This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Thesis: M. Arch., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2019 / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 146-151). / In this thesis, a building is designed on a New York City-owned vacant lot in Harlem to serve homeless LGBTQ youth. The City of New York maintains the condition of vacancy scattered throughout the five boroughs where, The Department of Housing Preservation and Development owns over 1,300 empty lots. While these spaces may be viewed as real estate opportunities, approximately a quarter of them are undesirable for development due to their small, Old Law size (25' x 112'). Further, an examination of the history of these lots should resist a reductive response to simply build market-rate housing. The vacancies are the result of strategic disinvestment through redlining practices. Historically, this has disproportionately impacted low-wealth communities of color. Today, these urban voids maintain the memory of displacement and destruction among these communities. Undesirable to their families, thousands of LGBTQ youth find themselves living on the streets. While seven percent of youth identify as LGBTQ in New York City, this minority community makes up over forty percent of the homeless youth population. One response to this crisis by the queer community-specifically within house-ball subculture-is the creation of "houses" where chosen families are formed. In these social structures, "mothers" and "fathers" serve as guardians for their "children," taking care of them through the myriad challenges faced by youth who identify along the gender and sexuality spectra. This organization is paired with contemporary practices in youth homeless shelters to rethink supportive services and housing for homeless youth. Building Against Vacancy imagines an architecture that transforms undesirable lots into viable, vibrant spaces for non-dominant forms of culture, expression, and living. / by Joseph Michael Swerdlin. / M. Arch. / M.Arch. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture

This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. / Thesis: M. Arch., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2019 / Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 102). / Staying alone has been a new living style in densely populated cities like Tokyo. The declining birth rate and marriage rate ignite the "low desire society" that Japan has entered into. When the economy is in stagnation, young people are submissive to what they have and decide to "live in the moment", instead of pursuing a brighter future which is still unknown. More and more Japanese people choose to live single lives. Services for one person such as single-seat restaurants, absolute-quiet cafe, personal entertainment rooms, single wedding and renting relationships have been emerging. Privacy and independence have been main considerations for people who enjoy solitary. "Oneness" has become an initiative to face the uncertainty of life. This thesis is a discussion about the architectural response for people who seek the refugee place for themselves in Tokyo. It is trying to provide a new typology of living and focus on the mundane and daily life. Instead of being a practical machine, a city designed for loneliness with both freedom and restrictions could be a possible state of future. Places designed as "little but certain happiness" will provide the answer for people who focus on the minor satisfaction in their ordinary life. / by Yifen Zhong. / M. Arch. / M.Arch. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1983. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND ROTCH / Includes bibliographical references. / This Thesis deals with capital project formulation in developing countries. The objective is to provide guidelines for the formulation of housing development projects, their implementation structures and financial plans in order to improve the project cycle. This work has been divided into four sections. The sections are complementary, although each is addressed to a specific set of issues. The result of this Thesis is the formulation of a project proposal in the Republic Of South Africa. Chapter 1: Alternative Modes of Development Institutional Analyses and Case Examples housing and settlement alternatives, and appropriate financing instruments most applicable to the modes. This section covers site and service development. Discussion concentrates on analysis of the principles behind the formulation of Institutional capacity to mobilize savings in low income housing development. Chapter 2: The Role of Housing In Economic Development discusses housing as a capital investment. This section encourages the development of a sound financial infrastructure in support of housing development in developing economies. The detailed discussion of the technical aspects relating to the creation of viable financial institutions in support of housing is discussed in Chapter 1. Chapter 3: Financing and Implementation - The Project Cycle and Case Studies provides a detailed analysis of the policies, actions and plans of three agencies typically involved in the formulation of capital development projects. This section covers how these agencies carry out their activities . The identification, preparation, appraisal and supervision of projects for economic development, particularly low income housing projects in developing countries. Chapter 4: Project Edendale - KwaZulu: Republic of South Africa provides a project proposal as formulated by the author using the guidelines set out in the preceding text as reference material and with the aid of data collected in the field survey in 1900. A project program formulation format, the results of the analyses of the case studies forms the framework for the approach to the presentation of the model. Chapter 5: Case Studies Provides references for the model presented in Chapter 4 This section covers: two existing case studies, a World Bank Project, and a project formulated by an independent group of consultants for a government agency; the analysis of the financial plan and implementation structures, evaluations, and recommendations. / by Trevor Paul Davis. / M.S.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture and Planning, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (v. 1, leaves 157-164). / This dissertation proposes to study how the commission and design of minor palaces contribute to the understanding of architectural practice in early 16th century Italy. The particular nature of the small urban palace as a reduced and less expensive version of larger palaces and its recurrent nature in the practice of architects malke this type of building very important in illustrating the changes in the profeSSion at that time. Minor palace commissions also show architects dealing with a growing private market for the exercise of the profession: in Rome, the architect's clients belong to a lesser nobility composed of merchants and professional men (doctors, lawyers, notaries, artists, diplomats, bureaucrats) mostly connected to the Papal civil service. Moreover, the planning of these buildings manifest the increasing specialization of the profession at that time, when expertise in Ancient Roman architecture and the mastering of new instruments of representation (orthogonal projection, perspective, sketches) were added to the usual technical and artistic skills required of an architect. The dissertation focus on how architects define a planning procedure to cope with the new set of circumstances related to the commission of a minor palace (budget, site, program, recurrence). The design of a palace comprised different functions arranged in horizontal sequence with a few vertical connections; therefore, drawings of plans were the central instrument of their design. The dissertation is primarily based on the study of original plans that illustrate the working methods of 16th century Italian architects. Three of them were chosen (Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, Baldassare Peruzzi and Andrea Palladio) based on their activity as ~esigners of minor palaces and the existence of a substantial amount of plans for this kind of building by them. A second part of this work presents a general view of the working procedures employed by these three architects in commissions of minor palaces. Through the study of their drawings and planning procedures, this dissertation intends to illustrate the establishment of the modern sense of architectural practice in 16th century Italy as shown through the design of minor palaces. / by Caludio C. Pereira. / Ph.D.

