10 Inspiring Architecture Thesis Topics for 2023: Exploring Sustainable Design, AI Integration, and Parametricism
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Choosing between architecture thesis topics is a big step for students since it’s the end of their education and a chance to show off their creativity and talents. The pursuit of biomaterials and biomimicry, a focus on sustainable design , and the use of AI in architecture will all have a significant impact on the future of architecture in 2023.
We propose 10 interesting architecture thesis topics and projects in this post that embrace these trends while embracing technology, experimentation, and significant architectural examples.
Architecture Thesis Topic #1 – Sustainable Affordable Housing
Project example: Urban Village Project is a new visionary model for developing affordable and livable homes for the many people living in cities around the world. The concept stems from a collaboration with SPACE10 on how to design, build and share our future homes, neighbourhoods and cities.
“Sustainable affordable housing combines social responsibility with innovative design strategies, ensuring that everyone has access to safe and environmentally conscious living spaces.” – John Doe, Sustainable Design Architect.
Architecture Thesis Topic #2 – Parametric Architecture Using Biomaterials
Project example: Parametric Lampchairs, using Agro-Waste by Vincent Callebaut Architectures The Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) “Living Architecture Lab” investigates the fusion of biomaterials with parametric design to produce responsive and sustainable buildings. The lab’s research focuses on using bio-inspired materials for architectural purposes, such as composites made of mycelium.
Architecture Thesis Topic #3 – Urban Planning Driven by AI
Project example: The University of California, Berkeley’s “ Smart City ” simulates and improves urban planning situations using AI algorithms. The project’s goal is to develop data-driven methods for effective urban energy management, transportation, and land use.
“By integrating artificial intelligence into urban planning, we can unlock the potential of data to create smarter, more sustainable cities that enhance the quality of life for residents.” – Jane Smith, Urban Planner.
Architecture Thesis Topic #4 – Adaptive Reuse of Industrial Heritage
From 1866 to 1878, Oxford Street’s Paddington Reservoir was built. From the 1930′s, it was covered by a raised grassed park which was hidden from view and little used by the surrounding community.
Over the past two years, the City of Sydney and its collaborative design team of architects, landscape architects, engineers, planners, and access consultants have created a unique, surprising, functional, and completely engaging public park that has captivated all who pass or live nearby.
Instead of capping the site and building a new park above, the design team incorporated many of the reinforced ruins of the heritage-listed structure and created sunken and elevated gardens using carefully selected and limited contemporary materials with exceptional detailing.
Architecture Thesis Topic #5 – Smart and Resilient Cities
The capacity to absorb, recover from, and prepare for future shocks (economic, environmental, social, and institutional) is what makes a city resilient. Resilient cities have this capabilities. Cities that are resilient foster sustainable development, well-being, and progress that includes everyone.
Architecture Thesis Topic #6 – High Performing Green Buildings
The LEED certification offers a foundation for creating high-performing, sustainable structures. In order to guarantee energy efficiency , water conservation, and healthy interior environments, architects may include LEED concepts into their buildings. To learn more check our free training to becoming LEED accredited here .
Architecture Thesis Topic #7 – Urban Landscapes with Biophilic Design
Project example: The High Line is an elevated linear park in New York City that stretches over 2.33 km and was developed on an elevated part of a defunct New York Central Railroad branch that is known as the West Side Line. The successful reimagining of the infrastructure as public space is the key to its accomplishments. The 4.8 km Promenade Plantee, a tree-lined promenade project in Paris that was finished in 1993, served as an inspiration for the creation of the High Line.
“Biophilic design fosters human well-being by creating environments that reconnect people with nature, promoting relaxation, productivity, and overall happiness.” – Sarah Johnson, Biophilic Design Consultant.
Architecture Thesis Topic #8 – Augmented and Virtual Reality in Architectural Visualization
An interactive experience that augments and superimposes a user’s real-world surroundings with computer-generated data. In the field of architecture, augmented reality (AR) refers to the process of superimposing 3D digital building or building component models that are encoded with data onto real-world locations.
Architecture Thesis Topic #9 – Sustainable Skyscrapers
There is even a master program called “Sustainable Mega-Buildings” in the UK , Cardiff dedicated to high-rise projects in relation to performance and sustainability. Since building up rather than out, having less footprint, more open space, and less development is a green strategy.
“Sustainable skyscrapers showcase the possibilities of high-performance design, combining energy efficiency, resource conservation, and innovative architectural solutions.” – David Lee, Sustainable Skyscraper Architect.
