The Metabolic Morphology of Chora: A Building Is An Organism On A Threshold

Abstract

Expanding on the fields of bio-mimicry, morpho-ecologies, and dynamics and fluidity in architecture, this thesis proposes architecture as organism. It suggests that as organism, architecture is inherently responsive to the thresholds it exists on and within, thresholds which are composed not just of the physical but of the ephemeral; of time and of space. The existence, metabolism and morphology of an architectural organism becomes a function of the dynamic world into which it is born, inextricable from the ecology of the space it will inhabit. This thesis explores the architectural organism in the context of a visibly and significantly changing threshold, how connections are made between it and the world around it, and how it might engage those who are its inhabitants. The thesis is located in Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy, at the mouth of the Gaspereau River.