SML[detai]L

Abstract

This thesis seeks to understand the syntactic use of expressive and suppressive details as a strategy for constructing space by identifying construction elements (details) as a set of nested scales within works of architecture. The argument for this strategy will be two-fold -- an analysis of recent works of architecture following Kenneth Frampton's Rappel a L'ordre and a demonstration of this strategy through the design of a new civic institution in a post-pandemic future.