This thesis titled, Oppositions: A United Nations Conflict Resolution Building, explores the prospects of diplomatic negotiation and conflict resolution to inform an architectural design sited in Washington, DC on the Anacostia waterfront on the terminal axis of south capital street. The project draws on a dialog between collage processes, methods and concepts imbued throughout the architectural design process. The project challenges political ideas of opposition with a focused lens of inquiry on the conditions of negotiation and conflict in the new institution that sees to challenge societal preconceptions of global identity and political power structures.
The project focuses on conflict negotiation and the architecturalization of negotiated positions and conditions. Collage, as a visual and conceptual artifact of oppositional conditions, works as the foundation in the design exploration where techniques of juxtaposition, layering, simultaneity and multiplicity, are used to challenge ideas of connection and separation, edge, threshold and boundary; architectural concepts found nested in the culture, site and program of the building. Oppositions between cultures, political identities, program pieces, circulation patterns and perspectives are collaged together to reflect the United Nations mission, agenda and values.