanding of politics culture, the stage must be subverted and the researcher's gaze must go beyond that which is typically traditionally framed to encompass the festival in its entirety. This requires seeking out not merely that which is intentionally framed but also narratives that create the stage or are omitted by dominant ways of interpreting the festival space. Ultimately, I find the significance of temporary physical sites for identity construction and the potential for dynamic social change within these spaces relies on the ability of scholars and participants alike to re-historicize and retell dominant narratives. / Ph. D. / The fantasized rural Appalachian region and greater south—a social construct, constantly created and recreated by social desires, political needs, and economic trends—has been a space of cultural production and experimentation, notably since the reconstruction era. One result has been the stereotypically regional genre of bluegrass music. This project asks how bluegrass music festivals began, for whom, and to what end. More importantly, it turns an eye towards research methods and power structures within the community. Research was conducted at Berea College’s Appalachian Sound Archives, at Appalachian State University’s Belk Special Collection, and through online surveys, participant observations, and interviews. In this dissertation, I carefully examine the role(s) of bluegrass festivals, specifically those envisioned and enacted by Carlton Haney (notably, in Fincastle, Virginia, in 1965). My findings illuminate how bluegrass festivals serve as sites where widely accepted generalizations about place (specifically, Appalachia and the rural American south) and specifically the bluegrass community are formed. Further, I address the role of gender within these spaces and the symbiotic relationship between female labor and bluegrass. The history of bluegrass festivals is approached with the intention of broadening discussions of gender, labor, and historical narratives beyond the festival grounds.