Scholarship & Research
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Item Understanding the dynamics and fragility of culture, and optimism of making culture(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2010) Tahiri, Adelina; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mike Everts; Ralph Johnson (co-chair)Albanians had established a meaningful/intimate relationship with their environment. They embracing natural features and created special places/architecture/artifacts that symbolized their roots, and were left by ages past. Natural features and architectural/cultural artifacts were the places that Communists targeted at for destruction. Over a century, Kosovo went through CULTURCIDE, URBICIDE, DOMICIDE and ended all up with GENOCIDE. All possible ways that Serbians used to destroy this culture, disconnect people from this place, were not as strong as the attachment to Albanian Homeland. It was this strong attachment to place that helped people recuperate and once again, start over... Domicide- Killing home, was the ultimate goal of communists. They used architecture strategies to disconnect Albanisns from place, erase memory. DOMICIDE was instigated by powerful elite that very critically planned the Destruction. Communist planners strategically ruined the river of the city "The spirit of the city", religious monuments and social nodes such as the bazaar. To address these issues, I plan to rebuild the Place, rebuild the culture and identity through architecture, and make the ultimate sacrifice of all heroes and victims of all the wars worthwhile. By putting the viewer in the place of witness, he/she would be able to better understand the fragility of the culture and history. The goal is to understand clearly the aims of the enemy and start getting more comfortable with the past historical events, and most importantly, the optimism for making culture. Again, through Architecture, I intend to bring back the essence of the culture and history of destructed places. I plan to integrate these important qualities/essences in our present social environment. I will create a prideful narrative of the past, incorporating multiple layers of memory and multiple layers of history of our city and the positive way that it can contribute in our social understanding and social importance. I will intend to re - Construct culture and place based on the essences of the studied/targeted artifacts. The ultimate goal is to see the optimism of people for making culture and being proud of it.Item Identity : pscyhological relationships between place and occupant informing Burmese refugee communal design(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2009) Gould, Shawn Patrick; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Christopher Livingston; Ralph Johnson (co-chair)Place is an active participant in determining who we are; it becomes part of one's identity. People use space as a vehicle in which individual and social experiences are carried out and remembered, ultimately shaping who one is. An attachment to place is formed. Place becomes vital to one's mental being and survival because it is a piece of a whole in how one defines herself/himself and his purpose. But what happens when place attachment is broken? The consequences can be severe. For example, Burmese refugees responding to political persecution, persistent poverty, and most recently the ramifications of Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, were forced to abandon their homes and communities---- their place. They lost part of their identity. In doing so, the already dire situation they experienced grew more grievous. This continues today. Now these refugees congregate in camps along the Burmese/Thai border looking for relief. Only tactile issues (food, shelter, water) are addressed by relief agencies, not psychological issues, such as the part of their identity they have lost. Because of this oversight , their recovery and survival lay in jeopardy. This thesis will seek to demonstrate how architecture can ascribe to various design considerations that acknowledge the importance of fundamental place attachment between occupant and place. I will illustrate these considerations by creating a community for Burmese refugees that recognizes not only the physical but the psychological factors that are imperative to recovery, such as self, social, and place identity. Ultimately this exploration hopes to instill identity back into the refugees by applying a design strategy when developing the community that is informed by the interactions of the aforementioned psychological factors. These issues of identity are pertinent to design today, when increasingly, many people like the Burmese refugee are in situations that demand thought and action for their recovery and survival.