Rooted in time and place : a housing complex in South End, Boston

Abstract

The intention of this thesis is to design an urban housing project which relies upon visual cues sited in the South End for its development. The site also provides the programmatic framework which consists of housing, restaurant, retail and cafe sitting area, music school and auditorium, art gallery and public access, private interior streets and community plaza, parking, and service. My interest in doing this study sprang from a sense of our present era being dominated by trends which discourage the practice of architecture as Architecture. The specific Architecture to which I refer is one which is "rooted in time and place," a key phrase from the 1986 thesis of MIT alumnus Robert Maulden, TECTONICS IN ARCHITECTURE, From the Physical to the Meta-Physical. From the universal philosophies of Heidegger and Maulden, the modern ideas of Tadao Ando and Gunter Behnisch and the historical, vernacular precedent of Cordoba, Spain, a design project evolves with special attention paid to the role of "the wall" in the urban context.