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The Teahouse / A Cup of Tea

Crawford, Ellen

Abstract Details

2016, MARCH, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture.
Our daily environments are filled with technology and noise due to our cultural preference toward spaces for collaboration and connection. Contributing to this bias are shifts caused by the Industrial Revolution. As the need to sell new products and goods rose, so did the need for Americans to improve their marketing and sales techniques. Americans moved towards valuing a Culture of Personality over a Culture of Character. This led to the rise of ocular-centric, open spaces reflecting our cultural bias towards extroverted personality and its characteristics. In order to understand the basic architectural inclination of humans at their prehistoric, primordial level, absent of contemporary culture’s influence, investigation into the foundational understanding of inside and outside, nature and man is discussed through our earliest notions of shelter and the hut. Themes such as nostalgia, daydreaming, and wandering are explored as methods facilitating retreat, a repeated human desire seen throughout time. Primitive architectural elements such as threshold, orientation, enclosure, boundary, and opening reveal architectural meaning and purpose in terms of differentiating interior from exterior. The Teahouse offers an alternative solution to the extrovert-prolific spaces seen so frequently today by providing a quiet, intimate experience where moments of introversion are celebrated. Through the process of making, receiving, and drinking a cup of tea, retreat from daily environments is encouraged, highlighted, and made to be of primary importance. This thesis challenges our cultural bias towards extroversion and offers an opportunity to unite experience with memory, ritual, and retreat.
William Williams, M.Arch. (Committee Chair)
Vincent Sansalone, M.Arch. (Committee Member)
65 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Crawford, E. (2016). The Teahouse / A Cup of Tea [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1460729675

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Crawford, Ellen. The Teahouse / A Cup of Tea. 2016. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1460729675.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Crawford, Ellen. "The Teahouse / A Cup of Tea." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1460729675

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)