For this week’s Fridays@1, we invite you to join us for a special Thesis Open House in the School of Architecture. From 1:00–2:00 PM, Shattuck Hall second floor hallway and Room 212 will transform into an exhibition space featuring the work of our thesis students. Their projects will be pinned up, offering a glimpse into the ideas, research, drawings, models, and design investigations they have been developing so far. This is a walk-through event, giving you the opportunity to move freely and engage with the work at your own pace, and speak directly with the students about their projects. Each thesis student will be present beside their work to share their process, explain their concepts, and answer questions.
Whether you are a fellow student, faculty member, friend, or visitor, this open house is an opportunity to support our thesis cohort, exchange ideas, and participate in the broader design conversation happening within the school.
About the Projects:
Luke Player — Child centered adaptive reuse of a commercial office building into co-housing for PSU students with children. Transforming a corporate ruin into a vision of collective whimsey and support.
Jessica Snyder— An aerial gondola network that functions as both everyday public transit and resilient infrastructure in the event of the future Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. By moving circulation above vulnerable ground conditions, the project establishes an independent system capable of operating when conventional transportation networks fail. Ultimately, it positions the gondola not simply as transit, but as essential civic infrastructure that the city can depend on when it matters most.
Nathalie Hutchinson — Subversive Architecture proposes turning modern development practice on its head by leveraging collective agency through community-led investment and design. Situated in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Southeast Portland, the project tests innovative engagement strategies and defines “neighborhood triage” in the face of the housing crisis, translating research into a mixed-use community hub paired with affordable cooperative housing. By integrating a Community Investment Trust model, the project positions architecture not just as form-making, but as a financial and civic tool to redistribute ownership, stabilize housing, and build long-term neighborhood resilience.
Gianna Sullivan — An ecological outpost in the Great Basin that integrates small field shelters with shared work infrastructure to support long-term ecological practice. The project explores how spatial thresholds, regionally derived materials, and adaptable systems can sustain bodily presence while maintaining environmental attunement. Permanence is reframed as iterative adjustment, positioning architecture as an evolving support system for collective land stewardship.
Aaron Wood — Characters of Geologic Time, This thesis seeks to put human experience in the context of geologic time through storytelling and architecture in Portland. The geologic phenomena that make up much of the landscape of Portland are studied for their scientific understanding and are re-interpreted as characters in a story that come together to create this place. The architecture serves as a space to come in touch with these characters and the ancient forces that create landscapes.
Meg McKean— The Sxole Stewardship Center is a training and cultural heritage center dedicated to celebrating, sustaining, and transmitting the knowledge and practice of reef-net fishing. Sxole, also known as reef-net fishing, is a 1,800-year-old Indigenous fishing practice and the most sustainable salmon fishing method in the world. With only 11 reef-nets in existence today, this project proposes an architectural space for Indigenous-led knowledge transfer, cultural stewardship, and public education that positions reef-net fishing as the future primary salmon fishing practice of the Salish Sea.
Bri Brady — This thesis explores how we can create familiar spaces for people living with dementia. I'm working to develop a closed community system with visual clues that are easy to distinguish meanings and building purpose without written words.
Sham Aldura — This thesis asks what architecture can do when a building has witnessed violence. I am working with the site of Saydnaya Prison in Syria and proposing a memorial and civic network that preserves testimony, records the stories of the disappeared, and gives survivors a place to come, remember, and document their history. Instead of hiding the past, the project keeps the site as a witness and turns it into a place for memory, dignity, and everyday public life.
Razan Zainab — This thesis proposes a night-centered cultural hub that integrates rehearsal spaces, performance venues, and public circulation into an immersive environment shaped by movement and sound. Inspired by street dance culture and the energy of nightlife, the project creates spaces for both spontaneous battles and formal performances along the river’s edge. The architecture becomes both stage and city, blurring indoor and outdoor realms to sustain a continuous 24-hour rhythm of music, dance, and urban life.
Alex Yarovaya — This thesis project responds to the fragile gap between school and adulthood for young adults with autism. By combining equine-assisted spaces with career training and daily work environments, the architecture stages controlled encounters with fear, trust, and growth while preserving choice and autonomy. It merges the familiarity of barn and arena typologies with contemporary, sensory-responsive design to support independence in a world typically not built for sensory difference.
Vinuar Gardi — This thesis examines the Kurdish diaspora in Portland as a community shaped by displacement, political fragmentation, and the ongoing negotiation of identity in exile. It explores how collective memory, ritual, and intergenerational gathering sustain Kurdish culture within a Western urban context that often renders it invisible. The project asks how belonging can be cultivated locally while remaining deeply connected to a homeland that exists across contested borders.
What is Friday@1?
On most Fridays at 1 p.m. during the academic term, PSU School of Architecture students and faculty gather to hear from professional designers and architects, academics, visiting artists, innovators, and students in the program. Friday@1 is a perfect way to wrap up each week of intense creativity in the studio and get inspired for the productive weekend ahead.
Free and open to the public. All are welcome.