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Virginia Tech

Dialogues in Translation: A House for Languages on Fourteeth Street

Abstract

dc:description.abstract

Why is it that architecture is so capable of triggering emotions in us? How come there are certain buildings, certain urban streetscapes or certain city corners that have the ability to make us feel intrigued, excited, happy, interested, thoughtful or curious? How is it that there are certain places, at the same time, that do not trigger any sorts of emotions in us? Urban places. They all have an immense capacity to influence the way we feel about life. Just like people, just like music. In the months previous to my thesis, I started to pay attention to some past personal experiences when, confronted with the process of discovery of a new urban place, I found myself experiencing strong emotions of happiness and excitement. This led me to start focusing on the elements of sensorial stimulation that I was encountering in those places, with the hope of being able to identify them, and ultimately being able to decode them and translate them into architecture. It became clear to me, soon after I started my travel through this journey of thoughts, that there were two elements that were always present in these experiences, and were therefore possible suspects. One of these elements was the pass of time, and the other was the density and diversity of materiality. Both where materialized in the form of overlapping layers of information that would add extreme complexity to the place. It was this complexity what was triggering all these emotions in me, making me feel like a curious child again. As a consequence of this analysis, my main interrogation became whether it was possible to replicate the feelings that these large-scale urban spaces had produced in me into the realm of an architectural project. Regarding a possible program, A place for speaking different languages or A building for brainstorming and thinking were some of the thesis topics that came to my mind.

Degree

thesis:*
Name thesis:degree_name
Master of Architecture
Level thesis:degree_level
masters
Discipline thesis:degree_discipline
Architecture
Department dc:contributor.department
Architecture
Grantor dc:publisher
Virginia Tech
Year dc:date.issued
2016

Author and committee

dc:creator, dc:contributor.*
Author dc:creator
  • Balacco, Nicolas Antonio
Chair dc:contributor.committeechair
  • Holt, Jaan
Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember
  • Emmons, Paul F.
  • Feuerstein, Marcia F.

Subjects

dc:subject × 11

Rights

dc:rights
Statement dc:rights
  • In Copyright

Identifiers

dc:identifier.*
Dc Identifier Other
vt_gsexam:4160
OAI identifier oai:identifier
oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/73774

Chain of custody

source
Harvested from
Virginia Tech
Base URL
vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request
Last updated
2026-07-22
Source record
OAI-PMH GetRecord
citation

Balacco, Nicolas Antonio. Dialogues in Translation: A House for Languages on Fourteeth Street. masters thesis, Virginia Tech, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/73774