This project investigates the role of photography within the architectural design process. It proposes an approach to architecture where atmosphere (the mood of a space) serves as the primary driver of design, privileging the feeling of a space over its function. In architecture, photography is conventionally understood as a representational tool: a medium for documenting a building once it has been completed. Yet architectural photographs are also a distillation. A trained eye selects the precise moment, angle, and light that captures the atmosphere of a space in its full effect. This project recognizes that capacity as a form of latent design potential, and asks: could photographs of existing buildings be repurposed to generate new, atmospherically rich architecture? The answer to this question takes the form of a design process in which architectural photographs drive design. Rather than using photography to represent architecture after the fact, this project uses it as raw material to generate something new. Precedent photographs are collected, fragments of atmosphere are extracted, and recombined through photocollage to generate architectural space. In this process, the photograph is not a reference or a precedent in the conventional sense. It is the origin of the design. To test this approach, the process was applied to the design of a pavilion on the University of British Columbia campus: a building comprising six distinct spaces, each carefully designed to embody a specific atmosphere. Moving through the pavilion, the visitor encounters a sequence of atmospheres derived entirely from photographic fragments of existing buildings. The result is a proof of concept: evidence that photography can be more than a representation of architecture. Repositioned at the center of the design process, it becomes a tool for generating space that foregrounds the experience of architecture.
Joshua Frew (Thu,) studied this question.