Spatial Perception as an Architectural Method

As it is well known, humans experience architecture not as an objective physical reality – it is the same to everyone. However, humans experience and perceive architecture through their own inner world. In other words, in this investigation it is believed that the outer world is a continuation of the inner world, and that is why the objective reality to everyone is not factual, but rather conditional. Intuitively, it is agreed with Immanuel Kant's transcendental idea of imagination that spatial perception and imagination tend to form a priori experience[1].

 

By developing this idea, the question has been raised –  could distinctive spatial anticipation be treated as an act of creation? In this question Gilberto Simondon’s imagination and perception theory appears[2]. By anticipating space or any other environment each time, we invent a new relationship between the inner and outer world (individual and environment)[3]. It is believed that this tension has the power of creation.

 

It is assumed that this tension in architectural practice could be interpreted as a methodological approach, strategy, or at least a tool. If so, we should primarily ask how could we determine/assess the relationship between the environment and an individual? In addition, is it possible to convert/turn this relation into the material body – architecture?

 

Exactly this has been investigated during the workshop 25th Spatial Frame. Certain tasks were built for participants to collect experiential data, which later on could be converted into an alternative spatial design. In order to implement it, Space Syntax methodology has been included in the experiment.



[1] Kant, I. 1982. Grynojo proto kritika. Vilnius: Mintis, p. 159-161.

[2] Sabolius, K. 2019. Traversing Life and Thought: Gilbert Simondon’s Theory of Cyclic Imagination. In: Social Imaginaries, Bucharest: Zeta Books, p. 44-55.

[3] Ibid.