This thesis began by studying how a temporary event could create permanent architecture and how that architecture could change an urban lifestyle. I chose the Olympics as the event and proposed that they be held in Washington D.C., a city of international prominence with a rich design history but a city that hasn't had a large scale urban redevelopment plan in over a century. I focused on the city east of the Capitol as I wanted to extend the monumental core created in the McMillan plan. I researched baroque design, Olympic planning, and even the original L'Enfant plan. The result of this research was unearthing some of the original L'Enfant design elements and incorporating them into a 21st century city by blending new design issues with the idea of a city designed around radial vistas with magnificent termini. I focused on two sites, the Olympic Torch and the Olympic Stadium. The Torch is situated as a terminus on a site that was intended to be mile marker zero for the country. Its design and importance make it a monument while still not impeding the views. The stadium was created to serve as a stadium for the people, allowing pedestrians outside to view and interact with the event inside. It is sunken so as not to obstruct views but it is spanned by arches that pierce the cityscape signifying its monumentality and appropriately ending the monumental axis started with the Lincoln Memorial on the western edge of the city. / Master of Architecture

Housing is one of the most critical design challenges of the 21st century. Sparked by increased urbanization, issues around affordability, density, development, and displacement create stress on people and the urban environment. In Washington D.C., an inadequate supply of housing for families forces them to leave the city in search of more comfortable and affordable options. However, families are essential dwellers in a healthy urban fabric. This thesis explores how architecture and empathic design-thinking can begin to address these issues and contribute to the health of the family unit and a healthy community. My thesis begs the question… what lifestyles are we encouraging by the way we design? Dwelling is a more appropriate, personal, and empathic term for housing. Dwelling should meet the needs of its inhabitants and support three vital organs of urban life: social activity, peaceful refuge, and theatrical celebrations. A healthy city and a healthy dwelling should include all three. My goal is to re-imagine urban dwelling for families living in the city and how architecture can create intentional moments of connection between people and the city they are a part of – especially how ideas of transparency and movement or air, light and people can be agents of a healthier urban dwelling. A new mid-rise multi-family dwelling in Adams Morgan, a colorful, diverse, artistic, and eclectic neighborhood in Washington D.C., creates a home that enhances the experience of dwelling for families. My thesis project supports the primary functions of dwelling and secondary functions of food creation through a kitchen incubator. The intention of the building is that it will serve as a space for growth, for individuals and for growing families, that it will be successful as both a well-designed home and a food lab that fosters collaboration and community for chefs and entrepreneurs who are growing their businesses and connections in the city. The building aims to incorporate living elements with nature integrated into the architecture in various ways. This home will be a space that understands the needs of its inhabitants, respects the context of the neighborhood, and supports a healthier framework of the larger city of Washington D.C. / Master of Architecture / Housing is one of the most critical challenges of the 21st century facing the architecture, engineering and construction industry. A lack of suitable housing is a result of increased urbanization and issues around affordability, density, development, and displacement. These challenges create stress on people and specifically the structures where they live. In Washington D.C., an inadequate supply of housing for families forces them to leave the city in search of more comfortable and affordable options. However, families are essential dwellers in the city - they should be supported in the modern urban environment. This thesis explores how architecture and empathic design-thinking, a deep understanding of the problems and realities of the people being designing for, can begin to address these issues and contribute to the health of the family unit and a healthy community. My thesis asks the question…what lifestyles are we encouraging by the way we design? Dwelling, the way and act of living, is a more appropriate, personal, and empathic term for housing. In the architect's mind, dwelling should meet the needs of its inhabitants and support three important facets of urban life: social activity, peaceful refuge, and theatrical celebrations. A healthy city and a healthy dwelling should include all three. The goal of this thesis is to re-imagine what urban dwelling feels and looks like for families living in the city and how architecture can be designed to create intentional moments of connection between people and the community they are a part of. A new mid-rise multi-family dwelling in Adams Morgan, a colorful, diverse, artistic, and eclectic neighborhood in Washington D.C., creates a home that enhances the experience of dwelling for families. My thesis project is foremost a dwelling, a space for living, but also a space for food creation through a community kitchen incubator. The intention of the building is that it will serve as a space for growth, for individuals and families, and that it will be successful as both a well-designed home and a food lab that fosters collaboration for chefs and entrepreneurs who are growing their businesses and connections in the city. This thesis seeks to discover how architecture can empower families and communities to have healthier, more inclusive and connected urban city lives.

