Architecture as a Camera: Utilizing Photographic Principles to Tell Stories Through Design

Author

• Ryan Gabriel Scherf

Files

Date of Award

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Architecture

College

Arts and Sciences

Department

Architecture

Faculty Advisor

Stephen Wischer

Studio Coordinator

Stephen Wischer

Faculty Chair

Susan Kliman

Publisher

North Dakota State University

Rights

NDSU policy 190.6.2

URI

https://www.ndsu.edu/fileadmin/policy/190.pdf

Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship between memory, photography, and architecture as a framework for spatial design, framing memory as a fragmented phenomenon contingent upon light and time. Drawing on the theoretical work of Goffi, Barthes, and Bordeleau, it positions architecture as a temporal montage in which meaning emerges through layered absences, material “puncta,” and the interpretive gaps between fragments. Situated at the Botallack Mines in England, the project explores the intersection of photographic logic and industrial ruin by treating the site’s extractive history as a series of active fragments. Through compressed volumes and curated views, it translates photographic principles into spatial experience. These disjunctions resist fixed historical reconstruction, instead using light, materiality, and temporal sequencing to mediate the relationship between history, place, and memory. In doing so, the project repositions architecture as an active medium of remembrance, where spatial experience reconstructs rather than represents the past.

Recommended Citation

Scherf, Ryan Gabriel, "Architecture as a Camera: Utilizing Photographic Principles to Tell Stories Through Design" (2026). Architecture Theses. 109.
https://digitalcommons.ndsu.edu/architecture-theses/109