A contemporary understanding of site is integral towards the proper implementation of an architectural intervention which reconciles itself amongst the landscape.
This thesis is situated at the convergence of technology and nature, investigating a constructive engagement of site in order to inform an architecture embedded into rural Appalachia.
An integration of drone avionics, advanced imaging and sensing technologies, and traditional means of site-observation fosters the opportunity for a more holistic understanding of place. The corresponding architectural intervention thus manifests itself as a contemporary rendition of the fire tower, a US Forest Service outpost monitoring changing wildlife populations and behaviors within the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests. Dubbed The Aviary, the construct functions as a wilderness drone-port, supporting a large, integrated network of conservation-drone activity over the vast surrounding mountain-scape. / Master of Architecture / This thesis investigates the role of our built environment in relation to concurrent trends in drone technology and wildlife conservation. The thesis is broken up into two parts, the first exploring new methodologies of site-investigation, and the second exploring architecture as tool for ecological conservation and preservation. The architecutral site-exploration process is redifined using drone mapping and data visualization, in hopes of achieving a more holistic understanding of our rural and wilderness landscapes, with the goal of further utilizing this understanding to inform an architecture that resides harmoneously within it's "place." The eventual designed construct can be viewed as a modern reinterpretation of the American fire-tower, a declining typology tradtionally used to safeguard our natural and wilderness resources and landscapes. This new construct takes a dynamically diffent approach, and functions as a wilderness drone-port that facilitates a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles to monitor the changes of behaviors and populations in Virginia's wildlife, advancing our methodologies of local conservation and ecological studies.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/99321 |
| Date | 09 July 2020 |
| Creators | Powers, Shane Patrick |
| Contributors | Architecture, Bassett, James, Schnoedt, Heinrich, Dugas, David |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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