Food’s implication on culture and agriculture challenges agriculture’s identity in the age of the city. As architect and author Carolyn Steel explained, “we live in a world shaped by food, and if we realize that, we can use food as a powerful tool — a conceptual tool, design tool, to shape the world differently. It triggers a new way of thinking about the problem, recognizing that food is not a commodity; it is life, it is culture, it’s us. It’s how we evolved.” If the passage of food culture is dependent upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations, the learning environments should reflect this tenability in its systematic and architectural approach.

Through an investigation of agriculture and cuisine and its consequential influence on culture, education, and design, the following project intends to reconceptualize the learning environment in order facilitate place-based practices. Challenging our cognitive dissonant relationship with food, the design proposal establishes a food identity through an imposition of urban agriculture and culinary design onto the school environment. Working in conjunction with the New American University’s mission, the design serves as a didactic medium between food, education, and architecture in designing the way we eat.

This project has the intent of redefining the learning experience of children ages 11-13 through student-centered design that of provides a beneficial environment for emotional, social, and physical health in which students can become more independent in both accountability of actions and in their thinking to see the larger picture and real-world application of each topic they learn and to foster thinking at a global scale. This is to be completed through the focus on the cognitive development and physical needs of the children at this age, a combination of the pedagogical models of inquiry-based, project-based, and community-based learning, connection to resources, implementation of design completed with understanding and testing of learning and working collaborative spaces, emphasizing the biophilic experience.

As it currently stands, implementation of the bicycle into urban conditions is an afterthought. Cyclists face numerous safety concerns on a daily basis that are avoidable. Congestion within cities increases as available space within cities decreases. In addition, the energy and environmental crisis mandates the resolution of personal transportation methods. The opportunity for implementation of the bicycle is now, however the current infrastructure of the city of Tempe cannot sustain the bicyclist. Through the proposal of an architectural solution to the addition of the bicycle as a means of transportation in Tempe, this project aims to resolve the aforementioned issues of lack of space for cyclists, safety for cyclists, congestion and space availability in cities, as well as the environmental/energy crisis. This project questions where does the architect fit into the solution to Tempe's, transportation and energy crisis, in what way does the bicycle become the resolution to this issue, and how does a model of an architectural and infrastructural solution to the integration of the bicycle in the city of Tempe adapt to and work with the in-place system to positively effect the nature of which cities are designed in the United States. In addition, how does the architecture of a city resolve these issues? Focused on downtown Tempe, Cyclescape aims to resolve the aforementioned issues within Tempe, as well as have implications towards other US current and future cities with their strategies and philosophies on architecture, infrastructure, and the bicycle.

This thesis is a study of the potential of the contemporary Catholic church building in suburban Phoenix. The project seeks to develop a church that responds to the values of Pope Francis and to typical suburban development issues of modern cities. Through research, case studies, writing, and design, the project makes proposals about how our churches should be designed and built today and in the future.

Violence in schools occurs throughout America, prevalent to the point of daily happenstance. The epidemic of violence in our society is in sore need of healing efforts. Ending Bullying with Multiple Architectures focuses on the violence of bullying in young children and adolescents, in an effort to mitigate bullying at a critical age, before it transcends into their adult behavior. Bullying begins in elementary schools, a time when our minds are extremely impressionable and our behavioral habits take birth. Bullying may happen for a certain segment of a person's life, but the effects transcend a person's entire life. People who bully may follow a familial cycle of bullying and people who are bullied may become bullies and start a new cycle. With bullying and aggressive behavior increasing exponentially in schools, our society is growing up in a place where it is acceptable to react aggressively to stressful or undesirable situations. Today, violence in our society infiltrates every aspect of our lives, from road rage, to grocery store quarrels, to family ties breaking, to gun violence in school and public spaces. Unplanned acts of violence occur in "spur of the moments". Is our society so impatient, aggressive, antagonistic, individualistic, and isolated because we have been conditioned as human beings to behave this way? Did we miss our chance to work cordially as a community, peacefully and patiently, because we put progress and productivity in front of community and collaboration? How can architecture slow you down, keep you aware of your surroundings and facilitate collaboration and getting along? Why do we accept abrupt anger and violence, and how can architecture create, improve or encourage positive behavioral habits in our impressionable young minds? Ending Bullying with Multiple Architectures translates existing bullying strategies (social architecture) into physical architectural intervention, in an effort to mitigate bullying at the critical age when behavioral habits take birth. This project challenges efficiency based design in order to complement the human experience. By creating healthier spaces that foster wholeness, we can heal violence at this critical age, and thus hopefully reduce future societal violence as a whole.

Major cities in the US such as Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago have a rich cultural hub within the realm of central business district known as the Chinatown where large Chinese communities reside. These districts are usually located in or around the neighborhoods where the first Chinese immigrants settled. Though Phoenix has had a Chinese community since the mid-nineteenth century, the historic and contemporary community is represented by a commercial retail center which is distant from the sites where the initial immigrants resided. Using a both textual and mapping research I explored the history of the development of Phoenix and contributions which Chinese culture made to the process. In the course of my research I learned that city of Phoenix not only had one Chinatown but two Chinatowns. My project examines the influence of Chinese culture on the urban development of Phoenix throughout history and contemporary era and reintroduces the presence of this community within the urban context of Phoenix through the creation of a cultural center. Political unrest in the Guangdong region in Southern China during the 1870s combined with both the California Gold Rush (1848 - 1850 and the construction of transcontinental railroad (1864 - 1869) led to the migration of Chinese citizens to the United States. Many of these immigrants migrated to the Valley after working at the transcontinental railroad construction near the Salt River Valley area. The first Chinese immigrants, three men and two women arrived in Phoenix I n 1872. The community remained rather small until 1879 when the transcontinental railroad construction along Salt River valley stopped due to extreme summer weather which led to the establishment of the First Chinatown in 1889. According to the old insurance Sanborn map, the first Chinatown in Phoenix was established along first and Adam street with diversified businesses such as laundries groceries, and restaurants. The Chinese community in the city was pretty small compared to other ethnic group settlements. Racial segregation was one of the major issues that caused the shift of First Chinatown from its original location to first and Madison Street and the Second Chinatown emerged in 1901. Post WWII, suburban sprawl and development of model single family detached homes were some of the reasons that led to disappearance of Chinatown in downtown Phoenix. In order to deliver this information and educate the public about the existence of Chinatown and the culture, I developed the concept of merging history and the 21st Century ideals by creating a place where Chinese culture is being reintroduced to Phoenix community. My design proposal for this issue is to construct a museum that is mainly focused upon historical Chinese Immigration to Phoenix and a cultural center that promotes Chinese culture, art, literature, merchandise, and cuisine in a way to reconnect mainland China and the city of Phoenix in 21st Century.

In response to the modern discussion of secondary education reform, a design is proposed for a decentralized high school composed of hybridized learning centers which respond to a pedagogy of Resource Based Learning and appropriate the Valley Metro Light Rail Line as the site network. In pursuit of symbiotic public/private relationships, the project offers a broad avenue of access to a diverse array of students and resources. The working design ultimately visualizes a radical potential for the classroom of the 21st century.