Instructors: Lisa Wolf & Gregorio Lubroth, 3.0 SemStd TOTAL

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Atmosphere & Effect:

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An Investigation of Spatial Qualities and their Effect on Sensory Perception

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The seminar deals with the notion that our perception of space is as much influenced by material properties as it is by immaterial phenomena directly linked to our physical understanding of the world.

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Architecture places a great deal of attention on the static qualities of the built environment. Much less focus is placed on dynamic and often ephemeral forces that shape the way we understand space. Shifts and variations in the quality of light, sound or scent, elicit particular responses that have a direct effect on our experience. We register and respond to spatial conditions by negotiating a wide range of sensory perceptions. The seminar asks: can we find ways to analyze, represent, and ultimately reproduce the immaterial as a way to come to a fuller understanding of the production of space?

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During the first part of the semester, we will visit specific sites in Vienna that present a variety of spatial/sensory conditions. The sites will be analyzed and represented. The representation language will have to be inventive in order to capture both material and immaterial qualities and the physical reality of the human body.

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Site 1: plush, dark, dense (location to be revealed on site visit)

Site 2: expansive, moist, light (location to be revealed on site visit)

Site 3: compressed, muffled, interrupted (location to be revealed on site visit)

Site 4: contained, open, exposed (location to be revealed on site visit)

Site 5: loud, stretched, saturated (location to be revealed on site visit)

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For the second part of the semester, our site research and analysis will serve as the basis for a single installation built by the entire seminar class. The installation is meant to be experienced physically. It should find ways to calibrate spatial effects that stimulate sensory perception. The installation is not limited to a constructed object. By taking the body into consideration, it can be interpreted in many ways. Students are encouraged to think beyond the spatial object. Performative, prosthetic, virtual, gastronomical, cinematographic inclinations, to name a few, are all welcome as springboards for an installation strategy.

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visuals to the task
Rudolf Von Laban’s Gammes Dynamosphériques
Segna Nengudi

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the seminar consists of 2 parts

1 - discussions / excursion
2 - installation / performance / event

participation in both parts is required

link to our shared Dropbox-folder
(including supporting material, shared files etc.)

here