[Re] [In] scaling an Attentive Body

Viewing a ‘shifted’ peripheral horizon.
Registering a labouring body.
[Re]scaling an [In]Attentive Body
Traversing the Peripheral Depth of Architectural Space
This thesis is broadly examining how architectural space can be anticipated through a suspended state of
physical and psychological attentiveness. Specifically, the work seeks to engage three states of experiencing
space that operate simultaneously when traversing space through time. These are: an inner unconscious
depth; a surface of inter-subjectivity; and peripheral space. These territories will be engaged through the
development of ‘navigational’ instruments that seek to explore the physical and psychological dimensions
of attentiveness as they relate to an experiencing self. The instruments were completed in the first semester
and are informed by a phenomenal investigation of a site located at the Spirit Sands in Manitoba. They
seek to draw out of this site the anticipation of another site that has not yet been experienced but will soon
be selected at the Open City in Ritoque, Chile. The particular instrument readings of the local/immediate
site will form the basis for navigating and selecting the specific distant/peripheral site. It is expected that
the results of the instrument readings will then be translated into a series of embodied spatial maps that
will operate between the two sites and inform further architectural investigations. In summary, the overall
intentions of this design thesis are to firstly investigate how the presence of a distant/peripheral site might be
anticipated through a direct engagement and experience of a local/immediate site, and secondly, to develop
an architecture that is both sensitive to its immediate physical reality but simultaneously [re]positions the
body to an [in]attentive spatial realm characterized by a peripheral condition. By critically questioning how
architecture is consciously perceived, this design thesis desires to develop an architectural proposition that
[re]orients its being by attending to various dimensions and scales of experience that will implicate two sites
in terms of their phenomenally proportionate spatial, physical, and psychological realities.
Lee Halwa
Advisor: Nada Subotincic
Navigational Instrument -- [Re]orienting the periphery.
Navigational Instrument -- [Re]focusing of attentiveness.
Details -- Registering the surface
of my body.