Plain objects
Name
910722569-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
49.56 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
571e110813697fedb74d0572334a8ad5
Author(s)
Ting, Evelyn (Evelyn Huei Chung)
Advisor(s)
William O'Brien Jr.
Date Issued
2015
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Given the renewed status of the object in contemporary architectural discourse, this thesis explores the object's potential to participate in urban-scale field conditions despite its singularity and perceived autonomy from surrounding context. It proposes a strategy of object-making that privileges two faces as a means to highlight the parallel opposition that exists between the perimeter and core of a typical city block, and the binary conditions that occur as a result of this divide. The emphasis on two faces also creates the effect of flatness, challenging the three-dimensional quality of objects by defining them with twodimensional figures. The scenario of an expanding urban university campus, specifically the expansion of New York University in lower Manhattan, is used as the case study. The thesis accepts the theory that the knowledge economy has replaced industry in driving the socioeconomic and urban development of 21st-century cities, and that universities, a key player, must grow to stay competitive. The academic campus often functions like a city in microcosm, requiring its own services and infrastructure, and having to balance individual identity with a collective sense of place. At the same time, its growth inevitably conflicts with the communities that occupy the property in question. The two-faced formal device seeks to call out this simultaneous parallel and opposition, and argues for the object's potential to participate both in semiotics and abstract field conditions.
Description
Thesis: M. Arch., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Architecture, February 2015.
This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. "February 2015."
Includes bibliographical references (pages 88-89).
Subjects
Architecture.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Architecture
Terms of Use
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.
Persistent DSpace Link
