Pattern Process: An Exploration of Non-Architectonic Seams

Abstract

The re-purposing of a two-hundred year-old river-side factory site involves a complex set of extant, historical, and hypothetical considerations, and requires a system of strategies and tactics beyond the conventional scope of historic preservation or formal architectural analysis. The discovery of cultural patterns, both physical and social, becomes the alibi for an even broader exploration of design methodology. By reviving the etymology of "pattern" as the co-joining of autonomous pieces to create form and volume, a conceptual study of pattern and seams seeks to develop an implicit methodology that first reveals non-architectonic structural relationships, then engages these structures as determinants in the re-design of the existing built environment. The proposed framework is tested against an architectural agenda that seams historic patterns of human activity and site conditions with speculative patterns of event, process, and technology for the creation of a place expressing contemporary ideology among the continuity of living history.