Giving Space to Equity: Creating Modular Mentorship Spaces for At-Risk Youth

The built environment is a physical manifestation of a society’s values and priorities. The way space is allocated reflects what a society deems significant, shaping how communities and cities function on both a practical and symbolic level. In Washington, D.C., this relationship between space and meaning is particularly evident. The city’s layout was carefully designed to emphasize national identity, with monuments and memorials occupying central locations that highlight their historical and symbolic importance. However, not all spaces receive the same attention or resources. For example, the only youth rehabilitation center serving the Washington, D.C., area is built to accommodate just 60 individuals at a time, while immediate needs calls for 2500 a year. This limited capacity is not due to a lack of available space but instead reflects a broader societal choice about how much value is placed on the well-being and future of at-risk youth. This disparity raises a critical question: Can values—such as care and opportunity—be manifested through allotment of space? This thesis investigates the adaptive reuse of a significant architectural structure to support at-risk youth. The host site, RFK Stadium, currently stands as a monumental yet underutilized landmark, serving primarily as the eastern gateway into the city. The proposed intervention unfolds in three phases: Phase 1 centers on community engagement; Phase 2 emphasizes academic development; and Phase 3 establishes a residential living community. The design strategy involves inserting a series of enclosed, modular interventions within the existing structure. Phase 1 is the focus of this investigation and will feature spaces dedicated to career training, hands-on learning, mentorship, and community interaction. These enclosures are defined by modular units inspired by the original architectural forms of the site—rotated, mirrored, and reconfigured to create dynamic gathering spaces and foster interdisciplinary connections

TerraShift

Keywords: Adaptive Reuse, Vernacular Craftsmanship, Food Security, Urban Agriculture, Community Revitalization, Heritage Preservation, Regenerative Design In India’s rapidly urbanizing landscape, Tier-I cities continue to dominate as aspirational centers, leaving smaller towns to face depopulation, economic drift, and cultural amnesia. Terrashift challenges this imbalance by proposing a regenerative model that reclaims the vitality of Tier-II and Tier-III towns through the layered strategies of adaptive reuse, vernacular craftsmanship, and integrated food systems. Centered in Sidhpur, Gujarat—a town rich with Bohra Muslim architectural heritage and centuries of Hindu-Muslim cultural synthesis—this project envisions the transformation of abandoned havelis into vibrant community anchors. These spaces, once static relics of a bygone era, are reimagined as living infrastructures for memory, sustenance, and economic regeneration. Drawing on principles from Jane Jacobs’ advocacy for urban vitality, R. Buckminster Fuller’s vision of regenerative systems, and Madhavi Desai’s documentation of Bohra domestic traditions, Terrashift offers a multi-scalar intervention: - Reviving Vernacular Craft by weaving traditional artistry into contemporary programmatic life; - Embedding Urban Agriculture within architectural fabric to reinforce local food sovereignty; - Fostering Reverse Migration by creating aspirational environments rooted in cultural familiarity. - Architecture here is not a static monument to the past but an evolving medium of resilience, belonging, and community agency. Through participatory design and sustainable material practices and frameworks, Terrashift presents a scalable model, one that resists homogenized urban expansion, centers local identity, and redefines what it means for heritage towns to thrive in the future

Breathing with Water; Rebuilding Coastal Connections in Busan

What does it mean to live on the edge? Every year, sea level is rising and massive storms are hitting the peninsula of South Korea. With each catastrophic typhoon comes significant social damage due to relocations and loss of life. To these disastrous events, the city seems to have only one response: tetrapods and sea walls. This defensive approach has blinded the public from the severity of the looming climate crisis and kept them ignorant of more productive ways to manage the shoreline. This thesis explores an alternative narrative for this coast. Working within a 75 year timeline, I propose a range of systems that can rebuild the connection between the water and the public, a link severed by the city’s defensive approach. Using the existing design language of tetrapods and the local culture of sea women, I write a tailored design story for this site: Gwangalli Beach, Busan

Plural Vistas

Plural Vistas introduces an expansive spatial dimension to the practice of graphic design. Through emotive means and embodied experience, each vista engages the potential for design to negotiate the intertwined relationship between the built environment (structured language and hierarchical systems), and the reciprocal demands of the natural world (interdependency and entanglement). This approach offers new ways for design to operate and extend into the world and our communities. Not bound to one singular path or point of view, Plural Vistas invites you to think spatially. Space and time are active—engaging the body and considering the complex and subjective relationship between subject and place; reciprocal exchange is encouraged. Plurality decenters—fragmenting meaning into multitudes to be experienced from various positions and perspectives, inviting complication as a path to radical change. The vista considers the long view—imagining a horizon that is wild and abundant, and a future that cultivates a fertile exchange between the natural world and the built environment

breath, void, ground

Before the sound, there is breath. Before the explosion, there is a threshold. Before the noise, there is silence. Inspired by the physicality of balloons, this thesis explores breath as sonic material that carries memory, moves through bodies, and resonates across spaces. The balloon becomes a skin that holds breath: a force inhaling trauma, ritual, and intimacy. When released through mouth and latex, breath conjures alien, untranslatable voices that hiss and hum. It begins with a balloon and expands with endless breath. The balloon becomes a site where the history, body, and voice disintegrate and reform. The pressure and tension between skins generate vibration, touching the body and its surroundings. It is a breathing and sonic practice, not of positioning or grounding the floating self, but of exploring nomadic ways of being in, of, and as a void that resonates between bodies

Faculty Exhibition Post-Ocean | Max Pratt

In an effort to evaluate the Rhode Island area’s fishery as it currently exists and highlight innovative approaches to the future of our interaction with the ocean, Post-Ocean details coastal New England’s unique approach to sustainable aquaculture and wild fishery management. This archive and body of work aims to build a model for others to follow as we look to create global stability in our food systems and human-ocean interactions. For the March 2025 installation at the RISD Color Lab, we are highlighting the unique approach of this work in its engagement with research through the use of color photography. Leveraging highly accurate color analysis, we create photographic data sets, document the quality of seafood through color, and attempt to instill in the viewer a curiosity and deepened desire to learn about the ocean and its inhabitants. The content of this show is supplementally showcased via a web-based document, allowing viewers to be guided through our vision for the future of food. View the Post-Ocean exhibition here.https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/colorlab_events_recordings/1008/thumbnail.jp

Interacting with Color: A Practical Guide to Josef Albers\u27s Color Experiments

https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/colorlab_exhibitions_interactingwithcolorfritzhorstman/1008/thumbnail.jp

A Vessel for Color

https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/colorlab_exhibitions_avesselforcolorlindasok/1014/thumbnail.jp

Black Feeling Black Talk: A Celebration of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. & Nikki Giovanni

Join an evening of music, poetry, reflection, and community to honor the intersecting legacies of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Nikki Giovanni. Through exploring the courage, resistance, faith and hope championed by Dr. King and Nikki Giovanni, we can be inspired today to carry forward their messages of equality, justice and change in our communities and lives. A screening of Going to Mars:The Nikki Giovanni Project will frame Giovanni’s artistic and activist journey in tandem to Dr. King’s transformative work and call for The Beloved Community. By highlighting their shared commitment to social justice, freedom, and creative expression, we celebrate the timeless impact of their work and imagine new approaches to advance positive change. The RISD community can view the Going to Mars documentary in its entirety

A Vessel for Color

https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/colorlab_exhibitions_avesselforcolorlindasok/1009/thumbnail.jp