#RE_CONSTRUCTING AUTHENTICITY

[cmusoa-udbs]

Place

This semester the UDBS has been working on developing a proposal for RE_CON 01 and RE_CON 02, two homes on 315 and 317 N St Clair in East Liberty. The proposal is a continuation of work from the past year. Throughout the development of this project, the studio has been continually exploring the notion of place and how place is defined. When thinking about place in the context of the work developed, we have tried to critically understand why the context is the way it is and search for a logic and reasoning behind its formation. This can then help us make decisions using similar logic. For example, gable roofs are prominent where we’re located in the Northeast United States as it’s most functionally suitable to build a roof that will shed snow and rain.

The RE_CON proposal does not necessarily have a gable roof because other homes in the context do; it has a gable roof because it functionally suits the environment specific to this place. The proposal does not utilize brick only to emulate other brick homes in the context; it uses brick to both re-use a material and translate the stories that have been told through that material. A home that is built in the ground in East Liberty, that is formed appropriately using the sun and wind conditions specific to this region, that re-uses regionally specific materials with rich histories, and engages with the surrounding community in the process, is a home that can be of this place. Through this environmentally specific, materially appropriate, and community engaged process, there begins to be a story that’s told about the home in a way that aspires to be place-specific.