Part of the "Tools" series of Abstractions.

The archive today is memory, a library, quick notes in books, small sketches in a journal, your phone’s gallery, or even a passing thought while glimpsing an everyday building. Google becomes a culmination of this, one googles to understand what these thoughts could mean logically. The archive is moulded.
As Daniel Libeskind refers to architecture as created within disjointed time, it is interesting to note that architecture is a product of history (societal and personal) and its outcome. Try dismissing the idea of an architectural archive but instead think of one that consists the screws and bolts that hold it together instead. Architecture based on architecture, that is based on architecture. It did not begin as so and will not end as so. The archive indulges time in a kind attempt to save it as a monument. Self-destruction occurs the minute the archive loses meaning as a collective and is viewed singularly.

Compartmentalization, a key aspect of the archive, is the idea of categorization purely through one’s inability to process more than immediate information. This mind palace becomes our archive based purely on ‘chance’ that you have created.

Constructing narratives and challenging histories is what creates diversity within the architectural discourse. If we are to assume that the documentation of tangible and intangible ideas forms our archive, they must be tested and pulled apart to be understood and used to address current scenario. An archive here becomes a tool, to use at will and consciously so, with skill and discipline and be warned, it is dangerous. The archive constantly travels and changes hands. You are adapting to time, society, and what it means to exist within the environment today. The total outcome are the strange connections made within the architect’s head; the changing perspectives found by peeling off little details. An archive can become a reference point to begin another archive. An archive based on an archive, that is based on an archive. It does not begin as so and cannot end just as a simple archive.

Brief of the Limit/less Archive competition.