Between Inside and Outside: Expanding Environmental Context Through Building Systems

Abstract

This thesis explores how architecture can expand the conceived notion of enclosure to a greater environmental context, and how a building may become an instrument for experience and engagement across the interior/exterior divide, hence providing a connection between body and place, and the natural and artificial. Within a Canadian urban context the experience of environment is almost exclusively separated into an inside and an outside, while anything between lacks definition. The thesis seeks ways to soften this divide by exploring the in-between and reintroducing aspects of exteriority to everyday life in a palatable way. This is accomplished through the consideration of the building systems used to condition and create an interior. The site chosen for the study is Fenwick Tower in the South End of Halifax. Its monumentality, uniformity, and exposure to the elements provide an ideal location to test the notion of engaging with the exterior.