Date of Award
Spring 6-1-2021
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Architecture (MArch)
Department
Architecture
First Advisor
Amy Kulper
Second Advisor
Jacqueline Shaw
Abstract
This Thesis asks these questions: who do we serve as architects, what does engagement with marginalized communities look like, what tools and methods are used to represent this process and these communities, and overall, how can architects create safe and inclusive space?
Collage is the critical mechanism for how this work is done and how I wish to practice in the future. Collage is used for documentation, representation, communication, and participation. All in the hope of designing a space with and for the queer community. Vital to the work is the idea of sampling from an existing image-based media that the non-architect can engage with. Historically, the collage is a vehicle for fragmentation, but in this thesis, it becomes a medium for integrating a community’s histories and stories along with the images, rendering a practice that was once exclusive, inclusive. Here, collage is a tool used to represent communities that architecture typically ignores, leaving space for the viewer to imaginatively engage and complete it. The research on existing spaces, interviews with community members, and the early exploration of inclusive spaces at three scales, informed the design of three sites for the queer imaginary: spaces designed with and for this community, and hopeful about a better future. Acknowledging queerness as a relational construct, each spatial proposition is enacted on an existing architecture.
Recommended Citation
Ramsey, Blair, "In service of _____; an inclusive architectural collage practice" (2021). Masters Theses. 657.
https://digitalcommons.risd.edu/masterstheses/657
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Comments
View exhibition online: Blair Ramsey, In Service of ______________