Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1984. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH. / This thesis studies the restructuring of a vacant parochial school in East Boston, Massachusetts, to 17 residential units of varying sizes. It formulates a process for dismantling the authoritarian imagery of the existing institutional structure and develops in its place a residential syntax compatible with the surrounding rowhouse neighborhood. This is accomplished by creating an additive fragmentary composition which implies continuity with the adjacent residential fabric. Further, the thesis addresses the need for major exterior intervention in building rehabilitation to establish a dialectical association between the buildings enclosing form and its redefined context. / by Peter Arthur Dubin. / M.Arch.

Thesis (B.Arch) -- Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1953. / GRSN 438671 / Accompanying drawings held by MIT Museum. / submitted by Hsio Wen Shih. / B.Arch

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 67-70). / This thesis examines the origins and the claims of the community architecture movement. Community architecture, which has recently attracted considerable professional attention in the U.K., is a movement that argues for the importance of user involvement in the design, construction. and management of the environment. Many theoreticians see the movement as a reaction to the disastrous failures of modern architecture and planning schemes. The important lesson that community architects claim to have learned from these failures is that participation is a better process than anticipation with regard to the users and their environmental needs. Definitions of community architecture are often vaguely delimited, and can encompass other activities such as community planning, community development. community technical aid, and community landscaping. This study presents a summary of the "new" techniques used by community architects, and then explores the nature of the claims that such practitioners have made. Using five well-publicized case studies of community architecture. the following three fundamental claims are evaluated: a) User participation leads to greater user satisfaction. b) User participation is more economical, at least in the long-term. c) User participation produces psychological and sociological benefits. There is a lack of definitive proof as to the superiority of the community architecture method, although the experience thus far suggest that the p~rticipatory approach produces environments of equal merit as the results of a high quality nonparticipatory process. Since it seems that the objective benefits of community architecture may not, by themselves, justify the extra initial cost of the practice, the question of political implications and appeal is explored. Concern for the survival and growth of the movement has led some advocates to claim that community architecture is apolitcial. but this myth is refuted here. Finally, an attempt is made to understand what elements of community architecture are applicable to the context of the United States, and what changes would be necessary for housing groups to allow for user participation in design. / by Neal J. Mongold. / M.S.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. Thesis. 1966. B.Arch. / Bibliography: leaves 96-107. / B.Arch.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1986. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH / Bibliography: leaves 159-189. / by Todd Lael Siler. / Ph.D.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2010. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 133-139). / The Gateway Arch in St. Louis was meant to commemorate the "opening" of the west and the possibilities of the frontier. Instead, the Arch marks its closure. Sited on the west bank of the Mississippi River, this conspicuous monument has occupied a peripheral, if any, position within architectural discourse. However, by the fact that this object provides a view towards the surrounding landscape, it serves as a central component for considering how conceptualization of the land in the United States has changed over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, or simply said, a vision of the landscape from a productive frontier to the consumptive domain. This thesis investigates the cognitive shifts in landscape visualization first as demonstrated by the national land survey, overland travel journals and pictorial depictions of the nineteenth century. These frontier images are then considered alongside those twentieth century representations that exhibited the completion of a systematized territory of an ideal future. The later representations found resonance in the regulation of actual views from the Gateway Arch. The analysis of these distinct forms of landscape visualization registers the larger changes in the characterization of capital in the United States. The Arch needs to be reconsidered in architectural discourse at large and more specifically through this thesis, as a productive insertion into the study of landscape to capital as it is manifest through visualization by the individual - be it the yeoman farmer or a major corporation. The intangibilities of history, landscape and capital are productively complicated when viewed from the Arch's observation deck. The view exhibited from the Gateway Arch exposes the closure of the landscape as a means to visualize potential and, as a result, closes the space of the frontier more successfully than prior attempts. / by Ash James Lettow. / S.M.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1995. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 71-73). / In Washington D.C., as in many other American cities, a significant section of the downtown is distinguished by boarded-up buildings and vacant lots. In spite of traces of a city plan that could organize and accommodate a variety of activities in the central core, downtown Washington is under used. The eastern section of the downtown, where the majority of decrepit buildings and vacant lots are located, is inhabited primarily by office-workers on weekdays and a small number of tourists on weekends. After working hours the area is virtually devoid of people. Currently there is very little housing downtown. Recently, however, three large mixed-use residential buildings have been constructed in the eastern portion of the downtown. These projects were developed by the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation (Pfc) as part of a comprehensive plan for the economic and physical revitalization of Pennsylvania Avenue and its environs. The popular success of these buildings shows that people in Washington are interested in living downtown. It is the premise of this thesis that introducing residential use to the downtown would improve the liveliness of the area which I believe is important for the future vitality of the city. But how should residential use be introduced to this area where large block-sized office buildings and federal institutions have transformed the previous pattern of blocks made up of smaller buildings and cut by alleys to admit light and access? The sizes and orientation appropriate for residential use are different from those suitable for commercial and institutional use . A problem with the PADC's approach to developing a residential presence downtown is that the blocks and building masses are treated in much the same way for residences as they are for commercial and institutional buildings. To include residential use in the commercial, monumental sector of the city requires a street and block pattern that can be adapted to accommodate large and small buildings. This pattern can be deployed to establish a finer-grained network of residential use within the structure of the commercial, monumental city. The result of this pattern would be an identifiable residential area supporting the physical and social needs of the residents. / by Robin P. Allen. / M.Arch.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 463-476). / This dissertation is a reassessment of Mamluk architecture and urbanism in Cairo, based on a detailed study of one of the more important elements in its urban fabric, the rab' or apartment building. This building type is investigated via its extant examples and the extensive archival collection from the Fatimid, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. The salient features of the rab' are identified, and its variations noted. The relation of the rab' to private dwellings is elucidated, and the changes that occurred in the residential architecture of Cairo from the early Fatimid through the Mamluk periods are presented. Its role in the urban fabric and in the patterns of pious endowments is analyzed through reconstructions based on waqf document. New information about Mamluk architecture and urbanism brought to light by the study of the rab' is used to reassess some of the more widely accepted characterizations of the Mamluk period. / by Hazem I. Sayed. / Ph.D.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 34). / A design thesis which proposes to create a new religious mall in the growing Texas suburb of Frisco: a design proposal for interfaith space conceived of as a 'marketplace of ideas' in which religions, religious businesses, and also secular businesses may come and go according to the demands of the market, and compete freely with one another for customers. / by Alexandra Telecky. / M.Arch.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 69-70). / The desire to understand art in a context outside of the interpretive control of the museum environment is implicit in much of the work of contemporary artists. The city offers an alternative environment in which art can be understood as a part of a larger social order and the vitality of our everyday lives. To think of the city as a museum context requires first an understanding of the city as a weaving of systems (of movement, of use, of information, etc.); and then an understanding of the city in terms of the range of experiential encounters it offers, i.e. green spaces, public plazas. narrow allies, waterfront edges, heavily inhabited districts, privacies, passageways, and so on. With an understanding of this framework, one can conceive of overlaying yet another layer of encounter which exists in simuItaneaity with the existing urban order, while at times clarifying it or offering alternative interpretations to how the city can be understood. This work will attempt to establish some criteria for such an institution, then use those criteria in the development of the design proposition. / by Roy C. Robinson, Jr. / M.Arch.