Somatic Object

The research by design project investigates the relationship between human perception, literal image and spatial experience through a lens of psychoanalysis. Interests developing from the study of Sigmund Freud’s office and the accumulation and position of ambiguous sculptural objects, the research explores how smooth and striated geometries influence psychological interpretation in contrast. Drawing on the theories of Merleau-Ponty, Deleuze and Guattari, and Henri Bergson and the clinical research of neuropsychologist R L Gregory, the work examines how perception is shaped by bodily orientation, material transformation and personal experience. Drawings, scans, material translations, and physical models interrogate the boundary between structure and softness, concealment and revelation. Using sculptural language, dissection, and service systems to inform the development of the perception of the speculative consultation space and plans of a therapeutic object. By abstracting, veiling, and fragmenting familiar forms, one comes to question how architecture and objects can subtly influence narrative, emotion, comfort, and discomfort within an intimate psychological environment, forming a basis of a design language within architecture.

Leaking Volume
(Left) Initial dissection of plan investigating the internal experiences of the consultation space. (Right) Comparative final composite photogram drawing resulting from instrument investigation. 5 x 7 inch llford Paper. Image recedes from the body..

Strip Drawing
These drawings trace occidental eye movements of the viewer (left to right) into leaking memorable states of the building floor by floor. The dappled light and absence of perspective.

1:50 Ground Floor Plan
The final plan involves an emerging logic between stone aggregation and logically striated formations of walls and columns, detailing at specified points how they join and unify.

1:50 Section & Western Elevation
Sensemaking between these profiles of structural systems. The pink being the limestone stone aggregations encapsulating space with these linear precast concrete formations in black introducing a sense of logic and spatial clarity.space with these linear precast concrete formations in black introducing a sense of logic and spatial clarity.

Calibration Fragment
A 1:50 fragment attaching to a photographic instrument to explore the contrasting perceptions of the main consultation room through distorted observation through the bellows and the un-peeling of landmarks, visual memories of the photogram.