2015 Thesis Projects | MIT Architecture

REVIEW SPRING 2015

MIT Department of Architecture

Massachusetts Institute of Technology Department of Architecture 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 7-337 Cambridge, MA USA 02139 617 253 7791 / arch@mit.edu architecture.mit.edu

BSA

SMArchS

The senior thesis in the Bachelor of Science in Architecture program is optional and intended for students who wish to culminate their education with a challenge that demands advanced work and rewards them with portfolio material, research documents, and developed viewpoints on a topic of importance.

The Master of Science in Architecture Studies, a two-year program of advanced study beyond the first professional degree in architecture, is founded on research and inquiry into contemporary problems of architectural design and practice in the US and around the world. The program reflects the idea that architecture and its ancillary disciplines are not just professional pursuits but also fields of knowledge and inquiry.

The SMArchS program at MIT is administered through six ‘areas of study’ reflecting the different disciplines taught within the Department of Architecture: Architectural Design; Architecture & Urbanism; Building Technology; Computation; History, Theory & Criticism of Architecture and Art; and the Aga Khan Program in Islamic Architecture.

Over the years, the challenge has always been to see if the work of SMArchS students could be more than MIT’s many and varied intellectual parts. The best SMArchS work is synthetic, drawing from the many fields of high specialization that MIT offers. In addition, thesis work is often more than that, true occasions for intellectual invention and surprise beyond disciplinary boundaries. For many students, this work will define their subsequent careers, offering them, in their future challenges, a beacon and inspiration to steer by even as they break new ground in situations that we can perhaps today only dimly imagine.

MArch The Master of Architecture program culminates in a thesis project. Under the guidance of thesis advisors, students conduct independent research and architectural design over the course of two semesters. Launched through an intense and often obsessive consideration of disciplinary concerns and the consideration of architecture’s effects in the contemporary world, each thesis ultimately delimits an area of architectural thinking and practice. By the final presentation most projects strike a specific conversation between these two poles of discourse: disciplinary history on one end and the contemporary world on the other, producing a highly varied collection of inquiries, proposals, and even genres of project. The primary objective of all MIT MArch thesis projects is to refine and expand the fields of architectural discourse and practice, and to seed, or at a minimum, to test, a possible trajectory both for architecture and for a generation of young architects who with their theses projects cross over into their professional careers as architects.

Table of Contents

BSA

Aurimas Bukauskas Brianna Coston Anna Kaertner Stella Seojin Kim Tiandra Ray

02 03 04 05 06

MArch Barry Beagen Claudia Bode Christopher Mackey

08 09 10

SMArchS Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture 12 13

Architectural Design

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15 16

Building Technology Jeff Geisinger Madeline Gradillas

Paloma Gonzalez Rojas Michael Kirschner Dimitrios Mairopoulos Carrie McKnelly Diego Pinochet Yaniv Turgeman

17 18 19 20 21 22

History, Theory, and Criticism Nushelle de Silva Nathan Friedman

23 24

Urbanism

Chantal El Hayek

Allison James

Nazareth Ekmekjian

Computation

Chaewon Ahn

George Beane

David Birge

Naichun Chen

Agustina González Cid

Gabriel Kozlowski Wenji Ma

Ariel Noyman

Manos Saratsis

Kairav Shroff

Difei Xu

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

Notes 36 See inside cover for Advisors & Readers.

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Whole-Timber Structural Systems: Naturally-Engineered High-Performance Structures Aurimas Bukauskas Advisor: Caitlin Mueller, Readers: Chris Dewart, Corentin Fivet

Whole-timber is stronger per unit weight and requires less energy to produce than conventional dimensioned lumber. When combined into efficient structural configurations and joined using specially engineered connections, whole-section timber and bamboo (WSTB) have the potential to replace entire steel and concrete structural systems in large-scale buildings, bridges, and infrastructure. Providing a more balanced relationship with our forests while requiring minimal industrial processing, WSTB may be the most appropriate structural solution for a low-carbon, fully renewable future in both developed temperate regions and the developing Global South.

Below, Full-Scale Prototype of Compound Column in Whole-Timber

Note: Review will be in the N51 Woodshop.

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Above, Compound Column Grid Supporting Floor Slab or Roof

Comfort Analysis of Differences in Classroom Designs between Socioeconomic Statuses Brianna Coston Advisor: Les Norford

This thesis looks into the history of school design in America and how it has changed through the years. It also serves to analyze these changes within schools of different socioeconomic backgrounds in the East County region of San Diego, California.

Within the last seventy-five years, the ideals behind school design have changed greatly. About 60-75 years ago, schools with an open floor plan were the brightest and newest thing. However these designs were not optimal for student learning and were phased out by the 1990s.

When these designs were phased out, it resulted in a lot of new schools or school renovations occurring. These renovations were more difficult to ascertain in areas of lower socioeconomic standing and many times these schools had temporary fixes that never had a permanent fix done. The areas with high socioeconomic standings had no difficulty getting the renovations necessary.

This thesis looks into a few schools in a school district in San Diego that come from these lower socioeconomic regions and poses a potential fix for them. Upon visits to these schools, lighting and acoustic measurements were taken and compared in order to create one facet of the proposal.

The other facet of the proposal comes in the form of input and feedback from site principals during these visits.

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Architecture as Mediator: A Revision of the 'Tower in the Park' to Promote and Activate Interaction between Social Classes Anna Kaertner Advisor: Miho Mazereeuw

The next Olympic games will be hosted in Rio de Janeiro in the summer of 2016.

While the Olympic committee advertises the event as the “games for everyone�, the plans are clearly promoting development and programs that are disproportionately aimed at the wealthy. This has been the course in all cities that have hosted the Olympics but it is something especially detrimental in Rio. The rich have largely walled themselves off from the city within their gated communities and the poor are relegated to building on top of each other. This creates a spacial paradigm with relatively little in between.

This thesis seeks to use the Olympics as an opportunity to begin reversing the spatial segregation between the wealthy and the 4

poor within the city by proposing an intervention in the Olympic Village. The village is planned to become a gated community after the games; this thesis redesigns its afterlife to be a mixed-income community. The project provides an architectural plug-in that activates the ground plane between the residential towers to promote interaction between different socio-economic groups.

While not forcing interaction, the programs and architectural landscape of the community present obstacles that provoke interaction. This architectural plug-in can become a model that can be applied to other gated communities, initiating a process of disintegration of the gated community and its re-integration into the city.

War in Present Tense: Filming Children of Agent Orange Rehabilitation Villages in Vietnam and the Dangers of Misrepresentation Stella Seojin Kim Advisor: Azra Akšamija

How do we remember the Vietnam War? As we move farther away in time from 1950, most people do not remember the war through direct memories, but are rather informed about the experience through words and images from the war. When we think of the war, we conjure memories of lowresolution, black-and-white footages we have seen in historical footage, of bombs being dropped over Vietnamese forests and rice patties. Our remembrance ends just as we run out of archival footage to think of and we label the war in our memory as a pitiful mistake of the past. However, the legacy of the Vietnam War proves this wrong: the current Agent Orange-affected population in Vietnam carries consequences of the war every day, despite their chronological distance from the war.

