Space is an emotion
Space is an emotion, is an attempt to illustrate certain observed notions between human emotions and the spaces we inhabit mostly through the practice of creating architectural spaces.
Space is an emotion, and a rather strong one.
Space effects almost every aspect of a human life, not excluding what we share with each other.
Every kind of space that you walk into or even crawl into at times, generate emotions that we experience in various spaces.
Emotions contribute to the making of a place.
Some of these factors that lead to changes in the subconscious thought.
I understand that human experience is subjective.
Sometimes beyond the human capacity to measure.
Here, I attempt to illustrate certain observed notions between human emotions and the spaces we inhibit, mostly through my personal experience while pursuing my architectural works.
The understanding of human behavior has been the key to designing event spaces or rather businesses that thrived on the concepts of people paying for their time spent at these venues.
It was crucial to dissociate money from the experience.
A better way to put it would be to say that creating spaces that contributed so much more to wellness, so that most people would prioritize their lives around these spaces.
My intentions for documenting are clear.
To curate the intentions that I held while designing spaces in different times of my lives.
To help you understand the lessons I have learnt in passing so that you may benefit from these design approaches.
A human understanding of space is directly related to scale.
This means that space, an empty space works differently for a dwarf, and for a giant.
If you can imagine, yourself being still in any kind of a space, then you will also acknowledge to the existence of an extent of ownership that you would wish for on your surroundings.
Humans consciously limit themselves when it comes to territory, even in their own imaginations.
This peculiar behavior exhibited by the human mind, differs for each individual.
This is what makes people unique.
Ownership, not belonging.
Humans have a way of observing a lot of detail in the first experience of any kind.
This is why movie scenes seem longer, dialogues come of as bolder, and space feels blurry in the first instance of experiencing.
Cats have a tendency to go back the same way they entered an area.
This is also true for most of us.
Since the human brain is wired to play it safe (a natural evolutionary approach to survival), we do not change our paths or explore new paths around a complex, involuntarily.
A new approach takes deliberate effort.
This can be played for the benefit of the designer, by placing elements in a specific manner.
In ways that the usual suspects will follow the same guided path to receive the intended experiences that await them.
Museums use sign-ages or sentry to guide people along, into, or away from certain areas.
Our aim should be to let the elements do the talking.
The human mind is always listening.
The individual space can be designed based on the tastes and nature of the client.
In spaces where most of us have been to, to attend any form of social gathering are shared.
This is where complete privacy walks out.
Sharing works differently.
Sharing creates bonds.
And when sharing spaces it creates shared ownership first, belonging next, and a community later.
Remember, birds of the same feather flock together.
It becomes essential for commercial venues to curate or contain the crowd they serve.
Since these businesses are built around these communities.
They may not be buzzing with activity like your grocer’s store.
But the associations you hold do effect the choices you make.
Hence while designing a space, it matters.
Every space needs to be built around an idea, a social group, or an individual, else they will choose to continue in their own bubble, and business will not flourish.
Privacy in exchange for belonging, and vice versa.
An observation in the book, “The Shock Doctrine” by Naomi Campbell shares the September 11 tragedy of the world trade center twin towers.
The idea of a plane crashing into a building was so filmy that you could pass it off as a bizarre movie trailer.
But when told that it is really happening puts the mind in such a state of shock that it feels the event caused awe.
This emotion of awe freezes the sense of judgement and anything that you throw at such a mind, it accepts.
This phenomenon can be applied to positive effect.
In most scenarios of urban scale because the crowd mentality will further blur the clarity of an individual mind.
As an architect, you can lead people from shopping districts to food courts, where they feel nurtured because the mind at this point needs a break.
Once they have feasted, the resting mind will need activity which can be provided in forms of events.
These events are absorbed beautifully by the mind and to memory.
If you give them open, public but semi private spaces of urban scales now, your user groups will ponder well enough to bring about positive realization and inspired action.
Experiences are important, but how would you conceptualize them? I think of spaces as an emotion.
The way you cringe when asked to walk down a narrow alley way.
And the way you feel awe surge through your being when you reach an open field at the end of it.
You can bet on a plant to act more of a landmark in that field, or you can inspire absolute freedom of thoughts where people can run free.
