Ruins are a curious attraction. Since the eighteenth century they have been appreciated as such without much real thought beyond metaphor as to why. The attraction of ruins as well as their inherent attributes of destruction, incompleteness and uselessness has coincided through history with certain periods referred to by some as decadent phases. These times are characterized as comfortable but dull, ruins play a passive and to some degree subconscious role in these times, their expression of apparent turmoil and indeterminateness strikes a sympathetic chord with the observer. The farm ruins of the abandoned Trappist monastery in St. Norbert are the inspiration for and focus of the applied portions of this practicum.