Thesis | Harvard Graduate School of Design | Mack Scogin

As the conflict intensifies in the nation we refer to as Syria, territory has come back into question. Different groups fight for different states resembling non-global views of the territories that incidentally encroach on Syria. “Redrawing the map” becomes a subject of discussion, diverting attention from the more complex and less apparent territories that are sturdily tied to the conflict.

The parliament is introduced to the problematique, embedding architecture in the question of territory, conflict, and reconstruction. Examining statehood, challenging the concept of the nation-state, and embodying three imaginary territories, three iterations of a parliament are proposed. Each iteration is a set of consistencies that vary infinitely in response to the territories they correspond to. The iterations interact and react to form a mechanism that becomes the parliament, itself an infinitely transforming architecture.

The in-definity of the architecture reflects the eternal uncertainty of territory, critiquing permanence, repetition, and continuum. Every instance in the existence of the parliament becomes a single scene in the narrative of a civilization. Architecture is stripped of ego and channels territorial nationality.