This population remains relatively unknown to the world – especially to the Western world.

We are isolated from the Agent Orange-affected population because we have grown dependent on curated images found in popular media and the images of the Vietnam War do not include this population. Here, a challenging duty of a filmmaker is to create new images that convey their experience. New images will replace these pseudo-memories of Vietnam War that not only incorrectly represent the war as a frozen past, but cause isolation of a population that can inform society about the never-ending consequences of war and technology. This isolation represents a bigger, problematic cycle of isolation in our society: isolation of those who develop technology from those who apply technology, and isolation of those who apply technology to those who suffer from the application.

This thesis does not discourage exposition itself; exposition connects different cultures and provides a larger understanding of the world, and it can also lead to constructive consequences that better the condition of its subjects. A filmmaker must acknowledge the power behind his or her camera and realize that conveying the experience

of others through film is not a simple task of his or her own narrative instincts, but entails a larger, delicate responsibility.

This thesis will examine the filmmaking process of the contemporary population affected

by Agent Orange in Vietnam and raise larger questions about the ways in which we capture others’ stories through video. How can film revive engagements with a seemingly concluded war?

How do we tell stories of people with visually apparent abnormalities without ostracizing them?

This thesis documents the layers beyond these people who have been stereotyped image of “victims of war” and demonstrates the limitations of images by shedding light on the humanness of these “victims” – their daily emotions, struggles, joy, individuality, and conviction – instead of perpetuating their image as abnormalities or monsters of society.

Video stills: Different ways to represent a child; a child (top), a child with Down Syndrome (bottom)

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Design for the Improvement of Mental Health: Non-Infrastructural Interventions to Integrate Nature and Daylight into Spaces at MIT Tiandra Ray Advisor: Larry Sass, Readers: Marlene Kuhn, John Ochsendorf

In the last academic year (2012-2013), seventy-two undergraduate students have taken time off from MIT due to medical reasons, which are typically related to psychiatric conditions. Many campus initiatives address aspects of MIT life such as workload, campus culture, and availability of mental health services but there is seldom a focus on how the physical environment of this campus affects our mental health.

This thesis focuses on the effects of natural light and exposure to nature. Natural light has been linked to appetite, circadian rhythm, sensory stimulation, and therapeutic design— with a lack of exposure contributing to the development of medical conditions such as depression or Alzheimer's disease. Light affects both mood and perception, and can determine how accurately one can perform a visual task. In addition, both direct and indirect exposure to nature have been found to help with recovery from mental fatigue and restoration of attention, psychological health, and ability to process information.

By extracting patterns from nature and using them to mediate light, perhaps we can simulate the healing effects of nature indoors and make spaces more 'mentally healthy' without having to make costly infrastructural interventions.

Top, Extracting polygonal patterns from textures and geometries found in nature Bottom, Light filtering studies.

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M.ARCH Master of Architecture

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Pan-Climatic Humans: Shaping Thermal Habits in an Unconditioned Society Christopher Mackey Advisors: Joel Lamere, Les Norford, Christoph Reinhart, Skylar Tibbits

The relationship between people and the thermal environment has a profound impact on lifestyle and culture, influencing what we wear, what spaces we gather around, and how we go about our lives.

Yet this relation is often oversimplified in the design of conditioned spaces, assuming occupants have unchanging thermal preferences and no desire to participate in the shaping of a building’s microclimates. While we gain a basic satisfaction of thermal need from this simplified view, we lose much by complicating our buildings with HVAC equipment to the point that inhabitants do not understand them. This thesis asks if and how we can design spaces of everyday life that not only satisfy a basic thermal need but also encourage occupant participation in the shaping of microclimates, promote thermally-based social cohesion, and do so using only on passive means.

Since the traditional process of evaluating heating/cooling load with energy modeling does not hold for unconditioned design, the thesis question requires a new method for exploring design decisions in relation to the thermal environment. Accordingly, research began by developing software to produce high spatial/ temporal resolution thermal maps that evaluate design decisions by indicating the parts of a space

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made warmer or cooler in relation to a seasonal “comfort temperature.� With this new means of understanding the thermal environment, several geometric design strategies are tested for two climates: LA and New York.

The tests illustrate that the geometry of a space can have an enormous effect on its thermal habitability once the assumptions of air conditioning and oversimplified occupants are removed. The strategies are used to develop two completely passive urban co-habitation/co-working projects that express and embellish these discovered geometric factors. The designs operate off of a generalizable logic in which the communal, daytime spaces are placed in the areas of a site to take advantage of the most powerful and stable thermal strategies while the fringes include less stable, intermittentlyoccupied, private spaces where occupants can tune the microclimate as they wish. Although this generalizable logic is constant, the two designs illustrate that widely different forms can emerge based on the climate and the tested strategies.

Los Angeles: Co-habitation/co-working project in the hottest part of the summer day where cool communal indoor microclimates (white/pink) bring occupants together.

New Public Figures: Town Hall for the Interior Barry Beagen Advisor: Ana Miljacki, Readers: Arindam Dutta, William O'Brien Jr.

In 2047, Hong Kong may well see the end of the “one party, two systems”. With the increasing decline in the city state’s autonomy, Hong Kong’s citizens are becoming increasingly aware of its struggles for democracy. At the same time, Hong Kong is transitioning towards an economy driven by retail and real estate powered by a new private public regime of supplying mobility through its integrated rail property regime. This new formula for urbanization generates generic forms of residential towers upon interconnected retail podiums, replacing the street with controlled spaces of efficient consumption.

In these new towns, public life exists within these interiors. The civic centers and town hall plazas of the late modernist era in Hong Kong’s new towns are no longer relevant in constituting the political public. The cuter and more fragmented privately owned public spaces can no longer hold an antagonistic public imagination.

The thesis proposes a series of civic spaces as a new threshold to the interior across the new towns along parallel to the border of mainland China and Hong Kong.

It is a new town hall that needs to imagine a new form of agonistic public figures that can hold new formats for the political.

New towns and new public figures.

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Postcards from the Blue Heart: Strategies for the Re-wetting of the Dutch Lowlands Claudia Bode Advisor: Ana Miljacki, Readers: Rania Ghosn, Joel Lamere

The Randstad (literally “edge city”) is a group of well-known historical cities in the Netherlands which have been allowed to grow together into a poly-nucleic conurbation. It surrounds and is defined by an agricultural region of great cultural significance (the Green Heart) which is in crisis as the government demands more “room for water” in response to the threat of flooding and as the EU dairy sector is reorganized, threatening the livelihoods of many small farmers. Could a landscape and architecture-scale approach that directly addresses the Great Heart—and with it its mythologized image—serve to address immediate economic and water problems for the larger region of Holland? If so, how can the cultural role of the pastoral be maintained even as the typological elements

that comprise it are changed? And is there room in this changed landscape for new cooperatives that include not just humans but also water and the cows?

