Radical restructuring : the conversion of Our Lady of Mount Carmel

Abstract

This thesis studies the restructuring of a vacant parochial school in East Boston, Massachusetts, to 17 residential units of varying sizes. It formulates a process for dismantling the authoritarian imagery of the existing institutional structure and develops in its place a residential syntax compatible with the surrounding rowhouse neighborhood. This is accomplished by creating an additive fragmentary composition which implies continuity with the adjacent residential fabric. Further, the thesis addresses the need for major exterior intervention in building rehabilitation to establish a dialectical association between the buildings enclosing form and its redefined context.