In Place: Between Levels

Abstract

“To be human is to live in a world that is filled with significant places: to be human is to have and to know your place.” Edward Relph said this in his book Place and Placelessness to describe a very fundamental aspect of life, place and dwelling. For much of human’s existence the true relationship that man and environment have had has been overlooked and misunderstood. There is a need to truly explore the depths of what makes a meaningful place that allows a human to truly dwell. Most just accept a place as a geographical location in which an event or a collection of events occurs, which may or may not have meaning to people, however, there is much more to places and the act of dwelling. There is a need to understand the relationship that exists between a person and their environment in order to design quality architecture that will allow a place to develop and in turn dwelling to occur. It is the ultimate job of the architect to design these meaningful places. For this reason, this thesis will investigate and attempt to understand what makes up a place that allows for the opportunity of dwelling by the user.