Architecture

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://uwspace.uwaterloo.ca/handle/10012/9902

This is the collection for the University of Waterloo's School of Architecture.

Research outputs are organized by type (eg. Master Thesis, Article, Conference Paper).

Waterloo faculty, students, and staff can contact us or visit the UWSpace guide to learn more about depositing their research.

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 10

Ares Infinite: Creating a 3D Printed Vernacular for an Evolving Research Station on Mars
(University of Waterloo, 2018-05-10) Chan, Christopher; Boake, Terri Meyer
This thesis proposes the design of a habitat built on Mars. It speculates on the usage of 3D print technology as a construction method to address the extreme environmental conditions of the planet, as well as the changing architectural and programmatic demands of an ever evolving Martian research station. Collectively, our design inclinations for interplanetary habitation tend to be reminiscent of metal pods which are modular, prefabricated, and adaptable. Although these designs are effective in places like on the International Space Station, Mars poses drastically different site conditions. Given its incredible distance from Earth, a developing Mars colony will need its architecture to be constructed using in-situ materials to relinquish dependence on materials sent from Earth. Furthermore, the Martian base will require its method of procurement to also be flexible and repeatable to suit the changing research needs and occupancy. 3D printing technology offers an ideal solution to these problems since this technology allows for a hands-off, and highly flexible construction method. This thesis will investigate the potential for an efficient evolution of a Mars habitat using 3D printing as a strategy; starting at the initial conception of the habitat as a temporary exploration outpost, then growing into a larger research station with a population comparable to those of the Antarctic research communities on Earth.
Beyond Wayfinding : Sensory Focused Design for the Non-Sighted
(University of Waterloo, 2022-09-26) Joseph, Ashwati Teresa; Boake, Terri Meyer
While visually oriented architectural design has long been used to enhance the perceptions that shape the world of an existing ocular-centric norm, this has led to a less than satisfactory experience for users with less-than-optimal visual abilities. Today’s urban environments have evolved to become sensorially overloaded resulting in a chaotic and overwhelming situation that is difficult for wayfinding in the absence of sightedness. Existing code-based requirements are barely sufficient for most spatial applications but tend to be seen as the maximum requirement by architects and urban designers. This thesis explores the potential of carefully adding other sensory means to enhance the overall spatial experience of the sight challenged population, with a broad focus on wayfinding. The thesis proposes possible approaches for designing architecturally enhanced sensory experiences. The research is aimed toward providing new design strategies for architects and urban designers as methods of engaging a non-sighted or partially sighted user alongside the sighted users to experience the space more clearly and deeply with their senses. While the universal language principles and existing techniques of traditional touching and tapping are studied as initial references, the final research comprises the integration of senses dealing with qualities of tactility, hapticity, auditory, olfactory and navigation related instances of architecture that can be globally applied. The thesis proposes a set of design strategies that have been developed through personal experiences that when applied to smaller-scale scenarios give rise to a predictive language. The strategic design layers are referenced from personal sensorial experiences and are illustrated within two smaller-scale integrated spaces of a pop-up market and a park with gardens, non-contextual in nature. It would be intended that these two scenarios would form a base point to demonstrate the potential effectiveness of the strategies to form a departure point for more global application in other scenarios.
DYNAMIC VISUALIZATIONS: Developing a Framework for Crowd-Based Simulations
(University of Waterloo, 2020-01-21) Liu, Ao (Leo); Boake, Terri Meyer
Since its conception in the 1960s, digital computation has experienced both exponential growth in power and reduction in cost. This has allowed the production of relatively cheap electronics, which are now integrated ubiquitously in daily life. With so much computational data and an ever-increasing accessibility to intelligent objects, the potential for integrating such technologies within architectural systems becomes increasingly viable. Today, dynamic architecture is already emerging across the world; it is inevitable that one day computation will be fully integrated within the infrastructures of our cities. However, as these new forms of dynamic architecture becomes increasingly commonplace, the standard static medium of architectural visualization is no longer satisfactory for representing and visualizing these dynamic spaces, let alone the human interactions within them. Occupancy within a space is already inherently dynamic and becomes even more so with the introduction of these new forms of architecture. This in turn challenges our conventional means of visualizing spaces both in design and communication. To fully represent dynamic architecture, the visualization must be dynamic as well. As such, current single image rendering methods within most existing architectural design pipelines becomes inadequate in portraying both the architectural dynamics of the space, as well as the interaction and influences these dynamics will have with the occupants. This thesis aims to mitigate these shortcomings in architectural