3/3/2026 11:39 am Class on thursday- took a turn. with Professor Holland's help, i basically realized my thesis cannot be about the church. there are too many variables id be trying to control when they are out of my control. the odds of it working out would be slim to none. and maybe deep down i always knew my thesis was supposed to be about theory anyway. i am a builder, i like to build, i was trying to find any way to be able to build. but i was just twisting my arm. so now it will become what everyone is just dying to read, a giant paper of maria theorizing. i will be developing my theory of architecture as palimpsest. i'm always reading, consuming, theorizing, out of habit. it's what i do. not intentionally. i guess i need to be better about being intentional about it. i am going to have to choose literature that is explicitly applicable to my design inquiry. im going to have to get concrete. i am not very good at this. i am researching what i care about. and i am always seeing patterns, connections, fundamental relationships, but i'm not good at showing it. i dont have any proof. i feel like a baby in this class, learning how to walk and talk like a normal person.
2/24/2026
Renzo piano is probably my current G.O.A.T. His work, particularly his adaptive reuse projects, have the most obvious manifestation of palimpsest I've found. in the images above, you can see early iterations of form, or the original buildings. and then you can see RPBW's additions, another iteration. theres a clear derivative underlying all stages of the project, and yet not a finality in the built solution. the architecture acts as an intermediary on the way toward these eventual, potential great edifices, absolute forms that architects can only attempt to reach. anyway, i wanted to experiment and test this theory in my church renovation in my home town. 1. i would test my theory of palimpsest in the design process, in how successfully i can overlap the design concept with the building process, in how well i integrate awareness of building methods into the design scheme, and inversely, in how well i integrate awareness of the design scheme into the act of building. i would outline an experiment, and would test that experiment in my execution of the church renovation. i plan to be on site with my dad and other parish volunteers, managing the construction. 2. i would compare the built project to other projects i've been studying, like Morgan Library by RPBW. i plan to research other architects/projects, as well. i would outline aspects that these architects' work have and evaluate my final renovation against these points. i guess my uncertainty lies in where room for conjecture is. i am not sure if this thesis is supposed to be a reproduction of research ive collected from many sources with a streamlined theme or conclusion. i am not sure if my renovation project will make it too much about my own work and not the research of other work. yet i find if there is no room for one's own conjecture, the effort will be ultimately substanceless. another road bump--idk when st. teresa will be able to pull funding together. i may have to pivot if this thesis and this renovation can't coincide.
"everything that nature makes, it records in what it makes how it was made." - louis kahn
2/5/2026 now that ive said i hate research, let's come up with the research questions i have to ask. just kidding. we will no longer be using the word research. i think the narrowing down of a topic until you have a question that is so specific that you could only get one answer is a waste of time. if you spend your time just being generally curious, you end up allowing for so much more discovery. now that ive framed my thesis under this paradigm, i know that it will be making-based. creating is asking questions with your fingertips. if you ask a question under the assumption that the answer belongs to you, that is when it doesn't. knowledge refuses to be bought. only the innocence of curiosity is ever fruitful.
my church back home is st. teresa catholic church in belleville, illinois. my father is the church handyman, in charge of the finances, and on the parish council. why? basically out of need for volunteers and because he wants to help, he cares. the parish wants to renovate the church lobby, and since my dad is basically in charge, he appointed me as lead designer of the renovation. this is a great opportunity, because i can basically do whatever i want. not only will i be designing but i get to build it with my own hands. this is a perfect scenario. its a small project with an even smaller budget, so i cant do much harm. nobody else wants to do it so they are glad to let it fall into my hands. this is my community, people who have known and loved me for a long time. this is a place that has shaped who i am. i get to design a space that has designed both me and people who have shaped me. the budget is a great constraint because my dad and i will be the ones building it, so it negates any desire to do something unsensible. its the perfect playground for me to design with the building methods and processes directly in mind.
how can an architectural palimpsest be redefined as a design method that collapses the timeline into a continuous present condition in the renovation of st. teresa catholic church in belleville, illinois?
2/1/2026 it's my brother joseph's birthday i just read an article called "slashed" written by joan ockman in 2017. it put into words what i have been trying to verbalize since high school. in my engineering class, we did research and it just felt so dumb. dumb is the only word i could think of. we laid a board across a hundred red solo cups and walked on them. i didn't understand what the point was. like we "hypothesized," which is too fancy a word for assumed, that we could walk on the board and so that's why we set up the experiment and then we just--walked on the board? like. i dont understand what that accomplished. we all know what happens when you assume. and its not like i was discovering new planets or anything! i dont like to do dumb things. thankfully, joan ockman gave me some clarity, some visuals. im a visual learner.
research is data, information, stuff. its like an item on the shelf at toys R us. history/theory is like a package. it is pretty. it makes you want to open it up, see what's inside. i didnt feel like a complete architect sitting through history of architecture 1 and 2. there was a factor to the content that was lacking. it was theory. i can look at a plan of the Pantheon, or memorize the architect and date of the chicago tribune tower. but i am not learning anything called architecture if i can't situate history through a theoretical lens. all the past is is an ideological trajectory, constantly changing. if it was my daughter's 1st birthday, i would not tell her that if she wanted a birthday present then she could just go to toys R us and buy the gift herself. she cannot drive and does not have a credit card. i would not even do that to my aunt, who can drive to the store and does have a credit card. that is morally reprehensible. if we didn't especially chose a gift to give to our loved ones, birthdays would lose their meaning. if it was my daughter's 2nd christmas, i would not leave a bunch of pretty wrapping tied with pretty bows under the tree with no gifts inside them. my daughter would scream and cry when she opened the gifts to find them empty. her grandmother would probably scream and cry too. that is morally reprehensible. not to mention physically impossible. how do you wrap up a bunch of nothing? research is like an item you can buy from the store. it is collectible, appeals to the market, produced to be consumed. history/theory is like wrapping paper and a bow. it is a container, encapsulates content, a way to present itself. if you have substance, and only if it has meaning, then you have a gift worth giving. this newfound position i take on research is satisfying. i hate it! research has never been inspiring. i dont speak that language. i crave knowledge. i want to experience to learn. when you trickle down curiosity into an empirical formula, you are limiting what you can know. we have no idea how little we know! i want to grab you by the shoulders and shake you! laugier says in his essai sur l'architecture that judging art and architecture makes us better. live obsessively, observe indiscriminately, revel intuitively, draw connections, and think always. make it your way of life.
1/27/2026 this is my first blog post. i will be using this blog to think.
pal·imp·sest
noun Latin palimpsestus παλίμψηστος, palímpsēstos (from AncientGreek πάλιν (pálin) 'again' and ψάω (psáō) 'scrape’) a compound word that describes the process: "The original writing was scraped and washed off, the surface resmoothed, and the new literary material written on the salvaged material." this is my tentative thesis for our adaptive reuse project in studio right now. This concept can be almost like removing time as a variable. instead of what a building Was like in 1953, and what the building Will be, everything the building ever Was and Will be just becomes what it Is. architecture demands a singularity. the Architect needs a singular idea, informed by history and context, and they need to execute design in only this language, and then they need to apply it and build it with only this consciousness. and they need to conceive the with execution and building in mind. all steps of the process are inversely proportional. you cannot design without the practical understanding of the methods with which it will be built. hell, get out to the site with a hammer in hand! and vise versa; you cannot build without the singular design intent in mind.