The urban weave: Exploring the potential of architecture as a cultural catalyst

The condition of diversity is fundamental to Canada's potential for cultural richness. A unique set of historical and social conditions have shaped contemporary culture. How does architecture dwell within the various layers composing culture? How does it participate in the greater cultural dialogue? The interface between culture and architecture manifests most powerfully in the form of the city. How do urban environments in Canadian cities positively or negatively influence culture?; How can the urban environment transform conditions of cultural diversity into conditions of cultural complexity? The power for such transformation is in the cultural connections made by the urban environment. Urban environments must be inclusive, indeterminate, and open-ended in order for the city to function as a large-scale cultural laboratory. The city holds latent potential to enable individual engagement with place and with the social organization of urban culture. Architecture and urban design can be cultural catalysts through the design of cities as social networks. In cities characterized by highly homogeneous building practices, strict zoning regulations, and a significant amount of residual space, architecture should act as urban and social condensers, concentrating and connecting urban fabric in unique and powerful ways.; The site specific intervention strategies for this project include densifying and diversifying underutilized space, connecting existing pedestrian networks, adaptively reusing existing buildings, creating plan-based activation and enabling sectional containment. By generating critical human density, authentic public space, and complex urban relationships, architecture has the potential to become the medium through which emerging cultural and urban networks are created, expressed and tested. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...