Thesis Defence: Brock Benninger

Friday, March 24, 2017 1:30 pm - 1:30 pm EDT (GMT -04:00)

Of the thesis entitled: THE OTHER PLACE | Building a Retreat of One’s Own

Abstract:

How is one to ground themselves in an increasingly virtual and abstract world?  The Other Place offers a complimentary environment to daily life. Here one can establish the necessary critical distance from the conditions which define day to day life, and gain the perspective required to position ones self within, or against, these conditions.  Interpretations of The Other Place, beginning with the ideology of Otium as expressed through the roman villa, continue today, varying widely across cultures, regions and individuals.  The Other Place, then, can be understood as representative of characteristics that are at once general, and quite specific, reflective of broad contextual considerations, and the particularities of its occupant.
 
The rich and complex process of designing and building a retreat of one’s own, in the tradition of the Ontario Cottage, on an island property 3 hours northeast of Toronto is used to engage with, in a rich and tangible way, the architecture, and understanding of the retreat as a complimentary environment necessary in contemporary life.  The act of building leads to an examination of how building and self are inseparable.  Building, then, becomes a means of architectural and self-understanding.  As The Other Place facilitates a wholeness in contemporary existence found through its experience, so too is a wholeness in architectural education gained in the pragmatic relationship between theory and practice found in moving from the studio to building site and applying knowledge gained from one to the other.

The examining committee is as follows:

Supervisor:

Rick Andrighetti, University of Waterloo

Committee Members:

Rick Haldenby, University of Waterloo

John McMinn, University of Waterloo    

External Reader:

Paul Dowling


The committee has been approved as authorized by the Graduate Studies Committee.

The Defence Examination will take place:  

Friday March 24, 2017                
1:30 PM               
ARC 2026


A copy of the thesis is available for perusal in ARC 2106A.