A Fascinating Folly: Making-place through the thickness of time

The design research narrates an architectural inquiry into shifting mainstream practices surrounding Aotearoa’s historic architecture. The proposal intertwines current architectural approaches to tangible facets of history with the nuances of Intangible Heritage, specifically focusing on Turnbull House, and its unsettled narratives. To demonstrate this, the research experiments with three architectural interventions distilling qualities of form which enable abstract experiences. Intangible qualities of our historic architecture are pursued through the mediums of narrative and time, which intersect to create a definition for making-place. The resultant architectural objects map the city of Wellington, Te-Whanganui-a-Tara, applying rigorous historical research, and manual outputs of discovery. These design learnings feed into a conclusive argument for acknowledging contested histories of site, for our historic architecture to include Intangible Heritage to better augment time’s mark, and facilitate making-place.