Ways of Waiting

Natalie Nguyen

Matthew Soules    Arnold Jung    Leslie Van Duzer    Sam Ostrow 

Waiting has always been an unavoidable part of our lives. To many of us, waiting reflects our helplessness, our inability to control the pace and the course of events. Time spent waiting is often considered wasted, especially in the world of ceaseless doing and instant gratification. I would like to disagree. 

This thesis is a meditation to understand, reinterpret, and treasure the experience of waiting. 

Sited in the intertidal zone of Acadia Beach, a series of “waiting rooms” ask us to relinquish the control of our time by allowing others to set the pace. The project explores overlapping timescales, daily rituals, emotions, celebrations, and the temporal dimension of architecture.