Beginning with a former grocery store building, “An Affordable Living Community,” explores the possibilities of redesigning big box buildings. Here, the building is transformed into an affordable living community - a place for people to live, work, learn, and interact. The renovation creates a place for not only its residents, but also the surrounding neighborhoods. The building provides the challenges of breaking the generic, window-less facade, as well as bringing light into the building. This model would encourage the health, learning, and support of its community.

The “Rose Herbert Community Center” is the culmination of a project questioning how a building can be restored to its original integrity when its initial function has become extinct. This thesis considers the Broad Street Station in Richmond, Virginia and explores the options and implications of returning the building to a hub of interaction within the community. Concepts such as functionally malleable spaces, the transition from a very public environment to a more private area, and the creation of intentional interaction versus coexistence are explored.

Christy Addis-Gutierrez MUSEUM DESIGN: art, wonder & discovery Some art institutions create such an elitist atmosphere that the average person might feel intimidated. But for the artists to be the most effective in expressing their ideas, their feelings, and their point of view, more people need to experience it. If the audience for art is limited to a relatively small group of art lovers, how does that serve the art process? A broader audience could enrich the art that is produced, allowing artists to engage in more daring work. A contemporary art museum that also incorporates spaces for gathering and communal activities, with an active and innovative educational program, could create this broader audience for art, and strengthen the surrounding community as well. Art brings people together – to discover more about themselves and each other. The challenge is to create a space that accomplishes this: more art; more people; more wonder; more discovery. The “big idea” of this project was “more art”. It was generated by the idea of bringing the wonder of art to more people.

Somewhere along the way, I found that graphic design in professional practice was becoming synonymous with form and style, and losing its connection with concept and audience. I’m trying to find a way back.

This thesis focuses on the evolution of my work created during my two years of study at Virginia Commonwealth University. Although I touch upon my influences what I am writing is a reflection after the fact that does not necessarily encompass my original intent or inspirations for these works. I find my inspiration from personal discoveries within my daily life. Light flickering through the rails of a fence as I walk by makes me more aware of my body's movement in space. Watching the steady condensation of water droplets forming on a fountain creates a moment of pause within the world. Through these discoveries preconceptions about the world are forgotten and instead I focus on my experience. The potential for translating these moments into installations for an audience fuels my work. Though everyone experiences the world differently the pursuit of a common ground creates situations for further discoveries. The process of writing this paper has helped me to find a common thread within my work. Thinking back through the experiential discoveries of each piece has furthered my understanding, just as it originally propelled my artistic productio

This thesis reviews the background, influences, and evolution of the body of work entitled Folia, which forms the basis for the candidate's thesis exhibition. It traces the development of the candidate's artistic inclinations from drawing to photography. Directorial and Pictorialist photography are discussed as forebears in the Influences chapter. Evolution of the Body of Work details how the current work grew from both the candidate's background and influences. A Brief Anthology of Quotations references Susan Sontag's influential work, On Photography, with quotations that have either influenced the candidate's work or reflect his perceptions of art and life. The balance of the thesis describes the candidate's working process in creating the work, and the installation at VCU's Anderson Gallery.

A Mediated Intimacy; Art, Technology and Exchange in the Digital Age examines the role of intimacy in the technologically extended work of art. The text posits that there are three strategies that the technologically extended work of art uses to create mediated intimacy. These strategies are technological completion, where the viewer/participant completes the work; technological exchange, where the viewer/participant enters into an exchange with the work; and technological displacement, where the viewer is displaced from their time and place and occupies a new co-constructed space. The strategies are analyzed through the theories of subjectivities of the self, and Foucault’s approach to inter-subjective exchanges is employed to understand how they function. The strategies are further demonstrated through analysis of works by Gary Hill, Janet Cardiff and Martine Neddam. A concrete example of the three strategies is presented in an original mobile media based project, Cite, Site, Sight: Richmond.

This thesis is an exciting and enthralling story about the history of the world as seen through the eyes of Claire Watkins. The story takes place in the dusty corners of her art studio in the old confederate capital, Richmond, Virginia. Ms. Watkins leads her audience through such unsuspecting places as her brain, the life of an African Dung Beetle, the center of an atom and the dark reaches of outer space. The story is inspirational and thought provoking. It will force you to see the world as an interconnected web that weaves your life together with the cosmos. A must read for the summer!"Truly exceptional…a wonderful Thesis…highly recommended!" - Ruby Westcoat"I never thought of the world quite like that…now I see everything in a new and electrifying way." - Timothy Devoe"Once again she proves to be my favorite contemporary artist and author" - Virgil Hale Rhames

Buildings from the nineteenth century are rich with history and tradition in their materials,design and construction. Over the past few years in Richmond, many of the formerly vacant buildings have been converted into residential “lofts”. These spaces have the potential to teach and serve us in a way we could never duplicate today. The space we live in has the power to determine how well we function. I believe this is one of the keys to happiness. I like to think of these buildings holistically in terms of past, present, and future . I will supplement the space with partitions to optimize its functionality today while respecting its history and not hindering its future. The use and placement of the partitions resulted in a functionally defined yet open space.

Within this thesis is a mapping out of the processes, concepts, and influences, behind the sculptural practice of Brian Caverly. From Complex Adaptive Systems to the world of order of Michel Foucault to the reexamination of the Modernist movement by Yve Alain Bois and Rosalind Krauss, a rhizomatic path of connections and lines form and cross over, weaving together into a swarming mayhem of over population. Out of this chaos and order grow complex installations and constructions that are inherently bound by the system of their making, yet attempt at every turn to escape conformity.