Abstract:
Architecture and site exist in an oscillatory relationship, each functioning to shape and inform the other. Historically the built form of architecture, has repressed site to function as a receiving inert matter. To address this, this thesis explores how site and landscape can act as a catalyst, an active agent, to construct and frame architecture. To test this proposition Picton and its wider spatial environment is understood as an active agent/ a catalyst in the design process. The threat to relocate Picton’s transport infrastructure south to Clifford Bay prompts the port’s envelope to operate as the narrative context for this investigation of site. Design as research is employed as the critical design methodology, supplemented by serialisation, scaling up and down, and field condition mapping.
The proposition is addressed by first exploring sites recent theoretical history, key examples are acknowledged. Two key themes are examined: Site’s relation to the built, and the bodies engagement with site. Case studies explored in this thesis provide architectural examples and demonstrate alternative approaches to site. Picton’s immediate and peripheral context are then recorded through a fieldwork study established a dialogue of ‘site thinking’ by creating a repository of specific site information. This project explores site as a catalyst through three interrelated design tests comprised of an installation, domestic building, and public infrastructure. The installation investigates how the body is able to prompt a visual re-interpretation of its peripheral environment, while the domestic dwelling is the first stage of re-inhabiting the industrial port. Lastly, Picton_/02 reimagines the township through a reconstructed infrastructure that operates as a visual and physical extension of its landscape. Site is employed as an active agent across scales to construct three different architectural perspectives. In conclusion site functions as a design catalyst to create a heterogeneous Architecture defined by its immediate and peripheral urban and geographical context.