visualization by investigating the creation of a crowd simulation tool to facilitate a foundation for a visualization framework that can be continuously built upon based on project needs, which answers the question of how one can utilize current technologies to not only better represent responsive architecture but also to optimize existing visualization methodologies. By using an interdisciplinary approach that brings together architecture, computer science, and game design, it becomes possible to establish a more powerful, flexible, and efficient workflow in creating architectural visualizations. Part One will establish a foundation to this thesis by looking at the state of the current world, its buildings in the sense of dynamic, and the current state of visualization technologies that are being utilized both within architectural design as well as outside of it. Part Two will investigate complex systems and simulation models, as well as investigating ways of integrating them with human behaviors to establish a methodology for creating a working crowd simulation system. Part Three will take the methodology developed within Part Two and integrate it within modern game engines, with the intent of creating an architectural visualization pipeline that can utilize the game engine for both crowd analytics as well as visualization. Part Four will look at some of the various spatial typologies that can be visualized with this tool. Finally, Part Five will speculate on various future directions to improve this tool beyond the current scope of this thesis.
In Search of the Childhood : Re-imagining Street Children Care Centers in Tehran
(University of Waterloo, 2021-09-20) Mobini, Hanieh; Boake, Terri Meyer
The phenomenon of street children is a serious social issue in developing countries such as Iran. Despite the unavailability of official statistics, unofficial data determines that over 200,000 street children currently settle in Iran’s large cities. These children face various risks and obstacles, including poverty, hygiene problems, mental health issues, delayed development, and education based on gender, age, ethnicity, and disability. Moreover, most of them are not granted the privilege and right to have a safe home and attend public school, resulting in their social misconduct in the future. Among them, street girls are more vulnerable to ongoing physical and physiological harm such as sexual violence. This group also faces stricter social and cultural limits than males, which restrain their freedom and development in various ways. Thus, the space in which they spend time for rehabilitation should be cautiously programmed and designed, ensuring their safety, comfort, and freedom of activities through their healing process. Through Archival research, case studies, and based on the literature on street children’s needs and architecture specifications for them, the proposed child center will be designed to rethink the typology of existing centers to be a place more than a shelter or a classroom. It will be developed to become a safe place that reconnects the children with their actual needs and livelihood. The center also hopes to take long-term social measures by offering programs that target illiterate and unemployed mothers in the community. This thesis aims to use architecture as a device to improve the quality of living and educational experience in street children’s facilities to accelerate their rehabilitation process through spatial design, connection with nature, and introducing Iranian cultural values and metaphors.
The Nature of Healing: Living Architecture for Long Term Care & Rehabilitation Hospitals
(University of Waterloo, 2019-01-23) Kyle, Lauren; Boake, Terri Meyer
Healthcare interiors are perceived as stressful and isolating spaces; endured during times of vulnerability causing stress for patients, visitors and staff. This thesis examines studies, which prove that this psychological stress is intensified by the overly artificial and sterile conditions typical to medical environments. Further studies collected, reveal that this stress worsens the sensation of symptoms, causing increase in medication dosage and overall hinders the immune system and recovery outcomes. The paradox of the sterile healing environment is that nature, the adversary, is essential to healing processes. This thesis concentrates on research proving that not only do people generally prefer natural environments, as supported by the theory of Biophilia (see definition), but that exposure to elements of natural landscapes in healthcare spaces, greatly improves the holistic health of patients, visitors and staff. This thesis examines the historical and contemporary factors influencing the design of hospitals. In the past few decades, healthcare design has progressed by integrating therapeutic design, through these strategies discussed, Evidence-Based Design and Biophilic Design (see definitions). However, through experience as a patient, visitor and designer in healthcare architecture, it is evident that there are still confines limiting the evolution of therapeutic design in hospitals. This thesis questions why healthcare standards prohibit the integration of living (plant) systems into more interior spaces, past the atrium. In seeking these answers it became clear that further innovation is necessary for architectural design to synthesize the qualities of sterile and therapeutic healing environments, to achieve healthcare homeostasis. Various types of living systems are examined for exterior and interior application, including comparisons with artificial biophilic design strategies. The design intervention proposed in this thesis integrates living systems into typical architectural assemblies, and is referred to as Living Architecture. Living Architecture expands the threshold between healthcare interiors and horticultural therapy, to bring long-term plants closer to long-term patients. This is done by exploring the design possibilities for healthcare architecture to integrate spaces for patients to physically engage with living systems, year-round in various locations inside and outside the hospital. The challenge of this design study is meeting healthcare requirements for infection control, accessibility, maintenance and the financial limitations for public healthcare in Canada today. There is an opportunity to redefine health care architecture to suit the transformative nature of complex continuing care and rehabilitation hospitals. This progression could then influence other health care typologies to bring down the barriers between nature and medicine, by integrating living systems as the new standard approach to health care architecture.
