Thesis Defence: Shanne Stines

As exposited and demonstrated through the work and studies of sociologists Pierre Bourdieu, and Gary Stevens, among others, architects have traditionally represented but a small and demographically homogenous portion of the population at large. What does this mean for design? For architecture?

The thesis is a picaresque story of the experience of architecture and the education of architecture, through the lens of someone who believes themselves quite different from the typical homogeneity.

Questions of difference, meaning, what design means to whom, and who has say in determining and arbitrating that answer, are all probed freely and experimentally.

The thesis explores the idea of architecture as narrative, and attempts to place emphasis on its narrative effects, as opposed to its physical or social, or other effects. The thesis explores architecture’s ability to probe, to explore solutions, to explore problems, to explore possibilities, and to reveal what may be hidden. 

The thesis is about exploring the idea that architecture is the means by which we create narratives for our lives, for our spaces, for the world around us. Through it, we explore the notion of architecture itself as a sobriquet, a sobriquet of our societies and of our worlds. 

These explorations are then juxtaposed and layered upon the demographic homogeneity of architects and architecture, which allows us to question the very field in which we practice.