Situated in the depths of a city’s music scene lies an underbelly of DIY (Do It Yourself) spaces. These spaces operate under the radar of the city’s commercial music scene found in for-profit venues, working to support experimental and small-scale artists who are often excluded from “legitimate” spaces. The DIY mentality developed from a desire to create venues that support musicians and audiences who refuse to adjust to the tastes of large music corporations. These communities host shows in spaces artists can afford, such as living rooms, basements, and warehouses. This project examines the creation and perpetuation of these underground music scenes, focusing on the development of a scene’s community and how identity is performed inside and outside of DIY spaces. This project explores how a city’s built environment (including its available housing, geographic layout, and ease of transport) impacts the way a scene functions and evolves. It teases out how these impacts are felt through observing how a scene’s social norms are performed at events in DIY spaces, examining the styles of music played within a scene, and other related factors. In order to determine how a scene's norms are specifically influenced by the spatial dynamics of a city, this paper examines the underground music scenes of Seattle and Philadelphia, a deliberate contrasting that shows how the differences and similarities in each scene can be attributed to both the cultural identity of the city as well as its unique urban environment. Whereas there are certain norms that arise out of the overarching DIY ideology (meaning they can be found in the scene of each city), there are disparate norms that are endemic to the each city’s scene. These latter norms prove a city’s built environment holds significant weight in the development of its underground scene. Ultimately, this data will provide evidence of the importance of these underground scenes within a city's arts community,advocating for their protection and support both locally and nationally. 

Young adults are changing the architecture of “third places,” like coffee shops, bars, and restaurants. Millennials, as they are typically called, have steadily moved to cities as they have become increasingly disillusioned with suburban lifestyle that has been a cultural norm since the 1950s. This has created a new wave of urbanization and gentrification. Gentrification, first coined by Ruth Glass in 1964, is the phenomenon of affluent people, primarily white people, moving into and displacing long-term residents or urban neighborhoods. Sociologists, economists, and urban planners have studied gentrification since the inception of the term, but usually through the lens of housing conditions and real estate values. However, the current wave of gentrification is associated with wider trends of lifestyle than housing or location. These new trends of lifestyle gentrification permeate into aesthetics, designs, and architecture. This thesis will explore the architecture of “third places,” the extensions of the personal residence, as a vital part of the current lifestyle gentrification occurring in American cities. This thesis will look at the evolution of “third places,” the shifting values of food and drink culture, and the people that define them. Methods will include studying changes in food and drink culture through previous sociology work as well as looking to projects in Seattle as case studies for how design has changed. 

Narrative architecture, imaginative design-thinking that incorporates the stories of the site and the local community into the final product, can empower displaced individuals by including their thoughts in the design process. As one of numerous design strategies within architecture, it has the potential to contribute to the highly multidisciplinary methodologies of humanitarian architecture. Across multiple successful case study projects constructed after Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, the principles of narrative architecture design are present, but are not defined as such by the current body of research on the subject. This project argues for the significance of narrative-driven humanitarian design in New Orleans after Katrina. With this research, I articulate how narrative architectural methodologies can serve as an extension of humanitarian design techniques to better empower those affected by disasters, and explore the risks of not using narrative thinking in the design process. The project evaluates case studies from a variety of architecture firms, evaluates narrative methodologies used within the case studies, and proposes overlapping best practices from humanitarian and narrative design perspectives. By defining narrative design values within humanitarian architecture, this project clarifies underdefined aspects of relief efforts and offers architects an expanded toolset for responding to crises such as Katrina.

Public transit is a quasi-public space between the public and private, acting as a fabric connecting the lives of many different types of people. Working within a framework of feminist urban geographies, this research seeks to understand how fear, safety, and emotion are constructed and interpreted within transit space in the city. With a particular focus on the experiences of women and queer individuals, I questioned how geographies of fear and safety impact movement and behavior in the city. Additionally, I examined the role of city officials and policy makers in creating safer transit spaces. Using a synthesis of qualitative research, media analysis, and autoethnography, I present the policies and practices that have, and have not, been successful in cities across the United States. The results of this research have shown that women and queer people consistently report feelings of insecurity and lack of safety in urban spaces. Policies and campaigns introduced in major cities such as New York and Los Angeles have had measurable success in combating harassment and violence, while smaller cities such as Seattle have yet to implement policies to do the same. This research is intended to contribute to the larger discourse surrounding feminist geographies and urban studies.