Neighborhood Redefined: Creating Culture in the Interstitial Spaces in New Town of Pardis, Iran
(University of Waterloo, 2021-09-22) Hosseini, Mohamad Hossein; Boake, Terri Meyer
Low-cost housing developments forming “the new towns” adjacent to the metropolitan cities in Iran were aimed to accommodate low-income households. However, after a decade of occupancy, the inhabitants of these towns are struggling with inadequate public facilities to provide human interaction within their neighborhoods. This thesis aims to repurpose the interstitial spaces between the residential towers in the new town of Pardis. The current urban development has created isolated residential point towers which lead to emerging a desolate landscape in the spaces between them, however, the thesis proposes multipurpose social activities and means of connection that encourages social interaction. This research tackles the current issue by examining cultural elements of Iranian neighborhoods and adapting them in the context of the Pardis new town. Precedents of successful existing neighborhoods with similar climate are studied. Subsequently, after analysing the Pardis site in general, a portion of it is chosen as a prototype to investigate the issue in human scale by producing 3D models of the suggested design intervention. This prototypical study could eventually be applied to other neighborhoods in Pardis as well as new towns with similar climate and topographic features to enhance the quality of residents’ social life.
Reconstruction Site: Re-designing the disposable Expo
(University of Waterloo, 2017-01-18) Proudfoot, Alan Scott; Boake, Terri Meyer
Building, supported by the practice of architecture, is churning resources into waste at an alarming rate. Our method of construction has its inevitable conclusion in a pile of rubble. Lamentably, the natural resources we build with are finite, and our exploitation of these has nearly reached its peak. As humanity strives for a renewable energy future, architecture must engage in the renewable use of materials. In the long term future, architects need to design buildings so their materials can be recovered, refurbished and reused. Principles for designing in circular life cycles were laid out by McDonough and Braungart in their 2002 book, Cradle to Cradle.[1] In more than a decade since the book was published, there is little evidence that the process of architecture has changed to support design for disassembly and the reuse of materials. This thesis aims to outline a method of design for material reuse that supports a healthy circular flow of material life, death and rebirth. World Expositions have become the epitome of disposable architecture, with renowned architects designing pavilions with an intended life span of six months. This thesis proposes a transformation of the Expo type from an endgame of waste to one of reuse. A contemplated Expo Toronto in 2025 provides the opportunity to reclaim a reputation for showcasing the future. The proposed brief for such an Expo challenges countries to exhibit stories of regeneration in an event built on the theme of reuse and recycling. The Expo is an ideal venue for the design of prototype pavilions assembled out of renewable and reusable materials. This thesis proposes two pavilion types, which at the Expo’s conclusion will be immediately reused in communities across Canada. The first type is designed to be entirely recycled when it is no longer needed. The second pavilion type is assembled of material which can be composted, returning nutrients to the soil. The resulting buildings will be adaptable to change, reusable in parts, and return their materials to circular flows at end of life.
Reverse Block Mall - Collectivization as Strategy Against Spatial Monopolization in Toronto
(University of Waterloo, 2018-01-09) Lee, Minwoo; Boake, Terri Meyer
Amidst an unprecedented pace of high-rise developments along Toronto’s main streets, the issue of homogenization of the urban environment has been approached mainly from the perspective of architectural design. Accordingly, various efforts to preserve and reinvigorate the streetscape have focused on aesthetical features such as attention to human-scale details, retention of historic facades, and variating of building massing to recreate a sense of diversity. Despite this effort, the ubiquity of run-of-the-mill glass towers and generic chain stores that inevitably occupy the ‘renewed’ streetscape attests to the ineffectiveness of this approach. This thesis argues that the reliance on design-based solutions as a fix for homogenization is ineffective because it overlooks the underlying monopolization of ownership that occurs as part of the development process. The displacement of existing tenant and owner bodies, and the consolidation of properties homogenizes the range of self-expression and spatial platforms that provides the basis for design authenticity. Therefore, any effort to preserve and reinvigorate the streetscape must begin with an alternative strategy of development that is grounded on the preservation of existing range of buildings, lots, and establishments, and enhancement of economic viability of small-scale ownership