BUILDING, RIVERDALE,
N. Y.
A Place for Students by
PETER A. LEVENTI
SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF
THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF
MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE
MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
June, 1972
Department of Architecture, May 25, 1972
Certified by..,..... .
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h is Supervisor
Accepted by.. .......
Chairman, epartmental Committee on Graduate Students
Archives
JUL 71972
113RAR1ES

... The text has been lost; there are those who believe that it consisted of a line of verse; others, of a single word. What is certain, and incredible, is that all the enormous palace was, in its most minute details, there in the poem, with each illustrious porcelain and each design on each porcelain and the penumbrae and the light of each dawn and twilight, and each unfortunate or happy instant in the glorious dynasties of mortals, of gods and of dragons that had inhabited it from the unfathomable past. Everyone was silent, but the Emperor exclaimed: "You have robbed me of my palace!" And the executioner's iron sword cut the poet down.
from Jorge Luis Borges'
Parable of the Palace

a short fable dedicated to Maurice Smith
Once there was an illustrious teacher of the
Universal Consciousness. From all over the world, students came to hear his ,teachings. We spent many years trying to be donscious of the
Universal Consciousness. Even now, at the end of my stay, there is no revelation.
There is, no doubt, some Buddhist moral.
'3

Abstract of thesis:
Building, Riverdale, N.Y.
a place for students
Peter A. Leventi
Submitted to the Department of Architecture on May 12, 1972 in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Architecture.
Within the neighborhood scale and context of the
"suburban house" converted to student use, I attempt to design a wider range of privacies to allow and suggest possible alternative uses and life-styles. In addition to its role as "house", the building, as much as its scale permits should:
1. adapt itself for seminars, meetings, celebrations;
2. be an "occasion" in the scattered network of the college;
3. disclose its activities to the community.
The building vocabulary of ground, walls, structural framework, self supporting "deep" panels, enclosure screens, should permit:
1. a partial, permanent, suggestive backbone;
2. alternative, interchangeable completions for specific uses.
The "design process" hasn't been a linear sequence of decisions, but a "Robbe-Grillet" series of superimposed possibilities. My thesis is a collection of the images: and justifications which are passing thru and dictating the project.
Thesis Supervisor: Maurice K. Smith
Professor of Architecture

The Site
The site is a "house lot" on a slope, in the Riverdale section of the Bronx, New York City. It is an area of private, one family houses on 1/4 to 1/2 acre lots.
Within a few blocks of the site are several private schools and Manhattan College. (fig. 1)
The majority of the students at Manhattan live elsewhere in the city and commute to school, but quite a few live in the immediate neighborhood. The college has expanded from its traditional quadrangle into the surrounding community by acquiring houses and transforming them into faculty and student housing. The college owns three houses adjacent to the site. (fig. 27)

Use Images
Starting pretty much with the image of "the house",
I try to push it towards a wider range of private and public use.
The unfinished garage; a place for making rugs, pots, boats, in good weather, outside thru the garage doors.
The kitchen, dining room, dining deck; a place for making a lonely midnight hamburger or dining by candlelight.
Aunt Jemima might make pancakes for everyone; take your plate all over the place.
The "bedrooms" contain several levels which begin to become furniture. There are raised, wide window sills
(Dirk Bogarde had a beautiful one in Accident), where one
can be cuddled up, but nearly outside. There are doorstep porches where you can be "at home" in front of your room, without my sticking my head inside your door to find out.
Sitting on the wall (fig. 36), one can dangle one's feet homeward or outward towards the community, or one can sit astride.
In the center of the "living room", when I finish my

thesis, drunk, at the top of my voice, I would sing:
A nous, a nous la libertel
Everyone would join the party.
(7
Form Images the sketches: figs. 2 - 6: climbing up the hill, figs. 7 12: the object in space. The building gets pushed against the northern site boundary, separating the access to the north from the protected "garden" to the south.
figs. 13 15: going under the building. An attempt to reduce the separation. In fig. 15, there are diagrams of superimposed levels.
fig. 16 (plan) and fig. 17 (axonometric): the break-up of the object into several pavillions along an arrival sequence (promenade architecturale). This scheme is not possible within the dimensions of the site. figs. 18 25: organizations.
fig. 26: an impulsive transition from the first to the revised design.

the designs: figs. 27 33: first design. The building got too fat.
I had doubts about the ability of the loft space at the top to be both open and to serve as sleeping lofts for the individual rooms. At the northeast end, where the building butts against the retaining wall, a change of direction seemed necessary.
figs.
3
4 38; revised design.

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