A Thread of Continuity

Abstract

To place a building within an existing urban fabric without considering the components of that fabric is to deny the interactive nature of the built environment. Components such as scale, materials, regulating lines and geometric framework must be examined in order to decide what is to be transformed, what is to be translated, what is to be ignored. They are the means of creating the thread of continuity between what was, what is and what will be. This thread of continuity continues the harmony of the urban neighbor-hood by unifying the variety of the built environment. Any attempt to deny the interactivity of buildings runs the risk of creating not architecture but rather the cacophonous assemblage of materials.

This thesis looks at discovering the unifying elements of an existing neighborhood and using them to create a building that draws from the existing to reflect its own times, yet also continues the thread of the urban fabric.