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Building Technology: A Case Study Approach

This prototypical educational tool for Building Technology curricula employs the case study approach. Featured here is the document, Sixty State Street: A Case Study, developed by the Design Case Study Team at MIT in 1977 and on-line access to approximately 300 digital images documenting the construction of Sixty State Street, a skyscraper built in downtown Boston in 1977.

The project includes the duplication of Jim Becker's construction slides for the Rotch Visual Collections and the development of this World Wide Web page to provide local and remote access for both self-study and electronic classroom instruction. This combines slide collection development with further RVC exploration of the educational uses of WWW with its numerous advanced functionalities. It offers opportunities for expansion to incorporate other building sites as case studies, thereby creating a working electronic resource functioning as a teaching module for the MIT and Internet community.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This prototype was made possible by the generous financial support evidenced by the donation of Mary S. Newman in establishing the Robert B. Newman Fund for Visual Communications in Building Technology for the Rotch Library Visual Collections.

We are also grateful to the Design Case Study Group, principally Jim Becker, for gracious permission to reproduce this report and for the use of Jim Becker's slides. Many thanks are also due Leonard Morse-Fortier for his cooperation and contributions.

SIXTY STATE STREET - Boston, MA
A Case Study


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Sixty State Street is a project of unique characteristics. Its lengthy urban development has spanned from the expansionist middle sixties, when "bigger is better" office towers symbolized civic strength, growth, pride and power, to the more conservative middle seventies, when environmental concern and a different understanding of the city and its problems forced one to question whether tall buildings should indeed be built.

Its history makes it uniquely instructive. It has experienced not only most obstacles to development, and followed the major paths of building regulation, but served to epitomize urban design philosophies of both the sixties and seventies. In additon, its design history and the openness of the designers to the Design Case Study Group's documentation has made Sixty State Street a textbook example for the design and construction of buildings.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

1. SIXTY STATE STREET... A HISTORY

The history of Sixty State Street is the steady dissolution of a developer's opportunity as a result of environmental, aesthetic, historical, political and economic struggles.

2. PARTICIPANTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

The planning, development, design and construction of Sixty State Street required the efforts of a large number of organizatons, both private and public.

3. THE BUILDING

To create the spaces, textures and physical systems of a modern office tower, the efforts of many people and firms would be required on-site until late in 1977. Image documentation of the construction process accompanies the text.

FOOTNOTES

WWW Sources for Building & Technology Image Documentation


libraries.mit.edu libraries.mit.edu/rvc
Last updated:
31 Aug 98