Hybrid Atmospheres

M.Arch Thesis

AIA Ohio Best Thesis Award 2020

ALA award

ARCC King Student Medal

Set within Cincinnati’s long-abandoned central subway tunnel, this project explores the spatial and perceptual disconnection fostered by an increasingly ocularcentric, digitally mediated culture. In an era where architecture risks becoming background to screens, the proposal questions: How can digital augmentation intensify, rather than erode, physical presence? 

Drawing on Robert Irwin’s “site-determined” ethos, the design begins not with form, but with observation—mapping the latent phenomenological conditions of the tunnel and its urban context. These readings generate a framework of precise, acupunctural interventions—each aimed at amplifying the site’s existing atmospheric and sensory qualities. Digital media elements are deployed not as spectacle, but as atmospheric prosthetics: augmenting light, sound, and movement to reawaken perception. Architecture and technology work in tandem to reposition this forgotten infrastructure as a platform for urban imagination. 

In Hybrid Atmospheres, the real and the unreal, the familiar and the unfamiliar, fold into one another—offering a renewed perception of reality through layered, hybrid presence.