Thesis Proposal : Updated

TITLE
Imply: The Changing Role of Technology and Mass Customization and its Greater Implications on Design

THESIS ABSTRACT
Internet technologies have decreased the gaps in media, art, culture, music and technology in both good and bad ways. One can search the internet and find the same information in reputable sources they may have searched originally side by side with personal weblogs and biased sources they may have never heard of. Everything is immediately and infinitely available to everyone, as long as you know what to search for. These changing technologies have changed the way we work, play, shop, learn, keep in touch, and do business, and in turn I believe architecture should respond to this fundamental change in the way in which we live. This thesis will use the technologies put into place for constructing, shipping and assembling the prefabricated house kit in an educational building, and will begin to discuss advantages, disadvantages and potential issues related to technology.

THESIS STATEMENT
The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More describes a world where all media is equally accessible. Technology has allowed for a simple internet search to return The New York Times alongside the Warren, Ohio Tribune-Chronicle. Information is no longer bound by the constraints of shelf space or warehouse size, but instead is digitally infinite. Previously, to sell CDs in a music store, each CD had to sell a minimum of four times per quarter to earn its “rent” on a shelf. But the music store could realistically only have the 5,000 highest-selling albums on its shelves; the amount of revenue brought in by those 5,000 is nearly equal to if not less than the amount of revenue brought in by “The Long Tail,” those next 500,000 albums. The internet has brought those 500,000 albums to be equally weighted with the top 5,000 and equally accessible. This theory applies to books, magazines, video games, clothing, almost any aspect of daily life. The internet invites mass collaboration from sites like Wikipedia, YouTube, MySpace, and Google Blogger among many others. Anyone with an internet connection can create, add, or edit content, and possibly become famous in the process. The line between celebrity and citizen ceases to be as defined as it has previously been. Can these technological theories apply to architecture? And, can the architecture respond to the changing way in which we use buildings?