The traditional rowhouse form was a result of economical use of available space and materials that provided its occupants a home that fulfilled functional and societal needs. The result was a series of rooms along a travel corridor with a distinct underlining organization. The typology was established by certain characteristics of spatial configuration, constructional methods and ordering systems that kept the building economical. Popular attempts to accommodate modern needs into these buildings have lead to implementing the "open-plan" concept and creating a series of floors verses a series of rooms. This thesis explores the rowhouse within the modern context of Washington D.C. and attempts to redefined the typology for new construction. The desire is to resort back to the historical relevance of the individual room and create a typology appropriate for modern single-family needs. Four empty sites, each with their own context and conditions within the cityscape, are used to create four individual rowhouses that exemplify this new typology. The proposed row houses exhibit architectural structuralism and phenomenology, resulting in four rowhouses that complete the context they are set in, yet emerge with their own identity. / Master of Architecture

Geological processes define every place on earth. They tell us their story of formation, of shaping events that have long passed and about current conditions that continue to form the place. Each place therefore reveals its historical events and points towards its future. Man manipulates these processes and often ends the dialog between the past and the future. I wanted to explore an architecture related to this dialog, that occupies a site but also enters its existence and future. Erosion is the all-encompassing term for the processes that constantly sculpt and ultimately wear down the landscape of the earth. It accompanies weathering, the break up of material at the earth`s surface through chemical, physical and biological processes. Gravity plays a vital role in these processes. It is urging all of the erosional debris downhill. Most of the material is carried by running water, transported downstream often to the world`s oceans. / Master of Architecture

The Washington, D.C. Center for Filmmaking is placed in the middle of a growing area of different uses, on the block bordered by 8th, 9th G and H streets. Across G street, the old Patent Office now houses the national Museum of American Art and the National Portrait Gallery. Churches, schools, and other buildings for study exist in the blocks directly surrounding the proposed buildings and the Martin Luther King Library. The Washington Convention Center and Techworld allow space for large exhibitions and trade shows. Also, office space and the shops and restaurants of Chinatown are just one block east. Access to the site by Metro is across G street at the Gallery Pace Metro stop. The Center for Filmmaking addresses the street with commercial store-fronts of shops or restaurants, accessible from the street as well as from the interior gathering space. The building attempts to embrace the framework of the city openly. The main entry into the gathering space is off the major street of the site, 9th Street. Service access is off of the least traveled street, 8th Street. / Master of Architecture

This project will address light use in a museum. The focus and the program will require give and take in order to provide sources of natural light without compromising conservation standards. The building will house exhibits of film and photography, including theatres, dark rooms, prints, and projections as well as all the necessary program to support the building including a cafeteria, restrooms, a gift shop, as well as indoor and outdoor gathering spaces. The building site is in DC. When choosing a site I consulted with the National Capital Planning Commission's urban plan of Washington. They have published on their website a study that has listed the city's potential monument and museum sites. When evaluating these sites I decided to use views to and from the sites, as well as acreage to dwindle down the options. / Master of Architecture

Looking at Washington D.C.`s Downtown and observing its domination by office blocks, which contribute little to street life on weekends, my thesis is dealing with the broad topic of cultural sustainability. I began my thesis thinking about a project dealing with ecological sustainability, but not long after starting to research, I gained the knowledge that the cultural aspect is often forgotten or minor. Thus the design got inspired through the idea of reviving a site in D.C. and to give the different occupants of the building the chance to sense, hear, see and eventually interact with each other. The project is giving an opportunity for architecture to get involved in people's life, not just as a room to live, work and study but to lead their interaction with each other and with the city itself. To create such a mixed used building I decided to connect three main characters of a city in one building: Work Space, which includes retail and office space, Living Space for students and professors and Education, which is a literature department library. A labour intensive model making process helped me to develop the design for a mixed used building where the different programs penetrate into each other`s realm and where the city is not excluded from the building but takes part in it. / Master of Architecture

