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Strange Beauty: Re-Imagining Scraps as Architecture

Knecht, Liam M.

Abstract Details

2011, MARCH, University of Cincinnati, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Architecture.
The process of designing with scrap materials presents opportunities for improvisation and play, something that has become lost in contemporary building culture. There are obvious benefits to standardized building products, but there is a lack of material engagement in the process. A marked benefit of recycling scraps is that as a strategy for design it increases the engagement of the designer with these materials, because they must be dealt with on their own terms. The kinds of material scraps that have no steward and that are so problematic because of their awkward state of in-between-ness are the most compelling, because they are rife with potential and there is nothing to lose, and so much to gain, in taking them in and allowing their strange beauty to lead the way. A material palette based upon beautifully problematic scraps must therefore also include the inordinate number of vacant buildings that litter the urban fabric. The re-imagining of these scraps will form the basis of an architectural design process developed from a kinesthetic and dialogical engagement with these materials. A process of designing that exalts idiosyncrasies and simple processes of fabrication will be used to show off the unexpected agility and vitality of materials that were once considered trash. The result is an architecture that has grown out of a dialogical process and is therefore more grounded, and more accessible to the user.
George Bible, MCiv.Eng (Committee Chair)
Aarati Kanekar, PhD (Committee Chair)
58 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Knecht, L. M. (2011). Strange Beauty: Re-Imagining Scraps as Architecture [Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1307441649

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Knecht, Liam. Strange Beauty: Re-Imagining Scraps as Architecture. 2011. University of Cincinnati, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1307441649.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Knecht, Liam. "Strange Beauty: Re-Imagining Scraps as Architecture." Master's thesis, University of Cincinnati, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1307441649

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)