thesis studio pt.i

M.Arch Thesis Studio

Azrieli School of Architecture and Urbanism, Carleton University,

Ottawa, Canada, 2020

Supervisor: Ozayr Saloojee

Through Thick and Thin // Story Space on Rannoch Moor

This thesis proposes a series of fictional narratives that reflect on the moor as ground, as an unstable terrain, of burial and wetness, and proposes alternative ways of knowing through literature, folklore and story-telling as a multiverse method of worldbuilding. Can we use stories to design with precision – not as an act of probing for answers, for newness or novelty, but as a form of watching and waiting? Storytelling suggests a movement to look not to the past, or to the future, but to the deepness of the conditions that surround us, weaving together a more complex tapestry towards recuperation and resilience. This research uses a pluralistic approach (research, drawing, mapping, site-studies, stories, etc) to understand and investigate the relationship between storytelling and architectural representation. It tracks, traces, and upends - through thick and thin - notions of geological time, history, literature and lore through a speculative imaginary of Rannoch Moor.