Ramps are usually perceived as utilitarian objects emerging from standardized guidelines for architecture and landscape architecture. But closer examination reveals they can be quite beautiful and poetic. What we commonly call ramps, Galileo referred to as inclined planes, counting them as one of six classical simple machines in Le Meccaniche (On Mechanics) . Because inclined planes are actually static machines that do not require any energy to run. They do not discriminate among users. This thesis explores the work of the ramp in moving fragile loads, such as human beings. / Master of Landscape Architecture

The urban redevelopment of the last fifty years reshaped the entire Southwest quadrant (and much of the adjoining Southeast) of Washington, DC. By using a Modernist tabula rasa approach in their remaking, the architects of the redevelopment obliterated the quadrant's historical context, and left the Southwest without much of a discernible identity, other than a stylistic one. While it may be too late to recreate the neighborhood quality of old in this part of the city, it is possible to give it some sort of iconic structure which will be the first step in establishing a new identity for the area. A grand hotel along the Washington Channel could serve as the catalyst for such a change while providing service to the city. Such a hotel would take advantage of its location by allowing for access to the city by water, essentially serving as a point of arrival to Washington, similar to the way Union Station and National Airport serve travelers. The hotel would also cater to the transitory business and government populations of the city through an innovative room design. The end result would be the turning of a corner as the Southwest would once again redevelop itself, but this time with a more favorable outcome. / Master of Architecture

The stadium, in its purest form, is a structure that holds tiered seating arrangements built for mass viewing of sports, competitions, and public events. However, over the years, it has become much more than that. The stadium provides the spiritual need of community, allowing individuals to connect to others by sharing common beliefs and goals. This allows the stadium to become a source of civic pride to the people it serves. This combination of purpose and pride makes the stadium one of the most important archetypes ever created. It is the physical representation of human connectivity, a city's symbolic soul; the modern day cathedral. A symbiotic relationship is formed between the stadium and the public. In the modern era, viewing live sports has become big business. Taking advantage of the situation, team owners have designed stadiums to capitalize financially as much as possible. These newly designed stadiums, along with the rise of the automobile, have been moved from downtown to the suburbs, providing owners more space for seats, larger parking lots, and ultimately more revenue. These larger, disconnected stadiums have led to waning attendance, heavy pollution, and an overall lack of use. The once spiritual experience of the arena has now been watered down as the stadium has become a detractor of public good. Sports leagues now run as unopposed monopolies, with each major league having approximately 30 teams. With supply low and demand high, private entities essentially blackmail the public into building and funding stadiums to attract highly coveted sports teams. Desperately desiring to call a team their own, the public agrees to the deal. The end result is that the public funds a major project that provides no socioeconomic benefit to anyone other than the teams owner. The once symbiotic relationship between the stadium and the city has become perverted. Although public subsidies are now frowned upon due to the growing awareness of the damage they cause cities, the major sports leagues will always have a significant hold over the distribution of teams and demand will always remain high. Therefore, if the public continues to foot the bill, it is up to the architect to find a balance between both public and private benefits through design. We must create a stadium that functions as a revenue generating event venue, as well as a public serving entity that enriches the community around it and repair the once great harmony between the public and their stadium. My Thesis will look at designing a public soccer stadium in downtown Washington D.C. This is Public Gains: A Stadium for the People. / Master of Architecture

The changes in technology and cultures of mobility within dense North American cities have resulted in a space that intervenes between one thing and another which often generates seemingly uninhabitable zones and problematic discontinuities in the physical and social fabric. Over time, the pattern of cities has changed; movement spaces have fractured the social spaces. The social dimension in the design of movement spaces has been neglected and thus these spaces have primarily become products of the functional dimension, i.e. traffic flow, circulation, and access for vehicles. These approaches to developments and prioritizing the movement space over the social space have contributed to the creation of fractured people spaces in between the fabric of cities. This thesis proposes to reconnect the broken fabric of cities that are shaped as result of the juxtaposition of movement infrastructure. Furthermore, the research studies the methods by which such spaces can become transformed into successful people place through literature review of what constitutes a successful urban space. Case studies of successful places adjacent to roads, waterfronts, and in between the fabric of cities were studied to understand the methods by which underused, and fractured spaces were transformed to successful urban places. This thesis further implements the methods of place making into creating the new physical, visual, cognitive, and ecological connection between the fractured spaces. / Master of Landscape Architecture

