Intensifying urban thresholds : building continuity for New Bedfords's waterfront

Abstract

This thesis explores issues of urban form through an understanding of vernacular traditions in a local context. The exploration consists of looking at the characteristics of a particular place in an attempt to understand how a past way of defining space might inform a future way of making. The underlying concern in this thesis is the issue of disinvestment in our cities and towns. City centers -- once thriving commercial, civic, and community precincts -- have become fragmented, stratified, and isolated places. As crime, suburbanization, and disinvestment impoverish the public realm of the city center, those that can afford to avoid the plurality of the street for an increasingly privatized existence. Our built environment is a direct reflection of these trends -- the more we turn inward for stimulation, the less emphasis we place on the exterior; the more concerned we are with bottom line costs, the less we spend on public amenities and infrastructure. By focusing on a city in which these problems are manifest one might explore ways that architecture can provide increased opportunities for interaction and communication between people. For the purposes of this exploration, the City of New Bedford was chosen; it is a place of longstanding building traditions that faces the disinvestment that plagues many American cities today, The methodology that has been developed is rooted in vernacular traditions, and it establishes a mechanism for strengthening and enriching the interface between public and private realms.