Settlement in an Amereican landscape : a place of work amidst a particle accelerator's transformation of the Texas prarie

Abstract

This thesis considers the design of the research facility accompanying the Superconducting Super Collider, a large particle accelerator planned for central Texas. It will focus on this Pl'Qject as a form of human settlement in a prairie landscape altered by the presence of a technological intervention, the collider mechanism. The thesis takes the stance that designing a built environment which interacts and incorporates its surroundings is accomplished by responding to the existing physical characteristics of the site. As such. it will distinguish the elements. both built and natural, that make up the existing landscape and an environment for human activity. The experience of a place is defined by the definition of space, size and scale, the quality of material and light, and the response to climate. An element, whether a tree or a column, is deployed taking into consideration its relationship to other things rather than as just a thing in itself. The settlement is designed as an accumulation of parts rather than a single entity, and, as such, has a multiple set of spatial and qualitative relationships both within and beyond it With the transformation of the landscape through a range of physical systems, the ability to take into consideration both the scale of the human and the surroundings is achieved.