Fragments: Context + Nostalgia
As globilisation progresses and architectural styles become shared across the globe, how do we retain place-identity and continue to convey place-meaning through architecture? The changing of place-identity is no more evident than it has been in Christchurch following the 2011 earthquake. Few landmark heritage buildings survived. Residents found themselves lost in a city they called home their entire lives, now surrounded by empty lots or placeless places embodied by glass, steel and concrete assembled in the same way as any other city on earth.
Shortly before the Christchurch earthquake, a smaller earthquake devastated the rural Canterbury county of Selwyn in 2010. Among the causalities was my childhood home, an old brick homestead amongst the hills below the alps. This place is the subject of this thesis, which seeks to identify and extract the qualities of context that make this place home.
Key ideologies and theories central to this research are contextualism, philosophical phenomenology, and architectural phenomenology, with which a theoretical framework is developed to inform a design methodology. The ultimate goal of this research is to develop a methodology to transfuse meanings of place into an architectural design. By scrutinous investigation of nostalgic memories and qualities of context, characteristics of place are identified, transformed, and incorporated into an architectural design process. Additionally, the design project of this work seeks to hypothetically create and maintain a community through architectural design. The design of a co-living home for several families suggests a solution to meet the needs of a large, and growing family.