Charlottesville, Va.

Original Thesis:

Develop a series of patterns that define the architectural interpretation of contemporary built works of the historic urban fabric in Paris, France.

41 Days in Paradise:

6 Memos for any Millenium: The language of architecture can be distilled into a series of elements (structure, light, circulation, proportion, and surface) which, regardless of their aesthetic form, play an important role in the formation of coherent architecture in all styles and time periods.

Souterrain: The role of transportation infrastructures, specifically as they apply underground, continually inform and deform our understanding of the city as a continuous logical landscape, as well as a series of event spaces and flows.

Cities and the Dead: Past creative uses of the intricate latticework of voids underneath Paris can be reinterpreted to find creative solutions to current issues facing Paris, and in doing so can explore the prospect of an inverted city below.

In-Tent-City: Subcultural movements exist within the Parisian homeless community, defined by community cooperation, creative solutions to survival techniques, and nomadic tendencies. These groups challenge contemporary practices of urban living while simultaneously raising awareness for their own plight.

Monu-Mentality: The Grands Projets serve as monuments spread across Paris and present a paradox in contemporary Parisian architecture of scale; the monumental size of the Projets seems to defy the largely human scale of historic Paris, but at the same time draws from a long line of larger-than-life monuments found in French architecture for the last 400 years.

Old Ideas, New Constructions: Haussmann was able to apply earlier urban concepts in new ways to transform Paris to what we know today. Likewise, many contemporary architects are using old concepts and applying them in ways that appear innovative, but are in fact deeply rooted in practices developed in earlier periods.

The Francophone Candidates: Many of the contemporary projects around Paris are not within the historic confines of the city. Instead of seeking interpretation of the surrounding historic context, these contemporary works focus on technological and social considerations when designing new projects.

Interview with Christophe Lab: Designing contemporary works in forgotten places, and the role of context in Paris’ outer arrondissements.

The thesis for "41 days in Paradise" will be the overarching thesis which ties each of these disparate essays into a coherent string of thought. Given that enormous task, I am not sure just what that thesis is. I do think that it is not so far from my original plan, in that it draws significantly from the contextual, cultural, and infrastructural zeitgeists surrounding contemporary Paris, instead referencing these as the starting points for architectural conception. The other problem is, and this one I never really defined, is whether "architectural conception" is aesthetic, functional, social, etc., in nature. This is something I will need to address in "41 days".