The project is a columbarium and crematorium complex. It is located on the Eastern peripherie of Blacksburg, Virginia. The site slopes downward to the South East. The project is organized in an axial arrangement following the direction of the slope. The program of the building does not follow any religious ritual and is culturally determined only in so far as cremation is an acceptable form of disposal of the deceased. In this sense the building itself becomes a memorial of the dead. With the exclusion of formal ritual as a guiding principle for an architectural expression of the contemplation of death simple geometric figures are meant to evoke a general sense of proper emotional and intellectual response to the phenomenon of death, perhaps to dying. This approach hopes to allow for individual contemplation of the ending and the end of human life. / Master of Architecture

In the heart of a park, a path spirals up a hill. Follow it and the trees part to reveal a building halfway up. Its thick, rough walls are pulled apart at moments, allowing light and movement into the space. The path leads between the walls. The narrow passage continues in a counter-clockwise motion up a staircase, leading you towards the light; moving from opacity to transparency, darkness to light, thick to thin, and exploring the mo- ments between. The space marks the passage of time. You see sunrise, marked by three narrow slits oriented to capture the light on the Winter and Summer solstices, and Spring and Fall equinoxes. The curved walls leading from the white art glass windows cradle the light like a cupped hand. The midday sun illuminates the central core, translated through the medium of semi-circular, veneer screens. The light and wood interact, revealing what is hidden, allowing the glowing screens to illuminate the outer circle. On the opposite side of the space are similarly-oriented windows to capture the Summer, Spring, Fall, and Winter sunsets, completing the day. It is a space apart from the world into which only the light and the self may enter. The only view of the outside world is the changing sky at the center. It is a space looks at light and how it moves through, is captured by, or is reflected by material. Light changes the materials in the space, is changed by them and marks the passage of time -- days and the seasons. / Master of Architecture

The project is located in the Teton Valley of Idaho, sited on the eastern slope of the Big Hole Mountains oriented toward the western face of the Teton Mountain Range. The program is a vacation house for a young family of four to be used throughout the year. Themes covered in the project include issues of topography, site conditions, and landscape; the harnessing of a powerful context and views; water management specific to the site; architectural expressive form and scale; circulation; and materiality. The site and its conditions, including slope, vegetation, sun orientation, wind direction, drainage patterns, and views, were the driving forces behind most of the design decisions made for the project. Circulation on and off the site, how one moves throughout the house, location of the program elements, placement and size of windows to capture views, and material selection were all inextricably tied to the physical nature of the site and its environment. The project is documented with diagrams, line drawings, perspective renderings and model photographs to illustrate the thesis. / Master of Architecture

The building is a family chapel comprised of three separate yet interdependent spaces: a sanctuary, a stair tower, and a spire. The design developed from the inside out, specifically from the interior of the sanctuary to the building as a cohesive whole. The building's form was found through sketching and making a model. The design is represented through sketches, drawings, and photographs. / Master of Architecture

An object or thing with no interiority is sculpture. Architecture begins with the making of an interior. The real character of Architecture is revealed in the distinguishing qualities of the interior: the arrangement of spaces, the heights of the ceilings and the placement of walls, the entrance of light, the colors, the textures, the patterns and the surfaces. Emphasis on and development of these formal elements elevates a work from the world of building into the realm of Architecture. The study of internal relationships in this project, specifically the geometric and proportional, patterning, and color relationships, as well as the relation of elements of the structure to one another, is an attempt to elucidate the nature of Architecture as the presence of an interior. / Master of Architecture

The project begins with the elaboration of a single wooden joinery detail for a temple pavilion. A singular joint study became the basis for an interrelated series of elaborated joints forming a structural whole. A detailed model of a single structural bay was produced. The purpose of this model was to investigate the subtleties of its overall formal expression. Attention was given to both the hidden internal complexity of individual parts and the interconnections between parts. Knowledge of stereotomy was an important consideration ensuring precision in the marking and cutting of the poplar wood. Photographs, sketches and drawings accompany the making of the model as way to further its realization. / Master of Architecture

This thesis begins as a study for an observatory and ends as a place to simply look upward. Architecture is explored through questions of model and projection. These questions become more and more discernable as the model is built and photographed. The model is an analogue to a potential building. The drawings reveal the projective nature of architectural form. The photographs of the model capture surfaces as elements of architecture. At this point, the work is free to pose its own questions. / Master of Architecture

An integral part of human vision is the perception of color through the reflection of light. At any moment the human eye is receiving a complex polychromatic reflection of its environment, and the human mind is perceiving many hundreds or thousands of colors. In architecture, light is often a primary consideration in a design, but color is rarely discussed. It makes its presence known, however, as the light entering into a building will carry with it the reflections of the environment. The elements of architecture appear quite different at varying times of the day; at varying times of the year. Even at the same time of day two walls painted the same color will appear as two different colors if placed in different light conditions. This thesis attempts to capture this phenomenon and elaborate on the possibilities of working with light through reflection. It is not meant to give a specific answer, but rather to show the results of a search to find a way of working with light through color. / Master of Architecture

Architectural form offers an expression and an observer receives an impression. This interaction exists at both intellectual (mind) and physical (body) levels. Through designing a sculpture pavilion in a forest, this thesis explores different means of empathetic expression in modern architectural form. / Master of Architecture

No / The notion of the creative sector/class has been very much put on the map by the recent writings of Richard Florida. The most distinctive feature of the creative class literature is that it seems to minimize the importance of conflict and exploitation which have been the hallmark of the original uses of the concept of class in social analysis. Inevitably, debate must also rage as to who is to be included in the definition of a creative class which, under Florida's broadest definition, has controversially expanded to include psychiatrists amongst others.