Abstract:
This thesis locates itself in the local Christchurch and wider architectural tradition, seeking to understand how individuals forge their own individual practice both in response to, and as a result of, an evolving discipline. The creative process is analogised to a biological one of genetic change—a conversion of code into physical form, influenced also by exterior “epigenetic” factors. This morphological process acts at many different scales: inheriting from successive generations of architects who pass on their practice via apprenticeship and education; from project to project in an individual’s career; within a building’s journey from paper to reality; and within an architect’s mind as part of their creative process. The thesis identified three strands of inquiry around this goal: generation, expression and bildungsroman. Generation refers not only to successive generations of architects, but also to the act of creating. It explores how intra/ inter-personal epigenetic factors affect the result and action of a creative process. Expression attempts ways that architects can exhibit their practice to express and provoke the epigenetic factors towards the audience. Finally, the thesis analyses architectural theses as examples of bildungsroman—or coming- of-age documents—in which the author displays a process of becoming. The three strands braid together into a design for a gallery that exhibits the thesis’s process, in the form of drawings, models, photos and analysis—thereby containing its own creation. The form consists of three different periods of local architecture, which are inverted, flooded and submerged into the land. A personal studio is placed on the foundations of these past generations, to symbolise and interrogate an architect’s relationship to their community. Finally, the above ground condition attempts to return to original swampland, raising questions around architecture’s connection to the shaky and forgetful past below. In so doing, the thesis aims at understanding the epigenesis of building.