Amanda Park

The built environment of New York City is a container of collective memory; it is a physical palimpsest that constantly evolves as social groups intersect and interact. While walking around the city, one can find places and objects that reveal these memories, but these layers of time are obscured as the city grows. In this thesis project, a series of drawings of the Chelsea neighborhood, I use an architectural language to dissect the layers of the urban palimpsest and analyze the intersections between old and new. Focusing on technical and personal aspects of memory, I employ architectural drawing methods to represent physical artifacts and intangible, ephemeral moments from the past. These sections, plans, and perspectives exist in a virtual space as a database of time and memory that immerses the viewer in a large-scale reconstructed environment. As collective memory grows and the palimpsest becomes more layered, this project provides a sense of clarity while representing the complex, disorienting, incomplete history of the built environment.