Intersight Journal of Student Work

First published in 1990 as the School of Architecture and Planning's journal of student work, Intersight chronicles the creative and scholarly outputs of our students and reflects on the pedagogy of the school. This online collection represents more recent projects, published in the journal since 2018.

Interior of abandoned building corridor, peeling paint, two wheelchairs parked neatly off to the side.

From "Board and Batten," an adaptive reuse proposal for a 19th-century barn located on the historic Richardson Olmsted Campus in Buffalo; Preservation Planning Studio, Fall 2019 faculty Kerry Traynor. Exerpted from Intersight 22

Standing at more than 25 volumes, this anthology of student work captures the program's intellectual currents over the course of three decades. Intersight is curated and produced each year by a Master of Architecture student selected to serve as the Fred Wallace Brunkow Fellow. This annual fellowship is generously supported by Kathryn Brunkow Sample and former UB President Steven Sample. Support for the production of the Intersight book publication is provided by CannonDesign.

Intersight 27 (IS27)

Sriya Radhakrishnan, M ARCH '25, 2024-2025 Brunkow Fellow Editor

Submit Work to IS27

Recent Issues

Intersight 26 celebrates 'compounding knowledge' the intersections between spaces, experiences, and identities

Intersight 26 (IS26), the School of Architecture and Planning's 2023 journal of student work, serves as an archive for significant ideas and events from the year. According to Madeleine Sophie Sutton, the School's 2023-24 Brunkow Fellow and editor of IS26, 'The intersections between spaces, experiences, and identities that I observed as a student led me to the theme of this book, 'Compounding Knowledge.' The publication reflects on the year by sharing stories that highlight pivotal moments in learning, illustrating how students connect their academic coursework with personal identities and life experiences. Presenting a diverse range of student works, IS26 captures the evolving narrative of our educational journey.

View Intersight 26 on Issuu

Intersight Archive

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Graduate Research Group (GRG)

Resilience Hub
5/1/20
During the Junior Spring semester an integrated design studio is carried out and aimed toward incorporating various systems into a larger building tectonic. In the Spring of 2020, students designed a laufmachine, a self-propelled, two-wheeled vehicle; it is the 19th century predecessor to the bicycle. This portion of the semester prompted students to begin thinking about a multitude of systems within their designs through this construction process.
Unoriginal Things
12/1/18
An investigation of the Broadway-Fillmore district, Foederer’s project for Unoriginal Things began with a simple observation. What was once a thriving working-class neighborhood with a dense housing fabric, had become irreparably changed through a sustained effort by the City of Buffalo to purchase derelict homes and subsequently demolish them.
Pride Center
12/1/18
Environmental Design students worked with the Pride Center of Western and New York to assist in expanding its services, and reach to make the Western New York region an inclusive, safe and healthy community for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals.
City/Life
12/1/18
The City/Life studio puts a focus on the urban dwelling as a threshold between self and society, between the local and the goal, and between nature and culture.
Seneca Bluffs Public Pool
12/1/18
Brianna Mancini’s proposal for a community pool is rooted in process. An intensive analysis of precedents generated concepts, which were then collaged together to generate a synthesis drawing. This new geometry formed the basis and inspiration for both the conceptual and formal paradigms of the proposal.
Roots
12/1/18
The proposal, Roots, is a scheme to create a green gateway for the future Obama Presidential Library in Chicago, while also giving back to the surrounding Woodlawn Community.
No. 2
12/1/18
No. 2 (Number 2) is a series of model studies of objects to induce comfort of homeless individuals on the streets. The project used HDPE plastic bags, with the title based on the RIC (Resin Identification Code) of the material and, at the same time, the essence of recycling.
A millimeter of space
12/1/18
The interface between the natural and human-made at a material surface suggests the formation of an ongoing process, in which the relationship between materials and the environment is displayed
Big to Small
12/1/18
A multi-faceted study of the telescope houses of the Broadway-Fillmore neighborhood, Big to Small is a collection of work from 13 graduate architecture students.
Amazing Grace
12/1/18
Natalie Harack’s Amazing Grace is an instrument, created by modifying a traditional shopping cart, that collects environmental data and physical artifacts. The objective of this project was to build an instrument to probe the site through inquiry, insight, and impression to develop a representation of environmental phenomena.
Pluvius
12/1/18
Imagined by the Situated Technologies Graduate Research Group, the installation utilizes sensing technologies to integrate sound, light, and motion, and acts as a means to investigate questions of spatial contingency and the limits of predictability through an interactive, multi-sensory experience.
Are We There Yet?
12/1/18
This study examines patterns of growth and development on Niagara Falls Boulevard. Surveying major portions of the Boulevard and documenting trends, students engaged with maps, city directories, and other sources to locate areas with extant structures and analyze precedents that dealt with similar circumstances.
Stasis
12/1/18
This vessel became a design muse and instrument for the studio, investigating many fundamental questions that pertain to the tectonics of architecture—space and geometry, structure and skin, form and function, as well as material and construction.
Poetry Square
12/1/18
Leticia Avila developed Poetry Square as a theoretical addition to the University at Buffalo’s library system on the South Campus. By both positioning it in front Abbott Hall and elevating the main floor, the project preserves the integrity of the campus’ main axis. The building would house a special poetry collection and act as a nest, shelter, library, and museum.
UB Cultural Campus - Madrid
8/1/18
Frank Kraemer and Jelani Lowe drew from their experiences while studying abroad in Madrid, Spain. They were immediately drawn to the physical barriers that separate the public and private domains in Madrid. They investigated this duality by layering transparent planes, exploring how to use transparency as a link between public and private aspects of program, while simultaneously providing necessary privacy.
Harrison Place
6/1/18
In Spring 2018, a multidisciplinary graduate studio in architecture and planning conducted a reuse study of the former Harrison Radiator facility, currently know as Harrison Place, located in Lockport, NY.
Ritual Space
6/1/18
Ritual Space is a collection of ten structures, each designed and constructed by studio teams in first-year design studio. Finding its beginnings in the development of an interlocking joint system, students adapted this tectonic item into an evocative, spatial proposal.
Fabrica13
6/1/18
Throughout the studio, Michael Hoover drew inspiration from Ricardo Bofill and his design techniques. The art of collaging seemed to best represent how he created spaces by chance and unconscious thinking. Through adaptive re-use, Bofill was able to re-imagine as- ound spaces. In this way, form and function were disassociated.
Coastal Dreams
6/1/18
Coastal Dreams is a speculative futures project, envisioning the cities along Lake Erie as subjected to extreme winter weather conditions in the face of global climate change. Sara Svisco developed a narrative, which depicts life in 2391, as the lake begins to experience alarmingly high water levels, resulting in the flooding of nearby coastal cities.
Logging
6/1/18
The research conducted in Logging investigates latent material possibilities within the medium of wood, by investigating material origins and the ethics of material consumption – two societal conditions that humans have increasingly become disconnected from.
Nesting Balasana
6/1/18
Lukas Fetzko developed Nesting Balasana with Jo Nedergaard and Andreas Thiis in Spring 2018 during an exchange program at the School of Architecture– Arkitektskolen i Aarhus–in Aarhus, Denmark. This project was designed as a physical translation and exploration of the yoga pose balasana, inspired by the transitions between the posture’s use of the body, mind, and breath.
Cages
6/1/18
The work in Cages explores the qualities of material boundaries and enclosing conditions that relate structure and skin, establishing critical connections between the natural and the artificial in the material experience.
Winter Storm Vulnerability
6/1/18
Juweria Dahir
William Siegner
Tom Voigt