Thomas-Mark Peterson: Themes on a Fallow House

Graduate Thesis - Thomas-Mark Peterson, Virginia Tech School of Architecture, 2024

Since the late 1800’s, generations of Thomas-Mark Peterson’s family have lived on a farm on the edge of the lugubriously named Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. In 2023, knowing that soon ‘The Farm’, as the 40-acre property is known to the family, will have to be sold and will pass out of his family’s hands, aspiring architect Thomas-Mark set about trying to capture something of the meaning of the place via his architectural studies at Virginia Tech School of Architecture.

The resulting thesis combines elements of historical research with speculative design work to become something like a psycho-geographic investigation and a means with which to understand and preserve this family legacy before it is sold on to land developers.

In addition to recording the state of the building as it exists, and analysing how it developed over time, the thesis includes written recollections of life in the house by family members who lived there, photographic records and castings taken of elements of the house. Thomas-Mark pre-empts the loss of the building as he simultaneously preserves and destroys it through the application of systematic, ‘destructive’ drawing and modelling techniques.

Inspired by the considerable care and attention with which Thomas-Mark has treated the existing buildings and their story so far, it is possible to imagine a parallel, or perhaps subsequent project, that envisions an alternative future for the farm and in which the techniques of ‘deconstruction’ play a less purely formal role. For historical buildings the process of ‘breaking’ them can sometimes lead to future possibilities of remaining whole.

What is presented below is just an extract, to explore the whole thesis please download the PDF here.

T-M P ‘The Farm’ is a funny name for a place that does not grow crops or care for livestock. Its soil currently lies fallow, but full of potential. While I have always known it to be a place of labor, it only carries traces of its past agricultural use. This setting has created a rich backdrop for domestic life. Yet, it will be lost if The Farm is to become a grid-layed suburban development. The once beautiful landscape will be plagued by retention ponds and vinyl siding. The agricultural backdrop of this land will fragment and fade.

The land we live on is in a constant state of change. Things become buried while others become unearthed, giving us clues to what came before. In archaeology there is a practice of digging into the earth in order to find artefacts which might lead us to unanswered questions about the past. They might come across a site that was an old home. When they are finished extrapolating data from the site, if there is not a public or private entity who aims to take over the site for educationally exhibiting the area, it is simply buried once more in an act called spoliation. Spoliation marks an endpoint, the termination of a building’s original form and purpose. It refers to intentional or negligent destruction, or alteration. What does spoliation have to do with the impending loss of The Farm? In an effort to understand more about the Farm as both object and setting, I undertook this act of spoliation by creating fragments.

Facade studies were conducted on the front of the farm house. Slices of various thickness and number were used to manipulate photographs in search of new forms. The slices were moved in order to progressively distort the images. In a way, they mimic the act of collectively remembering an event or place around a dinner table. Some things become distorted as everyone remembers the event differently. The facade studies act as an amalgamation of memories, misplaced and translated.

3D fragments were made as 20 low resolution models made from 5mm plywood and painted white. 5 depict the original farmhouse, 5 depict the 1920’s addition, 5 depict the 1950’s addition, and 5 depict the 1960’s addition (the current house). 4 methodologies of cutting/fragmenting were performed on each group by a bandsaw and the parts re-assembled through a process of forming intuitive relationships.

1. A Cut to Understand - A cartesian cut from a particular origin.

2. A Cut to Consume - Divided into understandable pieces.

3. A Cut to Core - A small invasion as needed for extraction.

4. A Cut to Destroy - No pattern is discernible.

While most view the act of cutting an object primarily as an act of destruction, I am interested in the act of cutting as an autopsy. In this way the farm is acting as a cadaver. With the use of domesticity out of sight and life removed, we can begin to understand the building as an object. It has turned from a setting to an object, just like livestock becomes meat. The reassembly of the fragments display a search and exploration for new forms, processions, spatial qualities, and understandings from the original house. The well worn floorboards of the domestic structure create new pathways and develop new narratives of what could have happened within its walls.

Through drawing I have positioned the house as an architectural palimpsest. One that acts as a collage of multiple times all present in one moment. Through casting I have studied the house as an archive of memories and yet, also an object with memory itself. Finally, through fragmenting, I have explored themes of preservation, progress, and use in relation to the house.

In light of these studies, I believe that this work points towards an understanding of architecture as a repository for memories. Yet, amidst an ever changing society and landscape, the inevitable degradation of these places, and therefore their memories, will eventually occur. This degradation is the tool which allows for new meanings to be transferred onto objects and places, thus they live on.

NOTES

Many thanks to Mark-Thomas Peterson for suggesting this addition to our Archive, for sharing his work with us and helping to compile the post.

Posted June 17th 2025.