This thesis explores the phenomenon of contingency inherent in photographic framing for its application to the design of a public building in an urban context. Like the conception of any duality, as stated by Roland Barthes in his essay Camera Lucida; a photograph exists only in terms of our perception of its frame. This project demonstrates these principles as they are examined in the images of Brassai's Paris, the work of Daniel Buren, and the Untitled Film Stills of Cindy Sherman through the design of a post office in Houston, Texas. The city, the site, the building and the program extend beyond the bounded limits of pure enclosure; and the architecture becomes an inhabitable frame in which the referent adheres to the reference, the fragment to the context, the object to the subject.