The state of the unfinished is something I am fascinated by, and in the course of this engagement my ambition has been to examine how an understanding of the unfinished can contribute to a re-evaluation in both planning habits and in our interaction with existing buildings. For example, can it help challenge our conception of aesthetics and completeness? At the storage site, I also became curious to investigate how we as a community store, what we store and how we can build connections around storage facilities. To study and also emphasize the historic layering of a site, I implemented the yellow/red method of drawing. Yellow represents the past, black the present and red is the future. Lastly, I have in debt studied the spaces through occasions. The occasions (a definition originally coined by Jan De Vylder) are born out of small observations that can give a decisive turn to the design. It’s a moment in which the thresholds between the existing and the new blurs. In that moment when a confrontation between the new and the old occurs, I believe permanence can emerge. The occasions I have depicted are often small acts of greater significance, perhaps neither more nor less than the mere rearrangement of what already existed. Can amplifying those small observations from a storage site generate a collective interest, consideration and appreciation for our built environment and its maintenance?

The project is about time and hierarchy, it’s a time vortex and a privileged paradise. The project is based on the ruin of abbey Jumièges, Normandy, France. The abbey has kept being destroyed and rebuilt during the past millennium and the architectural style is always changing through the time. Hierarchy was created within this privileged paradise. The hotel has swallowed the entire ruin and all the history, strategies, like mixing & misusing of programs and collisions with history are applied to it. I’m always interested in the introversion of architecture, a desire of being narcissism and vulnerable and the meaning of hierarchy. This project can be read as a terminal of privilege, and model of aggressive arrogant but reasonable attitude towards the history. It makes me contemplating the relations between negativism and hedonism and society.

No description available.

In this thesis, I discuss the function and use of decorated ceramic bowls at Fourmile Ruin, a Pueblo IV site located in east-central Arizona. My research focused on three wares dating to the Pueblo IV period of the American Southwest (AD 1275-1450): White Mountain Red Ware, Salado Polychrome, and Jeddito Yellow Ware. These wares represent the most abundant type of decorated ceramic bowls found at Fourmile Ruin. Ceramic wares and types are described, followed by a description of their physical and stylistic characteristics and functions, an analysis of how vessels were used, and, lastly, a discussion of the contexts within which ceramic bowls may have been used. I found that decorated ceramic bowls likely functioned as serving containers, and were used on a day-to-day basis. They also may have had a symbolic function, as evidenced by the use of decoration, color, and texture, and because of their possible uses in various social or religious rituals. Furthermore, the meaning of the vessels and their uses in rituals may have changed over time. From this information, I suggest that White Mountain Red Ware, Salado polychrome, and Jeddito Black-on-yellow bowls served as utilitarian serving containers, and as a means of communicating information about personal and group identity. They were used in contexts in which expressing, teaching and reinforcing important concepts may have been integral.

En kort promenad eller cykeltur från Hölö ligger det nya folkets hus för Hölöborna och folket på den omgivande landsbygden. I hundratals år har platsen varit en mötesplats för invånarna i området. Den resta kyrkoruinen och det nya folkets hus förstärker varandra, platsen och skapar nya rum både inne och ute. I källaren i ena änden av det avlånga folkets hus ligger ett mejeri som hämtar sin mjölk ett stenkast bort. I Restaurangen ovanför kan man avnjuta dess produkter och andra hyperlokala råvaror. I den stora salen som sträcker sig genom nästan hela byggnaden finns fristående mindre rum som skapar en stor mängd, både öppna och stängda rum där man kan plugga, jobba, gå en matlagningskurs, hänga med kompisar, ha utställningar och annat som husets användare önskar. I andra änden av byggnaden finns en aula vars lutning naturligt följer landskapet. Här finns den enda biografen på flera mils avstånd och man kan hyra denna för större möten eller föreläsningar. Den del av huset som är över mark är helt i trä och byggnaden är designad för att vara hållbar, långsiktig och enkel att ändra så att den kan stå på platsen lika länge som den gamla kyrkan gjort. / A short walk or bike ride to the north west of Hölö lies the new community hall for the people of Hölö and its surroundings. For hundreds of years the place has been a gathering spot for those who live in the area. The raised church ruin and the new community building amplifies each other, enhances the place and creates new spaces both inside and outside. In the cellar at one end of the oblong building, milk from a nearby farm is processed, and in the restaurant you can enjoy its products and other hyperlocal produce. In the main hall of the building multiple rooms create different open and closed-off spaces for studying, working, cooking-classes, hanging out with friends, exhibitions and whatever its users need. At the other end of the building is an assembly hall that follows the natural slope. Here lies the only cinema of the nearby vicinity and it can be used for bigger meetings, talks and lectures. The over-earth part of the building is made completely of wood and the whole building is designed to be sustainable, lasting and easy to change so it can stand there as long as the church has.

Both today and in centuries past, it is a reality of building that not every project is destined for success. Financial issues or unrealistic timetables can complicate a building’s construction but, while usually the final result eventually meets the initial expectations, other times the worst-case scenario of a building being abandoned during construction becomes a ruin. The project focuses on unfinished Haga castle and its future.

No description available.

In this dissertation, we have studied diffusion models and their applications in risk theory and insurance. Let Xt be a d-dimensional diffusion process satisfying a system of Stochastic Differential Equations defined on an open set G Rd, and let Ut be a utility function of Xt with U0 = u0. Let T be the first time that Ut reaches a level u^*. We study the Laplace transform of the distribution of T, as well as the probability of ruin, psileft(u_{0}right)=Prleft{ T<inftyright} , and other important probabilities. A class of exponential martingales is constructed to analyze the asymptotic properties of all probabilities. In addition, we prove that the expected discounted penalty function, a generalization of the probability of ultimate ruin, satisfies an elliptic partial differential equation, subject to some initial boundary conditions. Two examples from areas of actuarial work to which martingales have been applied are given to illustrate our methods and results: 1. Insurer's insolvency. 2. Terrorism risk. In particular, we study insurer's insolvency for the Cram'{e}r-Lundberg model with investments whose price follows a geometric Brownian motion. We prove the conjecture proposed by Constantinescu and Thommann. / Mathematics

This thesis argues that the works of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have been wildly misinterpreted and mischaracterized in the contemporary field of political theory. By comparing Marx and Engels’s original writings with multiple contemporary Marxist perspectives, I find that contemporary Marxist theory bears little resemblance to that of Marx and Engels. I prove that the popular characterizations of Marxism as teleological and Marx as an idealist are incorrect, finding that most critics neglect to consider the possibility of a scientific, non-teleological determinism. In place of the contradictory interpretations proposed by contemporary theorists, I illuminate several overlooked elements of Marx’s work and present a more accurate model for understanding communism. With it, I make the case that Marxism is not teleological or prophetic, but has also not been disproven by history. Unless they are someday proven wrong, Marx and Engels’s work alone stands as a coherent and factual scientific analysis of the current mode of production—and is the only way out of it.

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. / Master of Architecture