GIRAH: DIALOGUE CENTRE

Abstract

All places speak. The role of architecture in the public realm is mediating the communication between the tangible and intangible, the built and the unbuilt: the form as the counterpoint actor to the user on the stage of life. Each piece of architecture has its own personal language, derived from the site and its surrounding context, its significance in time and history and the users for which it has been created. Exploring the role of architecture in reducing tensions and developing a broader, more open outset in the minds of its users is the main aim of my thesis. This has two symbiotic aspects: the role of nostalgia and cultural history in re-affirming a sense of identity and belonging, and the role of nature in bringing together people of different backgrounds, their shared experience of a space becoming the spark that fuses the ‘wires’ together. Architecture should be context-specific, but one thing all architecture has in common is its link to the earth, the element that ‘grounds’ it. Exploring the design of shared spaces, especially outdoors, are instrumental in this regard—creating a strong fabric that can hold together a future of coexistence, acceptance and dialogue. Thinking of people as well as architecture as threads in the pattern of existence: there is a certain degree of order but a great deal of chaos and spontaneous action and reaction, leading to new and as-yet-undiscovered experiences.