On was an interdisciplinary graduate periodical established by RISD graduate students in 2006. It featured essays and student work that related to a general issue theme. On was intended as a quarterly publication, but it is unclear if further issues beyond the first were ever published.
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View on the Pawtuxet River, Pawtuxet, RI
The Robbins Bros. Co., Boston, MA: publisher; Visual + Material Resources; and Fleet Library
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Administration Building, Brown University, Providence, RI
The Rotograph Co., New York City, NY: publisher; Visual + Material Resources; and Fleet Library
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Soldier's Monument, Providence, RI
The Rotograph Co., New York City, NY: publisher; Visual + Material Resources; and Fleet Library
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The Observation Tower, Rocky Point, RI
The Rotograph Co., New York City, NY: publisher; Visual + Material Resources; and Fleet Library
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View from Division Street, Pawtucket, RI
The Rotograph Co., New York City, NY: publisher; Visual + Material Resources; and Fleet Library
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The Mall: Showing Biltmore Hotel and Union Station, Providence, RI
Tichnor Bros. Inc., Boston, MA; Visual + Material Resources; and Fleet Library
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THE RUNIS: HOW CAN SOCIAL REMIDATION AND ENVIRONMENTAL REMEIDATION BE LINKED THROGUH ARCHITECTURE?
Tayu Ting
This thesis delves into the integration of social and environmental remediation through innovative architectural strategies, focusing on the adaptive reuse of an abandoned copper smelter plant in New Taipei City, Taiwan. The project confronts the site’s industrial legacy by deploying contemporary programs that cultivate a productive, sustainable, and community-oriented environment. A pivotal aspect of the redevelopment is a phytoremediation system utilizing wetlands to purify toxic metal-contaminated water, thus restoring ecological integrity and providing clean water to the community.
At the heart of this transformation is the artistic integration of glassmaking, where flowers and plants that have absorbed metals through phytoremediation are encased in glass. These unique artworks symbolize transformation and renewal and visually represent nature's potential to transcend contamination. This endeavor highlights nature's beauty and resilience and serves as a compelling educational tool for environmental restoration.
The initiative further promotes community engagement by enhancing the quality of life for the elderly through new infrastructure for sports, wellness, and arts. It includes an artist residency program designed to support both local and international artists, thereby enriching the community's cultural fabric. By advocating for adaptive reuse, this initiative addresses significant environmental challenges, reduces the carbon footprint, and minimizes waste from new constructions, transforming the abandoned site into a vibrant community hub.
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Leviathan, or The Provenance, Construction, and Power of a Language Ecclesiastical and Invasive
Luna Tobar, Special Collections, and Fleet Library
Entry for the 11th Baker & Whitehill Student Artists' Book Contest. Opening reception and award ceremony Wednesday, February 19, 2025 at 6:30pm, Fleet Library, Main Reading Room. Juror: Roger S. Williams.
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Entropic Accumulation
Abby Tuckett
What would occur if system deviations were epicenters for accumulation? With every layer of paint, trimmed branch, welded corner, and poured sidewalk, we reaffirm current systems and participate in an ever-developing palimpsest. Maintenance and care is not only a preservation of flawed systems, but also a collection of deviations. We often ignore the latter for the comfort of control and semblance of simplicity. If the pattern is a flat sheet of metal, every trimmed edge and connection point is an alteration in the original system. We admit these deviations because of their apparent minimal impact and accepted connection to the original system. If we truly embrace this collection of deviations, we participate in entropic accumulation. Entropic accumulation consists of and is shaped by change, inching ever-closer to complete dissolution and unpredictability. As we support this reshaping and reconfiguration in the present, we support an unknown entropic future. This mode of working expects constant shifts in scale and perspective, and is rooted in empathy and curiosity. We cannot understand everything, but this consideration and adaptation is care.
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Variations on Noise
Clinton Van Arnam
Variations on Noise is a three-part collection: an index, a set of interviews, and a perspective on a working practice in graphic design and sound.
If noise is ubiquitous in our everyday lives, how do we define it and use it as a catalyst for dissonance and change? As a designer, I use noise algorithms to generate pseudo randomness and break up repetitive textures. As a musician, I use noise to create scores and performances that challenge our perception of what is comfortable and uncomfortable.
Seven interviews with designers, artists, musicians, and a Tibetan monk offer ways to approach the world through noise and to better understand humanity.
An index offers a consolidated tool for anyone interested in noise and how it shapes science, audio, culture, and other disciplines.
