Walking Backwards on Uneven Ground
All place has embedded meaning – it is a reflexive method for understanding ourselves through existence in space. We create meaning in place by associating it with (personal and/or collective) memory. As we frame our worlds in context of our places and spaces, architects have an ethical responsibility to their clients, and to the wider society whom they serve. This thesis posits that contemporary architecture in Aotearoa must respond to a need to diversify views on aesthetic preference. This research investigates memory and meaning creation as considered through nostalgia, and subsequently, the cumulative knowledge gained through impressions or experiences. This research utilises an auto-ethnographic methodology to explore personal experience – through memory – as the building blocks of the self. This self-construction is inextricably related to the development of personal aesthetic preferences and is extrapolated out to the collective aesthetic preference or norm. This work reflects on - and moves us towards - a critique of form, function, and meaning-making processes, that claim objectivity; in support of subjectivities.