T.H. Kang
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Soil at the End of the Forest
Earth Construction after Wildfire for Unfolding the Latent Commons
This thesis first emerges through a contradiction in rammed earth construction: soil becomes a stable, fire-resistant building material only after much of its organic matter and biological life has been removed. What first appeared as a technical condition bridged to a question that is ecological: If there is such a thing as dead soil, what does it mean for soil to come alive again? Following this question through ash, charcoal, excavated soil, wildfire, pine mushroom forests, and post-disaster reconstruction, the research asks how architecture can make visible the nodes of multispecies world-making that arise within a wildfire-damaged forest landscape.
The work is situated in Yeongdeok, South Korea, in the aftermath of the 2025 wildfire, where the maintenance of pine forests for matsutake production and the expansion of fire-resistant broadleaf forests pull the same landscape in incompatible directions. This conflict is not treated as a simple opposition between residents’ livelihoods and ecological restoration. Rather, it is understood as a condition produced by policies and compensation systems that have tied rural income to a single tree species, while leaving forest-dependent lives exposed to fire, landslide, and post-disaster uncertainty.
Through cartographic and patchwork readings of the site, on-site interviews and a workshop with residents, local architects, and county officials, and a 1:10 model built from actual soil and subjected to simulated weathering, the resulting proposal integrates seven houses with retaining walls and systems for redistributing water, heat, soil, ash, charcoal, and organic matter. Composite rammed-earth blocks combine a stable load-bearing core with an ash-enriched sacrificial layer designed to weather gradually and release nutrients. While the retaining walls protect habitation and capture material transported from the slopes, their weathering supports the gradual formation of a fire-resistant broadleaf forest belt between the village and the mountain.
The central proposition is that architecture need not be understood only through permanence and protection. Here, controlled material transformation — weathering, erosion, partial collapse, nutrient release — is treated as an active medium of design, organised through a clear distinction between a stable structural core and a weathering sacrificial layer, so that collapse is safely planned rather than merely suffered. Here, maintenance and withdrawal become architectural acts, and coexistence is understood not as harmony but as an ongoing negotiation among human and non-human actors. The thesis does not claim a completed ecological solution; it offers an architectural proposal and a monitoring framework, arguing that the ethical task of building in such a condition is to make visible the costs of coexistence, and the larger political, economic, and ecological structures that placed these residents in so precarious a position.
The thesis concludes with the analogy of dead and living soil, ultimately presenting architecture as a means of conveying the continuous cycle of formation and dissolution, birth and death. ...
The work is situated in Yeongdeok, South Korea, in the aftermath of the 2025 wildfire, where the maintenance of pine forests for matsutake production and the expansion of fire-resistant broadleaf forests pull the same landscape in incompatible directions. This conflict is not treated as a simple opposition between residents’ livelihoods and ecological restoration. Rather, it is understood as a condition produced by policies and compensation systems that have tied rural income to a single tree species, while leaving forest-dependent lives exposed to fire, landslide, and post-disaster uncertainty.
Through cartographic and patchwork readings of the site, on-site interviews and a workshop with residents, local architects, and county officials, and a 1:10 model built from actual soil and subjected to simulated weathering, the resulting proposal integrates seven houses with retaining walls and systems for redistributing water, heat, soil, ash, charcoal, and organic matter. Composite rammed-earth blocks combine a stable load-bearing core with an ash-enriched sacrificial layer designed to weather gradually and release nutrients. While the retaining walls protect habitation and capture material transported from the slopes, their weathering supports the gradual formation of a fire-resistant broadleaf forest belt between the village and the mountain.
The central proposition is that architecture need not be understood only through permanence and protection. Here, controlled material transformation — weathering, erosion, partial collapse, nutrient release — is treated as an active medium of design, organised through a clear distinction between a stable structural core and a weathering sacrificial layer, so that collapse is safely planned rather than merely suffered. Here, maintenance and withdrawal become architectural acts, and coexistence is understood not as harmony but as an ongoing negotiation among human and non-human actors. The thesis does not claim a completed ecological solution; it offers an architectural proposal and a monitoring framework, arguing that the ethical task of building in such a condition is to make visible the costs of coexistence, and the larger political, economic, and ecological structures that placed these residents in so precarious a position.
The thesis concludes with the analogy of dead and living soil, ultimately presenting architecture as a means of conveying the continuous cycle of formation and dissolution, birth and death. ...
This thesis first emerges through a contradiction in rammed earth construction: soil becomes a stable, fire-resistant building material only after much of its organic matter and biological life has been removed. What first appeared as a technical condition bridged to a question that is ecological: If there is such a thing as dead soil, what does it mean for soil to come alive again? Following this question through ash, charcoal, excavated soil, wildfire, pine mushroom forests, and post-disaster reconstruction, the research asks how architecture can make visible the nodes of multispecies world-making that arise within a wildfire-damaged forest landscape.
