MArch Thesis 2024
Providence, RIOur surroundings witness our existence through the physical, spatial, and emotional traces we leave behind. The
surfaces of a room become the staging ground to archive the palimpsest of life placed onto it by people enacting their
daily rituals. These archival surfaces hold mnemonic imprints of personal and collective memories. The architectural
drawing becomes a registering surface to examine the living archive by creating a series of room documentation.
Much like the mnemonic attributes of a marking, the drawing holds the same essence by interweaving accurate
documentation of people’s belongings and their recollections of the space. The living surfaces of architecture are a passive archive of our inhabitation.
This thesis examines the role of architectural surfaces as a staging ground for personal objects that carry with them aspects of memory, narrative, and personal histories. The lived experience within architecture is often dismissed with the architect’s role in a building’s life ending at its physical conception. Architectural representations are often devoid of time, motion and personal histories in sake for spatial clarities. With precedent representations such as period room drawings, motion studies, and photographic guns, there was an interest in developing a representation to better examine the lived experience within our architecture.
By incorporating personal testimonies, accurate bedroom documentations and time based media, a series of three room documentations were conducted over the course of the spring. These resulted in a collection of motion drawings that examine the personal rituals and object trajectories within a domestic space. It argues that the lived experience of architecture should be used as a study to better understand how we curate and imprint onto our personal spaces. The series of three people show the diverse ways in which people live within the confines of architecture.