Architecture Masters Theses
RISD’s Master of Architecture program is one of the few in the US embedded in a college of art and design. Here, architecture is taught in a way that understands the practice of design and making as a thoughtful, reflective process that both engenders and draws from social, political, material, technological and cultural agendas. The program aims to empower students to exercise their creativity by understanding their role as cultural creators and equipping them to succeed in the client-based practice of architecture.
The degree project represents the culmination of each student’s interests relative to the curriculum. A seminar in the fall of the final year helps focus these interests into a plan of action. Working in small groups of five or six under the guidance of a single professor, students pursue individual projects throughout Wintersession and spring semester. Degree projects are expected to embody the architectural values that best characterize their authors as architects and are critiqued based on the success of translating these values into tangible objects.
Graduate Program Director: Hansy Better Barraza
These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Theses from 2023
Ghost Hotel, George Acosta
Cohabitation x Adaptation, 2100: A Climate Change Epoch, Kyle Andrews
Reintroducing Hemp (rongony) in the Material Palette of Madagascar: A study on the potential of Hemp Clay components and its impact on social and ecological communities., Henintsoa Thierry Andrianambinina
Norteada- En Busca De un Nuevo Norte. Cocoon Portals and the Negotiation of Space., Kimberly Ayala Najera
Decolonial Perspective on Fashion and Sustainability, Haisum Basharat
Psychochoreography, Nora Bayer
Whale Fall·Building Fall, Jiayi Cai
Means and Methods: Pedagogy and Proto-Architecture, Daniel Choconta
The Miacomet Movement, Charles Duce
Unpacked: Consumer Culture in Suburban Spaces, Jaime Dunlap
you're making me sentimental, Chris Geng
Myths, Legends, and Landscapes, Oromia Jula
Old and New: Intervention in Space and Material, Yoonji Kang
Urban Succession: an ecocentric urbanism, Anthony Kershaw
An Architect's Toolkit for Color Theory, ella knight
WAST3D POTENTIAL, Andrew Larsen
Recipes for Building Relationships, Adriana Lintz
Water Relations, Understanding Our Relationship to Water: Through Research, Diagrams, and Glass, Tian Li
Exploring Permanent Temporariness: A Look into the Palestinian Experience through Refugee Camps, Tamara Malhas
A Study of Dwelling, Julia McArthur
Appropriate that Bridge: Appropriation as a way of Intervention, Haochen Meng
Toronto Rewilded, Forrest Meyer
Confronting and Caring for Spaces of Service, Tia Miller
Reorientation, Soleil Nguyen
The De-centering of Architecture, Uthman Olowa
[De]Composition: Grounding Architecture, Skylar Perez
Soft City: Reclaiming Urban Public Spaces for Play, Jennifer Pham
We Have a (Home) - Co-operative Homes for Sunset Park, Lisa Qiu
The Incremental Ecosystem: Hybridizing Self-Built + Conventional Processes as a Solution to Urban Expansion, Shayne Serrano
Liberdade para quem? - Layered Histories, Vanessa Shimada
Tracing as Process, Lesley Su
The Design of Consequences, Yuqi Tang
On the Edge of the "Er-Ocean" State, Mariesa Travers
Beyond the White Box: Building Alternative Art Spaces for the Black Community, Elijah Trice
Translational Placemaking: The Diasporic Archive, Alia Varawalla
Unearthing Complexity: Tangible Histories of Water and Earth, Alexis Violet
Ritual as Design Gesture: Reimagining the Spring Festival in Downtown Providence, wenjie wang
Spatial Reveries, Alexander Wenstrup
Public-ish, Aliah Werth
Phantom Spaces, Craytonia Williams II
Green Paths - On the Space In-Between Buildings, Hongru Zhang
Blowing Away, Ziyi Zhao
Uncovering Emotional Contamination: Five Sites of Trauma, Abigail Zola
Theses from 2022
Revisionist Zinealog : a coacted countercultural device, Madaleine Ackerman
Reengineer value, Maxwell Altman
Space in sound, Gidiony Rocha Alves
Anybody home? Figural studies in architectural representation, David Auerbach
An atlas of speculating flooded futures ; water keeps rising, Victoria Barlay
Notes on institutional architecture ; towards and understanding of erasure and conversation, Liam Burke
For a moment, I was lost ; a visual reflection on the process of grief and mortality within the home, Adam Chiang-Harris
Remnants, Sarah Chriss
A thesis on the entanglement of art and design, Racquel Clarke
Community conservation & engagement through the architecture of public transportation, Liam Costello
Sacred pleasures : a patronage festival of the erotic and play, David Dávila
Caregivers as worldbuilders, Caitlin Dippo
Youkoso Tokyo : Guidebook to a new cybercity, Evelyn Ehgotz
Home: a landscape of narratives ; spaces through story telling, Tania S. Estrada
A digital surreal, Michael Garel-Martorana
Moving through time, Anca Gherghiceanu
Rising to the occasion : a resiliency strategy for Brickell, Miami, Stephanie Gottlieb
Food for an island : on the relationships between agriculture, architecture and land, Melinda Groenewegen
Towards a new immersion, Kaijie Huang
Astoria houses: a resilient community, James Juscik
Healing the Black Butterfly: reparation through resources, Danasha Kelly
Immortal/ ephemeral/ versatile, Zhenhong (Brad) Lei
Objects in transformation, Caroline Coxe Lippincott
System as a living organism, Xinyi Liu
Unnoticeable city corners, Yuchen Liu
Immaterial realities, Tyler Lovejoy
Houston, TX Walkable Circuit interventions to aid Houston’s safe/accessible walk-ability, Isabel Manahl
Reference: a field guide for new practices, Eric Mason
With water, KT McLeod
Scaffolding: medium, mediator, mediated, Mono Yingyi Mo
Solar panels, Marco Nuno Mourão
Post-standardization, Hengrong Stanley Ni
Domestic disturbance: cleaning, labor and maintenance of architecture, Valeria Portillo
Cycle of care: a study based on home-care elderly living in Beijing, China, Wenyue Remi Qiu
[daymeh] a postmemory database, Natalie Rizk
The value in intentional impermanence, Dominique Tsironis
Salt infrastructures & geographies, Jordan Voogt
Framing: embracing trauma in your "surrounding world", Zheng Xu
Flexing boundaries : tectonic strategies for the multi-generational home, Elise Young
Unseen body, unheard voice, Chunxin Yu
Together: a transformational sequence of healing, Deborah Zhuang
Reclaiming memory through soft spaces, Wendy Zhuo
Space of ambience : learning the relationship between environment, emotion, and behavior, Xueyun Zou
Theses from 2021
Responsive markets: structures supporting economic activity in postcolonial Mumbai, Bilal Ismail Ahmed
Whores, sluts, and bitches; the perceived limits of sexualisation and the affects on space, Chloe Jenny Bennie
Black exposure: a new typology, Teisha Bradley
Imprints of home, Sara Burashed
Architecture of aging care: a field through architectural innovation, Eve Huining Guo
Preserving modern architecture & new railway infrastructure in New Delhi, Yash Sahai Gupta
Manahatta, Nicholas Hinckfuss
A house on a street: a proposal for the multi-generational house in America, Ian Johnson Kienbaum
Play & protest, James Kloote
Breaking the mold: a journey of the brick, Sumanth Krishna
Balance the conversations, Karen Kuo
Community Healthcare Clinic - adaptation system to the pandemic and post pandemic periods, Nhu Le