QUARRY INQUIRIES : resistance in material, method and measure

Author

• Troy Jared Raisanen

Files

Date of Award

2015

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

https://hdl.handle.net/10365/24947

Publisher

North Dakota State University

Rights

NDSU Policy 190.6.2

URI

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

Abstract

How does the methodology for constructing site information influence architectural design? This thesis is an investigative proposal for an Environmental and Cultural Interpretation Center for Quarry Park and Nature Reserve. Located in Stearns County, Minnesota, the park has twenty quarries that were previously mined for granite and reveal layers that allow geological, cultural and environmental history to be observed. Considering the connection between building and site in architectural representations makes it possible to develop a stronger understanding of both. As Leatherbarrow explains, “the open space of the physical world is really not the framework for creative work in architecture; substituting for it, or serving as its site, is the surface of a drawing--a map, a survey or plan--whether executed graphically or digitally.” Similar to the infinite nature of a landscape, a design process that ebbs and flows between building and site enables each to inform and be informed by the other. Using contour drawings of the quarries as a starting point, I traced and modeled them digitally in three dimensions. This led to printing them using a 3d printer, some of which were used as molds for casting concrete. Considering these representations at varying stages from digital to physical, plastic to concrete and back to digital enabled observations and discoveries about material, method and measure.

Recommended Citation

Raisanen, Troy Jared, "QUARRY INQUIRIES : resistance in material, method and measure" (2015). Architecture Theses. 689.
https://digitalcommons.ndsu.edu/architecture-theses/689