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 2017
Envisioning ecological cities, Carlton Smith
[DE]construction and [RE]construction : a promenade theater, Jingjing Zhao
A tale of lights : light as the visual construct of the ephemeral space, Alice M. Zhen
Theses from 2016
Origami condition design, Yin Lu
Curating architectural spaces : a way of architecture production, Cheng Yang
Theses from 2015
The complexity of plainness, Michael Clouse
Faith in phases, Linyi Dai
F(r)iction, Rami Hammour
In light of light, Chen Sun