Re-Presentation

Program Analyzed Using History

Demographic Study in Relation to Circulation

Building Characteristics and Ages Analyzed Using Facade Studies

Hybridism

Potential Site Analysis

Red = Public Housing
Green = Private Housing
Blue = BU Medical Campus
Grey = Industrial
Yellow = Arts
Orange = Civic Buildings

There are many programs surrounding this site that will affect its usage. There is a large low income public housing project to the Northwest of the site and there is smaller elderly housing to the Southwest of the site. The Boston University Medical Campus takes up most of the area to the South of the site and also has a few small buildings directly surrounding the site on either side. There is also a lot of private residential buildings in the area. There is a large industrial area to the South and East of the site.

Site and Program Combination

Thesis Abstract

Every time you change the DNA that defines a city and makes it unique, you change the living, breathing creature itself. Cities are spaces that have been built up of layers over time. These layers allow tradition, dynamic relationships, and personal identities to thrive within them. Through urban planning since the early twentieth century, demolitions, new building projects and revitalizations have been affecting changes on cities with little or no regard to these characteristics that make the city what it is (see Actor Matrix), causing major problems for the inhabitants and bringing down the success of the city overall.

Future changes that are made to urban spaces need to take many factors into consideration to be successful. They must be designed as small initiatives as opposed to large-scale plans. They also need to take the unique urban fabric of the city into consideration while accounting for change, time, and flexibility in order for the city to remain vibrant. This can be approached using the idea of recombinant design, a style that uses characteristics from opposing aspects of a specific site and combines them to introduce a new idea into the space.

By taking the uniqueness of every urban space into consideration and remembering the mistakes already made in historical urban planning initiatives, small urban interventions can be designed to better an urban space while respecting the creature that is the city.

Program Statement

The function of the space is to take co-existing but opposing programs in an unsuccessful system and combine them in a way that produces a thriving atmosphere. When combining these separate programs, the “place,” or identity, of each needs to be recognized and reincorporated or the new space will suffer from “placelessness.”

These programs need to be combined carefully. They must retain some portion of their own separate spaces while sharing circulation. This will allow the spaces to provide for their own needs but forces them to interact at some point. The circulation space acts as a catalyst for this interaction. The space also needs to have a new type of space that is a hybrid of the two existing programs. The sharing of some type of program and of circulation doesn’t allow for the disassociation that the programs experienced in the past.

Adjacency needs to be revaluated so that it doesn’t allow for disassociation. These programs are currently “adjacent” to each other but share no commonalities besides location. Adjacent programs must be combined to cause some interaction.

Placelessness: when places become more and more similar because of urban planning guidelines and lose a distinctive sense of place, lack of identity

Site Criteria

The site should be in an urban location that currently has successful and unsuccessful aspects to it. It should be located within a central area of its immediate neighborhood or in the transition space between several neighborhoods. The space should be a relatively small area surrounded by various types of functioning programs. It should have individual, site-specific character. It should be missing an aspect that would link the existing qualities of the site together. It should be an area that is currently under utilized, a tear in the thriving urban fabric. The site must be a space that would affect the immediate neighborhood and the greater urban area if changes were made to it.

Site Statement

I chose 429 Harrison Avenue in the South End of Boston, Massachusetts as my site. It is the site of the brick shell of a factory building from the 1800s and a parking lot. It is located in a neighborhood that has many diverse characteristics, economically and culturally. It is a vastly under used space that has potential because of its central location. It is surrounded by many varying types of program, including high-end condos, public housing, a public school, small commercial units, restaurants, a bus storage warehouse, a recreational sports field, and more parking lots.

I chose 72 East Canton Street in the South End of Boston, Massachusetts as my site. It is currently the site of a private parking lot and lacks any unique characteristics. It is located in a programmatically diverse neighborhood. It is an under utilized space that could potentially revitalize the neighborhood because of its central location between many types of program. It is surrounded by public housing, a public school, small residential units, small commercial units, industrial warehouses, a police station, and more parking lots.

Analysis / Re-presentation Ideas

I need to start by analyzing to functions and protagonists of the space. I need to understand what programs comprise the surrounding area, who is using these programs, and who is affected by this use. I also need to analyze moment through and around the specific site. I also need to identify the specific characteristics that make this site unique and give it a sense of “place” within the community.

Potential Sites

Experiential Learning in Bosnia

Some photos of my trip to Bosnia

Sarajevo, Bosnia

Sarajevo, Bosnia

Sarajevo, Bosnia

Sarajevo, Bosnia

Sarajevo, Bosnia

Pocitelj, Bosnia

Mostar Bridge, Mostar, Bosnia

Cathedral, Sarajevo, Bosnia

Metal Shop, Sarajevo, Bosnia

City as a Living Creature

Idea Map

Visual Abstract

Rotterdam Visual Abstract

Visual Abstract - First Attempt

This is my first attempt to visually portray "Things That I Can't Live Without" followed by the mapping of connections between these things. Hopefully, this will help me generate some topics for my thesis.

Visual Abstract

Topic Map

Things I Can't Live Without

The following are things I can't live without (in no particular order)...


the Blue Mosque (Istanbal, Turkey)
any works by Carlo Scarpa
the climb up St. Peter's Dome in Rome, Italy
Annie Leibovitz's photography
reading
Vrin, Switzerland
"Never grow a wishbone where your backbone ought to be."
Castelvecchio (Verona, Italy by Carlo Scarpa)
ballerina sculptures by Degas
Herzog & deMeuron
the Grand Bazaar and the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey
the Thermal Baths (Vals, Switzerland by Peter Zumthor)
Berlin, Germany (especially Adalbertstrasse 65)
Reina Sophia Museum (Madrid, Spain by Jean Nouvel)
"This too shall pass."
red poppy paintings by Georgia O'Keeffe
Norman Foster
Fondazione Querini Stampalia (Venice, Italy by Carlo Scarpa)
my family
the Holocaust Tower at the Jewish Museum (Berlin, Germany by Daniel Libeskind)
Santiago Calatrava
St. Benedict Chapel (Switzerland by Peter Zumthor)
Hearst Tower (New York, New York by Norman Foster)
traveling
"Work like you don't need the money."
Venice, Italy
Caixa Forum (Madrid, Spain by Herzog & deMeuron)
eating delicious food
Brion Tomb (Italy by Carlo Scarpa)
"Do what you love, love what you do."

Exploration of Architectural Ideas Through Collage and Section

My idea of threshold and procession as architectural terms changed after I defined the words. 

Threshold:  the border or limit of a region, the magnitude or intensity that must be reached for a certain condition to occur 

Procession:  an advance in orderly succession in a formal or ceremonial way, the emanation of the Holy Spirit

I used these definitions and my previous ideas about the terms to create abstract "sections" that portrayed the word spatially. (**Sections coming soon**)

 

Threshold

Procession

Exploration of Architectural Ideas Through Collage

These collages are a first attempt to visually portray the spatial qualities of the architectural terms threshold, procession, and scale and proportion.

Threshold - Boston Public Library Entrance Stairs

Threshold - Boston Public Library Entrance Hall

Procession - Boston Public Library Courtyard

Procession - Boston Public Library Courtyard

Scale and Proportion - Copley Square

Scale and Proportion - Copley Square