Unbuilt

Abstract

Cities are in a continual state of change, translated in an incremental process of building and unbuilding, addition and subtraction. But “when building is the only proper, sanctioned event, there is no platform in place for constructively handling the deletions that reasonably or unreasonably accompany it.”1 This thesis identifies a twelve-week condition of interim vacancy and demolition in Mexico City that results from current development practices, and proposes an incremental process of unbuilding that excavates built form to reveal the indeterminate space that was always there. Designed as a process governed by a set of instructions, unbuilding begins with a building whole and selectively removes material to reveal new configurations of space to accommodate program. Including multiple and unpredictable outcomes in how and for who the itinerant city is developed, this thesis argues for subtraction as being part of the process of addition, and not its inverse.