Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1988. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 166-167). / This thesis is both text and illustration to describe the process of transforming a state mental institution from an outdated, outmoded, conventional hospital into a living community. The goal of the project is to develop an institution not restricted by rigid forms or designs - a flexible, responsive environment of the type required by rehabilitation therapies and medical practices that are constantly evolving. Emphasis is placed on environmental factors that impact the personal daily life on campus, including facilities for work, communication, learning, recreation, and enjoyment of the wider landscape environment The project is to transform Metropolitan State Hospital in Belmont, a Boston suburb, into a therapeutic transitional and educational community. This work is a diary from a journey of discovery through moral, political, and economic territory. It is a guidebook to help in the process of architectural form making. The images are suggestions and questions. / by Sterling James McMurrin. / M.Arch.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, February 2015. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 391-422). / This dissertation examines a period in the late twentieth century when architectural drawings provoked a profound re-evaluation of architecture. It does so through novel research of the individuals, galleries, institutions, and events-and the networks that originated therefrom-that drove this reappraisal by shifting the perception of architectural drawings. During the 1970s and 1980s, for the first time, architectural drawings became more than an instrument for building. Prior to this period, except for scattered instances, buildings were considered to be the goal of architectural practice; architectural drawings were viewed simply as a means to an end. However, through a confluence of factors architectural drawings emerged from this marginal role. Drawings attained autonomy from the architectural process and were ultimately perceived as aesthetic artifacts in and of themselves. No attention has been given to this shift, and recovering this period's forgotten history reveals a rich and complex tapestry. Research unearths interrelated individuals, galleries, institutions, and events outside of practice that impacted the perception of architectural drawings during this period. This reveals the uniqueness of this period, for at no other time was debate generated in the same way, since at no other time did the necessary structures exist to support this change. During this period, architectural drawings became the driving force of architectural debate, not for what architects put in them, but for what others asked them to be and saw in them. Through exhibitions that emphasized drawings in and of themselves, through collectors and galleries, through the development of a market for architectural drawings, and through the interrelation of these, all of which this work reconstructs for the first time, the role and perception of drawings fell between and among aesthetic, artistic, architectural, commercial, conceptual, cultural, and historical understandings. It was this shifting that drove questioning during this period of nearly all facets of architecture. / by Jordan Scott Kauffman. / Ph. D.

Thesis: S.M. in Architecture Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 134-135). / Modern Chinese university campuses have traditionally been planned as walled enclosures, according to the danwei system (Bray, 2005). In 2016, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, jointly with the State Council, passed the "Opinions on Strengthening the Management of Urban and Planning Construction", which states that all existing gated compound units must be gradually planned with open boundaries. Taking this new policy into account, this thesis rethinks urban design strategies for campuses, which are commonly gated due to social, economic, and historical factors in metropolitan areas of China. This thesis investigates the relationship between university campus and city by examining a campus's design principles with the example of South China Normal University. After three decades of rapid urbanization, China has now entered a stage of urbanization where pre-planned walled urban enclosures do not provide adequate amenities within, and are too segregated from one another. Among gated communities, campuses have great potential and obligation to be transformed into open street blocks given their strategic locations, educational and entrepreneurial resources and facilities. This thesis questions the wall in two ways: 1) morphological analysis of walled cities where walls have been transformed and 2) an examination of architectures within the campus that interrogates the boundness. The proposal will utilize the strategy abstracted from these two studies into the setting of South China Normal University. This thesis is a composited research and design study of the policy, comparative examples, campus case study, concepts, tools and synthesis to use them. It begins from the gated community opening up policy as an opportunity to discuss the meaning of danwei mode's walls in the new stage of China's urbanization. Through a comparative study of walled enclosures and their approaches toward wall, this thesis also provides a broad review of the role of walls in the long process of urbanization. The following part conducts a case study of the university agglomeration in Guangzhou where danwei generally remains its original form based on its partition wall. Conceiving the danwei and residential compounds as a series of urban patchworks, this thesis establishes the concept of conduit, a framework of strategies that try to decompose, condense and diversify the mono-functional partition. Afterwards, several tools and strategies have been created to implement the concept based on aforementioned campus case study, literally transforming the wall. Figuratively, thesis demonstrates the way to use the tools and strategies by three syntheses based on the setting of South China Normal University. Eventually, the thesis summarizes the methods and procedures for academic campus units to transform their walls to accommodate new urban needs. / by Xiang Xu. / S.M. in Architecture Studies

Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 90-91). / This thesis focuses on the understanding and representation of an urban fabric. This document is not a historical essay nor a thematical critique of the design of an architectural form but an analysis and an attempt to understand the vernacular, the evolution and transformation of San Antonio, Texas. The objective is to develop an analytical process for the understanding of place and its architectural characteristics. A framework is developed for design guidelines based on observations of the shared language of the urban structure in San Antonio and suggest guidelines that can provide the transformation and inhabitation of a place This thesis concentrates on the central and surrounding areas of the "Paseo del Rio" in downtown San Antonio. The method of research consists of information gathered through direct observations in search of morphological commonalities in San Antonio. Further, the effects of the Nineteenth Century interventions on the Eighteenth Century urban fabric is observed as well as how this transformation of the urban fabric can serve as the framework for the development of the northeast End of downtown San Antonio. This framework offers a basis for physical continuity in the change and growth of the Northeast End of San Antonio and for the understanding of its cultural characteristics and regional identity. San Antonio's urban fabric follows a non-linear process. This non-linear process is expressed through the process of cyclic observation according to the following points: 1) Gathering; 2) Prioritizing; 3) Evaluating; 4) Organizing; and 5) Presenting. This process will in turn, develop a set of controls of the urban fabric that can be used for possible implementation Even though there are a variety of Forces that influence the success or failure of urban forms such as, market forces, economic fluctuations and political issues, this thesis and sets of controls emphasize only the understanding of physical and spatial characteristics within the urban fabric. This document develops an understanding of the design thought process and a possible "general" that an architect can continuously build upon throughout ones profession. This document questions the validity of the thought process and the power of an analytical and theoretical methodology. It provides an organizational possibility, in the architectural umbrella , that allows the transition from the conceptual to the built form. Since San Antonio is currently in the process of redeveloping the Northeast End of the City, this document can serve as a framework for the unformulated set of conventions and characteristics of the urban fabric that has given San Antonio its romance and charm. / by Alejandro Colom. / M.S.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 69-70). / In large urban community, infrastructures play a vital role in the daily life of the city. The contemporary development of these systems can be seen as an overlay of several networks which form the infrastructure of the city. Such developments often enhance the discontinuity and fragmentation of the urban fabric, and create isolated areas between themselves. This thesis explores a design process that integrates the linear configuration of infrastructure as it manifests itself in a single-purposed function into a series of architectural events. An Art and Media Technology Center for Boston University will be designed at an intersection of a highway, a railroad and a bridge. The project will provide an opportunity to re-exam the nature and limits of the site, first, as an integrated part of the city and second, as a setting for human activities. Therefore, the center is not understood as an isolated building but as an architectural expression that would reinforce the notion of movement and necessity as the highway, the railroad and the bridge that form the place itself. / by Michael Mai Lo. / M.Arch.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 99-101). / Currently the waterfront of Brooklyn N.Y. between the Gowanus Canal of Redhook and the Newton Creek of Greenpoint is predominantly lined with various types of industrial and manufacturing uses. Scattered throughout are abandoned warehouses, industrial buildings, empty fenced off lots, and dilapidated piers. Occasionally there exists a publicly accessible edge or a inhabited waterfront. Most if not all of the adjacent communities have lost their historic connection with the edge and waterfront. Greenpoint is an active community which suffers from an industrial abandoned waterfront. This investigation is attempting to prove that the lost connection between the community of Greenpoint and its waterfront can be reclaimed through building a physical exchange between water and earth. / by Rodney P. Ziesemann. / M.Arch.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1959. / Alan Cooper. / M.Arch.

Thesis (M.Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 69). / Many cities struggle to compete for revenue and the promise of future growth by building new entertainment complexes downtown, and in doing so make spatial compromises in the effort to get ahead. Urban Competition should be used to its fullest urban and architectural advantage in order to best serve a city's multiple publics. Memphis, a city with a rich cultural heritage, has recently decided to build a new indoor NBA basketball arena. As its design suggests, this big-box facility will fall short in its potential for invigorating downtown spaces and will result in a loss of public memory. The publicly-funded and privately-owned arena will be largely inaccessible to the taxpayers who have chosen to fund it. Here, an alternate proposal for a downtown sports arena includes an urban strategy, the reconfiguration of a sports arena seating bowl, two mixed-use buildings, a sports and entertainment building, and an open-air public space that enriches public memory of the site. Such a design draws upon a city's history while taking advantage of opportunities for urban growth. / by Belinda Sue Valenti. / M.Arch.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1991. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 70-71). / This thesis is a proposal to create ''The Image of a City: A Place for the People." The study begins by exploring the notion of an image, studying the various images that may already exist, and creating a place from the chosen image or images that becomes a recognizable symbol of the city. Images of a place are the impressions of specific objects left with the individuals who visit it, live in it, or see it in pictures. I asked people about their images of different cities and most of the answers were built structures; therefore, architectural features play an important role in defining the image of a place. If the images of places are structures, what is the built image of Boston? It became evident that Boston does not have one clear specific built image. This thesis will develop a built form for the city of Boston. The site for the development of the image of Boston is Central Wharf, located on the waterfront. Images are open to personal interpretation and the success of this design is in one's ability to associate the design to the intended image. The design is successful if it is suited to the location and one can comfortably associate the image. Because the built image of the city is an image for the people, the built image must also be a place for the people. It is people that make a place and the formal design decisions of a place can create the impressions and images of a city. / by Loren Wolstein Stein. / M.Arch.

Thesis (M. Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1989. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 29). / This thesis deals with the design of a large hotel with modern facilities in Suzhou, China, using a reinterpretation of traditional Chinese architecture. This was approached by analyzing the city fabric in Old Suzhou, isolating several characteristics in terms of ordering, spatial definitions, architectural experience and quality of space, and transforming an existing system to become a new. / by Yuri Kinoshita. / M.Arch.