The Island and the Ocean : The Preservation of Intangible Heritage In Outport Newfoundland

• Main Author: Oke, Kathy
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: Outport; Spatial heritage; Preservation; Newfoundland
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/70072

The Island and the Ocean is an architectural graduation project set in rural Newfoundland, which aims to answer the question of how architecture might restore agency to a draining population, and reconnect the culture, identity, and future of the island to contemporary Newfoundlanders. It is a critique of the tourist-centric model of cultural heritage preservation that is prevalent across rural North America. It is a proposal for an alternative framing of preservation which prioritizes the evolution of culture over time. The project proposes that it is possible to design local tradition and inherited knowledge into architecture not just formally, but at the level of its function, social and spatial systems, and organization. Beyond this, by collecting and integrating programming which reflects the local culture in a way that encourages participation through creative practices, a building can become a catalyst for the sharing of heritage, community, and cultural rejuvenation. This thesis tests how – beside protection of the architectural object – architecture can look beyond the literal built form to the processes and sociospatial systems around which a place has developed as a means to create locally legible social infrastructure within which a new restorative ritual of cultural heritage preservation can take place. Applied Science, Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of Unreviewed Graduate