as its pre-condition. The proposed intervention begins by identifying restrictions embodied in urban form, design policy, and development process that degrade the economic and spatial performance of small-scale properties. To mitigate their impact, the collectivization of existing properties on a block of historic Yonge Street is proposed as a central strategy with several corollary outcomes: air-right development, activation of laneway space, and facilitation of internal spatial transactions. The sale of collective air-right enables a parallel process of densification to occur while creating synergies with the existing base-level properties. The earnings from the sale provide the basis for the activation of the rear- laneway and the commercial utilization of the building rear-faces, providing an extension of the public domain and increased autonomy for the tenants and owners. Finally, facilitation of self-guided spatial transactions between the tenants establishes iterative optimization and diversification of space which improves commercial performance and the range of self-expression. The culminating effect of these processes attempts to define a new development typology that not only precludes displacement, but forms an urban ‘place’ that is architecturally distinct, culturally rich, and economically viable.
Teleportation: The Possible Leap
(University of Waterloo, 2019-09-19) Monshi, Amirhesam; Boake, Terri Meyer
This thesis tells a story, inviting its audience into a parallel world, existing somewhere in my imagination, where human teleportation becomes real and gradually becomes the most prevalent method of transportation. Throughout our speculative travels, we will witness the philosophical, social, political, environmental, and architectural implications of this fantastical technology. Following the tradition of speculative (or visionary) architecture, this thesis seeks to produce criticism of and question the current condition of matters through the speculation of a possible future. To this end, it utilizes teleportation as an exaggerated metaphor for existing or emerging technologies in order to magnify their impacts on our notion of things, environments, as well as our behavioral motifs in both individual and social scale.
When Nature Goes to School: A Green School Design for Milton, Ontario
(University of Waterloo, 2020-01-15) Hucik, Alexandra; Boake, Terri Meyer
It is generally agreed upon that environmental education has an important place in 21st century schools, as the need to educate the current and future generations of young people on how to live in a sustainable way grows increasingly urgent. Within the framework of formal education in Ontario, efforts to prepare students to be environmentally responsible citizens has mainly concentrated on the integration of sustainability concepts into the curriculum. This thesis argues that equal attention should be given to integrating sustainability concepts into the physical environment of the school – the education facility itself – as it has the potential to be not merely the place where environmental education is taught but be the source of environmental education. This thesis takes the theoretical position proposed by environmental educator David Orr that architecture is a source of pedagogical instruction.[1] The power buildings have to teach people, can be harnessed to design a building that can be utilized to foster sustainability behaviour. Schools’ role in society in preparing children for the future gives an educational building the unique advantage of teaching people to be sustainable-minded when they’re at an impressionable age. The project presented takes the form of a design proposal for a green school for K-8 students, located on a case study site in Milton, Ontario. A green school is an emerging architectural type, the term for which was developed by the Centre for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council and is used to describe schools that advance sustainability by aspiring to reduce their environmental footprint, improve the wellbeing and performance of its students and staff, and ultimately producing graduates who are ecoliterate.[2] The design proposal concentrates on achieving these three goals through the architecture of the proposed education facility, through a design that demonstrates the environmental awareness it promotes. Following the long-held tradition of the demonstration project, this thesis builds on strategies developed from a precedent study of existing environmental education centres in the same climatic region. These organizations consider their building an integral part in the fulfillment of their mission to educate the public on sustainability, using it as a demonstration tool. The climatic region of southern Ontario will inform key aspects of the design – the orientation, massing, form and materiality – as true sustainability responds to the specific conditions of the site. The design takes advantage of positioning a school on an ecologically-rich landscape to strengthen students’ sense of connection with nature. The project scope encompasses the spatial design, materiality, structure, building systems and operations, the landscape and site design, and each of these aspects were considered with their potential for pedagogy. The design addresses these aspects of the built environment across different scales, presenting within the school a variety of learning space types whose environmental design has been fine-tuned to suit their function and climate. [1] David W. Orr, "Architecture as Pedagogy," Conservation Biology 7, no. 2 (1993): 226-228, www.jstor.org/stable/2386418. [2] Anisa Heming, “What is a green school?” Centre for Green Schools, U.S. Green Building Council, published July 30, 2017, https://www.centerforgreenschools.org/what-green-school.

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Browsing Architecture by Author "Boake, Terri Meyer"