ABSTRACT
Not fixed or static, the role of the site in the design disciplines has altered over time. This essay, an exploration of the changing status of site in design and construction of buildings, assumes the site to be both material reality and a cultural construct. As a material reality, the site endures in lowly earthiness, but as a living form it regenerates continuously in triumphant potency. As a construct of culture, the site is comprehensible only insofar as it is touched by human practices. We know the site because we make and shape it, socially, economically, and politically. Both of these viewpoints, realist and idealist, inform my argument, which traces three fundamentally dissimilar renderings of site in architecture. The first characterization of site is that of source for building materials and energy for construction. The second depiction is that of repository for building materials and energy imported from far afield. Finally, drawing on an emerging environmental impetus, the site is portrayed as linked interdependent systems combining intrinsic and extrinsic resources. These versions of site have risen to importance, respectively, in three different eras: the first beginning in prehistory and continuing today; the second beginning with industrialization and modernism; and the third beginning in the present time,
characterized in developed economies as postindustrial. Though distinctly dissimilar, each version retains its currency today. Examining them provides insights into the dynamic status of the place of site in design disciplines as ascribed within changing social norms and professional values.
