Interior Architecture Masters Theses

 

Interior Architecture offers the following degree program options at the graduate level:

• Master of Arts (MA) in Adaptive Reuse, a one-year+ program

• Master of Design (MDes) in Interior Studies / Adaptive Reuse, a two-year+ program

• Master of Design (MDes) in Interior Studies / Exhibition + Narrative Environments, a two-year+ program

Both programs take an innovative and progressive approach to addressing design issues intrinsic to the reuse and transformation of existing structures. US News & World Report and Design Intelligence have both ranked RISD’s Interior Architecture programs among the top in the country.

Each MA candidate produces a final project that begins with a research component in the fall and evolves into a studio/design project in the spring. MDes candidates demonstrate competency through self-directed Degree Projects that include a seminar on theory, a research component and a studio component. Each DP focuses on the transformation of an existing structure of their choice in the city of Providence. All MA and MDes candidates also participate in the RISD Graduate Thesis Exhibition, a large-scale public show held annually.

Graduate Program Director: Markus Berger

These works are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.

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Theses from 2024

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Revitalizing Decay, Owen Carey

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RECLAIMED BY ROOTS, Dongyang Chen

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A Living Storyscape, Vivian Combariza

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Emotional Factory, Yukun Cui

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Witnessing Timelessness: Revitalizing Heritage Tourism in the Ruins of Saudi Arabia, Reem Habis

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City Sonatas, Duoduo Lin

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Other Angles: Queer-ing Approaches to Museum Design, Gregory Mathieu

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Homeward Bound: moving homes, moving home, Ella Nadeau

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-ing: Heritage as a Verb, Eunji Park

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Milpa: Cultivating Community Through Grid Remediation in México, Marianna Pasaret Molinar

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Space Between: Navigating Openness, Torie Stotz

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Making Room, Rachel Strompf

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Celestella Resonance, Xuanren Wang

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Echoes of Heights: Sustaining Tradition for Education and Community in the Tibetan Plateau, Junyue Wen

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Recomposing Museums: Designing Rhythmic Experiences for Short Attention Spans in the Digital Age, Yujiang Wu

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Gender Mirror: Giving women's perspective to men through exhibition, Jiaxuan Xu

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Beyond Display: Crafting Emotional Journeys for Belonging and Connectivity, Jiamin Yang

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Exploring the versatility of clay in double curvature surface formation, yicheng zhang

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Bridge Between Calligraphy and Architect, Tianhao Zhong

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忘年交 / A Friendship That Transcends Age, Zichen Zhou

Theses from 2023

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the people's food project, Grace Barrett

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Kala in my Moholla - art in my neighborhood, Priyata Bosamia

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Nature as Material, Time as Tool, Chuchu Chen

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FROM VAULT TO PLATFORM (Democratizing Museums through the Lens of the Metaverse)), Zhaoyang Cui

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Intensifying the Experience of Contemporary Art, Wanjin Feng

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Manifesto of Poor Images: Re-imagine Guggenheim in the Post-digital Age, Mengning He

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Adding Subtraction: Wasting Time in Space, Daeun Kim

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NEW CHAPTER, Gunju Kim

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A Cloud Above, Jiwon Kim

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Greening Seoul : A New Toolkit for Adaptive Reuse, Woojae Kim

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A.R. Futuristic Scenario in Seun, Yookyung Lee

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Eviction to Placement: Rethinking the current supportive housing systems for hidden homeless families, Fang-Min Liou

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The Mobile Senior University, YOUSHURUI LI

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making pla(y)ces: softening the city through play, Shivani Pinapotu

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Interstice, Shravan Rao

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Overlooked Modi Vivendi, Natalia Silva

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Chinese tea ceremony spirit revival, Hongli Song

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Nurturing Haven: A Safe Place for Single Mothers, Meng Su

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A Day Stood Still, Yuting Sun

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Imaginatorium for children with visual impairment, Xueyun Tang

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Reconcile Liminality, Zefeng Wang

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Illusion of Consumption, Architectural Rebellion: Unraveling the Maze of Consumption, Xinjie Xiang

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Beyond Burial - Transforming Death: A New Ritual of Farewell and the Ecological Return of the Body to Nature, Chang Xie

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Interactive Architecture - Intervention of Virtual Business on Commercial Space, Yihao George Xu

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On the Power of Attainable Architecture Community Engagement and Interaction through Architecture: A New Approach to Architectural Exhibitions, Jianing Yang