This thesis proposes new ways of shaping and inhabiting the Green Heart landscape that allow it to store water and generate new economic opportunities for farmers, while retaining those features which allow it to define the Randstad: its emptiness, openness, greenness, and pastoral nature. By manipulating the ground to shape where new water will flow, groups of farmers are able to create large floodplains that can diversify their incomes.

The typology of a long, continuous barn acts as an expanded prosthetic that brings together cows, farmers, and tourists into a new productive transect.

A ditch in a polder (low lying land encircled by a dike) within the Green Heart.

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SMARCHS Master of Science in Architecture Studies

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The Last Levantine City: Beirut, 1830-1930 Chantal El Hayek Advisor: Nasser Rabbat, Reader: Lauren Jacobi

My thesis examines the urban transformation of Beirut between 1830 and 1930. Evolving from a local market city importing European goods and exporting local produce into a transit city for the re-export of European commodities, Beirut developed from a quadrilateral of thick crusader walls enclosing a labyrinth of narrow streets into a thriving business center highlighted by the French-designed Place de l’Étoile. The new center connected the city with the port and with its hinterland through two major thoroughfares lined up with modern office buildings that, for the first time, accommodated underground storage spaces.

My core questions are: What made Beirut develop in this direction? Why were the markets centered the way they were?

I argue that the urban transformation of Beirut in the nineteenth century through WWI was a manifestation of a French imperial policy that had been at play a century before the French Mandate.

Seeking to extend infrastructural networks, France fancied in the Levant, and particularly through Beirut’s port, an economic base that would facilitate trade with the region. ‘Beirut al-Jadida’ (New Beirut) was ultimately created to provide a gateway for France to regain access into the region after an era of decline in French economic dominance in the Levant, in the wake of the Napoleonic Expedition into Egypt and Syria (1798–1801) and the abrogation of the Échelles du Levant system of trade—the Échelles were Ottoman cities and ports where French consuls resided to control commercial activity, given power by the Sultan—by Ahmad Pasha Al-Jazzar (r. 1775–1804). In the second half of the nineteenth century, with the expansion

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of the port (1887–1890) and the construction of the carriageway (1857–1863) and railroad (1895) between Beirut and Damascus, French dominance re-rose in the Levant—this time in a new political (colonial) form.

The French agent intervening in the development of Beirut in fact progressed from it being a financial investor—through private companies sponsoring the silk industry and other trades—in the early nineteenth century, to a major concession holder of various public works in the mid- to late-nineteenth century after the silk trade with the Levant had gradually declined, to a military colonizer in the early twentieth century, when French economic dominance became a governmental pursuit no longer restricted to the operations of private businesses. My thesis seeks to explore how the change over time in economic and political activities, and in the interests of the colonizers in both the pre-colonial and colonial periods, was reflected in urban design and planning of the city.

In my work, I propose a framework of analysis that sees the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century development of Beirut as a continuous process of modernization and engagement with the international economic system in which the Ottomans and French were invested, contrary to a significant number of scholarly works that tended to partition the city’s history into two separate historical narratives tied to the two governing regimes.

First map of Beirut, drawn in 1876 for Sultan Abdul Hamid II under the command of Julius Löytved, a dragoman at the German Embassy in Istanbul.

The Architecture of Procession: Political and Spiritual Pathways between the Qutb Shahi Necropolis and Golconda Fortress in the 16th Century Allison James Advisor: James Wescoat, Reader: Nasser Rabbat

This thesis is an exploration of two processional pathways that connected the Golconda Fortress to the Qutb Shahi necropolis in southern India at the beginning of the Qutb Shahi dynasty (mid-16th Century). The pathways were significant because of the jointly political and spiritual qualities held by each.

The thesis sheds light on their changing relative importance in shaping the Qutb Shahi necropolis during the early history of the dynasty. The pathways extended northward toward a Sufi shrine and water complex and beyond that to the antecedent capital of Bidar 135 kilometers to the northwest. Later, these paths would be important in connecting Golconda and the necropolis with the city of Hyderabad founded in 1592.

Methods used to examine these pathways are a mix of historical, topographical, visual, and spatial investigations as they relate to the wider political and spiritual patronages of the sultanate. The first part of each chapter provides context of the wider patronage of each sultan. The second part explores the landscape of procession by moving through

the pathways as they were laid out. The third part shows how the series of architectural structures take advantage of the natural topography by framing key “views� of the processional ways and thereby connect Golconda to the necropolis. The final section of each chapter shows how these larger perspectives help to interpret the spatial layout of tombs on the necropolis.

Through this analysis of four spatial relationships, the thesis shows how the tomb complex was defined by an initial pair of orientations to the East and South, which shifted to a primary emphasis to the South during the reign of Sultan Ibrahim Quli Qutb Shah (1550-1580), and back to the East during the reign of Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah (1580-1611.) As the Sultanate evolved, the pathways became as important as the critical monuments of spiritual and political significance that they connected.

Qutb Shahi Necropolis from Golconda Fortress. Photo c. 1902.

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Architecture Sandwiched: Tuning Anisotropy through Variable Thickness and Laminar Assemblies Nazareth Ekmekjian Advisors: Brandon Clifford, Mark Goulthorpe, Reader: Nader Tehrani

Much of architecture’s earliest material palettes and construction methods are often referred to today as legacy materials—those primarily consisting of various types of stone and masonry construction. While these materials are often conceptually thought of as being solid, monolithic, and even homogeneous, in actuality they rely on logics of assembly more akin to contemporary sandwich structures, which are laminar assemblies typically composed of two or more stressed skins and either a solid or cellular core which binds them. While it is uncommon (though not unheard of) to deploy ancient materials and construction methods in contemporary architecture, this thesis argues for a newfound relevance of their influence on contemporary and even future material selections and methods.

Specifically, this thesis explores the potentials of composite sandwiches varying in thickness and material in search of architectural possibilities whose structural, formal, and aesthetic implications are a result of tuning multiple influences. Variable thickness is used here as a strategy for enabling a range of architectural and tectonic conditions, all

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within the same heterogeneous but integrated laminar assemblies. While most commercial products in the realm of composite sandwiches are of uniform thickness in section, this thesis suggests a method for constructing sandwiched elements with variable thickness.

This is done primarily through a process of infill and backfill using expanding urethane foam as a medium which creates the so called “core” of the sandwich between two skins.

This investigation works through a series of small scale prototypes, each of which focus on a particular tectonic, spatial, or structural condition. These mock ups are meant to serve as didactic artifacts, providing feedback with which to incorporate and speculate upon larger architectural propositions through drawing and representation. The end result is a set of architectural proposals which suggest the beginnings of new design methodologies.

Sectional elevation of architectural structure designed to provide seating and shade. Structure consists of rigid urethane foam core sandwiched between two composite skins which utilize adaptive corrugation as a strategy for structural form making.

