Memory through re-use : food, fuel, fossils, filth and a few filling stations

Abstract

This project engages disposable objects and concepts in the design process. Cultural items deemed unusable, obsolete, unfashionable, repugnant, toxic, or otherwise dirty are used as a resource and as a means to access collective memory. In this way the project will redefine for itself that which is useful and that which is wasteful, thereby identifying untapped resources of creative and pragmatic material: by using abandoned gas stations (a site typology created by a piece of sweeping national legislation) the project addresses generic issues applied nationally, making the design a repeatable intervention. by identifying local examples of these generic sites, specific issues of contextual appropriateness are explored. by highlighting the previous use of the site, rather than disguising it, the thesis creates a continuity with the past, learning from and improving on the lessons of a tradition. The previous use of the site is not celebrated though a simple physical preservation, but through a continuation of the methods employed on the sites to create identity. by designing a public lavatory, issues of waste, resource, and stigma are explored. The program foregrounds issues of personal involvement (bodily necessity) in public issues (municipal infrastructure). The program addresses issues of transformation from states of use, to abandonment, to rediscovery, and follows the principle that waste equals food.