Body Form Space Architcture
Changing attitudes towards the representation and geometric description of the human body and the corporeal metaphor in architecture offer the ability to reinterpret the body in motion as a dynamic spatial event. Since the time of Vitruvius architects have described space through symbolic, metaphorical, and proportional relationships to the human body. This corporeal metaphor seeks to relate space and body through geometric systems of description. Description of thought and meaning is historically bound to static or linear constructs. This project seeks to re-conceive the corporeal metaphor in architecture as a dynamic spatial event. The intention is to examine the relationship between the human form and metaphysical simultaneity as generators of architectural form in a research approach that dissects and isolates the representational concept/image from the body in a way that might offer an alternative description to the historical linear models.
Required: library and journal database research skills, graphic communication skills, strong work ethic
1) In the process of developing neighborhood profiles of people and housing in various communities in the area.
Recommended: Interest in housing and community development.
Kelly J. Clifton
Urban Studies and Planning
National Center for Smart Growth
Preinkert Field House, Ste. 1112N
301-405-1945 / kclifton@umd.edu
Transportation Spending in Maryland: Evaluating Maryland's Smart Growth Act
This project will examine the impact that the 1997 Maryland Smart Growth Act has had on transportation budgeting and spending. Specifically, we are interested whether this legislation has changed investment patterns in highway, transit and non-motorized project, including the amounts, locations and types of projects funded.
Required: organization, work independently, comfortable with numbers and budgets, Excel
Understanding Pedestrian Route Choices
The project will examine the factors that influence pedestrians' decisions about the routes they choose to travel from point a to point b. The project will consist of recruiting participants to wear a global positioning system (GPS) unit on their wrist for one day and fill out a questionnaire about their walking routes.
Required: Good interpersonal skills, like working with people, organized, willing to learn
Recommended: The following skills are desirable but not required: Working with surveys or data, geographic information systems software, Photoshop or other graphics software, webpage development, statistics
The Marginalization of Immigrants
Working class immigrants, especially those from non-English-speaking countries, are often marginalized, intentionally or otherwise, by the organizations and individuals with whom they interact. It may happen with police, teachers, politicians, and others. I'll looking at this phenomenon and others with a special focus on Langley Park, an immigrant neighborhood a mile west of campus.
Required: Interpersonal skills and a knowledge of Spanish (or alternatively, French or Vietnamese) so that the student can conduct interviews.
Other: Perhaps a student will begin with this research and, finding it of considerable interest, develop it into a credit-rewarding activity.
Impact of Immigration on U.S. Cities
I am studying the impact of immigration into the U.S. on urban economies and urban neighborhoods.
Required: Working with statistics in general, but I can find some work for a student who is more comfortable with interviews.
Planning for a Sustainable Maryland
This project will explore existing development patterns in the state, conduct an analysis of buildout under existing policies and trends, and explore alternative development scenarios. Once developed, we evaluate each of the scenarios by computing a number of urban development indicators. The work will be conducted in conjunction with the Reality Check Plus exercise led by the National Center for Smart Growth and the Baltimore District of the Urban Land Institute. This project is intended to set the agenda for land use policy in Maryland following the next election cycle.
Required: good writing and analytical skills
Recommended: proficiency with geographic information system software
Angel David Nieves
Historic Preservation
1205 Architecture, Bldg. 145
301-405-0753 / anieves@umd.edu
Soweto '76, A Living Digital Archive: Community-Based Media and New Heritages in Post-Apartheid South Africa
The Soweto Uprising that began on 16 June 1976 – a day that many believe helped to catalyze Black resistance and student self-empowerment against the apartheid state – included teachers, school officials, parents, and students from across Johannesburg’s townships. The intended march never took place, with the day, instead, ending in tragedy. The events of that day in June, 1976 remain highly contested and a source of intense debate. This web-based collaborative project examines how significant historical moments and their associated heritage sites are helping to influence contemporary South African society. This pilot project will also examine how new forms of media and web-based technologies can be used as vehicles for addressing social ills in newly developing democracies – particularly with regards to reconciliation and social justice advocacy in the “New” South Africa. Instead of a “fixed” or static perspective on the past, the living archive concept is seen as a repository for future generations, allowing for undisclosed, hidden or long neglected community-based histories to emerge in a social justice framework. Using existing oral histories, testimonies, photographs, video footage, material objects, and sound recordings in the collections of the Hector Pieterson Museum, the work seeks to redress the uneven portrayal of the lives of Black township residents in the mainstream or “official” historical record. The project seeks to develop a critical array of interactive new medias and other primary documents to help recount and reinterpret the significance of these key moments in the political struggle against apartheid. The most innovative aspect of the project will be the use of new technologies that may help us to reconsider how conflicting historical interpretations – whether by the media, by other scholars, or community residents, etc. – could be positioned or digitally layered in direct comparison with the words of those who experienced the actual events of 16 June 1976. The project will also help toward the development of pedagogical tools that lay bare the processes involved in ‘digital democracy-building.’
Required: Basic computer skills and a willingness to learn inter and multidisciplinary research methodologies.
Robert L. Vann
Architecture
1208 Architecture Building
301-405-6290 / vann@umd.edu
RAS (Restoring Ancient Stabiae)
The University is sponsoring an archaeological project in the Bay of Naples region in Italy with its focus in the ancient Roman city of Stabiae. Stabiae was the next city down the road from Pompeii and suffered the same fate at the same time. Students from the Univesity have been involved in field work in the region, both in Stabiae and Pompeii, for the past six year but the work continues year-round.
We need the assistance of student researchers to help us identify, label, and organize a very large collection of digital images of these archaeological sites. If you cannot work on the site you will feel you have by the time you work with us for a semester. The next best thing to being there is experiencing these cities through the digital images.
Required: Familiarity with the computer to the point of being able to learn new programs.
Recommended: Knowledge of Italian would be very useful but not required.
Lee W. Waldrep
Architecture
1298 Architecture Building
301-405-6308 / lwaldrep@umd.edu
Careers in Architecture
To support the course in the Architecture Program - Careers in Architecture by researching resources and materials for distribution for the course. Read and review said materials and write briefs summarazing the materials.
Required: Interest in pursuing a career in architecture; reading and writing research briefs of assigned materials.
Inside the Beltway: The physical and social form of the Washington suburbs Description: An investigation of the older first ring suburbs of Washington,D.C.
The study will trace by the history of their physical form as well as socio-cultural make up and compare it with contemporary issues (again both physical and social) happening in metropolitan DC today.
Required: Familiarity with periodical and newspaper research-both in person and on web. Ability to take digital photos.Comfortable scanning images. Ability to travel to suburbs not accessible by metro.
Recommended: Comfortable with doing interviews.