Scholarship & Research
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Item Intermission(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2009) Shvartsman, Ron Felix; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mike Everts; Zuzanna Karczewska (co-chair)We are no longer only influenced by social exchange that occurs in close proximity. Our character can now be defined by everything that occurs around us. The television, Internet and cell phone are only a few mediums that give people the ability to communicate and exchange information at the press of a button. Even the typical family circle is no match for the powerful interdependencies that unite all people yet in some moments keeps them divided. Methods of social exchange have changed dramatically over the last century allowing people to interact at any proximity they choose making them part of a larger system that relies heavily on being connected to various communication technologies (CT). How we communicate, now more than ever, is an integral part of the way in which we shape our world. With so many mediums of communication and the exponential growth of social exchange it is difficult to understand the implications of our actions in regards to CT. One such scenario entails the person who going about his or her day is in constant connection through an electronic device which supplies him or her the freedom to be at any given place at one moment and another the next second. It must be noted that even though this person has that freedom, he or she can only connect to someone who possesses a similar medium. What about the individual who has no medium with which to communicate at a similar rate? As we continue to "efficiently" interact within a digital world we create strong social ties to people that fit within our own unique demographic. We attach ourselves to what we know creating weak social ties to people that fit within a different user group. Weak social ties (links) form a network of information carrying connections between different demographics. These connections are better able to carry novel technology information that we don't have access to within strong social networks that tend to move in the same circles. By increasing the potential for weak social connections to form one can begin to close the social gap which has left people divided in a digital world.Item Infusion : urban and domestic transformation(Montana State University - Bozeman, College of Arts & Architecture, 2009) McQuinn, Dylan Thomas; Chairperson, Graduate Committee: Mike Everts; John Brittingham (co-chair)The turn of the Century in this country brought with it the introduction and ensuing growth of water-born trade markets, facilitating the establishment of a series of metropolitan hubs scattered along the coastline. The subsequent hundred years has seen a major increase in population within these areas accompanied by an economic shift away from maritime trade. Older ports have been abandoned, leaving behind antiquated urban infrastructure. The subsequent dismantling of these vast waterfront industrial areas has provided an opportunity for the reconfiguration of these spaces and the implementation of new urban and landscape strategies. Through a recycling of the existing fabric and introduction of new uses, many cities have revitalized their industrial wastelands and integrated these areas within the existing urban fabric. Other coastal cities have merely overlooked these neglected districts and focused development in their periphery, transforming these former economic focal point into physical and typological barriers.