http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/7772 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41807 Tactility and architecture : Peter Zumthor's Thermal baths in Vals and the hybridization of the two motifs of tactility-materiality and movement Lee, Tonghoon, 1972- Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2002. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 68-72). http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41797 A guide to source materials of the life and work of Lawrence B. Anderson '30 Laguette, Victoria, 1953- Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1998. Includes bibliographical references. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41762 Lessons for Chinese mega-mall development : a case study of the South China Mall Ai, Lu, S.M. Massachusetts Institute of Technology China is embracing mega-mall development: Seven out of the ten largest shopping malls in the world will have been located in China by the year 2010. All the completed mega-malls are now suffering from high vacancy rates and therefore experiencing enormous economic losses. To avoid the failure of future mega-mall projects, it is important to establish rigorous guidelines for design, leasing, financing, and management of Chinese mega-malls. However, research in this field has not yet been conducted. This paper will analyze five problematic issues of the South China Mall, the largest shopping mall in the world, and describe a dynamic process involving governments, developers, and banks behind the failure of the Mall. The paper will also provide strategic suggestions on the development and management of the Mall. Given its dimensions and aspirations, the South China Mall is a mirror of contemporary Chinese mega-mall development. It is hoped that lessons from the South China Mall can be applied to other Chinese mega-malls currently experiencing economic stagnancy. Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 90-93). http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/41761 Shanghai contemporary : the politics of built form Arkaraprasertkul, Non This thesis is an attempt to integrate research, architectural knowledge, and fieldwork to understand the phenomenon of the urban transformation in Shanghai, one of the fastest growing cities in the world. Having once been a lucrative treaty port city, Shanghai has re-embarked on the mission to become an economic global city through a combination of assimilated industrialized cityscape and the startling industriousness of Chinese pragmatism from 1980 onwards. Driven by the momentum of free-market capitalism within the politics of a state-controlled quasi-communist socialist entity, Shanghai's built form and environment have been conceived as a cultural construction of the conspicuous consumption of global financial marketing and of ostentatious expenditure of the elite. Nostalgic hearkening back to the glory days of foreign occupation does not adequately explain the phenomenon that exists today. Central to the aim of this thesis are the questions on how the global market was utilized, what internal and external forces were at play, and the importance given to the perception of values. By critically examining the history of the city's planning process and the reality of its urbanism, this thesis outlines the city's pragmatic developments dominated largely by its politics. The New Shanghai is a production of image, as it has always been the facade of China by virtue of its strategic location for international trade. The mediation between the representational built form, through politics, and the internal social transformations, by means of its soft cultural infrastructure, has created a cosmopolitanism unlike anything else in the world. Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2007. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-129).