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On behalf of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, especially the students who now present the culmination of their M. Arch education through their thesis, we extend our gratitude to the guest critics who have generously joined us on Thursday, December 22, 2022:

Erin Besler, Garnette Cadogan, Sean Canty, Beatriz Colomina, Natalia Dopazo, Jenny French, Antonio Furgiuele, Caroline Jones, Ang Li, Diana Martinez, Lauren Pacheco, Julian Rose, John Todd, Ivonne Santoyo Orozco, Hans Tursack, Matthew Okazaki, Mark Wigley, and Alpha Yacob Arsano.

MIT Master’s
of Architecture
Thesis 



Fall 2022
SHOW:  All  MORNING SESSION  AFTERNOON SESSION


Forward to the Past: Redesigning the form and flow of C2C Marketplace

Jinyoung Sim



Thesis Committee 

Advisor:
Xavi Aguirre

Readers:
Andrew Scott
Terry Knight




Louis Kahn put forth the concept of the clear division of hierarchical function of the built environment, that is the bisection of the served and servant spaces. Yet, as sharply distinct as the two conceptual spaces are, such a hierarchical dichotomy does not easily allow the development of an organic relationship between the two levels, the rigidity of which creates a formidable impasse in an era of ever-changing interrelationships between every matter.   

This thesis is an act to challenge the rigidity posed by the distinction between the served and servant spaces, by re-establishing the relationship between humans and machines in the context of the rapidly developing technological era. The thesis sets a unique industrial complex that mainly processes, stores, and exhibits secondary-market goods, and its characteristic composition of two buildings apparently embodies the hierarchical relationship between the served and servant spaces. From the outset, it seems that the building, occupied by machines, which receives, analyzes, categorizes, and exhibits goods is the served space, while the building, occupied by humans, which minimizes machine errors and supports technological and administrative tasks is the servant space.  

Yet, it is at the bottom of the machine-building, where secondary goods meet humans, that ignites the change of the relationship. Humans voluntarily view, determine, and select which goods to purchase. Human decisions and agency extend the secondary good’s lifespan. As symbolic as it seems, the goods are transferred to the human building, from the bottom rise to the roof, and come out with new destinations determined, and new meanings attached. At this moment, the line between the served and servant space is blurred to the point of inversion, and the rigidity of the two levels breaks down. Indeed, the two buildings become to serve as a suggestive manifestation of the leveled coexistence of the two spaces.