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Revitalizing Public Spaces: Integrating Mental Exercise into Contemporary Landscape Architecture Design
Silin Wang
The most popular video games have attracted a large number of young people with their immersive digital landscapes which offer rich opportunities for active navigation and thought. This has likely led to many spending more time exploring virtual environments rather than the real, outdoor landscapes. Meanwhile, many citizens have expressed dissatisfaction with the lack of interaction and spiritual resonance in modern urban public spaces. In this context, a common criticism of Landscape Architecture is its frequent use of a formulaic design language in contemporary landscape design. Critics such as Christophe Girot argue that this approach causes landscapes to lose their unique appeal and have called for a rethinking of design approaches. In response, one possible approach to rethinking design is to seek inspiration from other cultures. Therefore, this thesis analyzes traditional Chinese gardens, a sublime form of landscape art with a different purpose from the contemporary urban landscape, which primarily focuses on mental experiences, then proposes a view of the way to design and experience the landscape with mental exercise. Additionally, given the popularity of immersive video games, this thesis explores potential insights from these game exploring experiences that could inform future landscape design. The thesis reimagines landscape design using the principles of video games, aiming to understand why and how people are engaged by stimulating mental navigation, active problem-solving, and co-creation of meaning. Finally, the thesis proposes a design experiment on a public urban site in Providence to explore and develop a framework that can serve as a reference for re-engaging contemporary public landscape design. This framework aims to actively promote contemplation and reflection, and to attract more young people back to outdoor spaces.
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Empathetic Reverberations
Tianyue Wang
Plants play a crucial role in sustaining life on Earth and remediating pollution, making them indispensable components of ecosystems. However, their efforts in combating pollution are often overlooked and underappreciated by humans. This oversight can lead to a failure to recognize the severity of pollution and raises ethical concerns about using plants merely as tools for pollution control. This thesis advocates for acknowledging the essential role of plants in mitigating pollution caused by human activities and emphasizes the need to respect and protect their intrinsic value. The methodology of this research involves developing landscapes that honor and recognize the vital contributions of plants to the survival of the planet and its human inhabitants, while fostering empathy and transformative behaviors in humans. Strategies include highlighting the brutal battles and sacrifices of non-human vulnerable groups within ecosystems in their fight against pollution and revealing the pivotal role plants play in healing our shared environment. By exploring the similarities between human and plant life milestones, the project aims to create a multispecies ethnography that fosters empathy for plants. The significance of this thesis lies in its dual approach. In the short term, it aims to raise awareness about the role of plants in phytoremediation and encourage human participation in pollution mitigation efforts, leading to more consistent actions against pollution. In the long term, it calls for a reevaluation of natural rights and the ethical relationships between humans and other non-human species, ultimately promoting a future of multispecies harmony and sustainable development.
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Celestella Resonance
Xuanren Wang
The Nanjing city wall was initially built during the 14th century, shortly after the foundation of the Ming empire of China. Its unique city layout and meticulous planning, modeled after the constellation of the Northern and Southern Dippers, was exceptional in the city planning of China if compared to other typical cities, which were all modeled after the idea city illustrated in Zhou Li (The Rites of Zhou), a book served as a social hierarchy guide to build an ideal kingly, or autocratic city ruled by the emperor. Hence, the city wall of Nanjing, though its shape may be far more familiar in Western city constructions, is undoubtedly unique, for it deviated from the traditional hierarchical order in city planning. Moreover, another crucial fact that makes it so unique is that it is currently the most extensive and longest remaining city wall in the world, with an entire length of 35 kilometers. Even excluding the partially damaged or completely ruined part, 25 kilometers of the wall sections remain, which is still magnificent scale-wise.
My research will deal with the current status of the remaining wall sections and their possible interactions with residents. My thesis is to rejuvenate the cultural significance of the city wall by considering the pilgrimage concept. Based on my current research and project progression, monuments and observatories are to be incorporated in the missing parts of the wall sections, linking it with the existing walls and the constellation for the visitors and, therefore, creating an immense experience for the pilgrimage.
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Echoes of Heights: Sustaining Tradition for Education and Community in the Tibetan Plateau
Junyue Wen
In the Tibetan Plateau region, where most children need to leave their homes to attend boarding schools, this thesis research focuses on the development of Community Learning Centers (CLCs) as a transformative solution to bridge the gap between distant homes and schools. The development and design of tradi- tional Tibetan dwellings focuses on history, culture and nature in terms of appro- priateness and cultural heritage. By transforming Tibetan traditional dwellings into community-based learning centers, these centers will become multi-func- tional spaces that enhance mental health by promoting community engagement, supporting cultural preservation, and assisting students in transitioning between boarding school and home culture. By promoting an integrated approach that re- defines the educational and cultural experience of Tibetan students, this research offers solutions to the unique challenges facing rural environments on the Tibet- an Plateau.
