Process of building: a school in suburbia

Abstract

Architecture lies in the synthesis of place, purpose and process. Place and purpose are of course important however the focus of this thesis is process. This thesis is an inquiry into the opportunities and limitations inherent in typical building processes.

I wish to more fully know essential concerns of building, concerns such as spanning, laying, draining and protecting. I wish to know, the filigree of steel trusses, the order of a masonry wall, and the memory of concrete. Knowledge of building process reveals opportunities to raise building into architecture.

For the following design a pallet of building processes were assumed from typical high school construction, including:

The leveling of the site. The pouring of a concrete floor. The laying of block walls veneered in brick. The placement of steel trusses.

The following project is an attempt at bringing these typical conditions of construction alive, at revealing their qualities and ultimately raising them into architecture.