Contemporary urban frontiers

Thesis (M.Arch.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2006.Includes bibliographical references (p. 184-190).This thesis is a provocation; to the profession of architecture at large and every person who reads it. In reading this work, the manner in which our profession functions in society should be questioned. Architecture affords us the opportunity to conceive beyond the confines of formal design, tectonics, and technology. In it we may find the ability to significantly engage with culture, to comment, and to influence change. If we neglect this capacity, we are assured to continue on the path of a formalistic tradition set before us by so many others. This thesis studies the benign, the ubiquitous; considers it as a vehicle of change. In doing this, an alternative to the prevalent stylistic driven methodology of architecture is presented. The typology of retail presents itself as a beginning, a gestation point from which a new mode for consideration of design is born. Discovered is a new trajectory of thought, one capable of taking a common cultural circumstance and re-conceptualizing it as social progress. In this, a new paradigm for architecture is conceived. One less concerned with how something is made or what it represents, and more concerned with what architecture may accomplish on a variety of scales; from the individual, to the community, to culture as a whole.by Michael R. Powell.M.Arch