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This thesis will implore a method of excavating narratives that have been buried and forgotten by society, and argue that these rich frictions play a crucial role in identity and memory. Through investigating the history of Western State Hospital, a network of interventions across 3 of the 5 sites connected to the hospital, including two unmarked graveyards, will activate spatial storytelling. Material assemblies will devise a multi-sensory experience through landform and spatial story-telling explorations. It insists that this narrative cannot become a neglected part of Staunton’s history, as a vital foundation in the collective identity of past, present, and future generations.

A design investigation that promotes an active excavation of the concealed history of Western State Hospital, exhibited through non-conventional spatial story-telling and symbolic methods.

Architecture that reveals, dignifies, and memorializes.

i. How can nontraditional methods of building and representation be used to engage all the senses of visitors on a site?

ii. In what ways can this design proposal challenge the concept of architecture always as a process of addition, sometimes resulting in concealment, by showing that architecture should also be a practice of revealing, reflecting, and reckoning?

iii. What are the benefits and challenges of a design proposal as a method for elevating the legacy of lives that have been forgotten? Can design become a platform for initiating important conversations that history has erased?

iv. How can this design proposal discuss issues of the sense of a place, the memory of a place, and the spatial belonging of a place?

v. How could architecture highlight the frictions of lived experiences embedded in a site by the concept of “unbuilding” a site, through explorations of landform and symbolic spatial interventions?

vi. What architectural strategies can help to make the invisible, visible?