Thickness in section ranges from 0.25” to 24” at its widest point. Structure stands approximately 8' tall.

Improving In Place: A Passive Solar Design Approach to Public Housing Redevelopment Jeff Geisinger Advisors: Christoph Reinhart, Brent D. Ryan

For the New York City Housing Authority, or NYCHA, sustaining the city’s 178,000 units of public housing for future generations is a significant and increasingly difficult task.

Faced with aging infrastructure and cuts in federal funding the city has turned to private sector partnerships for new ways to finance the upkeep of its buildings. The 2013 Land Lease Initiative, NYCHA’s unrealized plan to generate funds by renting underutilized open space to residential developers, demonstrated economic potential but overlooked opportunities to repair critical deficiencies in the urban design and energy efficiency of its public housing developments.

This thesis suggests that passivesolar design strategies can influence a more sustainable approach to public housing revitalization, integrating site-sensitive infill

development with existing building upgrades.

Focusing on the Douglass Houses in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, I analyze how the Land Lease Initiative’s high-rise massing would worsen existing buildings’ access to natural sunlight, and I suggest an infill development model that preserves solar access to existing facades while connecting the superblocks to the surrounding urban fabric.

My research then explores the application of sunspace additions to existing public housing to expand living spaces while simultaneously reducing heating demand. I conclude with a discussion of financial plausibility and largerscale impact on NYCHA’s overall housing portfolio. This investigation aims to create an integrated process that links new development and public housing upgrades across site, building, and dwelling scales.

Axonometric drawing of infill development and upgraded public housing

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Analysis and Design for Thermally Autonomous Housing in Resource-Constrained Communities: A Case Study in Bhuj, India Madeline Gradillas Advisor: Leon Glicksman, Readers: Tejas Kotak, Miho Mazereeuw

In the 2010 International Workshop on Housing, Health and Climate Change Meeting Report, the World Health Organization identifies housing as a primary cause of poor health in developing countries. The report cites inadequate protection from extreme heat as one of six major concerns for healthy housing environments. As India’s population rapidly increases, informal settlements face particular heat risk because of harsh climate conditions, substandard building construction and lack of access to electricity for mechanical cooling. There is a need for housing to provide thermal comfort and health by passive means at low cost.

Climate specific passive cooling techniques are well known, but are rarely implemented in informal settlements because of density, lack of resources, design integration, and materials availability. This thesis is situated in the practical connection of two normally disparate parts: applied research in passive cooling techniques, and design 16

for development. The work presented results from the establishment of an international co-design partnership between MIT and The Hunnarshala Foundation for Building Technology and Innovations, an NGO in the hot and arid region of Bhuj, India. It presents data analysis and co-design work that drove the development, field prototyping, and evaluation of appropriate, implementable building solutions to improve thermal conditions in affordable housing in hot and arid climates.

Note: Thermal Autonomy is defined

by US architecture firm Loisos + Ubbelohde as "[T]he percent of occupied time over a year where a thermal zone meets or exceeds a given set of thermal criteria through passive means only.�

Thermal Field Lab test chamber construction. Photo by author.

Space and Motion: Data-based Rules of Public Space Pedestrian Motion Paloma Gonzalez Rojas Advisors: Terry Knight, Takehiko Nagakura, Readers: Alan Berger, Patrick H. Winston

The understanding of space relies on motion, as we experience space by crossing it. While in motion we sense the environment in time, interacting with space. Simulation tools that introduce human motion into the design process in early stages are rare to nonexistent.

Available tools are typically used for deterministically visualizing figures and simulating pedestrians with the goal of analyzing emergency exits or egress. Such simulations are built without consideration for non-goal oriented interaction with space; this presents a gap for design. Additionally, simulations are generally governed by assumptions regarding people’s motion behavior or by analogous models such as collision avoidance methods.

However, the use of data from people can elucidate spatial behavior. Advancements in depth camera sensors and computer vision algorithms have eased the task of tracking human movements to millimetric precision.

This thesis proposes two main ideas: creating statistics from real motion data for grounding simulations and measuring such motion in relation to space to create a Space-

Motion Metric. This metric takes pedestrian motion and spatial features as input.

The Space-Motion Metric seeks actions composed by time, speed, and gestures towards spatial features. The actions are elaborated as Space-Motion Rules through substantial data analysis. The non-prescriptive combination of the rules generates a non-deterministic behavior focused on design. This research maps, quantifies, and formulates pedestrian motion correlation with space and questions the role of data for projecting what space could be.

“Space Motion Visualizations,” 2015. The visualizations show data collected by Kinect sensors in the elevator entrance of the MIT Media Lab. The visualization reflects the sensing range of the Kinect, which is located at the top-center of each visualization. The elevator doors are illustrated in plan. The visualizations each document one day from May 2014; each also includes the average time of a user, showing how much is the time spent in that area by standing people. It also shows the “average speed” of people passing by. The pattern taken by the lower part of the trajectory data shows the consistency over time of that space usage.

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Visual Programming in Three Dimensions: Visual Representations of Computational Mental Models Michael Kirschner Advisor: George Stiny, Reader: Terry Knight

Code is a tool to express logic, method, and function. It has form and is intended to be read by humans. One of the goals of this work is to improve the readability and expression of complex interactions in code.

Current visual programming environments that see the most use inside and outside of architecture present computation in specific terms. I believe these limits hinder the computational designer or novice programmer from learning other mental models of computation which will come up as one explores further. This thesis proposes that by relating code to landscape or a building in space, code will both create and inhabit

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space. To enhance the designer’s memory of a program the visual opportunities that visual programming afford will be used to relate uniquely visualized moments in the visual program at a loci in the programming environment. A 3D visual programming language that can represent code in space will be able to express the complex abstractions that define computational thinking more intuitively than existing tools by making them memorable in space.

Three nested loops after running; creating a large cube and illustrating the results of all node computations.

M-Cell Assembly Dimitrios Mairopoulos Advisors: Terry Knight, Skylar Tibbits

In this thesis I propose a self-assembly, fabrication procedure that produces solid, dynamic objects. This procedure is based on an assembly unit called the Morphocell (M-Cell) and results in M-Objects. The M-Cell is comprised of two components: the M-Block and the M-Clay.

The M-Block’s geometry is based on a simple convex polyhedron. These blocks have embedded magnets that allow the blocks to self-assemble and form spatial lattices.

The geometry is specifically designed and refined in order to facilitate self-assembly.

The M-Clay is a non-Newtonian viscoelastic liquid infused with magnetic particles within which M-Blocks are partially embedded.

The M-Clay has two roles in the assembly procedure. First, when two or more M-Cells come together, the M-Clay acts as the environment of the assembly procedure. The high viscosity of the material allows a smooth and precise assembly of the embedded M-Blocks. Furthermore, the delay of the

assembly caused by the high friction allows a parallel assembly of each M-Block with all its neighbors. This helps the M-Blocks to error-correct their positioning globally and minimizes possible mistakes.

