In modern times the architect is confronted with a plethora of choices when it comes to building materials. The influx and integration of advancing technologies into the building materials catalog has caused the architect to begin to look at material selection more closely as it regards to fashion and advancement of technology and less as it regards to efficiency and potential. This is evidenced by the lack of innovation of more traditional building materials and a push towards understanding newer technologies and how they can be integrated into architecture. The focus of this thesis is to look at the potentials of existing materials and to exploit them using an attitude adopted from music.
The potential for a method which mediates between two different mediums is explored in order to invigorate the architects view of more traditional materials. By looking at the common brick as the building element and considering it with an attitude adopted from spectral composition, this thesis proposes a method for the consideration of material which affords a greater degree of potential to be exploited. This attitude manifests itself in the design of a site specific intervention along a nature trail within a national park. The design focuses on a character centered attitude towards standard building elements and uses the manipulation of their form to produce a greater understanding of them as well as drawing out their continued potentials. This approach tests the understanding of the brick by transforming it into something that is understood as not the “standard materials”, but as those materials whose character has been shifted. This approach also informs the architecture as it allows the adjusted identity of these new materials to act as the protagonists for the development and application of themseleves, effectively drawing out their inherent potentials.