Historic places are visual narratives with natural scenic appeal. Art plays an integral role in highlighting such places that define cultural and social values. This applies to installation art that emerged from integrating the notions of space-making and storytelling to spark curiosity, intrigue, and public engagement. My thesis project focuses on methods of developing an immersive experience where inhabitants are compelled to lose their sense of self and become utterly involved with a constructed cosmology of visual stories. The site selected for the project is the historic city of Al-'Ula in Saudi Arabia known for its complex tapestry of archaeological formation, and offers a great potential of hosting an inhabitable art installation. By allowing a subtle invasion of the place’s history through a modern lens, I believe that a strong sense of place can emerge and a form of imagination will meet reality.

By creating immersive nature experiences and exploring aesthetics, sustainability, wellbeing and craftsmanship my thesis aims to develop a seamless, interactive experience between people and nature in order to enhance wellbeing and promote conservation of our national environments.

Century-old buildings leave us to retell their stories through their materials, forms, and spaces. I created the phrase “perfectly imperfect” as a way of finding beauty when two materials and/or forms blend with existing materials to form a singular artifact that is perfectly imperfect. Using an estate of grand size and beauty, historic as it is, deserves a mission and purpose grander than its original one-family function. A “legacy of purpose” will be resurrected with this historic estate, honoring Helen Gould’s mission and values in how the estate should be repurposed, as a fashion and textile trade school for high school graduates. If she were alive today, she would want the estate to contribute to the greater New York City’s underserved youth in this way. Three beautiful buildings on this historic site will be greatly enhanced by these renovations and this relevant, contemporary mission.

Urbanization requires adaptation to population density and embrace of associated housing typologies, including vertical living that is cost-efficient, sustainable, resilient, and inclusive.

What is a museum and what is the role this anchor institution plays in the 21st century? This thesis explores this question along with how design can be utilized to create a more equitable and culturally responsive art museum, specifically in an underserved community in Philadelphia. By focusing on equity, access, activism, and advocacy, while providing an environment to promote local initiatives, creativity, and innovation, the museum’s primary function changes from an archive of physical objects to an archive of cultural memory. By structurally changing the institution to have a stronger focus on the visitor and their experiences/connections made in the museum, the museum becomes an archive of the people and their communal identity.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.

It all begins with an idea.

Mino is a large entertainment and leisure art mall. It is built in the abandoned PECO power station which located in Fishtown.

This thesis interweaves the conceptual approach of parametricism with the haptic experience of phenomenology. It takes the program of a museum, going beyond the exhibition of artwork to consider it as a destination site and tourist attraction.