Chip-budDing: Garage, Garden, Graphics

Abstract

Chip-budDing is a horticultural adaptation of Peabody Terrace’s garage, designed by Josep Lluís Sert. In both its concept and its method, this thesis adopts the horticultural technique of 'chip budding' as a model for the ecological adaptation of an existing building. In both public aesthetics — ‘eco-brutalism’ is the most popular architecture-related prompt for AI-imaging technologies—and critical inquiry—the emergence of arguments against the conventional “growth” of the built environment—specific designs are connected to environment ethics. This thesis pursues an 'ABC' of techniques to develop a design intervention into existing urban situation: C) Graphics - Chipping archival stock: Using the digitized drawings from the Sert archive as the site of the project; B) Garden - Grafting metasequoias: Using dawn redwoods as a 'metaphor bud' that spur a modular architecture intervention; A) Garage - Budding new housing: Using modular tiling inspired by both forestation and textile to design an 'eco-brutalist-style' transformation of infrastructure.