Contemporary urban frontiers

This thesis is a provocation; to the profession of architecture at large and every person who reads it. In reading this work, the manner in which our profession functions in society should be questioned. Architecture affords us the opportunity to conceive beyond the confines of formal design, tectonics, and technology. In it we may find the ability to significantly engage with culture, to comment, and to influence change. If we neglect this capacity, we are assured to continue on the path of a formalistic tradition set before us by so many others. This thesis studies the benign, the ubiquitous; considers it as a vehicle of change. In doing this, an alternative to the prevalent stylistic driven methodology of architecture is presented. The typology of retail presents itself as a beginning, a gestation point from which a new mode for consideration of design is born. Discovered is a new trajectory of thought, one capable of taking a common cultural circumstance and re-conceptualizing it as social progress. In this, a new paradigm for architecture is conceived. One less concerned with how something is made or what it represents, and more concerned with what architecture may accomplish on a variety of scales; from the individual, to the community, to culture as a whole.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2006

Author dc:creator

• Powell, Michael R. (Michael Randall)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ann Pendleton-Jullian.

• Architecture.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/34417

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34417