David Allen White

Thorough

David Allen White Advisor: Mark Jarzombek Readers: Brandon Clifford, Caitlin Mueller

Henry David Thoreau writes in the first chapter of his book, Walden, that before he could begin work on his house by the pond, he first had to borrow an axe. “Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall, arrowy pines, still in their youth, for timber.”

This passage, which marks the moment when Thoreau first turns to describing building his house,

illustrates something surprising. Thoreau’s famous experiment in self reliance began with another man’s tools.

As independent as Thoreau intended his enterprise to be, for Thoreau, borrowing is more rule than exception, appearing repeatedly and in varying ways throughout his account. He relies frequently on materials, knowledge, labor, etc. that are outside himself or his capacity to create. The nails he bought from a blacksmith. The boards were recycled from an old shanty. The land itself and the trees on it were loaned to him by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. Tools, natural resources, supply chains, help, etc. had to be bought, loaned, or scavenged in order for Thoreau to build and live, as he says, “by the labor of his hands alone.”

This thesis is interested in that shortfall, where Thoreau’s ideals about how to build and live, which is represented in the Walden text, do not match the true constraints of building and living, which are represented in the architecture. Proposed here is a series of alternatives for Walden. Each carries with it as constraint and ideal of independence. Each exaggerates the effects of those constraints as a way to better uncover their inherent tensions. Together, the designs serve as a manual, playing out the implications in design of the limits that define them.

Both images are courtesy of the author.

Master of Architecture Final Thesis Reviews, January 5, 2021

SPECIAL THANKS

Architecture Faculty and Staff Eleni Aktypi Chris Dewart Inala Locke José Luis Argüello Eduardo Gonzalez Tonya Miller Darren Bennett Gina Halabi Amanda Moore Kathaleen Brearley Matthew Harrington Andreea O’Connell Renée Caso Mariana Ibañez Paul Pettigrew Stacy Clemons Chris Jenkins Alan Reyes NIcolas de Moncheaux Terry Knight Cynthia Stewart Doug Le Vie MARCH Azra Aksamija Brandon Clifford Deborah Garcia Rania Ghosn Mariana Ibañez Mark Jarzombek Miho Mazereeuw Kiel Moe Marisa Morán Jahn Caitlin Mueller Les Norford John Ochsendorf Rosalyne Shieh Susanne Schindler Hans Tursack Delia Wendel Lawrence Vale Enrique Walker Advisors and Readers (MIT and External) Sheila Kennedy Cristina Parreño James Wescoat Nasser Rabbat

Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Architecture & Planning Department of Architecture 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 7-337 Cambridge, MA USA 02139 617 253 7791 / arch@mit.edu architecture.mit.edu

© 2020 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Individual contributions are copyright their respective authors. Images are copyright their respective creators, unless otherwise noted. Booklet design by José Luis Argüello.

DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE • MIT SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE AND PLANNING • SA+P