Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [58]-[61]). / The participation of women in the building sector is an exception rather than a rule. Inmost countries of the world the building industry is almost exclusively the domain of men. In India a large number of women are actively involved in the construction process itself. According to 1993-94 Statistics, the construction sector in India provided employment to 6% (5.9 million) of all employed women, constituting about 20% of the total workers in the industry. In spite of their large numbers, women construction workers are seen as secondary/ temporary workers with seldom any opportunities for training, upward mobility, wage guarantees, fringe benefits or social protections. My research has been an exploration and an inquiry of this widely observed phenomena of women construction workers and how it operates from the perspectives of the various role players in the industry, namely, the workers, contractors, intermediaries etc. The purpose is to map the existing know ledge base on the role of women workers and to identify from this mapping key issues that need to be critically examined if opportunities for women in the industry are to be enhanced. The idea has been to make vivid the experience that women have on a construction site and draw from their account implications, issues and problems that one needs to address while formulating a public policy and modifying the practice. The construction industry remains one of the least researched industries in India. There is very little research published or reliable data on numbers, working and socio-economic conditions and the position of women workers within the construction industry. Through my research I attempt to create a knowledge base and fill the lacuna in the existing literature on the subject and contribute towards a "different" understanding of the role of women workers in the construction industry. / by Sabina Suri. / S.M.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 140-142). / The trends and preferences explored in this work indicate that the "American Dream" of a single-family detached house is still the preferred housing model. In-order to achieve this goal most home buyers will have to accept a transformed version of this model in the form of small lot housin~. The housing industry on the other hand, must be very creative and innovative to incorporate the housing trends and preferences into designs that are both affordable and still recognizable as the all American single-family detached house. The breakdown of a dwelling into Sub-Systems (Shell/Infill) that is explored in this work introduces a hierarchy of SubSystems that is based on the concept of control and variety. In American society it is the aspect of variety rather than control that is stressed as the dominant factor. In today's technology, and design approach it is often only the furniture that is easily adaptable to user needs. All other Sub-Systems once installed, are difficult to change or to separate. The Shell/Infill Sub-Systems concept as applied in this work makes it possible for the house to be much more adaptable. The implementation of the Sub-Systems concept would allow the developer /builder to provide the variety and diversity the market expects on a customized bases. It would also make it possible to respond to shifts in demographic and housing demands. / by Heinrich Kuhn. / M.S.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. Thesis. 1968. M.Arch. / Bibliography: leaves 36-37. / M.Arch.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2013. / 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. Pages 172 and 173 blank. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 166-171). / Housing today has little do with architecture. Design is a currency of services, while housing today is intensively packaged as a consumer good. It is packaged with land as speculative real-estate, and bundled abstractly into mortgage-backed securities for trade in global investment markets. Both strategies allow people of ordinary means to assume it's monumental cost. Because so very few can buy housing outright, it is built by debt and for debt. This thesis proposes an alternative, in which the critical role of mortgage-financing is directly supplanted by a new set of incremental residential design services. It proposes that middle and low income housing can be not only paid for, but also designed and built during occupancy. Proposed as the centerpiece of a new mode of professional architectural practice, this flexible timeline facilitates reconsideration of housing's materials, labor logistics, and constructional methodologies. The same timeline can accommodate its individual owners' changing needs throughout a progressively tailored and domestically integrated process. Though rental markets may fluctuate, credit scores plummet, mortgage qualifications creep, and income-inequality may intensify, incremental design services can pin the production of housing to that irrespectively distributed and far more egalitarian commodity of time. Given more or less time, these can serve both middle and low income households at equal and unsubsidized standards. The structure of this thesis first elaborates and quantifies the underlying need and argument for designed incremental housing in the United States. It then explores the enabling strategies, attitudes, and issues that arise surrounding three distinct design exercises. These each comprise an approximately eighty thousand dollar magnitude of cash expense, but diverge in value by articulating design logistics as a parallel currency. They are respectively urban, suburban, and rural in setting. They are tailored to a plausibly fictitious clientele of respectively high, middle, and low incomes, and so adopting HUD's definition of affordable housing costs as 30% or less of household income, are conducted in the course of three, six, and twelve years respectively. Their single and central commonality is a complete prohibition of paper debt. / by Christopher M. Miller. / M.Arch.

