Joseph P. Donaher
THE STREET & THE TOWER
TYPE:Undergraduate Thesis
YEAR: 2024-2025
ADVISOR:Ben Pennell
In an era which will be defined by the rise of artificial intelligence, the question of how and where we live takes on renewed urgency. As global systems become less stable and traditional forms of work, movement, and economy dissolve, the importance of the physical locale and its aesthetics as the fabric of our visual reality will begin to take precedence.
Architecture must once again become the carrier of meaning, rooted in place, rich in expression, and capable of grounding us in a rapidly changing world. When capital is unbound by labor, the last domain in which human beings will retain sovereign primacy is the domain of meaning: the realm of the built environment, the aesthetic, the spiritual, and the symbolic. In short, the realm of architecture.
This thesis imagines a future of human settlement in which the choreography of the physical world becomes the primary locus of cultural life.The thesis therefore manifests as a collection of buildings focused on exteriors and facades composed theatrically into a masterplanned neighborhood. Aesthetic coherence, variety in unity, formal symbolism, and human joy acted as the primary design focuses. The ambition was simple: to create a place that humans would love. A place that people would spend their vacations on visiting.
The thesis points out that a city is made not by the interiors of its buildings, but by the spaces in between, and the walls that line them. This project is an homage to the urban wall, its role in the character of the built environment, and a call for contemporary architecture to re-embrace its vital role in creating these purely human aesthetic ambitions in a future context where they are granted greater time and societal value..