Earning Your Patches
Toronto, ONBy: Daniel Wong
Every day, something breaks. The world constantly decays, rots, and erodes, yet everyday objects and buildings are often invisibly being replaced, repaired, patched. When things break down, we try to make signs of repair as inconspicuous or, better, as invisible as possible [1]. We use the same paint colour to patch things up or the same thread and fabric to mend. We strive to erase all evidence of failure. It is only when things become inoperable that they come into focus and become the object of attention.
One may pass by the trees that line the sidewalk without much care, but from some distance away, one may notice a black channel streaked with pitch that alludes to a painful past. At some moment in the tree’s life, the tension in the wood from the drying wood becomes too much for the tree to bear, and it splits, severely injuring itself [2]. In the years to come, the tree will try to repair the wound, but the tear will keep reopening unless otherwise mended back to health.
Human intervention sutured the tree back together with steel rods and bolts. The act bears a resemblance to the Japanese technique of sashiko or boro. A traditional practice that involves intricately stitching patterns to make the fabric thicker and more robust to avoid further mending and embracing the sparsity of materials in the process. Mending becomes a method of preserving and establishing new value to an otherwise broken object.
This dynamic city of ad-hoc repair practices becomes a living archive, documenting a building’s existence, like stretch marks on a body, bearing our periods of growth. But what if these wounds were not erased, disguised, or hidden? Instead, what would a city be if scratches, scars, and ruptures remain visible—rough patches and stitches, highlighting an architecture that unabashedly expresses its history.
