Living in the Liminal: Finding Resilience in Rural British Columbia

Abstract

Off the coast of Vancouver Island, the first Redwood Cedar was felled for industry only a few kilometres from Tahsis, British Columbia. Since then, forestry remains a cornerstone to British Columbia’s economy and its provincial identity. However, uncompromising extraction has caused Tahsis and many other single-industry towns to face economic and environmental obsolescence due to globalized markets, high operational costs, and diminishing resource supplies. As a result, considerable amount of underutilized industrial waste and associated architecture is being left idle, at risk of abandonment or decay. Through concepts of bricolage and secondary use, this thesis reimagines regional waste streams as a limited palette for construction. Consolidated and tested into a new informal architecture, the wastages aim to extend the lifespan of post-industrial materials, towns, and associated landscapes. Employed as flexible programmatic functions, using participatory methodologies, a renewed interconnectedness between man and nature is established, fundamental to rural and societal prosperity.