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City Hall, Old Union Station, Old Central Fire Station, Providence, RI
Walter R. White, Providence, RI: publisher; Visual + Material Resources; and Fleet Library
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Old Washington Bridge, East Providence, RI
Walter R. White, Providence, RI: publisher; Visual + Material Resources; and Fleet Library
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Sayles and Wilson Halls, Brown University, Providence, RI
Walter R. White, Providence, RI: publisher; Visual + Material Resources; and Fleet Library
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Union Station and State House
Walter R. White, Providence, RI: publisher; Visual + Material Resources; and Fleet Library
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View at Longmeadow, RI
W. R. White, Providence, RI: publisher; Visual + Material Resources; and Fleet Library
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surface tension
Berett Wilber
Land is the premise upon which all questions of identity, belonging, and consciousness are set.
Our relationship to land is simple and complex. On one hand, in our daily experience there is no daylight between body and land. On the other hand, our relationship to land is intensely mediated through design in the form of tools, ritual, technology, tradition, and law. Language and design are primary mediums through which land is transformed into a material resource and commodity.
Understanding how designed systems craft our understanding of land can help us recognize their limits — and open our eyes to the other worlds all around us.
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Fluid Futures: The Revitalization of Yangzhou Through Its Historical Waterways
Feiyang Wu
In China, cities such as Yangzhou, which in pre-modern times played central roles in the political, cultural, and economic functioning of the country based on their geographic location, proximity to water-based trade routes, and connections to the imperial court, are today facing uncertain futures due to waterways no longer being critical to trade, and government-driven development being focused on first-tier cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. With this, the working-age population migrates from smaller cities toward these urban giants, leaving behind aging relatives, a less robust and diversified economic base, and few attributes other than cultural tourism that can entice people to move back to the city.
This thesis focuses on these historic cities left behind by the modernization process. Specifically, it looks at Yangzhou and asks what a viable future might be — one that leverages the city’s unique assets, in particular its extensive water infrastructure, rich cultural heritage, existing population, and water-facing post-industrial landscapes. It proposes an integrated strategy focused on ecological sustainability, new water-dependent industries, and hydrological connectedness that reuses these waterfront landscapes in a way that reinvigorates the economic and cultural scaffolding of the city.
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Recomposing Museums: Designing Rhythmic Experiences for Short Attention Spans in the Digital Age
Yujiang Wu
Learning, being the primary aspiration of museums, “is a byproduct of attention.”1 A visitor’s ability to focus and sustain attention on the objects, narratives, and messages within the exhibition environment profoundly influences their overall experience and the educational impact of their visit.
In an era of rapid digital evolution, changes in how information is consumed and communicated have led to shorter attention spans. Traditional museums, which are rooted in continuous, linear storytelling, now face a need for adaptation. This thesis advocates for an innovative exhibition design approach tailored to the realities of shorter attention spans, proposing curatorial and design strategies that introduce segmented narratives, diverse spatial configurations, sensory stimuli, and designated rest areas. By embracing a rhythmic experience, museums can combat “museum fatigue,” ultimately revitalizing their role as user-friendly cultural and educational institutions in the digital age.
Central to this approach is the concep-tualization of exhibition designers as composers, orchestrating sensory stimuli, graphics, lighting, nature, and participatory programming to craft rhythmic museum experiences. Through precedent analysis of existing exhibitions and personal observation of a broad array of experiential exhibitions this thesis explores both graphic design and spatial configurations. This exploration led to the development of a comprehensive graphic design manual and a series of spatial design strategies, presented as a set of abstract drawings and a catalog supplemented with text and diagrams.
The thesis book adopts a non-linear, rhythmic, and segmented structure, comprising four interconnected yet distinct books at live within a single casing: an observational journal, a graphic design manual, a catalog of strategies, and a set of abstract visualizations. These four books can be explored simultaneously, allowing for myriad relationships to be drawn between the ideas contained in each. As a metaphor of an exhibition, the book reflects the thesis development process and the dynamic nature of museum innovation, offering a flexible platform to engage and draw connections between the research findings and the designated strategies. Ultimately, this approach contributes to advancing museum practices and enriching visitor experiences in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
1. stephen bitgood. Attention and Value : Keys to Understanding Museum Visitors. Routledge, 2013.
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Costume Design, Skeleton Man
Billie Wynn, Sagian Shaw, Taira Schurman, Melisa Achoko Allela, and Movement Lab
