Post-Industrial Production

Abstract

"In its very nature, successful economic development has to be

open-ended rather than goal-oriented necessity has not been

the mother of invention; rather, necessity opportunistically picks up

inventions and improvises improvements on it and new uses for it,

but the roots of invention are to be found elsewhere, in motives like

curiosity and especially, 'esthetic curiosity."

Jane Jacobs, The Economics of Cities

This thesis seeks to explore two themes in current architectural discourse:

1. The values and ideas that influence industrial urban form, including

creation of positive or negative edges, integration with surrounding

uses, and the possibility for an expansion of the mixed-use concept.

2. The potential for a built environment to sponsor cooperation and

innovation in conjunction with a parallel social and economic strategy,

by facilitation or manipulation of expected behavior patterns, as

well as formal architectural language.