Thesis: S.B., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 30). / This thesis seeks to re-establish the necessity for specialized, figured spaces. Through the lens of the domestic sphere, the rooms become chambers of reflection, contemplation, and intimacy. The architecture is inspired by spatial hierarchies of carving, that is to say, labyrinthine undergrounds that are highly articulated through figure, and represent a sacred procession, a ritual, a journey. Historically, this introduces the spatial organizations of the Danteum, and of Peter Eisenman's house studies. The architecture is always reflective of an enfilade of discrete elements, highly idiosyncratic and articulated to show what lies within. The architecture is localized and intimate. The spatial reading of the space is to be recognized as being within a family of discrete figures, each one serving their inhabitants differently. This thesis is a counterargument to flexibility, as it stands rigidly within a grid, carved from the immaterial, an object in itself. Yet to preserve the sacred thresholds of each room, there are hints of animation, placements of objects that seemingly are derived from the will of the character. It is in this way that architecture informs space typologies, how life can be situated within figures as a microcosm, seemingly localized. / by Francesca Perone. / S.B.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 79). / This Thesis deals with the understanding of the essence of sacred object and sacred space as related to the way they are composed and perceived as sequences of intersecting architectural motifs. The design project is a sacred community for religious living amidst a secular urban context - a home for a group of eight monks from the Monastery of Sainte Marie de La Tourette, representing the Dominican Order in the small town of Croix en Touraine in the Loire Valley of France. The Project is approached through a continuous dialogue between the architecture of the Convent of Sainte Marie de La Tourette and this new convent. This process aims at the thorough study, understanding and use of this precedent, not simply as a reference, but as a strategic architectural palette for the development of the new design. The purpose is a) the discovery and study of architectonic contradictions used in the design of this unique sacred community, and b) their use for the creation of the new design. / by Evangelos Limpantoudis. / M.Arch.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-104). / This thesis is based on the premise that a need exists for the densification of our existing urban centers. The investigation then becomes how to put more stuff in less space. The objective, however, is not a technical optimization exercise, but rather the pursuit of a palatable set of ideas that enable densification. This presupposes an essential net gain from the trading of personal space for 'architectural value.' Consequently, the thesis is a quest for alternate processes that will lead to unconventional built form. The project outlines a set of episodes that attempt to abstract or develop criteria that can then be executed in the creation of more compact and rewarding environments. Each episode has its own focus and a limited dependency on the criteria of the others. / M.Arch.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture. Thesis. 1971. B.Arch. / Bibliography: leaves 65-68. / B.Arch.

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, February 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 66-68). / The purpose of this research is three-fold: (1) This thesis seeks to uncover evidence of a distinctly African-American architectural form. The primary building type observed will be the house, or the housing of African-Americans that was built by and for African-Americans. Because the greatest numbers of black people have resided in the southern United States throughout American history, most of the study will deal with the houses of blacks in that region. The position taken is that the house is a form of physical and spiritual self-expression. Simply stated, the study seeks to discover what it is about these houses that are of and by black folk that renders them peculiarly African-American. (2) This paper will document the works of some lesser known black builders of the American past, particularly in the Southeast following the Civil War. The objective will be to look for the possible visible signs of the transmittal of material culture in order to find if there is a uniquely African-American built form in existence today, or if, in fact, one has ever existed. It will look primarily at the houses executed by these people, and develop what is hoped will be a significant body of knowledge that will aid in the future study of this and other similar subjects. (3) This thesis seeks to answer a question very basic to my own personal and continuing involvement in the study of architecture, urban design, historic preservation, and African-American history: What are the determinants of an African-American architecture? In order to make a case for a truly African-American architectural form, those factors that could bear directly upon its formulation must be known and described. A major portion of this argument is devoted to just such knowledge and description. / by Charles Edward Clarke. / M.S.

Thesis (M.S.V.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1988. / Original 3/4 in. U-MATIC videocassette recopied onto 1/2 in. VHS. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 136-138). / by Karim Ajania. / M.S.V.S.