This thesis proposes a museum of Eastern art in Washington, D. C. The purpose is to establish a gallery where not only Americans, but also the peoples of other countries throughout the world will have the opportunity to enjoy or to do research in Eastern art and culture. Eastern concepts are used to express what is space in architecture, instead of imitating the Eastern traditional architectural form. On the other hand, the abstract essence of all elements is used for composition. A prestressed and precast concrete structural system is to be used to build a unity of space as raw material. Thus, the whole building may become a space sculpture. For space functions and arrangements, a center court is provided as the core of the whole project. A surrounding water area can be used for protection and reflection of the building on the water. This project is to be conceived not only as the totality of building and exhibition, but also as unifying environment for art objects and the observers as well. / Master of Architecture

I guess my concern is for building. This thesis became a search for form. It did not start that way. The start was a search for reasons, for methods, for a way. It was, however, the pursuit of an understanding of the essence of an object that proved the most rewarding. How l design has come from investigating WHAT I design. The thesis has not left me with answers, but with questions. And what are those questions? The thing: The thing as OBJECT: it seems to boil down to - how is it made? The thing as EVENT: it seems to boil down to - what is it like to be there? The thing as DESIGNED: it seems to boil down to what do I want its nature to be? What will inform my forms? / Master of Architecture

The primary problem associated with this study was that guidance competencies perceived as being relevant to inner city teachers of vocational and technical education had not been delineated. Specifically, the study sought to answer the following questions: 1. What vocational guidance competencies were deemed most important to inner city teachers of vocational and technical education in the District of Columbia? 2. What differences existed in the perceived importance of the guidance competencies by teachers in various service areas? 3. What differences existed in the responses of the teachers as related to years of teaching experience? One hundred ninety-nine full-time vocational and technical education teachers participated in this study. Each participant provided biographical data and indicated their degree of importance with 35 vocational guidance competencies. Analysis of data consisted of descriptive statistics to provide a respondent profile and answer the first research question, factor analysis to determine what underlying relationships existed among variables, and post-hoc comparison statistics to determine the difference in the responses made by the study participants. A questionnaire, with a Likert-type response format, was utilized with response intervals on a continuum of "Very Important," "Important," "Unimportant," and "Very Unimportant." The weighted values were four, three, two, and one. The research utilized a panel of experts and a pilot test of the research instruments. Factor analysis revealed five factors categorized as: (1) Career Development/Job Placement, (2) School/Community Involvement, (3) Guidance and Counseling, (4) Vocational Education Programs: Communication/Coordination, and (5) Competency-based Education. A major conclusion of this study was that vocational guidance competencies are perceived as important by vocational teachers in the District of Columbia schools. / Ed. D.

Washington, D.C. is a city that is designed to serve an entire nation; yet, as a result of this, its own history and people can seem to be lost in the shadow of the federal city. With an abundance of museums throughout the city, the museum that is needed, but no longer exists, is one for the District itself. This omissionleaves a tremendous gap in historical knowledge and no representation focused on the character of the city itself. How can we fulfill this need in a way that is unique to this specific city and would provide more than an exhibit by allowing people to be surrounded by and contribute to the accumulated evolution of their history? Adaptive reuse encourages the gradual unearthing of historical inspiration, which allows representation of existing and past local populations. For my thesis, I sought to fulfill this need by turning to the existing fabric of the city, learning from it, and eventually employing adaptive reuse techniques to unify the existing framework with the new program. / Master of Architecture / In a city such as Washington, D.C., which is filled with history and which focuses on historical knowledge and representation, the history and fabric of the city itself can seem to be overshadowed. By looking at the existing character of D.C. and its architecture as the foundation and using adaptive reuse techniques, the neighborhoods could be brought to the forefront and the true backbone of D.C. could shine. This would better represent a city that has been much more than a tourist attraction, but a home, and thus represent the people who have created this rich history. The people within the District need an outlet to regain ownership of their history, create a place to learn about their city, and share what makes the larger District so unique. For my thesis, I sought to explore this history and provide this outlet by repurposing an existing building within the city.