The initial concept discussions for the Echigo Tsumari competition reignited an idea that we've been thinking about for a little while: how do you maintain the character of something while changing it into something obviously new. This thought stems from the largely unchanging character of our city due to historical preservation of the numerous victorian houses that make up a large part of our urban composition. These houses are beautiful and add great character to our neighborhoods, but our minds wander with thoughts like "What what be the process of reducing a victorian house down to its essential parts? What's left? Is it's essence still recognizable?"

One way we set out to explore this was through a reduction of detail. In this exercise we modeled Matsumoto Castle, with most of its detail, and dipped it repeatedly in plaster. With each dip the model lost a degree of detail until all detail disappeared.