[Truncated abstract] Remote biodiverse sites present unique problems to architects who seek to create greater connectivity between people and landscape. Such sites, particularly those along Australia's temperate coastlines, are rapidly being developed for housing yet in many cases these landscapes have no prior history of sedentary habitation. Not only do these sites lack relevant architectural precedents, they are yet to be measured and represented; the very acts that define the specifics of site and identity of place. These landscapes are as unrecorded as they are uninhabited and consequently there is little to resist the imposition of foreign architectural typologies - buildings which are inherently ecologically unsustainable and non site-specific. This thesis addressed these problems by testing an architectural design methodology which placed considerable emphasis on site measure and mapping. The key hypothesis that underpinned the research was that site-specific architecture cannot be realised independently of site-specific mapping. The research was conducted from the standpoint that maps are not simply abstracted 'grounds' upon which architectural designs are formulated, they are landscape representations and as such they engage with a broader cultural context by articulating our fundamental concepts of 'landscape'. The thesis is part theoretical discourse and part creative research. The research method involved first selecting a number of study sites in a new housing subdivision located within one of the world's most biodiverse regions. ... Several opportunities arose as a direct result of this publicly engaged process, most notably two professional commissions: the first as guest artist for a two-year state-wide exhibition; the second for a built work of architecture in the study area. Both projects provided a 'proof of concept' test of the applicability of the research method to architectural praxis. While the research primarily addresses the discipline of architectural design, it draws upon methods and approaches from landscape architecture, surveying, botany, photography, and art practice. These disciplines all face the same challenge as architecture in remote biodiverse sites: conventional forms of measure, representation and making must be reconceptualised in order to develop responses which are commensurate with the unique biophysical and cultural conditions which characterise these sites. Because biodiverse sites continuously change, as does our understanding of them, a direct causal link between site-specific mapping and site-specific architecture cannot be established. However, the research has shown that collectively such works provide a 'landscape of resistance': through a highly site-attuned multidisciplinary approach, greater connectivity is achieved between people and landscape and the manifestations of this connectivity - the sitespecific maps and buildings - help to form specifically local understandings of landscape. Building in remote biodiverse landscapes is a technical problem, a creative problem, a cultural problem and an ethical problem. The research presents a means of reconciling these problems in the midst of the present milieu, one which is characterised by extreme technical capacity and environmental anxiety.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/194827 |
| Date | January 1900 |
| Creators | Weir, Ian James |
| Publisher | University of Western Australia. |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | Copyright Ian James Weir, http://www.itpo.uwa.edu.au/UWA-Computer-And-Software-Use-Regulations.html |
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