This project investigates different modes of seeing and perception, specifically two forms of vision outlined by Juhani Pallasmaa in “The Eyes of the Skin.”

​

• Peripheral Vision, which integrates the body and space

• Focused vision, which alienates the body from space, because if you can understand or perceive a whole, then you cannot possibly be a part of it.

 

A stabilizing space for focused vision depends on first experiencing the internalizing chaos of peripheral vision. 
The project offsets and cuts a rectangular prism, and recombined and rotates the pieces in order to create a series of obliques designed to destabilize the viewer while inside the modular parts, while stabilizing the viewer at the center of the resulting shape. So, the stabilizing nature of the sectional trapezoid at the center of the space creates this focused vision, providing a sense of relief in the externalization of the body. 

Core 1, Harvard GSD

Fall 2020

Studio Michelle Chang

 

​