Quilting Urban Fabric: Imagining Patchwork Quilting as an Architectural Methodology for Sustainability and Collective Care

Abstract

As a tradition of making that is both material and social, patchwork quilting is a practice of domestic craft with meaningful potential to inform architectural and urban design in the interest of cultural, environmental, and economic sustainability. Quilting is an act of homemaking and placemaking that embeds spaces and materials with a unique feeling of home while archiving collective memories and expressing personal narratives. This thesis imagines the quilting bee as a methodological framework for collectively designing and making homes from salvaged scraps of urban fabric and is tested through the collaborative design of a cohousing project on Robie Street in Halifax, Canada. The quilting methodology is envisioned as an act of resistance against the forces of development that erase memories, narratives, and labour embedded in historical homes, and reframes the cultural meaning of homemaking as a collective and ongoing act of reciprocal care between people and material.