Unboxing Manhattan: An Architecture of Things

Date
2016-04-22
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Abstract

This thesis project elaborates upon the seemingly invisible urban space of online shopping. Through its necessity in delivering products to customers, online shopping has resulted in an intense physical occupation of the city streets by delivery trucks. These semi-permanent installations of delivery provide no benefit to the public realm and yet have become a very ubiquitous element of urban space. Architecture has the opportunity to provide the city with an alternative to the unending rows of delivery trucks by introducing a new form of infrastructural public space; the delivery station. As a point-based infrastructure, the delivery stations will be distributed throughout the city in order to accommodate neighborhoods and populations. While simultaneously offering a more convenient solution to the issues of delivery, these stations will become a part of the overall architectural language of the city. This thesis focuses on the particular architectural compositions and affects of the delivery stations by developing a catalogue of parts that can be deployed across the city and a system of tectonics that can be delivered to the site. Through the concepts of scalelessness and territoriality, this thesis proposes the development of an architectural type capable of producing a new public space around the delivery logistics of online shopping.

Description
Degree
Master of Architecture
Type
Thesis
Keywords
Architecture, Logistics, Territorial, Scale, Long Building, Thin Building, Louvers, System, Aesthetics, Fedex, UPS, USPS, Amazon, Lockers, Manhattan, Delivery, Congestion, Online Shopping, Ecommerce, New York City, Madison Square, Astor Place, Stuyvesant Town, Stuytown, Greeley Square, Broadway, Subway
Citation

Andrew, Jacob. "Unboxing Manhattan: An Architecture of Things." (2016) Master’s Thesis, Rice University. https://hdl.handle.net/1911/96222.

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