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 2021
City of archive: visualize and spatialize archive, Zaiheng Liang
996 & anti-996, Jinmi Liu
Live-work autonomy system on Mars: China's collective living onto Mars, Lishunxiang Luo
An interplay: biomimetic exploration of systems in architecture, Sanjana Masurkar
In service of _____; an inclusive architectural collage practice, Blair Ramsey
Sensory bridge, Ouqiao Sun
Segments of reality: interface / space / movement, Yuan Tao
Reconstructing property, borders, and sites: nestling the built, Christina Truwit
Healing through architecture: role of architecture in promoting healing in cancer care settings, Vrindha Vijay
Design for the past, Zexi Wang
Ecotourism in vacationland: shoreline development and economic inclusion on the Southern Maine coastline, Quinn Christopher Wilcox
The bridge / the stream / the home: interactive social housing typology in Wuxi, Weiyi Xia
Water inspired places, Jiaqi Zhang
Translated architecture, Ruiqi Zhang
Vernacular Future Architecture, Yang Zhao
Theses from 2020
Water ceremony, Adriana Alva
Vacancy never vacant, Marina Bibidakis
Change of plans: the subversive kit in the planned community, Hugo Caldwell
Revisionist histories : Parallels of monuments and absence in the present, Scott Craft
Field Notes on Seeing: An Archive of Color, Mirrors, and Light, T. Deutch
Acoustic signatures: their study, representation, and agency in the experience of architectural spaces, Nathalie d'Hennezel
In-between through : bordering bodies ; a spatial containment, Aroly Enamorado
Tolerance : material conversations on life & architecture, Keyan Hansen
Climate resilience for a neighborhood without privilege: East Boston, Peter Niels Heller
Project fusion, Tianbao Hu
Occupying the public : humans, space & identity, Brittany Knowlton
Two-gather / collective living : housing and recreational facilities in suburban Mumbai, Rashi Harshil Lalaji
Playgrounds : symbiosis of humans, nature, and architecture, Hannah Langmuir
Transform through architecture : a journey of discovery at the Providence Place Mall, Haoning Li
About intimacy, Jiamin Lin
Adaptive reuse pattern book : re-evaluating historical capital, Taylor McCabe
Living together : revisiting the SRO + new forms of collectivity, Elizabeth Parker
Digital duck, Zach Schumacher
The story of Market House, Patrick Spence
Intimacy in infrastructure, Andrew Sponseller
Adapting home : residential development and domestic comfort in Vermont, Mikéla Sumner
A city's culture should include birds : to rethink of architecture with birds in mind, Pan Sun
Blueridgelivin' : environmental development and suburban sprawl, Chris Villalta
Uncanny genericism, Eamon Wagner
Possibilities in void, Fangyu Wei
Specific : and practices in the urban periphery, Sam Wesselman
Architecture of dreams, Alex Jing-Seng Wong
Urban village compound : new collectives in Shenzhen, Lu Yu
Relocation community revival, Zhan Zhang
Theses from 2019
Slowness in the fray : architecture that orients to nature, Colin Christensen
Urban acupuncture : can the deliberate use of tactical interventions reinvigorate informal settlements?, Robert Samir Diaz Vicente
No long urban, can't be rural, definitely not suburban : the experience of Detroit, Karin Jane Hostettler
Tanzania : a new architectural pedagogy, Cameron Leandri
In the wake of the atoms+sphaira, Jesús Meléndez Vázquez
The urban shelf : a hybrid between architecture and infrastructure, William Morales
Trash as culture : culture as trash, Sara Naja
Kippee-ki-yay : an energy case study, Madison Blaize Russ
Can you shut the door? : exploring the personal as political in the domestic bathroom, Hannah Winders
Theses from 2018
The space in between : liminal space, Wei-Chun Cheng
Opine : positioning architecture, Kevin Crouse
Chaos and order, Jie Du
Archinaut : Archinaut design laboratory office manual, Joseph Echavarria
Woven curvature, Yuhao Jiang
Throwing architecture to the sea : discipline out of context, Andrea Kelly
Transporting eating architecture, Margaret Kiladjian
The long forgotten city element, Yun Chu King
Facade of democracy : realizing the architecture of the fourth wall, Johnny Yueh Han Lin
Möbius system : a pseudo-world made from pseudo-science, Xinye Lin
Designing for disaster resilience in Puerto Rico, Aislin Mac Donald
The room : the space between, Adelaide Cushing Mackintosh
In between, Farinaz Moslemi
The present, Ann Motonaga
Columns of some kind : kinetic, structural, formal, periodic & interactive elements of architecture, Jhanani Palanismay
Redundancy for change, Kyuyeon Park
A monument thesis, Graham Rice
Joy through layered tension : convergent fire-escapes fulfill a new community, Luca Rivelli
A third thing : an exploration of black hair in architectural design, Christina B. Schaller
Decoding the digital border, Gian Villarruel
Shadow theater, Yaodan Wu
Open community : break up the "superblock", Ke Xie
Nostalgia for the future : home 2028, Junqing Yang
Ambiguous surfaces : dressing the wall, dressing the room, dressing the building, Danni Zhang
Theses from 2017
Proximity, interaction, and evolution : taking a deeper look at the systems around us, Rachel Back
Unfolding : architecture as dwelling in a folded space-time continuum, Feiyi Bie
openness, Yu Cao
Writing a city : a self-reflexive exploration between the lines, Po-Ming Chou
The flood : another note of humanity, Muyi Fan
The void between us, Xiaofan Fan
Sculpting time in spatial narrative, Hua Gao
Resilience on Wall Street, Rahul Ghera
In between forces, Jungyun Lee
Motion and architecture : transition between spatial fluidity and body language, Tong Li
Simultaneity of space, Amy Lungariello
Sharing : a synergy of natural forces, existing urban conditions and human characteristics, Zhen Meng
Room in a forest, Amelia Millan Osma
Perceptible ambiguity : learning center, Zhurong Qian
Killing the angel, in the mind, body and home, Vaishnavi Ramesh
Cultural infrastructure, public space, and the contemporary library in Toronto, Zoë Ritts
Collective consumption : a game for living, Zachary Rochman
Living on the edge : failure by design, Odile Schlossberg