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Glowing Under the Bridge—A Healing Space for Wounded Souls, Ruier Zhao

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Moving Narration: A journey through history, Yincheng Zhu

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Finding Psychological Healing in College Settings, Dici Zou

Theses from 2022

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Notes in improvisation : Spatializing Black Identity through music, Esther Akintoye

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Dying differently: designing a death-oriented psychedelic treatment center, Grace Caiazza

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Blurred lines : Border crossing between Macau and Zhuhai, Weiwei Chen

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Regenerative residences: shrinking stress levels in the sky, Peter de Lande Long

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Adaptive reduce: forging architectural futures through degrowth, Erika Kane

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Unfolding embodied experience: a process-driven immersive exhibition design model, Mooa Seongah Kang

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Block Chain Home, Jonggun Lee

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Last sunset : design to alleviate social isolation for Chinese elderly, Linghui Li

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Rebuilding Collective effervescence : a "Ballroom" for post-pandemic revelry, Di Ma

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Re:Connection: exercises in unplugging and mindfully reconnecting, E. J. Roseman

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Dear City, give me some space; creating space for ephemeral forces in a city, Abinaya Sivaprakasam Thamilarasan

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From invisible to visible: the third wave/way of intervention for Dashilar, Jiali Tian

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Endless construction : occupant activism and authorship, Jiayi Wang

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Beyond Spectacle : parametric design to life in space, Ding Xu

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Design for designers : An incubator for young designers to grow, Jiajie Yang

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The Cthulhu Journey : storytelling through an architectural immersive experience, Rui Zhang

Theses from 2021

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Posthuman ecologies, Christine Chang

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Loneliness / Togetherness : Interiority and connection under isolation, Huaqin Chen

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Space between memories: pause, Young Jae Cho

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Cultural acupuncture: decentralization and deocratization in Chinese exhibition design, Ruohan Duan

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Adaptive reuse as evidence of scientific progress: recontextualizing a space for growing knowledge, Kayci Gallagher

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Reclaiming modern architecture: an urban visual narrative of Kuwait City, Yara Hadi

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Unraveling the living: reframing cramped housing as a social living, Dong-zoo Han

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Beyond pasta: understanding Italian American culinary culture in Federal Hill, Chufan He

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Going back, Zhiyi Hilary He

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Augmented city, Xing Huan

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Woven healing: reimagining the rural health center, Mahasweta Jayachandran

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Living · Sharing · Connecting : rebirth of Longchang Apartments Heritage Community, Linhong Jiang

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Migrating architecture: vernacular futurism, Yichu Jiang

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The second home: breaking the cycle of lonely death, Woohee Kim

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Reinforcing connection within collective housing: a new vision of Red Steel City, Guangyi Niu

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Ascents and descents in the 21st Century: restoring Chand Baori, Japneet Pahwa

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Nossa quadra, nossa historia: the power of collaborative and communal outdoor spaces as a tool for belonging & agency, Rebecca Maria Pepl

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Terminal: through the "windows" of a Tram Car Museum, Yuyi Si

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Ritualizing of space in the 21st century: fostering of communal identity through celebration of Tamil culture, Mridula Swaminathan

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Sensory refreshment: TCM reconsidered, Ni Tang

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Remember me: how we can modify the home for people with dementia, Wenjin Wang

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The retrieval of memory: holding time in the Shanghai gasometers, Liman Wei

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Fostering cultural understanding: mirroring ways of living in Providence, RI, USA and Beijing, PRC, Jiarui Tina Wu

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The future of Beijing urban courtyards, Zhuoqi Xu

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Remembering Chinatown: a fusion of food, identity, & memory, Robert Yang

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Overflowing boundaries: competition and mutualism in urban villages, Chen Zhang

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Rural acupuncture: carefully introducing tourism within an underground village, Shangyun Zhou

Theses from 2020

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Lacunae in the urban landscape, Meriem Aiouna

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Melting away - Ilha Formosa, Hao-Chun Chang

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Behind appearance : hidden dimensions in the work of Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee, Ning Ding

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Realistic utopia : utopian architecture exhibition at Arcosanti, Xiao Fang

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Contextualize, Jiaai He

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Community pop-up galleries : the instruction manual, Mary Iorio

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Living under surveillance, Fan Jia

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Urban memory : Beijing City wall ruins reconstruction & exhibition, Yuan Jin

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Dialogue across time : Atlanta, 1996 and 2020, Qianyu Liu