Thesis (M.Arch. and S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-214). / The thesis of the work is that statistical analysis can reliably measure individual preferences for different aspects of the built environment. These measurements can be used to understand and critique the effectiveness of existing neighborhoods in meeting the needs of residents, and to develop proposals for new neighborhoods. The research uses hedonic regression analysis to quantify the market value of specific attributes of housing quality, location and neighborhood at sites near Dallas, Texas. Measurements of location value in the form of travel-based rent gradients, proximity measures, and path characteristics are derived from these analyses. The research allows designs to be produced and critiqued with a better understanding of both homeowner preferences and market feasibility. It links the design process to a market-based feedback mechanism, and allows designers to make decisions that are more responsive to a project's social and economic site. / by Andrew Ross Miller. / M.Arch.and S.M.

Thesis: M. Arch., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 148-149). / In a fast-forwarded Brooklyn, the over-building of luxury towers leads to a real estate bubble burst. Waterfront rents stagnate, and entire buildings sit abandoned. In a city defined by divisions, a social movement emerges. An architect and her band of social subversives descend on an empty tower. They begin altering their living spaces with deviant acts of connection. United by an opposition to divisions, they wage a war on the party wall. The ideology of the existing plan is at odds with the ideology of its occupants. The plan relies on privacy and separation, leaving social programs near the street and far from everyday living spaces. The social subversives are wary of the intolerance produced by the echo chambers of their Twitter feeds and believe that home can be a space of resistance to neo-tribalism, if daily ritual is interrupted by interactions with the other. Their manifesto reads, "We aim to reveal, to conceal, to upend the everyday through a new set of architectural operations." The operations take on the redundancies of side-by-side private programs and elicit new types of social interaction. An opening in the wall above a dining room table, for example, allows neighbors to momentarily become company for a meal. The manipulation of the interior imbues the minutiae of domestic life with unexpected social forms. Over time, as markets shift and members of the group move on and out, the afterlives of these interventions vary. Some new neighbors accept them as idiosyncrasies of the city's housing stock. Most fight to undo them, but the acts have already been committed. However short-lived, they have already produced their intended effect, a disruption of the everyday. / by Kristina E. Eldrenkamp. / M. Arch.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2004. / Page 83 blank. / Includes bibliographical references. / Nature and Gnosticism are problematic terms. With the discovery of a library of so called heretical Gnostic texts in 1945, theologians, historians, and believers the world over have been exposed to Christian texts that call into question the liturgical lineage of the "one holy catholic and apostolic Church" and question the very biblical canon which informs almost all sects of Christianity. The texts in question span religious and cultural boundaries and give us a glimpse of a tradition, more mystical than political, that was lost to mainstream Western history and absorbed into the religions of the East. Understanding the term Nature require a form of extreme self-consciousness, what Peter Fritzell calls "a tolerance for ambiguity that is very difficult to sustain. It is, in essence, a dedication to paradox, and even an occasional delight in uncertainty, that can be extremely unsettling." This thesis proposes is a temple for gnosis in upper Manhattan that creates a space of meditation, reflection, and communion with the knowledge of God employing the theoretical ideas found in the "Gospel of Thomas". The site, located in Inwood Hill Park on the extreme northern end of the island of Manhattan. The park contains true virgin forestland, a salt marsh, Native American cave shelters, and a clandestine and pastoral aspect unknown in the City of New York. An opportunity exists in the lack of ecclesiastical and traditional continuity in the individual relationship to god in the Gnostic gospels, and the ambiguity inherent in the displaced historiography of the texts in question is used as the foundation from which to reform the idea of "church." / Andrew Todd Marcus. / M.Arch.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2009. / MIT Rotch Library copy: pages 13-93 bound upside-down. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-93). / The establishment of the United Nations' "permanent headquarters" in New York City was hailed as an epochal triumph: the era of post-war internationality- in terms of global politics and architectural modernism--was to be continuous and encompassing. Sixty years later, however, the UN's physical and governmental infrastructures find themselves desperately out-of-date and decreasingly relevant on the world scene; the decay of the original complex has necessitated a complete renovation, which is in turn an opportunity to rethink the architectural expression of international governance while recognizing and reinforcing the existing iconicity of the present structures. This thesis is a proposition to expand and reconfigure the UN (taking into account the increased prominence of Non-Governmental Organizations and decentralized agencies), ultimately reshaping its organizational apparatus as well as its urban identity. In reflecting on the UN as both site and subject, this project considers the realities of contemporary bureaucracy and reinterprets the tectonics and organistic rhetoric of the original complex's designers. / by James D. Graham. / M.Arch.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1984. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 93). / The motive behind this thesis is to attempt a solution to a particular, seemingly intractable urban architectural problem, and in the process generate technical innovations, architectural forms and methodological approaches which potentially can have more general application. The chosen site is a tangled intersection of expressways in the center of Boston. A plan is developed for the construction of a complex of new social spaces literally enveloping the expressway, incorporating the spaces above and below ramps and highway spans. There are two particular insights which infuse this project as a whole: The first is an understanding that the numerous negative characteristics imparted by urban traffic to their surroundings highways can be overcome through innovation. The second is that such spaces also have quite positive and unique properties which can be culled out and enhanced. Within the thesis, specific proposals are advanced for the mitigation of problems such as fumes, noise and vibrations; at the same time, there is a concerted effort to utilize the highway itself- the roof it provides, the erratic lighting, and other features-in such a way that it is integrated into the new structures and contributes both aesthetically and practically to their functions. / by Anita Bartholin Brandt. / M.Arch.