The combination of strategically refined geometry of the M-Blocks with the high viscosity of the M-Clay results in an assembly procedure that has very high error-correcting capacities. Assembly is a highly autonomous procedure since the units, the energy for the assembly procedure, and the assembly environment are all packed in a single cell.

The second role of the M-Clay is to surround the spatial lattice and create a solid object through the magnetic fields of the embedded magnets. This occurs after the assembly procedure and forms the M-Object, a solid object that remains dynamic and is able to repair itself, expand, and react to its environment in various ways.

M-Cell Prototype

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Knitting Behavior: A Material-Centric Design Process Carrie McKnelly Advisor: Lawrence Sass, Readers: Brandon Clifford, Caitlin Mueller

While we construct our built environment from materials, we often do not program the materials from which we build. Historically, architects have been limited to materials with unprogrammed internal structures—such as wood, stone, glass, steel, or concrete— neglecting assemblies with properties that derive from a material and its internal organization. This thesis states a new architecture may emerge from a deeper understanding of programmable material assemblies.

My research explores computation as a communicative device between the physical and the digital, establishing a conversation between a material assembly and a digital model as a tool to inform the logic of the assembly’s internal organization.

This manifests through the technique of knitting, a material practice defined by pattern as rule-based code. Whereas traditionally the pattern is a static visual representation, in my research it is both the physical sequence of stitches and the dynamic properties of each stitch within a digital model. The dynamic properties of the physical material communicate through the knit pattern to the digital model which explores the possibilities of form within the constraints of the material to remap the pattern’s code, thereby reinforming the physical.

My research focuses on the development of knit material assemblies for tension activated architectural forms. Currently designers lack a framework for understanding how the topology of a knit structure can align with formal and structural motivations. Therefore, my primary goal is to establish a system that allows for a recursive investigation of both the physical and the digital through the computational device of a knit pattern.

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The knit pattern is the code which assigns the local arrangement of stitches to the physical material assembly and activates the global characteristics of the form in the digital model. Programming the pattern to align with formal motivations requires a quantification of the behavior of each stitch. Comparative structural loading tests the stiffness of the physical assembly in order to activate a digital model as a particle-spring system that form-finds via an equilibrium of forces. The force exerted on each spring in the model then generates a new knit pattern according to the unique behaviors of the form, shifting the topology of the knit material assembly to better suit the formal motivations.

The play between the physical and the digital is recursive, experimental, and interpretative; each informs the other while never truly resulting in the same output.

Tension activated architectural form with a material structure programmed by the forces found within the form.

Design and Fabrication through Real-time Human-Computer Interaction Diego Pinochet Advisor: Terry Knight, Readers: Edith Ackermann, George Stiny, Patrick H. Winston

The use of technology in architectural design, by being focused mainly on both the digital and physical representation of a predetermined idea, has neglected many of the implications of using digital tools in a more explorative way by integrating body and senses in the design processes.

Design is “something that we do”; it is related to our unique human condition as creative individuals as “making” is related to how we manifest and impress that uniqueness into our surrounding environment. In this thesis, I propose a model of interaction that seeks to transcend the hylomorphic model imperative in today’s architectural design practice to a more reciprocal form of computational making. To do so, I reconcile design and making by exploring real-time interaction between mind, body, and digital tools using body gestures and imbuing fabrication machines with behavior. The rec-

onciliation establishes a dialog that embraces ambiguity and the unexpected; it engages the designer in more improvisational and insightful design processes.

My hypothesis in this thesis is that realtime interaction between designers and fabrication machines can augment our creativity and cognition by engaging exploration, speculation, improvisation, and knowledge production about design processes through the use of gestures and interactive computation.

‘Making Gestures’ is proposed as an implementation of a new paradigm for the use of digital tools in design that integrates ‘designer gestures’ and the concept of ‘tool embodiment’ into the digital design process.

Specifically, it was developed as a five-axis gesture-based CNC machine that takes real time input from hand gestures through motion tracking sensors to learn and produce architectural designs and prototypes.

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Microbial Mediations: Cyber-Biological Extensions of Human Sensitivity to Natural and Made Ecologies Yaniv Jacob Turgeman Advisors: Eric Alm (Civil & Environmental, Biological Engineering, MIT), Terry Knight

As natural and human made environments become increasingly monitored and modulated by embedded digital technologies, we are presented with a staggering flow of information reverberating between the scales of the made, the grown, and ourselves.

In this thesis, I use a series of projects that I developed during my time at MIT as cases for interrogating the material, computational, and biological architecture mediating this information.

Common to these projects is the aim of creating a novel type of cyber-physical system which I call a cyber-biological system, utilizing networks of microbes as natural and programmed agents, with distributed sensing, computation, processing, and actuating abilities. In these projects, the microbiome figures as an enabling substrate for the extension of our sensitivity to natural ecosystems (Waterfly), the built urban environment (Underworlds), and our bodies (Everybiome).

My analysis of these projects culminates with

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ideas for future research (Bio-Homeostat, 3D printed bioreactors). This work points towards creative interventions in the way we approach what I theorize as the instantiation of a hybridized ecology between the made and the natural.

Through my critical analysis of these projects, I aspire to crystallize a design attitude towards creating sensitivity to environments and to juxtapose it with a design attitude of optimization-oriented problem solving. Ultimately, I aim to contribute an interdisciplinary synthesis of a scientific paradigm that is emerging in the domain of biological engineering to inform contemporary practices of how we design technologies that extend the reach of our senses to the important phenomena in our hybridizing made and natural world.

3D-printed microfluidic bioreactors (Team: Dan Chen, Noa Machover, Mariana Matus, Sarvesh Varma, Yaniv Turgeman)

Assembling Smallness: The American Small Industries Exhibition, Ceylon 1961 Nushelle de Silva Advisor: Arindam Dutta, Readers: Timothy Hyde, Anoma Pieris (University of Melbourne)

The American Small Industries Exhibition, an itinerant trade fair, went on view in Colombo, Ceylon, in January 1961. Intended to support industrialisation in the developing world, the exhibition was also an attempt to establish trade ties with non-aligned yet socialist-leaning nations.

Emphasising industry in a nation still clinging to an agricultural economy, the exhibition can be read as having a clear message of capitalistic modernisation. Descriptions of the fair, however, are often contradictory and unexpected, commencing with the unusual presentation of the USA as a wellspring of small-scale industry.

Using the exhibition’s nomenclature as a provocation, this thesis examines the exhibition’s aspirations in relation to political realities of 1960s Ceylon. It considers the exhibition as a metonym for the nation; although an assemblage of parts, both the exhibit and the nation it represents are read as a distinct unit. This thesis deconstructs the exhibition into its constituent components (while cognisant that this deconstruction can be continued ad infinitum) and examines the pieces

minutely, making a case for studying the very small to illuminate the very large.