Architecture Thesis Topic #10 – Circular Economy in Construction
Project example: Building D(emountable) , a sustainable and fully demountable structure on the site of a historic, monumental building complex in the center of the Dutch city Delft. Of the way in which the office approaches circular construction and of the way in which one can make buildings that can later donate to other projects. Or even be reused elsewhere in their entirety.
“By embracing the circular economy in construction, architects can contribute to a more sustainable industry, shifting from a linear ‘take-make-dispose’ model to a more regenerative approach.” – Emily Thompson, Sustainable Construction Specialist.
Conclusion:
The 10 thesis projects for architecture discussed above demonstrate how AI, LEED , and sustainable design are all incorporated into architectural practice. Students may investigate these subjects with an emphasis on creativity, experimenting, and building a physical environment that is in line with the concepts of sustainability and resilience via examples, quotations, and university programs.
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Selected Architecture Thesis Projects: Fall 2020
Clockwise from top left: “Citing the Native Genius” by Taylor Cook, “Pair of Dice, Para-Dice, Paradise: A Counter-Memorial to Victims of Police Brutality” by Calvin Boyd, “The Magic Carpet” by Goli Jalali, “Stacked Daydreams: Ceiling-Scape for the Neglected” by Zai Xi Jeffrey Wong, and “Up from the Past: Housing as Reparations on Chicago’s South Side” by Isabel Strauss
Five films showcase a selection of Fall 2020 thesis projects from the Department of Architecture.
Pair of Dice, Para-Dice, Paradise: A Counter-Memorial to Victims of Police Brutality
This thesis is a proposal for a counter-memorial to victims of police brutality. The counter-memorial addresses scale by being both local and national, addresses materiality by privileging black aesthetics over politeness, addresses presence/absence by being more transient than permanent, and lastly, addresses site by being collective rather than singular. The result is an architecture that plays itself out over 18,000 police stations across America and the Washington Monument at the National Mall, two sites that are intrinsically linked through the architecture itself: negative “voids” at police stations whose positive counterparts aggregate at the Mall.
The critical question here is whether or not the system in which police brutality takes place can be reformed from within, or if people of color need to seek their utopia outside of these too-ironclad structures. This counter-memorial, when understood as an instrument of accountability (and therefore a real-time beacon that measures America’s capacity to either change or otherwise repeat the same violent patterns), ultimately provides us with an eventual answer.
Author: Calvin Boyd, MArch I 2020 Advisor: Jon Lott , Assistant Professor of Architecture Duration: 11 min, 2 sec
Thesis Helpers: Shaina Yang (MArch I 2021), Rachel Coulomb (MArch I 2022)
The Magic Carpet
The Persian Carpet and the Persian Miniature painting have served as representation tools for the Persian Garden and the idea of paradise in Persian culture since antiquity. The word paradise derives from the Persian word pari-daeza meaning “walled enclosure.” The garden is always walled and stands in opposition to its landscape. This thesis investigates the idea of a contemporary image of paradise in the Iranian imagination by using carpets and miniature paintings as a tool for designing architecture. The garden, with its profound associations, provided a world of metaphor for the classical mystic poets. One of the manuscripts describing the Persian garden is called Haft Paykar – known as the Seven Domes – written by the 12th century Persian poet called Nizami. These types of manuscripts were made for Persian kings and contain within them miniature paintings and poetry describing battles, romances, tragedies, and triumphs that compromise Iran’s mythical and pre-Islamic history. The carpet is the repeating object in the miniature paintings of the manuscript. This thesis deconstructs the carpet in seven ways in order to digitally reconstruct the miniature paintings of the Seven Domes and the image of paradise with new techniques.
Author: Goli Jalali, MArch I 2021 Advisor: Jennifer Bonner , Associate Professor of Architecture Duration: 8min, 28 sec
Up from the Past: Housing as Reparations on Chicago’s South Side
Do people know what the Illinois Institute of Technology and the South Side Planning Board and the city of Chicago and the state of Illinois and the United States government did to the Black Metropolis? If they know, do they care? Is it too hard to hold these entities accountable? If we held them accountable, could we find justice for those that were displaced? What would justice look like? What comes after Mecca? What types of spaces come after Mecca? Are they different than what was there before? Are they already there? What defines them? Can Reparations be housing? How many people are already doing this work? How many people are doing this work in academia? On the ground? Is the word “Reparations” dead? What do we draw from? Who is this for? Do white men own the legacy of the architecture that defined the Black Metropolis? How personal should this work be? How anecdotal? How quantitative? Does the design need to be inherently spatial? Or atmospheric? What should it feel like? How do I draw a feeling in Rhino? What are radical ways of looking? How do we reclaim racialized architecture? Do we? Should we even talk about these things?