Between the National Gallery of Art and the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., the National Museum of Film and Photography design thesis explores issues of architecture at a scale of cultural significance. This thesis is the architectural manifestation of a museum as a research institution, separate from, yet contributing to an educational mission. It is inspired by the thin line between the two worlds, the public museum and the unseen, though often larger, private archive. In this thesis, a home for a treasury of artifacts was designed, so that they might be experienced, and for their intrinsic value. This design thesis explores the role of context, scale, and geometry in a building for the National Mall, as well as the critical requirements and specialized program of a museum. The orthogonal and radial geometry of the city are echoed in the plan. The building program, as well as the physical opportunities of the site, led to the form of the building. The simultaneous cycles of the artifact, the visitor, and the worker, and how they related to the role and amount of natural light also contributed to the form. The thesis is also developed based on the relationship between an object or a film, and a viewer. / Master of Architecture

Nowadays, the world is facing an ocean of social problems and different types of oppressions and systemic inequality from east Asia all the way to North America can be found regarding this issue. With pointing social oppression out, a long list of groups of people is considered including immigrants, religious people, LGBTQ, black society, native Americans, Latinos and etc. as well as the difficulty of relationship between these people with other groups. Many of these problems are the outcomes of the government behavior and written laws in the country's constitution which caused an inequality in society and daily life. Having said that, one of the most important questions is "what is the role of architecture here or what more can architecture do to solve any of those social problems?" In fact, the role of the governments is determinative and some of the social problems should be solved by the government, but architecture, in many different programs, could educate people to learn more about each other which in this case, in society scale, lots of social inequalities would be mitigated. While looking at several studies about social oppression and learning more about different types of groups in society, I decided to narrow down the strata to find an appropriate audience for my thesis project. In my opinion, one of the most interesting group of people in every society all around the world is women. My main focus in this research is to discuss more about women's future in society and argue political issues that women are facing nowadays. According to the rich history of the National Organization for Women (NOW) and the wide range of activities that this organization has done for women's rights, I decided to choose NOW as my case study to re-imagine a new Headquarter at the middle of the Washington D.C in a very fast growing Navy Yard neighborhood at the intersection of the M Street SE which is main corridor of this neighborhood and New Jersey Avenue SE which is a direct way to the U.S. Capitol Building . To sum up, my goal in this project is to bring architecture to help the oldest women's organization in the U.S. in a new decade of politics for women. / Master of Architecture / All around the world people must deal with social problems and systemic inequality issues. Women as the most vulnerable and valuable group of people in the world we live are the main audience for this thesis project. This study focuses on discussing more about the women's future in society regarding political issues that they are facing nowadays, also it emphasizes the role of architecture in solving any of these social problems. This project is about designing a new headquarters for the National Organization for Women (NOW), currently located in Washington D.C, as the main case study to help the oldest women's organization in the U.S. in a new decade of politics for women. The outcome of developing this research is to send a greater symbolic message about the women's future, a symbol that represents efforts and movements. In a way of educating people about future politics or trying to get the people together, hosting some of the most important conferences in the country, and making a platform to identify different cultures, this project is going to be a new landmark of the neighborhood.

The city functions as an Urban Ecosystem. As buildings are primary components of this system, each structure must appropriate its environment for the Urban Ecosystem to thrive. Additionally, each building acts as an individual ecosystem. Each building consumes energy, produces waste, and serves as an environment for life to flourish. This project investigates the study of architecture based on principles of ecology. The building holds a market, culinary school, and restaurants; receiving,transforming, and distributing sustenance to the city's inhabitants while supporting the greater metropolitan area farmers. The building exhibits the ubiquity of nature in the city and helps to revitalize an unhealthy part of Washington, DC's Urban Ecosystem. / Master of Architecture

Thesis. 1974. M.Arch.A.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Bibliography : leaf 121. / by Cheryl A. Amisial. / M.Arch.A.S.

The actual need for such a building as the Arab World Institute is wellestablished because Arabs are searching for a solid relationship with Westerners. Growth is possible only through education. The Arab World Institute offers the opportunity for education, information, and entertainment, and serves as a hub of activity where all people-Arabs and otherwise-can meet and share cultural distinctions.The Arab World Institute will have at once:A cultural center for the need of the understanding of Arabic civilization,A museum to show the struggle for development in the Arabic world and to illustrate the cultural impact in a symbol of the city's past development,A library to express the architecture's poetic dimension.The Arab World Institute's buildings do not represent a single and imaginary moment in time, but a place of evolution and change. The Arab World Institute's mission will be:To develop a deeper knowledge and better understanding of Arabic culture, language, and civilization,To improve communication and cultural exchange between nations,To further The United States' relationship with the Arab world in order to contribute to developments in the rest of the world. / Department of Architecture