This thesis reads the process described as modernisation not as relentless, unified, and unidirectional, but as fragmented, contingent, and suffused with the ‘unmodern’. It demonstrates how contradictions within the apparatuses of modernisation in both nations are revealed through scrutinising the pieces, suggesting that modernisation is a label affixed to make sense of machine-induced labour displacement. It posits that defining difference in terms of national identity disregards the international transfer of ideas, whose boundaries are simultaneously more local and more global than that of the nation. It takes particular issue with the measures used to divide the globe into ‘developed’ and ‘developing’ nations, and argues that to deconstruct modernisation is to also deconstruct the nation.

Entrance to the American Small Industries Exhibition. Department of National Archives, Sri Lanka 23

Hypothetical Geography: Constituting Limits on a New American Frontier Nathan Friedman Advisor: Ana Miljacki, Reader: Timothy Hyde

Two hundred fifty-nine obelisk monuments mark the United States-Mexico boundary line west of the Rio Grande. Constructed in three distinct phases (1848-1857, 1891-1896, and 1964-1968) the monuments were the product of territorial negotiations; disputes settled ranging from the violent expansion of sovereign limits to the shifting course of a historic boundary river. Commissioned, inscribed, and placed by both the United States and Mexico, border monuments served as unique bilateral artifacts operating across and reflecting on separate territories and philosophies of nationhood.

Beyond symbol, such artifacts were fictions of federal accuracy presented as fact.

The monuments served as evidence that a theoretical boundary line existed. Each held a hypothetical narrative of place and placing despite varied geographic realities, too often mired in instrumental imprecision, subjective viewpoints, and historic inaccuracies.

In the case of the United States and Mexico, constitution of the two republics required a 24

calibration of the real and representational.

While this stitching was required for the solidification of nineteenth century nation states, it also calls into question the foundation of territorial division between the countries and provides insight on a region defined by the cyclical reassertion of international limits.

This thesis theoretically frames the production of border monuments and the modes of representation they motivated. It positions these artifacts as instrumental to the constitution of the United States-Mexico border, orchestrating the synthesis of national views and topographies. Perhaps most importantly, the monuments straddle a rich gap between the real and representational, the analysis of which reveals an evolution of the international boundary from single line to geopolitical territory.

“Proof of the Line,” film frame. A compilation of photographs from the International Boundary Commission’s Views of the Monuments and Characteristic Scenes along the Boundary Between the United States and Mexico West of the Rio Grande, 1892-1895.

Ma(i)cro Visions: Utilizing Social Network Service Data for a Transformational Process of Urban Social Spaces Chaewon Ahn Advisors: Michael Dennis, Sarah Williams, Reader: Luis Valenzuela

The proliferation of data and technological evolution visualizes normally unseen dimensions of human interaction. However in urban studies, only a few embrace this new way of seeing as a practical tool to observe the public realm. This thesis recognizes the digital traces we leave on the web in our everyday life as a new resource to understand the human interaction with the city.

The thesis explores reading social space with social network service data and develops a manual for a new way of reading the city that integrates this new layer of information with traditional methods.

The research collects Instagram location data which is stored when people tag their post with a location. I read these data points to form a psychological geography comprised of meaningful places that people recognize, share, and remember. The thesis is two-fold: understanding the behavior of this data and finding ways to use it. The thesis first maps demographic characteristics, the psychological geography, and the built form, and over-

laps this data to understand the relationship among people, perception, and built form in Boston. The analysis concludes that qualitative social space reading becomes more limited as the population turns vulnerable and the location density decreases, because the meaningful places for people shift towards commercial and private spaces. This calls for a new reading of social space that combines traditional quantitative city reading process with this new collective perception, which forms the second part of the thesis. The manual studies the spatial character of pathways, areas, and buildings that appear pivotal or are completely invisible in the psychological geography.

The thesis argues that the human perception of a neighborhood constructed through micro documentations of people’s everyday experiences informs urban designers with the spatial character of places that form the local identity.

Fields Corner: Elements of Local Identity

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Hydro-Social Infrastructures: New Models for WaterSensitive Urban Development in Mexico City George Beane Advisors: Gabriella Carolini, Rafi Segal

This thesis will attempt to address the following question: How can urban designers use community water systems to foster the cohesiveness of physical and institutional fabrics within informal settlements? In other words, how and to what extent can the design of water and sanitation infrastructure not only improve basic service provision, but also create new opportunities for community building?

The thesis uses Delegaci贸n Iztapalapa, Mexico City (CDMX) as testing ground for the proposal, which is intended as a sitespecific exploration of design solutions to low-quality water provision conditions in one informal settlement in CDMX; a new institutional framework for infrastructure provision in informal settlements within the capital; and a broad argument for truly multi-performative infrastructure that moves beyond the current model (i.e. multi-use).

Citizen protest, Mexico.

Source: Movimiento Evita Rosario

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Embedded-Autonomies: Projecting a New Middle-Class Polis David Birge Advisor: Miho Mazereeuw, Reader: Timothy Hyde

Labor’s historical negotiating position, predicated on its vitalness to the supply side of the economy as the makers of surplus value, has been severely weakened over the last fifty years by a combination of the breaking of unions, off-shoring of labor, and implementation of mechanical automation. The now well-known result of these Neo-Liberal strategies has been little to no real-earnings growth in fifty years for the bottom 50% of the American workforce.

What possible responses do the middle and lower wage earners have? Along with long established tactics on the consumption side of the production equation, namely collective housing and collective purchasing, a new form of economic autonomy is emerging from within the very tool-kit of Neo-Liberalism. Due to their vastly smaller scale and increased productivity, minimal environmental impact, and rapidly decreasing costs, automation technologies provide opportunity for collective ownership of joint factories. Here, the array of traditional bluecollar workers can converge to share a base

system of advanced production, consequently renewing their local competitiveness.

While individually the three forms of collective action might only require a diffuse spatialization, or no collocation whatsoever, the combination of all three within the same spatial container suggests a potentially new form of living, one which goes beyond the simple abutting of live/work spaces, to the definition of a total life-world. To mediate this complexity I have appropriated a subtle architectonic device, the plenum, as the infrastructure that simultaenously buffers and connects the two typically disparate worlds of material work and social reproduction.

The plenum does this by providing a flexible super-structure for services, people, and materials to pass through, for program to attach to and utilize for its own specificity, and as a zone of mediation which allows spaces of industry and living to collide.

Section through collective + family housing above, plenum in the middle (denoted by wide columns), and mechanic, maker-spacers, and self-production below.

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Web-based API Data as a Complementary Tool for Urban Design Naichun Chen Advisors: Kent Larson, Takehiko Nagakura, Reader: Michael Dennis

The metrics used to evaluate urban design typically use data from government sources.

However, there are only a limited number of publicly measured metrics available, from which only a limited number of conclusions can be drawn. The novelty of this project is to combine government-produced GIS data with raw, bottom-up data available from various social media. Such sources are rich in information that is unavailable from government sources, and more importantly, reflect the sentiments of the citizens that directly inhabit the area, rather than relying on public economic and social indicators. Data mined from such sources may yield a novel perspective about how local residents perceive a city and what they view as the image of the city.

