E.S.S. Studio Publication - Submitted to the Journal of Architectural Education as part of the question regarding experiencing architecture.
Abstract
An overwhelming percent of human invention has been designed as a prosthetic to minimize the limitations of the body. Architecture, like these devices we use, becomes inseparable from the human experience as the body uses architecture. Heidegger’s analogy of the tool and the inseparable experience is one driven into when using a tool takes on extrasensory experiences linked to the use of the device, but not the device itself, such as a fatigued arm. These extrasensory experiences of architecture are the atmospheric effects to trigger emotional reactions that have the possibility of leading to déjà vu.
Architecture as Prosthetic to Human Experience
“Like the other technologies of communication and perception – the aircraft, the telescope, the photographic camera, the telephone, and writing – the dwelling is a prosthetic extension, an “auxiliary organ.” … That is, the building is the prosthetic substitute for a body already occupied, in fantasy, as a building” – Sigmund Freud
Freud assumed that architects have a deeper responsibility of designing structures that transcend and provide more to the occupants than just to satisfy the needs of keeping the body safe from exposure. The design should consider the experience of the occupant and the body to be fused as the occupant uses architecture as a prosthetic. This fusion occurs in three steps: readiness-to-hand, tool-in-use, and non-subject-object. Readiness-to-hand is the potential the human can have to interface with a tool if the body decides to engage. The interfacing with the body and tool allows the body time to adjust until the two objects become fused by experience as the tool-in-use. The subject and object are no longer viewed as a person and tool, they are the user. The object of hammer and body now become the hammerer. Similar to, the object of architecture and body become the experience of the place.
The distinction of whether the building itself can distract the body for the moment to step away from the banal expected experience into a new experience triggered by a change in atmosphere remains a subjective notion. As defined by Mark Wigley, “atmosphere may be the core of architecture but it is a core that cannot simply be addressed or controlled”. Atmospheric architecture has qualities that deal further into the sublime effects of combined components such as the light shining through the stained glass of a dimly lit cathedral, or the introduction of clearstories around the base of its golden dome. The distinction of whether these effects are stimulating to the point of producing a visceral experience from the exposure to such events remains a probable occurrence. To begin to increase the probability of achieving atmospheric places, architectural discourse must first address this inseparability of the occupant using architecture as a prosthetic to their own experience through the mechanism of non-subject-object.
A Mr. Calvin Story
The seminar prompt, a Mr. Calvin Story, is a framework to initiate the possibility of déjà vu from the simple phenomenological reduction of a relentlessly repetitive act. The prompt is as follows; Mr. Calvin has walked to the same store every Sunday for 50 years to buy milk. Calvin acts in looping scenario for the students to use as a reference when inserting themselves into their design process to develop the experience of their choosing. After choosing the seemingly banal activity, the students begin to break down the action as thoroughly as they can imagine. For Mr. Calvin the things to consider were the chilled handle of the cooler, the cool breeze when the seal is broken, and the sweating of the milk as he begins his journey back to his home to name a few (Figure 1). The act is designed to allow for students to understand the complexities of experience that are skimmed over during the narrow pursuit to repeat a banal action. This over reinforcing of a simple act is to resemble and mirror the monotony of day to day life as seen by many of those who experience banal architecture and become numbed by the relentless ruts. During these ruts of a minute nature, where the senses become dulled and defaulted to standby mode, is where déjà vu is possible to generate using specific triggers.
Déjà vu, the already lived through feeling, is described as taking three steps to be triggered: recognition, the emotional linkage to the familiar feeling, and finally the recall of memory through association of emotion to activity. Through a Mr. Calvin Story, the steps of recognition to recall a memory becomes over written at such a relentlessly regular interval that these steps have the possibility of blurring or becoming triggered non-subject-object. This has been likened to a piece of paper that has been folded repeatedly along the same line and gradually bends without effort along the engrained pathway. If the reduction could provide a random interval of emotional recall, the possibility of hacking into a state of déjà vu could be achieved.
The understanding what the students gain from this prompt of architecture as a prosthetic to the human experience, is that the desired effect is subjective with only an increased probability of success occurring when the proper framework is aligned to experience. The emotional charging is the degree to which the non-subject-object between human and architecture blur through experience. By providing this framework to the students, they will be able to establish the experiential metrics to design atmospheric and ambient qualities with the pallet available to them.
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