Kevin Cowie

Advisor: Neil Minuk

A technical architectural site plan featuring three large, overlapping, red-tinted rectangular plots with circular markings. Dense grid of lines and text overlays on a light background.
Architectural site plan with four elongated, shaded sections in pink, intersected by circular overlays. Soft, neutral background suggests a landscape.
Aerial view of a rural town surrounded by fields. A grid of streets and houses is in the center, with roads crossing the top and right sides. The tone is neutral.
A detailed map outlines a lengthy landscape with annotations and images above, depicting architectural sites. The bottom left features text and a faint structure.
Architectural diagram showing a stylized map with color-coded buildings. Four side views display varied structure heights along a highway.
Close-up of neatly stacked thin wooden planks forming a textured wall. The light color and linear pattern create a sense of order and calm.
Architectural model of a house with a sloped roof, made of thin wooden beams and clear panels, showcasing an open, airy structure.

Re-emergence of Perception

The prairies’ vast flatness stretches out endlessly, the particular and distinct fade while detail dissolves into the illusion of emptiness. Yet the prairies are not empty. They are rationalized and structured, patterned by crops and threaded with the repetitious monotony of infrastructure. Amid these doldrums of endless repetition another cadence emerges: the grain elevator. Rising from the horizon, they mark the presence of human activity in the midst of this vast expanse of land.

Once, most rural towns in the prairies had several grain elevators. Their quantity and size indicated good crop yields and a prosperous agriculturally based local economy, the source of pride for rural residents. The grain elevator was the physical and oh-so-visible representation of this prosperity, proudly displayed as if to say, “this is what we all do, this is who we all are”. In this sense, the elevator was a manifestation of the towns identity. But as years crept by, technological developments in agriculture and transportation slowly rendered these small-town country elevators obsolete, and so they began to disappear.

Of the thousands of elevators that once stood in the prairies, only a few hundred remain. New steel and concrete elevators are built farther apart, serving a wider region than the country elevators did. They are often built far outside of towns, teasing at the presence and identity these towns once held but ultimately denying any return of that architectural presence. Research and exploration of rural communities revealed various methods of preservation and reclamation: murals, sculptures, stylized public buildings and even an entire elevator stored on private property. 

This thesis seeks to explore the perception of prosperity and identity within small towns and how presence, uniformity, and scale might affect this perception. The project will attempt to design a future for rural communities, rather than let them develop unguided and unplanned as many of them are currently fated to do.