Outlining the Design Thesis Project

As part of this Off Campus study, I am to complete a design thesis project to summarize my conclusions to all the inventory, analysis, and synthesis done in this Off Campus Program here in the city of Buffalo, New York.  As a reminder, my primary topic of study is the Sustainable Tourism of Niagara Falls and its Influence to the Urban Fabric of the local communities like that of Niagara Falls and Buffalo. Particularly focusing and having the interest in the spatial configurations of The Falls located in the border of Canada and the U.S. while trying to figure out the impacts and influences they have in the local communities. My study question is: What is the influence of Niagara Falls as a tourism icon to the surrounding community of Buffalo, NY?

Early in the project, I noticed week after week that I was digressing from my study question and focusing on another topic. I stopped myself and reminded myself that this study needs to be observational through the landscape. As a result I started outlining how I am going to present this project because I thought it would help guide me back on track; and so the outlining of my design thesis project began. I came up with two different ideas for my design thesis project. The past 5^th year seniors that I’ve spoken to had created a poster with some graphic representations and much text. For my design thesis project, I plan to not have much text at all. My first idea was to outline a different design thesis project and thought of developing a flip booklet. This booklet will be much of how my portfolio looks like, in which every sub question and study question will have its’ own page. I plan on having 85% graphic representation (mostly taken out of my project notebook) and the remainder 15% text (captions, titles, etc.)

Secondly, I was thinking of having a bi-fold graphic reproduction that will almost act as a poster inside a booklet. Once again, every sub question will have some sort of graphic representation to answer the study with minimum text. The design thesis project will contain many figure grounds, graphs, re-orienting relationships, and most importantly the answer to my study question. 

- Edward L