Cast of Civic Characters

The Cast of Civic Characters is a civic complex for Houston that couples municipal service counters with other public amenities including an auditorium, dining hall, outreach center, gym, and pool. Each program is housed in a separate small building that takes on the likeness of an animate creature. The collective “herd” occupies a single city block. This thesis posits that creature-buildings intensify architecture’s communicative and storytelling potential; by soliciting a fictional vitality, they mythologize architecture’s agency and enable public institutions to craft narratives about their identities. Formally, each Character is generated from an extruded profile that is broken along a central seam, hinged, and partially rotated according to a shallow angle. This technique conjures an image-able figure that is graphic and immediate, but also temporal and modulating from multiple vantage points. The simple act of slightly rotating the elevation condenses both pictorial and sculptural perception into a single architectural form.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Architecture

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Architecture

Grantor

Rice University

Year dc:date.issued

2015

Author dc:creator

• Altshuler, Joseph

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Finley, Dawn

Committee members dc:contributor.committeemember

• Wittenberg, Gordon
• Colman, Scott

• civic characters
• character
• Houston
• narrative
• storytelling
• animate
• creatures
• graphic
• Hejduk
• Somol
• municipal
• delight

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1911/80776

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:repository.rice.edu:1911/80776