GATE

updated documents

I went on a twenty mile hike through Boston today in a mad hunt for a site. I am going again tomorrow to continue to document the site I am looking at (since part of it is not one for me to stay in past mid-day) but wanted to run it by you first. I am looking at Washington Street in Boston, where the housing projects and nicer lofts and businesses flip flop the sides of the street depending upon their accessibility and proximity to community services- such as the hospital and colleges. This has created a visible checkerboard of neighborhoods that are merely connected by the road. They are their own stand-alone units within the larger whole. The communities do not mix, and trust me- while my best friend's tattoos and dark skin may not have been smiled upon in the one section of laptop using, polo wearing, latte sipping college students, he was a bodyguard two blocks down. The site proper is a chain linked in field between an informal community shopping center/slums (a BAD place to be)and a tower housing project. This sits at the very edge of the North Eastern realm of latte sippers and Ruggles Station and just down the street from some checker-boarding along Washington Street.
My goal is to make a site proper and to then create a continuation linking and serving the many other smaller jumps up and down Washington Street. The site is large enough to hold some of the larger precedent examples I showed before, and is flat, located at a great intersection for accessibility, and has access to a multitude of neighborhoods that each need their own center and a connection besides the arterial street. This will allow me to show my thesis in practice both in large and small scale. Maybe one large "home-base" unit and several satellite units somehow linked to the first.

issues:

What I strive to do with my project is to create an architecture that can double/act as a landscape. Maybe it is a harmonious integration of the two. It is a versatile space that can adapt to the changing requirements of its host environment. The issue I am having is how much is architecture and how much is landscape. What constitutes as either category, and what combination will create the best spatial environment? My thesis involves the 'filling' of the existing void space to make connections to the exiting urban fabric. This means that the space needs to act simultaneously as an arterial connection, a void, a formally organized architecture, a landscape, and it must also be able to transform over time. So what does this mean in a physical form... ?

issues:

The thesis proposal that I have come up with is far more localized than some of the theories tackling architecture as a whole, or trying to define architecture.... mine seeks to simply find a way to relate old and new. I'm taking something I see as an issue, yes, but it is not of the same scale as some of the 'architectural greats'. Mine is far more specific, and yet I still have a great deal of freedom of interpretation. It's like how we discussed whether Hannes and LeCorb's manifestos could be applied to any project or whether they would be too prescriptive. I think that even my problem and project statements are very open ended as far as how one might apply them. The basic concept is there, but how do I put it into play is an issue I am struggling with as we approach the deadline for program. I'm finding the issue to not be one of program, but of site. I feel like the site will determine the program, help to define the concept even further, and basically arrange the project for me. This makes the stress of choosing a site even more acute. I feel as though I have backed myself into a corner, where I must choose and analyze the site before I can even begin to consider program. Whereas I have a very broad concept, that can be applied anywhere, the prescriptive nature of my thesis requires the individual concept application to a unique place and situation. I am wondering how this can be absolved without harming the nature of my thesis through the over-prescription of site requirements, or the over-simplification from generalizing my site specific project to support my more overarching thesis.