In Memoriam: Winchester Repeating Arms Factory

The demolition of a structure, especially in an urban area, can be a violent and destructive act for a neighborhood that collectively associates memories with a space as the removal constitutes an erasure of a landmark in a collective community map.  This project attempts to study a building’s end of life, and to develop a curation of decay in order to ritualize the lifecycle of a structure and enshrine th4e memories associated with a community’s past and present.  Urban change is inevitable as cities are organisms that regenerate at much faster rates; but can there be a way to homnr the process and curate its decay?  This project begins to design a building’s funeral in order to remediate the intense trauma that can be associated with a building’s demolition in a neighborhood.  The Winchester Repeating Arms Factory in New Haven was chosen as a hypothetical subject due to its imminent demolition with the next few years.