Dicho House

Abstract

This thesis is an exploration in process as much as product. The process and origin of this thesis were deeply personal, the result aims to retain a sense of the genuine while also applying to the broader conversation of Architecture. Dicho House is a collection of stories, told by my father, about the house he grew up in which my grandfather built. This thesis uses a variety of tools including genre theory, miniature, interviews, animation, and video to tell the stories of the house based on my father’s memory. It is also an effort to use architecture to connect with an individual from my past, my grandfather whom I never knew, exploring how architecture can be used to build family and individual identity. This thesis is also about memory and architecture; the stories it recounts are not historical records bent on accuracy. Instead my father’s memories are active and changing tools of storytelling inherently subjective to both his experiences and my interpretation. This thesis rejects the use of memory as an objective narrative or truth and instead views memory as an active, performative, and generative process.