Thesis (B.Arch.) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture, 1957. / MIT copy bound with: A decorative art center for New York City / Peter Michael Bernholz. 1957. ACCOMPANYING drawings held by MIT Museum. / Includes bibliographies. / by Andrew S. Blackman. / B.Arch.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2016. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Page 101 blank. Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 99-[100]). / We are no longer satisfied with rapid prototyping machines! The new frontier in digital fabrication is the rapid prototyping of rapid prototyping machines. Using modular electronics and robotic parts, the essence of machine making now lies in part assembly. With the advancement of online education, how will schools teach part assembly? How will Makers share the knowledge of putting things together? Traditional assembly instructions designed with text, diagrams and images are often not effective in showing complex assembly motions, and are poorly adapted to large complex machines. Demonstration videos are expensive to produce, and they are limited to a single camera view. Put It Together is a new digital workflow that consists of two parts: (1) A CAD plugin that allows machine designers to easily create assembly animations, and (2) an interactive web player that allows novices to view the animation. Starting with a CAD model, designers can easily create and edit an animation using a visual graph. The software interprets the graph and creates a step-by-step 3D animation. Novices can view the animation using a web browser, interact with the viewing angle, and progress at their own pace. The web player was tested, developed, and evaluated through multiple workshops in which students learned machine assembly with successive versions of the player, and proved its value in an educational environment. Other potential applications of the Put It Together approach, beyond machine assembly, include self-assembled furniture, DIY projects and toys. / by Pok Yin Leung. / S.M.

Thesis: M. Arch., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2017. / This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. Page 97 blank. / Includes bibliographical references (page 96). / Unprecedented levels of migration, displacement, and expulsions mark the contemporary moment. With the increase of protracted conflicts and environmental crises, the numbers of displaced persons fleeing war, famine, disease, or poverty has now surpassed levels seen previously only after WWII. As the world urbanizes, rural populations are moving in greater numbers to cities and in the developed world, gentrification reshuffles historical settlement patterns. The spatial technologies that surround this mass movement of persons have been inadequately explored and represented. A new form of urbanism is emerging; not static cities of migration, but conduit cities of populations in motion. This new form of transient urbanism will not replace the static city. Instead it is superimposed upon the existing city, and emerging from its obsolete artifacts. The city of Athens, Greece, a gateway into Europe and confluence on the migrant route from the Middle East, is taken as a case study for architectural speculations into the ways transience alters the experience of cities. Athens poses numerous difficulties and opportunities as the state's ability to formulate meaningful action is challenged by the ongoing government-debt crisis which began in 2009. Another consequence of the crisis has been a hollowing out of the center of the city with vacant building stock increasing into the tens of thousands (Baboulias). This thesis takes the form of a manifesto that aims to replace the camp imaginary with correspondences from the transient city. The proposal projects not a utopian vision of the future but a provisional project already in the process of becoming. Drawing is used as a tool to heighten and amplify the transformations now underway. / by Grigori Enikolopov. / M. Arch.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [87]-[98]). / As designers have become more eloquent in the exploitation of the powerful yet generic calculating capabilities of the computer, contemporary architectural practice seems to have set its mind on creating a logic machine that designs from predetermined constraints. Generating form from mathematical formulae thus gives the design process a scientific twist that allows the design to present itself as the outcome to a rigorous and objective process. So far, several designer-computer relations have been explored. The common designer-computer models are often described as either pre-rational or post-rational. Yet another approach would be the irrational. The hypothesis is that the early design process is in need of the unexpected, rather than iron logic. This research investigated how the use of randomness as a generative principle could present the designer with a creative design environment. The analysis and reading of randomness in art and architecture production takes as examples works of art where the artist/designer saw uncertainty or unpredictability as an intricate part of the process. The selected works incorporate, mostly, an instigating and an interpreting party embedded in the making of the work. / (cont.) The negotiations of boundaries between both parties determine the development of the work. Crucial to the selected works of art was the rendering of control or choice from one party to another - whether human, machine or nature - being used as a generative principle. Jackson Pollock serves as the analog example of a scattered computation: an indefinite number of calculations, of which each has a degree of randomness, that relate in a rhizomic manner. Pollock responds to each of these outcomes, allowing the painting to form from intentions rather than expectations. This looking and acting aspect to Pollock's approach is illustrated in the Jackson Pollock shape grammar. Ultimately the investigation of randomness in art is translated to architecture by comparing the Pollock approach in his drip paintings to Greg Lynn's digital design process in the Port Authority Gateway project. In the Pollock approach to digital design agency is given to the tools at hand, yet at the same time, the sheer indefinite number of designer-system interactions allows the design to emerge out of that constructive dialogue in an intuitive manner. / by Kenny Verbeeck. / S.M.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-116). / In this study, we have examined the application of Lee analysis method to the construction and renovation stages of a building project. The application of the Lee analysis is currently limited to the very early stages of a project life, namely at the concept and design stages. We propose application of the Lee method, with several modifications, to the construction and renovation stages. The simplified Lee method is proposed and examined in the first two case studies. The simplified method limits the range and complexity of data inputs, and is intended to be an Lee used by engineers practicing in the construction industry. In the third case study, the "Lee per square-foot", which implements the concept of the "square-foot" cost estimating, is proposed. This method is intended to be used to assess the residual value and to estimate running costs of an existing building. Necessary modifications of the Lee, as well as the accuracy and limits of these new methods are examined through three case studies. / by Makoto Taneda. / M.S.