Zhenmi Tang

Where the Walls Came Down: Reimagining the Disaster-Induced Modern Ruin through Spatial Experience, Material Memory, and Continued Occupation

This thesis asks whether rebuilding after disaster must begin with erasure. Set within the fire-damaged remains of Altadena Community Church, the project reimagines the modern ruin as a public landscape where memory, loss, and continued community life can coexist.

Rather than restoring the church to its former image or clearing the site for a new beginning, the proposal works through retention, reuse, and translation. Existing walls, surviving entry arches, foundations, burned trees, and material fragments become the basis for a memorial community park. A new Fire Axis, derived from the solar angle at the moment of the Eaton Fire on January 7, 2025, intersects with the original order of the church, creating a spatial framework between past and present.

The project unfolds through a sequence of embodied experiences: a victory garden that reconnects the site to the surrounding community, a ruin core that preserves the presence of the former church, a water line that guides movement through memory, a reflection pool marking the footprint of a lost building, and an open landscape for future art and everyday occupation. Through charred wood, oxidized steel, rubble, terrazzo, and glass blocks, the ruin becomes a material and spatial foundation for remembrance, repair, and continued use.

Animated axonometric sequence showing the project’s four spatial zones: Threshold Garden, Ruin Core, Fire Axis, and Community Landscape.

Site model showing the existing church ruin and surrounding streets

Community access from three sides and visitor entry from the road

Solar alignment diagram showing the Fire Axis derived from the sunset angle on January 7, 2025, over the church ruin site

Hand-drawn sketch showing the overlapping axes

Rendered model image