The work is situated in Yeongdeok, South Korea, in the aftermath of the 2025 wildfire, where the maintenance of pine forests for matsutake production and the expansion of fire-resistant broadleaf forests pull the same landscape in incompatible directions. This conflict is not treated as a simple opposition between residents’ livelihoods and ecological restoration. Rather, it is understood as a condition produced by policies and compensation systems that have tied rural income to a single tree species, while leaving forest-dependent lives exposed to fire, landslide, and post-disaster uncertainty.
Through cartographic and patchwork readings of the site, on-site interviews and a workshop with residents, local architects, and county officials, and a 1:10 model built from actual soil and subjected to simulated weathering, the resulting proposal integrates seven houses with retaining walls and systems for redistributing water, heat, soil, ash, charcoal, and organic matter. Composite rammed-earth blocks combine a stable load-bearing core with an ash-enriched sacrificial layer designed to weather gradually and release nutrients. While the retaining walls protect habitation and capture material transported from the slopes, their weathering supports the gradual formation of a fire-resistant broadleaf forest belt between the village and the mountain.
The central proposition is that architecture need not be understood only through permanence and protection. Here, controlled material transformation — weathering, erosion, partial collapse, nutrient release — is treated as an active medium of design, organised through a clear distinction between a stable structural core and a weathering sacrificial layer, so that collapse is safely planned rather than merely suffered. Here, maintenance and withdrawal become architectural acts, and coexistence is understood not as harmony but as an ongoing negotiation among human and non-human actors. The thesis does not claim a completed ecological solution; it offers an architectural proposal and a monitoring framework, arguing that the ethical task of building in such a condition is to make visible the costs of coexistence, and the larger political, economic, and ecological structures that placed these residents in so precarious a position.
The thesis concludes with the analogy of dead and living soil, ultimately presenting architecture as a means of conveying the continuous cycle of formation and dissolution, birth and death.
The work is situated in Yeongdeok, South Korea, in the aftermath of the 2025 wildfire, where the maintenance of pine forests for matsutake production and the expansion of fire-resistant broadleaf forests pull the same landscape in incompatible directions. This conflict is not treated as a simple opposition between residents’ livelihoods and ecological restoration. Rather, it is understood as a condition produced by policies and compensation systems that have tied rural income to a single tree species, while leaving forest-dependent lives exposed to fire, landslide, and post-disaster uncertainty.
Through cartographic and patchwork readings of the site, on-site interviews and a workshop with residents, local architects, and county officials, and a 1:10 model built from actual soil and subjected to simulated weathering, the resulting proposal integrates seven houses with retaining walls and systems for redistributing water, heat, soil, ash, charcoal, and organic matter. Composite rammed-earth blocks combine a stable load-bearing core with an ash-enriched sacrificial layer designed to weather gradually and release nutrients. While the retaining walls protect habitation and capture material transported from the slopes, their weathering supports the gradual formation of a fire-resistant broadleaf forest belt between the village and the mountain.
The central proposition is that architecture need not be understood only through permanence and protection. Here, controlled material transformation — weathering, erosion, partial collapse, nutrient release — is treated as an active medium of design, organised through a clear distinction between a stable structural core and a weathering sacrificial layer, so that collapse is safely planned rather than merely suffered. Here, maintenance and withdrawal become architectural acts, and coexistence is understood not as harmony but as an ongoing negotiation among human and non-human actors. The thesis does not claim a completed ecological solution; it offers an architectural proposal and a monitoring framework, arguing that the ethical task of building in such a condition is to make visible the costs of coexistence, and the larger political, economic, and ecological structures that placed these residents in so precarious a position.
The thesis concludes with the analogy of dead and living soil, ultimately presenting architecture as a means of conveying the continuous cycle of formation and dissolution, birth and death.
On the Placeness That Exists Before Place
Uncovering a Sense of Place through Collective Architectural Practice on the Terp
This thesis explores how shared architectural actions and material engagements contribute to the formation of a communal sense of place, using the Frisian terp landscape as a central case study. Drawing from archaeological evidence, historical maps, and theoretical frameworks from architectural phenomenology and anthropology, the research investigates the interplay between collective practices—such as layered earth construction, settlement rituals, and communal maintenance—and the emergence of place-bound identities. The study argues that the physical shaping of the terp, beyond being a response to environmental necessity, constituted a socio-cultural process through which people actively constructed their worldview. The research contributes to a broader understanding of architecture not merely as shelter but as a medium through which communal imagination and identity are cultivated.
...
This thesis explores how shared architectural actions and material engagements contribute to the formation of a communal sense of place, using the Frisian terp landscape as a central case study. Drawing from archaeological evidence, historical maps, and theoretical frameworks from architectural phenomenology and anthropology, the research investigates the interplay between collective practices—such as layered earth construction, settlement rituals, and communal maintenance—and the emergence of place-bound identities. The study argues that the physical shaping of the terp, beyond being a response to environmental necessity, constituted a socio-cultural process through which people actively constructed their worldview. The research contributes to a broader understanding of architecture not merely as shelter but as a medium through which communal imagination and identity are cultivated.