Frame to Foreground: Translating Documentary Landscapes in Braddock, PA

Abstract

The project posits that critical photography should be adopted as a design methodology – starting from the representation of a diagnostic relationship between a subject and their setting to grasp at the ineffable affect that artists capture beautifully, and often revealing social issues, left in tension within the frame through photographic techniques. This thesis project argues the translation of critical photography into spatial elements is crucial for our understanding of place. Furthermore, this new methodology reveals the concept of defining landscape as a set of relationships between living beings. The project is about preserving what every local in Braddock, Pennsylvania holds—a strong relationship to place. Using Frazier’s framing techniques, this thesis injects photography directly into the method of design. The project imagines a system of public landscapes that are centered in belonging, gathering, and reclaiming space. A riverfront park, a gathering pavilion, a public plaza, and a garden work as one to knit together a post-industrial steel mill town that has been disinvested for forty years. This thesis is advised by Sara Zewde.