M A S S : A treatise on construction: experiments in material culture

The aim of this thesis is cohesively question how we build. As a constructed thought it pauses at the moment before the raw matter of the Earth is transformed into sociological object and attempts to extrapolate a broader cultural context for the making of architecture. The argument is generated using both projection and observation as a means of exploring the potentialites within this transformative process. It is a tale of three cities – New City, Non City and Now City. New City is an imagined paradigm, an alternate metropolis built on a culture of material pragmatism, a space where ‘weight’ is the defining scale. Now City is a study of urbanity in its current state, specifically its position as a piece of constructed ground. Finally, Non City theorizes a new typology for civic space that bridges the Now with the New.