This dissertation traces the development of the architecture of Key West, Florida, from 1821 to 1912. Located on a small island lying midway between the southern tip of the Florida peninsula and Havana, Cuba, Key West seemed an unlikely candidate for becoming a major city when founded by American settlers shortly after Spain ceded Florida to the United States. However, a unique combination of geographical and historical circumstances made Key West of strategic importance both militarily and economically. / Historical developments eventually led Key West to become a cigar manufacturing and sponge fishing center with a population of 20,000 persons. The city's era of prosperity ended when those industries moved to new urban areas in Florida and brought further construction on the island to a halt. The decades of economic stagnation that followed helped preserve the approximately 3,000 pre-1912 buildings that today are found in Key West's Old Town. This study investigates the origins of the historic built environment and attempts to discover those forces that assured its preservation. / Although influenced by the pervasive romantic and revival movements that shaped American architecture in the nineteenth century, the overall context of the historic built environment of Key West is one of wood frame vernacular construction. To some degree the character of the architecture of Old Town reflects an adaptation to the peculiarities of the climate and topography of the island of Key West, but it also expresses the extent to which the citizens of the community were subject to transient economic influences, the benefits of which accrued to absentee entrepreneurs having no interest in the long-term welfare of the populace. / A wide variety of written and visual resources are examined to determine the physical appearance and density of development of the built environment at significant points in the island's history. These are analyzed against records showing the growth of Key West's various ethnic groups to determine what role they played, if any, in determining the character of the historic architecture of Old Town. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 48-03, Section: A, page: 0494. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1987.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 38-04, Section: A, page: 1705. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1976.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 36-12, Section: A, page: 7693. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1975.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2008. / Leaf 58 blank. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 54-55). / The goal of this document is to outline the trajectory in which I have been working the past several years. I would like to comment and detail the production of several projects, including Site Nine: Indefensible Structures, Text 11: Site Translations, Study For Casablanca: Maps For Access And Improvised Housing, and Lavon, Texas - Levittown, New York. The reach of the projects, and it is perpetually adaptive to new concerns, is not to assign a space between art, architecture, and planning. Even though there is certainly space which the works will invoke between these areas. This document and the projects would question why there should be such a space and what it could achieve. It may be possible to see at such a point that assigning nomenclature can be considered a quick task and the value is the content of a word, not by the name by which it is called. This is not to say meaning and context cannot be derived from the title of disciplines or fields, they in fact provide considerable insight. The aforementioned projects, and those to follow, would look into the social climates of a location and only after considerations of the political, economic, and communicative indicators, courses of intervention would be developed. I would like to note, ever more in the continuation of these works, the implementation of intervention becomes less so. The projects, in chronology, quietly move from methods of production to methods of research. This was due to an increasing appeal to the cultural sensitivity of any and all methods of production, in both domestic and foreign capacities. / by Edgar Pedroza. / S.M.

Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2008. / "June 2008." / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-146). / The aim of this dissertation is to measure the impact of workspace architectural design on the value it generates for tenant organizations in terms of, without loss of generality, strengthening organizational identity and communication - two critical productivity factors. The hypothesis, then, is that there is a measurable correlation between workspace architectural design and organizational identity and communication and, in turn, productivity (ICP). To elucidate this correlation, a set of architectural design variables that can measure ICP in a replicable manner is identified and structured. Observations, interviews and survey instruments are used to construct the "Workspace Communication Suitability Index" (WOCSIT). In constructing the index, a set of diagnostic tools were designed to collect reliable field data while remaining mindful of confounding factors such as facility users' adaptable nature of behavior, culture, irrationality etc. Each index component, an architectural design variable, assumes a suitability rating as a result of subjective assessment of what range of values is acceptable for it to be "suitable" or relevant to ICP. Evaluation schemata, scoring devices derived from the index, can then be used to generate scores for different workspace artifacts and can either evaluate the design of existing composite artifacts - workspaces or guide the creation of new ones. Wider adoption of the index in the professional world can influence all phases of the building design and management process, helping identify areas of possible intervention in the physical environment that improve performance in the design and planning of new and existing buildings. / (cont.) Thus, the predictive accuracy of the index can be the foundation for design guidelines that can be embedded in immediate interventions and, over time, in best practices used by workspace architects from the very early stages in the design process. / by Konstantinos Tsakonas. / S.M.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2009. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 74-75). / Conceptually re-defining the role of a 100-year-old waterfront brick and timber warehouse structure, it is turned inside-out : interior becomes path. Programmatic functions imitate the physical characteristics of a conceptual dichotomy set in motion by the creation of two sides to the 'path'. Program ranges from flexible and transitional to static and massive, and is laid out laterally along the proposed line. Specific program elements become, relatively, physical archive and digital exhibition space. Denying the over-preserved role of distinct and bound artifact, the old structure attempts animation. The structural patterns of the original warehouse form the armature (interior grid) against which differences are registered. There is no longer bounding geometry but an interplay of landscape and transitional spaces - this is not a 'marker' or symbolic monument but a reconciliation between monumental artifact, material memory, and pattern via path. Traditionally static boundaries are re-interpreted as inverted and fluctuating zones that provide for new forms of spatial, programmatic, and aesthetic engagement. / by Sarah Rundquist Reeves. / M.Arch.