Maggie Medock

Advisor: Shawn Bailey 

Architectural collage titled "Crafting Home" featuring intricate house cross-section, geometric shapes, and historical elements, conveying innovation and nostalgia.
Thesis Panel
A series of black-and-white images depict an abandoned, rustic cabin and its decaying interior. The atmosphere is eerie and nostalgic, enhanced by text.
The Shooting Lodge in Memory
A complex collage features newspaper clippings, architectural plans, vintage photographs, and text snippets arranged in a layered, structured design. The tone is informational and historical, depicting a timeline with images of buildings, diagrams, and headlines, conveying a sense of exploration and inquiry.
Risk vs Certainty in Workmanship
Assorted pottery tools and a sponge are neatly arranged on the left, while open notebooks with sketches and handwritten notes are lined up on the right.
Risk Documentation
Three stacked ceramic bowls in earthy tones; top bowl is speckled white with black spots, middle is speckled grey, bottom is dark brown. Soft, minimalist lighting.
Outcome of Exploration Through Pottery
Historical map illustration of the Great Lakes region. Includes labeled timelines, geographical areas, architectural sketches, and sepia-toned images on the sides.
History of Place and Determining Site
Coastal scene with tall, swaying grasses on an overcast day. Inset atop are grayscale close-ups: bark, wood, and seeds, adding texture and contrast.
Test Site Documentation

Crafting Home: Reconsidering the futures of the past

We live in a time where modern progress is characterized by the machine age of industrialism, where certainty, order, and resource maximization have established our separation and power over the natural world.

Our current world views support the desire for immortality through perfection, and permanence, where under this value system, the worth and appeal of craft has receded in the age of technology and automation. Progress can generally be defined as, “advancing or developing toward a better, more complete, or modern state.” This definition can be challenged by suggesting that we have inadvertently created a paradox of progress through the consumerist framework, where our constant demand for material gain and endless growth has led to a decline in not only the worlds resources, but in our quality of life in terms of fulfillment and sense of purpose.

Mass production in developer led housing has eliminated all risk from design and workmanship, valuing speed, accuracy, standardization, low cost, and maintenance free design. Largely, it strives to remove all aging and diversity in material leaving behind no trace of life or origin, resulting in homes that credit appearance over material integrity.

Craft offers a relief of perfection through aging, diversity, and approximation, all of which result in qualities reflected in the natural order. This connection to material authenticity strives to rebuild our lost connection to the natural processes of the world. This thesis proposes that embracing craft as an architectural principle can redefine the cultural values that are the foundation of our current housing model.

It acknowledges the teachings of past and present; of risk and certainty, and explores ways in which the assets of both can be leveraged to create a new hybrid housing framework. It combines design that allows for irregularity, material diversity, or aging assemblies with that of our contemporary ideals of comfort and reliance on digital technology which provides tools for precision. It attempts to move beyond merely a redirection of consumption, where these values can become the underlying factors driving design and workmanship.