LECTURE NOTES

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• Library it is designed to include & exclude

• Designed to avoid noise 

Modes of attending; attention is focused on reading, run into the library to quickly print something, deep thought/lighter activities

 

Cultural capital - acquire dispositions and ideas that predispose us to feel at home in places

• People from overseas coming into Australia may feel scared and need to learn about our culture and after a while when they feel comfortable = cultural capital

• Integrate senses into design; don’t tap it on at the end

 

Modern architecture has a sense of alienation in the design (E.G. workspaces that are very open, or modern homes that have big empty spaces /media room)

 

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ROSE READING ROOM (NEW YORK)

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The library is situated in Manhattan and the room appears to be quite the juxtoposition compared to the busy/loud/noisey street s just outside.

Designed with high ceilings and large chandeliers

Noise would easily bounce so by walking into this room one could immediately feel a sense of intimidation 
The architect integrated fear & intimidation into the design (rose reading room)

If you moved a chair it would create noise

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SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY

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Contrast to the Reading Room in New York
The architect integrated community/public/openness into the library design

The library has glass windows so it lets in light, looks bright and friendly.

From looking at the photos, it does not appear that the public/community would be too concerned about noise in this space. As, moving a chair, flipping a book would not cause as much noise in terms of the acoustics as compared to the reading room in New York.

In terms of designing with the sense, from the picture you can see plants/ the floor is carpeted/ soft chairs and lots of natural light. 

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HABITUS

formed by upbringing, dispositions you have (think in a particular way) - collective understanding - guides the way you see the world- ( the role of the senses in the feeling in place or out of place)

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MY HABITUS

My mother is a migrant who was born in Zimbabwe and moved to Australia in her 20's and my father was born and raised in Brisbane. I grew up in Ipswich (southwest of the Brisbane) and later moved to Taringa in Brisbane. My father was an art gallery curator in Ipswich and also Moreton Bay and as such, our house was always filled with art. My grandfather was a painter and was very proud of the art he would create and later display in his house. My mother was a Nurse, an academic and later moved into a corporate role. My brother and I both attended private schools for our education and my parents moved from Ipswich to Brisbane as it allowed us better access to schools, universities & job opportunities. We grew up in the traditional 'queenslander house'. My habitus influences my designs- for example, I am drawn to the rose reading room in new york by the dark timber floors and high ceilings. this space doesn't give me a sense of initimidation and rather draws me in and feels comfortable to me. I feel that it is a space I would prefer to study in and explore. On the contrary, the seattle public library is the opposite. I find that is light and more open to the public however personally it does not present the same character and seems like it would be loud and noisey. 

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Family home

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EYES OF THE SKIN REVIEW

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• Disappearance of sensory & sensual qualities from architecture

• Sense are an extension of the tactile sense

• Computer imaging tends to flatten our magnificent, multi sensory capacticies of imagination by turnin the design process into a passive visual manipulation

• Hospitals and airports; dominance of the eye and the suppresion of other senses tends to push us into detachment, isolation and thought-provoking structures

• Only sense that can keep up with the fast paced world, is eye

• Narciissitic eye views self expression ‘ obsessed with self, in love with self’- western society is becoming narcisistic - rise of the indivdual rather than the grouop - what is narcisitic architecture?? The building is focused on itself doesnt care about the enviornment its in (e.g. huge sky rise built between small houses)

• Nihilistic eye sensor and mental detAchment and alienation - negative people ‘nihilists’, enatly negative. Architecture that is nihlistic is alienated

• Spread of architectural imagery today, devoids the sense of materialirt and emapthy

• 16th century did not see first; heard, sniffed and caught sounds ; only later did thye actively become engaged in geometry

• Sight is our dominant sense. We constantly rely on it as we study and categorize our surroundings.

• A space can look beautiful in picture but that is not enough to make it nice to live in.

• Scents, acoustics, tactile materials, forms, light, shadow, the weight and proportion of things, as well as the overall spirit of the space, overrules pure aesthetics.

• But experiencing the world mainly through our eyes leaves us a distant observer. By watching something we create a distance between ourselves and the object. By touching it we connect with it.

• Eye of the skin-- Skin can sense and feel things
  - sound is becoming more dominant (eg. with music, podcasts, playing music in the supermarket and becoming so present that we begin to ignore it )

• Humans are time sensors

 

Modern eyesight + Architecturally- we excluded things

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IMAGE FROM EYE OF THE SKIN

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The above image is one of my favourite images from the book 'Eyes of the skin'. This image to me shows an eye but surrounding it appears to be a camera shutter lense. As sight becomes more and more dominant, it isolates us more. For example, society strives to take the best Instagram photo but by doing this it only shows perfection and may isolate others. This image to me also shows the advances of technology and how we may take this for granted. In the book the writer describes this image as how vision has been strengthened by numerous technological inventions. However, in the book also says how the industrial mass production of visual imagery tends to alienate vision from emotional involvement.  When I look at this image, it also says to me that we rely too much on our phones and we try and see the world through a camer. For example, when you are at a concert and everyone has a phone out recording the artist and watching through their camera. There is an emotional disconnect between the artist- phone/camera- crowd and we are no longer emotionally connected to the experience. The below image shows this in the modern sense with everyone watching the parade/concert through their phone and only one person is truley connecting and watching the parade.

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TUTORIAL AND ASSIGNMENT NOTES: 

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Discuss a case study - find an example of a space that isn't designed well for blind person

 

• How they see the world without senses?

• How you navigate a world without sight? example : As a designer think about the tactility of the floor

 

Lecture + eyes of the skin + interview + experiment + case study- principles of each applied to the one presentation

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Opening statement:

• Sight is our dominant sense. We constantly rely on it as we study and categorize our surroundings.

• Only sense that can keep up with the fast paced world, is eye
   

Discuss visually impaired person & how they cant keep up with this

Relate it to a case study

Discuss our interview + experiment outcomes and how we apply this to our design

Find a case study of an architect/interior designer who does sensory design for visually impaired people (e.g. Glenn Murcutt)

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• 16th century did not see first; heard, sniffed and caught sounds

• But experiencing the world mainly through our eyes leaves us a distant observer. By watching something we create a distance between ourselves and the object. By touching it we connect with it.

 

Disproving this theory??? Arguing this theory??

Our presentation is researching how visually impaired person uses their other senses to navigate their surroundings

 

How do we present a visual presentation when we are talking about someone that has a visual impairement?
Black slides with sound??