Sculpting the Senses: Architecture for the Body in Place
Disciplines
Urban, Community and Regional Planning
Abstract (300 words maximum)
Architecture has the ability to engage the human body and its senses from a holistic standpoint. However, there is a growing presence of architecture that is created with a bias toward the visual sense, lacking sensuality and leaving the other senses unstimulated. Negative emotions, like anxiety, experienced by an individual within a particular space can be attributed to various factors, including the sensorial qualities encountered and the memories associated with that space. Within the field of study, there have been architects who have confronted the issues of contemporary architecture neglecting the holistic experience of the body within space. An example of this can be seen in An Architecture of the Seven Senses by Juhani Pallasmaa, where he gives significance to the role of the senses through materiality and spatial experiences. Similar themes can be found in the book Atmospheres by Peter Zumthor, where he extracts the elements of the impactful experiences, or atmospheres, that he has encountered, providing a framework for the process of creating architecture that moves its inhabitants. Embodied examples of these ideas can be seen in Therme Vals, a project by Zumthor that uses the sensorial qualities to define circulation, placing an emphasis on movement and its role in creating impactful experiences. Using these ideas and principles, an exploration will be conducted to explore how the sensorial qualities of different experiences can be used to create body-centered and memory-evoking architecture. This approach will involve incorporating principles from the literature, themes of everyday atmospheric experiences formulated within an index, and qualities of the precedents. The architecture being designed in order to address the issue at hand exists as a community center located in Atlanta, Georgia. This community center will house programs that encourage moments of both introspection and communion amongst individuals using the sensorial qualities of the atmospheres.
Academic department under which the project should be listed
CACM - Architecture
Primary Investigator (PI) Name
Trace Gainey
Sculpting the Senses: Architecture for the Body in Place
Architecture has the ability to engage the human body and its senses from a holistic standpoint. However, there is a growing presence of architecture that is created with a bias toward the visual sense, lacking sensuality and leaving the other senses unstimulated. Negative emotions, like anxiety, experienced by an individual within a particular space can be attributed to various factors, including the sensorial qualities encountered and the memories associated with that space. Within the field of study, there have been architects who have confronted the issues of contemporary architecture neglecting the holistic experience of the body within space. An example of this can be seen in An Architecture of the Seven Senses by Juhani Pallasmaa, where he gives significance to the role of the senses through materiality and spatial experiences. Similar themes can be found in the book Atmospheres by Peter Zumthor, where he extracts the elements of the impactful experiences, or atmospheres, that he has encountered, providing a framework for the process of creating architecture that moves its inhabitants. Embodied examples of these ideas can be seen in Therme Vals, a project by Zumthor that uses the sensorial qualities to define circulation, placing an emphasis on movement and its role in creating impactful experiences. Using these ideas and principles, an exploration will be conducted to explore how the sensorial qualities of different experiences can be used to create body-centered and memory-evoking architecture. This approach will involve incorporating principles from the literature, themes of everyday atmospheric experiences formulated within an index, and qualities of the precedents. The architecture being designed in order to address the issue at hand exists as a community center located in Atlanta, Georgia. This community center will house programs that encourage moments of both introspection and communion amongst individuals using the sensorial qualities of the atmospheres.