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This project is conducted at two scales: at the city scale and at the neighborhood scale. For the city scale, I investigate and compare four key US cities: Boston, New York, the District of Columbia, and Los Angeles. For the neighborhood scale, I investigate two high-tech squares: Kendall Square in Boston and the South Boston Innovation District. This project hopes to draw conclusions about the features of districts that support innovation and make recommendations for urban planning and design that cities should put in place to increase the potential for “innovation.�

Food Network: Design for a New Territorial Logic Agustina González Cid Advisors: Miho Mazereeuw, Rafi Segal, Reader: Arindam Dutta

Food shapes territory. While only three percent of the world’s surface is occupied by cities, thirty-eight percent is used for agriculture. Most of this land is used to harvest the 7,605 tons of food that are produced per minute worldwide. Of this, 2,472 tons will be wasted, while only 5,1331 will be consumed most probably miles away from its origin.

Although humans have historically eaten food coming from lands far away, the size of the world’s current population makes the scale of the logistical endeavor astronomical.

As a consequence of this, some countries are transformed into global hinterlands, dedicating huge percentages of their land to produce what other countries are demanding for their consumption. But how do these global hinterlands work?

The thesis studies food production and its rural urbanity in the Argentina’s Pampas.

In the selected site, a pre-existing grid of thirty towns is now floating in a “sea of soy production”, while they are forced to “import” the food they consume from other regions of the country. The thesis proposes a set of strips that will host the production of the food required to feed the area while, at the same time, connect the towns, enabling them to work as a network. This new territorial logic offers the advantages of having the production closer to the consumer, avoiding food miles, while offering new ways of inhabiting rurality.

1 “We Consume More Than 11 Million Pounds Of Food Every 60 Seconds,” The Huffington Post, accessed April 18, 2015, http://goo.gl/7jfSJi.

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Framing Dispersal: Urban Strategies for Mexico City’s Sprawl Gabriel Kozlowski Advisor: Rafi Segal, Reader: Arindam Dutta Gabriel Kozlowski SMArchS Urbanism Within the framework of Mexico City’s urban solution at four scales: a project for the city; a Framing Dispersal: Urban Strategies for Mexico City’s Sprawl sprawl this thesis investigates one specific new paradigm for the existing housing developAdvisor: Rafi Segal typeReader: of territorial the urbanizaments; an urban design intervention for three Arindamoccupation: Dutta tion of subsidized housing developments on of these developments; and a set of new buildWithin the framework of Mexico City’s urban sprawl, this thesis investigates one specific type of territorial its periphery which accounts for seventeen ing typologies to replace the current housing occupation: the urbanization of subsidized housing developments on the periphery, which accounts for percent of the city’s total urban footprint model.

Thisneighborhoods. approach that engages with 17% of the city’s total urban footprint, and has generated unlivable Understanding urban anddesign has generated City’sofurban problems through an as a tool unlivable to criticallyneighborhoods. address Mexico City’sMexico current mode expansion, the thesis proposes strategies to revert this design process.as More specifically, it develops a conceptual as well ashas a design at Understanding urban a tool to analysis of the periphery been solution previously four scales: a project for the city; a new paradigm for the existing housing developments; an urban design critically address Mexico City’s current mode neglected. With this study, I hope to open a intervention for three of these developments; and a set of new building typologies to replace the current of expansion, theThis thesis proposes strategies broader discussion onthrough urbanandesign the housing model. approach that engages with Mexico City’s urban problems analysisand of the periphery been previously neglected in the With this study, I hope open a discusto revert thishas process.

More specifically, it literature. role it can play in the to future ofbroader Mexico City. sion onaurban design, and the role can play in the future of Mexico City. develops conceptual as well as ait design

4 scales

Project for the city

New paradigm for the subsidized housing developments

Urban design

Gate pediment Wall

Gate

private garden

pediment Wall

private garden

x 20,342 units x 20,342 units

moments of identity: moments of identity:

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your car + your mailbox your car + your mailbox

26 units 26 units

Building Typologies

Hydrological Urbanism in China’s Pearl River Delta: How Water Landscape Shapes the Urban Form in a Changing Climate Wenji Ma Advisors: Michael Dennis, Fadi Masoud, Reader: Tunney Lee

When standing among urban villages, residential towers, and warehouses in an urbanizing city in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), it is hard to imagine that just forty years ago this area was filled with streams, ponds, and rice paddies. Since the Reform in 1978, the PRD metropolitan area, with the name of “World Factory,” has been a pilot in urbanization together with millions of migrant labors rushed into industry. Hydrological systems accompanied with corridors for species are disrupted, fragmented, and polluted when big infrastructures, industries, and neighborhoods are planned without considering natural systems.

Storm water runoff causes flooding in the cities every year, and at the same time, extreme weather events linked to climate change and sea level rise threaten urban life and property in the future.

This thesis proposes hydrological urbanism which not only addresses problems of flooding and water pollution but also provides continuous corridors for species and recreational parks for citizens. In

hydrological urbanism, water is given more space to meander and more space to catch water runoff during floods. Phytoremediation cleans the water from upper streams and swells into a wetland buffer between big infrastructures and neighborhoods. Water shapes the neighborhood and recreational space for public access.

The thesis investigates PRD through urban and hydrological analysis on different scales. With the example of Lijiao in Guangzhou (the capital city in PRD), this thesis asserts a hydrological urbanism prototype between the highway infrastructure and existing water system. An overall plan identifies similar types of urbanization which may happen on the whole PRD system. The case of Lijiao can be transformed and generalized in these similar locations. Not only for today’s redevelopment, hydrological urbanism is also adaptable for future climate changes.

Similar urbanization in urban villages along Pearl River in Guangzhou.

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Power/Structures: The Urban Form of Regulations Ariel Noyman Advisor: Brent D. Ryan, Reader: Eran Ben-Joseph

This thesis explores the relationship between urban form, law, regulation, and policy in the built environment. It explores the roots, the necessity, and the exponential growth of regulations across the urbanized world and portrays their effects on urban design and architecture. Through several contemporary case studies, this thesis investigates the power and flux of regulation on the formation of modern cities. It focuses on the hidden mechanisms that construct or dissemble cities, setting the argument for lawmaking as an act of design.

Moreover, this thesis depicts the design, deployment, and operation of a ‘Tangible Regulation Platform’, a physicaltechnological apparatus made for the distillment of regulations. The tool is set to exemplify the effects of regulations on

a designated territory, allowing planners, designers, stakeholders, and community members a common ground for discussion and decision-making. An accessible and self-explanatory tool, this platform illustrates the relationship between urban form and regulations, offering a seamless and transparent process of regulation-based urban design.

Lastly, projecting on the foreseen future of law and urbanism, this thesis proposes an alternative data and performance-based approach for the making of new regulations.

Beyond excelling the processes of design under regulations, this platform and other new tools are offered to help facilitate a discussion on the way future regulations will be devised, improving both the design processes and their final outcome.