A stump of the tree can bear negativity in the thoughts of this populace, because of the negativity that harbors the process that went into the creation of the stump.
So you can see that energy is passed on through spaces, by virtue of the emotions that create them.
I began taking notes on people when I joined Tinder as an app.
The sheer overwhelming number of new faces that I met on a regular basis led me to see patterns.
As a rule, Tinder is an app made with the intention of increasing meetings and social interactions in this highly behind the screens world of ours.
Human nature as a basic form governs that most human activity aims at propagation of the species.
But the opportunity to understand the patterns was not ignored.
So, here’s what I did.
Although the app’s website has kept it’s purpose vague, there is more to what can be done with it.
The idea here is to improve your own self.
So as to create a better understanding of human comfort.
If you ever head out to meet a match, do not go home first.
Instead, take a cab ride to any 24x7 open public space.
The presence of the cab driver will ensure safety, and a decent conversation that breaks the ice.
Conversations that revolve around a person’s life history do get boring once you have to tell your story to most of the people you meet.
It is important to not ask the same questions other people are asking each other.
Because now the conversation forces a need for new answers, a new story, and better questions.
Conversations should not revolve around popular trivia.
E.g., Books, music, movies, etc.
This is helpful because this experience stays memorable.
No one has revealed any personal information, hence privacy has been protected.
Yet the need to share has not been satisfied.
What works though, are those conversations which revolve around the events of the moment.
This takes real work.
Most people are rarely present in the moment.
They spend their time skimming through the past and the future.
But meeting people to practice presence of mind to be funny, macabre, or whatever you feel you are lacking serves a purpose.
The ability to create helpful information from objects, and situations, in your environment to solve problems.
If you have ever been to Times Square or Marine Drive, you will find people staring into space, groups minding their own business.
No one ever bothers you with, “Hey man! What are you doing?” People seem to understand.
But they are all quiet.
But have you noticed that when large crowds assemble at a concert, they start singing the lyrics when the artist pauses for a moment.
It is all for one purpose to russell.
“Roads have given us a lot, but they have also taken a lot from us.” The National Geographic Documentary on Pozuzo.
I heard these lines on a National Geographic Documentary when I was 9. These words have stayed with me since.
Travel is often a disconnect.
Most of us find it as a means to escape our routine.
It is healing in sense because when the mind does not have a routine, it tries to occupy itself within the limits of time.
The sudden availability of time reveals to us that there is so much more to life than what we had thought.
The freedom tends to render most of our priorities as trivial.
The idea of a cab is in, “3 is a crowd, but 2 is company.”
Most of us divulge from striking a conversation with the chauffeurs.
This action allows us to zone out in the midst of a transit.
And if we have company, then we often tend to involve ourselves in deep conversations about things that seem important or trivia to our lives.
Most often, the strongest bonds between two people are formed in travel.
The second strongest bonds are formed when one of them has a bad cold.
For strangers, the idea of being in a cab, provides a sense of comfort and security that is a direct effect of the presence of the chauffeur.
It lets people talk about things that are socially acceptable.
And then when they are off the cab, it gives them context and information to build upon.
Walking is a subjective experience.
While for most of us, walking ensues the focused goal of getting somewhere.
That’s fast walking.
But the opposite behavior of taking a stroll, has a very calming foreseeing effect to it.
Some high performers, take a stroll to curate their minds with a walk.
The process of taking a stroll gives us all the time and pace to jog through our thoughts.
It gives a clarity to our past experiences, and lets us zone out into those to figure better reactions that we could have made to those, or in some instances, take a closer, deeper and better look at what we are up to.
Walking pours in clarity to an extent where the only things that matter to us can be recognized.
Walking with another person can create a bond with them.
It can be a setting for providing another perspective to the matter at hand.
At the same time, it can give clarity to some concepts that we hold.
If done on a regular basis, walking can help us share stories and abstract specific behavior patterns, likes, dislikes of another person.
Walking in a group of three is often brisk paced than the other two instances.
The joy of such a walk is in the quick sharing of information that comes with the process.
Because the time share is now split into 3 parcels, everyone is more aware about the thoughts they run.
This consciousness brings to them a heightened filtering of the clutter.
The process then brings clarity to the most personal thoughts and spill out the rest.