Topologies of place: a building in the landscape

Sited on the bed of an ancient rail spur within the now abandoned plat of East Princeton, British Columbia, this project consists of two unprogrammed buildings constructed using a palette of physical and poetic materials which emerge from a deep understanding of a particular site. The project begins with the assumption that cultural process is an amazing energy which does not require architecture specifically. Architecture may, however, provide a catalyst for cultural/ social dynamic and can provide a medium for its expression. Explorations undertaken are dependent upon an idea of place as an intersection of social, economic, political, historical, and physical relations within a kind of topological space. In the context of a particular site and through studies of a layering of conditions present at a precise point in time, this idea of place is used to uncover specific interactions between myth, persons, artifacts, and other factors which help lay the framework for a building in the landscape. Most importantly the project is about personal design process and discovery. Throughout the study the project is very much in control of the author with each stage of the study generating its own operating agenda. Thus an idea about the limits of architecture leads to a condition of site which itself leads to a particular map and finally to a highly specific site. Likewise program is allowed to emerge from studies of the site so that building and the desire to build become the catalyst for program rather than vise-versa. As these explorations intersect and overlap they begin to reveal a topology of place which is highly specific, but which contains links to an infinite set of other relationships and possibilities. Thus, architecture is employed as a catalyst for place expression, or as an avenue towards understanding place.Applied Science, Faculty ofArchitecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School ofGraduat