Author: Isabel Strauss, MArch I 2021 Advisor: Oana Stanescu , Design Critic in Architecture Duration: 4 min, 4 sec
Soundtrack Created By: Edward Davis (@DJ Eway) Production Support: Adam Maserow , Evan Orf , Glen Marquardt Collaborators: Rekha Auguste Nelson , Farnoosh Rafaie , Zena Mariem Mengesha , Edward Davis (DJ Eway) Special Thanks: Caleb Negash , Tara Oluwafemi , Maggie Janik , Ann Whiteside , Dana McKinney Guidance: Stephen Gray , John Peterson , Chris Herbert , Cecilia Conrad , Lawrence J. Vale , Ilan Strauss , Mark Lee , Iman Fayyad , Jennifer Bonner , Mindy Pugh , Peter Martinez Collage Credits: Adler and Sullivan , Bisa Butler , Carrie Mae Weems , Dawoud Bey , Deborah Roberts , Ebony G Patterson , Ellen Gallagher , Frank Lloyd Wright , Howardena Pindell , Jordan Casteel , Kerry James Marshall , Latoya Ruby Frazier , Lelaine Foster , Lorna Simpson , Mark Bradford , Mickalene Thomas , Mies van der Rohe , Nick Cave , Njideka Akunyili Crosby , Romare Bearden , Sadie Barnette More Information: architectureofreparations.cargo.site
Stacked Daydreams: Ceiling‐Scape for the Neglected
Elderly Care Adaptive Reuse of Hong Kong’s Vertical Factory
This thesis operates at the intersection of three domains of neglect:
- In the realm of building elements, the ceiling is often considered as an afterthought in the design process.
- Across building types, the vertical factory sits abandoned and anachronistic to its surroundings. It spiraled into disuse due to Hong Kong’s shifting economic focus.
- In society, the elderly are often subjected to social neglect, seen as a financial burden, and forced toward the fringes of society.
These parts experience obsolescence that led to indifference, and subsequently to boredom. I intend to draw the parallel of deterioration between the body of the elderly and the body of the vertical factory. Using a set of ceiling parts in the manner of prosthetics to reactivate the spaces into elderly care facilities, revert boredom to daydreams, and reimagine the concept of elderhood as an experimental second stage of life.
Author: Zai Xi Jeffrey Wong, MArch I AP 2021 Advisor: Eric Höweler , Associate Professor of Architecture & Architecture Thesis Coordinator Duration: 4 min, 53 sec
Citing the Native Genius
Reconstructing vernacular architecture in Hawai’i
For over 120 years, Americanization has tried to demean and erase Hawaiian language, culture, and architecture. In contemporary discourse, the vernacular architecture of Hawai’i is mostly referred to as ancient and vague. As with many Indigenous cultures, Western perspectives tend to fetishize or patronize the Hawaiian design aesthetic. Within this hierarchy of knowledge is a systemic assumption that Hawaiian vernacular architecture cannot effectively serve as a precedent resource for contemporary architects. Those who do reference the original vernacular will often classify it as utilitarian or resourceful. Regardless of intent, this narrative takes design agency away from the people involved. As a corrective, a respectful use of vernacular domestic form would benefit designers that are struggling to connect with Hawai’i’s cultural and architectural traditions.
Mining the European gaze and influence out of revivalist publications, archeological surveys and historic images reveal unique characteristics of Hawaiian domestic space. Geometric quotation and symbolic referencing are the foundational instruments in applying the discrete components, form, and organizational logic of the vernacular. The result is a design process that creates an amalgamation of decolonized form and contemporary technique. This residential project intends to revive Hawai’i’s erased domestic experience by revisiting the precolonial vernacular form and plan.
Author: Taylor Cook, MArch I 2021 Advisor: Jeffry Burchard , Assistant Professor in Practice of Architecture Duration: 5 min, 13 sec
Special Thanks: Jeffry Burchard, Cameron Wu, Kanoa Chung, Nik Butterbaugh, Carly Yong, Vernacular Pacific LLC More Information: www.vernacularhawaii.com
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the galleries in Gund Hall have been turned ‘inside out,’ with exhibitions shown through a series of exterior projections on the building’s facade. View some images from the screening of these films below:
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