In the quest of an adaptable built form : studying transformations in the MIT Campus

Abstract

Adaptability of the built form has for a long time been the concern of many designers. Driven by different motives such as the accommodation of "uncertainty," the pursue of an "economical space", the restoration of the user's "control" over the form, and the pursue of "fit," designers and scholars have proposed various formal means in order to achieve an architecture that would provide for change. The purpose of this thesis is to add to this discussion, proposing particular design strategies. In order to do this, transformations are documented and measured in the Main Buildings of the MIT Campus, which have often been cited for their ability to accommodate change. The thesis hypothesizes that the buildings in question contained in their body a certain DNA that enabled them to transform easily and effectively. Through the analysis of the original system of buildings and its transformations, which are divided into the two categories of growth and internal change, this DNA is exposed and juxtaposed to the formal means that have been suggested in the ideas of designers and scholars.

(cont.) The DNA is argued to consist of stems, knuckles, "unit-sections," courts, add-on facades and an underlying circulation system. The result of this thesis is a tested, in terms of effectiveness, series of specific formal means, comprised of MIT's DNA and the other designers' propositions, which can be outlined as three general strategies; provision of extra space, "open- endedness" and delineation of a comprehensive framework along which transformations can take place. At the same time, a physical history of the early years of the Cambridge Campus is produced, ranging from 1912 to 1933.