This project represents the search for an architecture within the physical, historical, and political situation that an existing city presents. Set within the physical bounds of Savannah, it builds upon an understanding of the city as a series of Utopian propositions existing subliminally and often incongruously. As such, the project concerns the making of public space--space to relieve the culturally disjointed condition of modern urban life by acting as a sort of stage for creative expression and collective improvisation. This also involves the making of characteristic places, which by energetically acknowledging, confronting, challenging, or amplifying the cityâ s conceptions of itself, have the potential to generate both physical and metaphysical transformations. Furthermore, in response to urban development paradigms that are either senselessly uncoordinated or mechanistically authoritarian, the project proposes an alternative: the structured interweaving of a â civic layerâ of these generative urban centers, each serving a different part of the city. The centers must function architecturally as the symbols and containers of civic life, providing space and programmatic flexibility to allow for open cultural engagement while aesthetically enlivening the urban fabric and serving collectively as an index to the city at large. / Master of Architecture