Christo and Jeanne-Claude, The Mastaba of Abu Dhabi, 1979

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Daylit Density: A Simulation-based Framework towards Performance-Aware Zoning and Real Estate Development Manos Saratsis Advisor: Christoph Reinhart, Readers: Michael Dennis, Miho Mazereeuw

Population growth and related space constraints have led to a planning paradigm that promotes living and working in high-density urban areas. Increasing urban density, however, leads to a conflict between space-use efficiency and access to daylight. To manage this conflict and to ensure sufficient solar access, cities have traditionally relied on zoning guidelines that propose simple, two-dimensional geometric evaluation techniques. This practice seems antiquated in times when computer-aided design tools enable architects to test designs before construction. Recent advances in building performance simulation software allow us to compute annual climatebased daylight performance metrics of urban environments accurately, in high spatial resolution and in a timely manner. Given that zoning requirements as well as massing design decisions at the urban planning level may make or break the long-term daylighting potential of a whole neighborhood, the adoption of these tools by zoning boards and planners seems particularly relevant.

This thesis therefore presents a simulation-based framework for formulating more nuanced prescriptive zoning rules, along with a performance-based approach for developers and planners interested in exploring innovative urban massing solutions. The framework is used to evaluate the daylighting performance of common and innovative urban block typologies in New York City.

The performance of the investigated massing designs varies; in some cases the designs significantly outperform existing strategies, supporting urban densities that are twice as high as current zoning maxima. Findings are illustrated using a case study and compiled into a set of recommendations for zoning boards, planners, and real estate developers towards more sustainable management of solar access at the urban scale.

Block typology evolution matrix with floor platemapped daylight access levels.

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Spaces for Engagement in the City of Mumbai: Rethinking Parks and Public Spaces in Congested Cities Kairav Shroff Advisor: Michael Dennis, Reader: Susan Silberberg

Unplanned urbanization in Mumbai has left the city in a dense congested state with only 1.7m2 of open space per person. The present dense living conditions also make it impossible to construct any large park or centrally accessible public space in the city.

To construct a park the size of central park will require more than 100,000 people to be displaced and in a democratic country like India this is an impossible solution. Therefore an alternate strategy to create public space is required for congested cities like Mumbai, where larger solutions are impossible.

Mumbai has a few planned public spaces but a lot more unplanned public spaces that exist all over the city. Almost three times as many people use the unplanned public spaces

instead of the planned public spaces. Yet the city always focuses on the planned public spaces because they can be easily quantified in terms of length, area or quantity, thus making it easy to justify. Unplanned public spaces on the other hand cannot be quantified and are always ignored from the planning process in spite of the immense social value that they have.

Hence this thesis focuses on developing a framework to understand the conditions that activate unplanned public spaces as well as design a system that enhances them to act as social spaces. Furthermore, by networking these spaces together, we can create a system of smaller social spaces that add up to form a larger public realm.

Unplanned public space in Mumbai: Fair at Nariman Point

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The Ghost City in China: A Revitalization Strategy for Ordos Difei Xu Advisor: Brent Ryan, Readers: Michael Dennis, Tunney Lee

Reports on “ghost cities” in China frequently include pictures of thousands of empty high-rise residential buildings and acres of vacant land. These developments were made possible with government loans and a GDPfocused government. Each was planned with buildings, infrastructures, parks, and jobs— as a capital utopia. An article in the New York Times described these sites as cities with everything except people.

Ordos, a city in Inner Mongolia, was once a village in the desert with only two thousand people and is now an extreme version of a “ghost city”. Thanks to the discovery of huge coal and oil deposits, the city generated immense amounts of wealth and spent billions of dollars on urbanization.

However, the fantasy didn’t stand long once the coal industry collapsed ten years later

and forced numerous developments to abort construction. While Ordos was planned for one million residents its capacity is currently 500,000, with only 100,000 residents. What one witnesses now are enormous aborted developments and abandoned structures.

By understanding the economic and social mechanism of “ghost cities”, the thesis argues that a new energy industry interconnection is needed to leverage the single advantage of the city—coal—to eventually recover the economy. Ultimately, the thesis tries to explore the potential for urbanism to integrate a post-evolution industrial and infrastructure system with a lively urban environment, turning Ordos into a real city.

An abandoned high-density residential development in Ordos.

Notes

Advisors & Readers

Credits

Edith Ackermann Azra Akšamija Eric Alm Eran Ben-Joseph Alan Berger Brandon Clifford Gabriella Carolini Michael Dennis Chris Dewart Arindam Dutta Corentin Fivet Rania Ghosn Leon Glicksman Mark Goulthorpe Timothy Hyde Lauren Jacobi Tejas Kotak Terry Knight Marlene Kuhn Joel Lamere Kent Larson Tunney Lee

Special thanks to: J. Meejin Yoon, Department Head Arindam Dutta, SMArchS Director Rania Ghosn Kathleen Brearley Lisa Hersh Hannah Loomis Cynthia Stewart 2015 Thesis Students

Fadi Masoud Miho Mazereeuw Ana Miljacki Caitlin Mueller Takehiko Nagakura Les Norford William O'Brien Jr. John Ochsendorf Anoma Pieris Nasser Rabbat Christoph Reinhart Brent D. Ryan Lawrence Sass Rafi Segal Susan Silberberg George Stiny Nader Tehrani Skylar Tibbits Luis Valenzuela Sarah Williams James Wescoat Patrick H. Winston

SA+P Press, 2015 Printed by Puritan Press in Hollis, NH All work copyright author unless otherwise noted.

Dept HQ

Men’s

9-451

9-455

To Women’s; Upstairs to 7-429

9-450A

9-450B

Exit to Mass Ave; Alt. Stairs to 7-429

Stella Room

9-450A

9-450B

9-451

4th Floor

9:30–10:10

9:30–10:10

9:30–10:10

9:30–10:10

Ariel Noyman

Chaewon Ahn

Carrie McNelly

Christopher Mackey

10:20–11:00

10:20–11:00

10:20–11:00

10:20–11:00

Jeffrey Geisinger

David Birge

Michael Kirschner

Barry Beagen

11:10–11:50

11:10–11:50

11:10–11:50

11:10–11:50

Madeline Gradillas

Difei Xu

Yaniv Turgeman

Claudia Bode

12:00-12:40

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12:00-12:40

Gabriel Kozlowski

Nathan Friedman

Manos Saratsis

Tiandra Ray

1:50-2:30

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George Beane

Chantal El Hayek

Paloma Gonzalez Rojas

Stella Seojin Kim

2:40-3:20

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2:40-3:20

Kairav Shroff

Allison James

Diego Pinochet

Anna Kaertner

3:30-4:10

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Wenji Ma

Nushelle de Silva

Dimitrios Mairopoulos

Brianna Coston

4:20-5:00

4:20-5:00

4:20-5:00

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Agustina González Cid

Naichun Chen

Nazareth Ekmekjian

Aurimas Bukauskas (N51)