In the past couple of weeks, some of the larger questions we’ve been tackling include what makes a certain space or element evoke a certain experience or emotion and how different elements of the Built environment accommodate these emotions and responses. To further our understanding on the subject, we were asked to work with vessels from our own homes, a place we know well and now, thanks to covid-19, will be spending most of our time here.

The images below are mind maps indicative of the various emotions, activities and spatial responses alongside the plans for each of the vessels.

The first space in my house is the foyer or the ‘Vessel to Anticipate’ as this is a vessel where people meet, say hello, bid goodbyes and anticipate what is to come next.

The next vessel is the Living and Dining Space or the ‘Vessel to Socialise’ as this is the space where people connect, interact and share stories. This is the cosiest and most welcoming room that allows one to relax and engage in conversation.

The kitchen or ‘Vessel to Sustain’ is an essential vessel in every household where essentials like food and water can be found; it as a vessel that allows for flow and movement, allowing easy access from the other vessels.

The corridor or ‘Vessel to transition’, although doesn’t have a distinct function of its own other than to transition and allow movement from one vessel to another, acts as an integral part of my home connecting most of the vessel in a narrow but grand spatial arrangement.

The ‘Vessel to Pray’ is the most sacred part of the house even though it is used the least in terms of day to day activities. Although it is visually easily accessible, the representational space created by superimposing religious practices and beliefs creates barriers and changes in the way the vessel is accessed.

The vessel for myself or the Bedroom is a vessel for me to focus and get work done and have most of my belongings easy to reach. The colour palette for the furniture and walls is white; there is a large mirror that allows light to be reflected in all directions and a long wide window that allows light to come in- all of which allow the vessel to be occupied by someone suffering from claustrophobia.

The Vessel to Groom is the vessel to prepare oneself for the day, freshen up after a long day and acts as the most private vessel of the lot.

The ‘Vessel to Explore’ is my favourite room in the house because it allows me to explore my hobbies, relax and destress.

I have never been a fan of crowded places and my trip to the Tirupati temple in Andhra Pradesh as a young girl is something that I don’t think I will ever forget. I was standing in a queue in a narrow passageway for six to eight hours with people much taller than me pushing me from all directions and I remember not being able to breathe or see clearly.

I had made this sketch,to the left, from memory as part of an assignment for the Space and Place course, to depict what I felt in that claustrophobic space. experienced there and not the visual alone. Apart from feeling like the walls were closing in as I was walking up the stairs, I remember feeling lightheaded and dizzy, my palms were sweaty and I felt weak. One of the biggest takeaways from that course for me was that spatial character is understood by our sensorial experiences in that space, combining all senses and activities.

For this week’s exercise, we looked at vessels. In the chapter on vessels in the book ‘Chambers of a Memory Palace’ by Charles Moore and Donlyn Lyndon, we understand that proportions and context in a room are meant to accommodate us and so, high rooms would ensure an adequate volume of air for its inhabitants. Additionally, the volume of a room must be great enough to afford appropriate freedom for the inhabitant. Keeping these in mind, I began working on my model that was going to a vessel with the feeling of claustrophobia playing into its form.

The first step was identifying the many elements associated with the feeling of claustrophobia, i.e darkness, confinement, congestion, crowd, feeling of being stuck, etc. Once I listed them out, I began reversing the elements and noting down its contrasting elements i.e, light for darkness, flow for congestion, moving for stuck, etc. This was aimed at understanding what the different elements would be if I were to incorporate them into creating a space that can be comfortably inhabited by someone with claustrophobia.

Subsequently, I added certain characteristics of built spaces that I believe will allow us to achieve elements attached to it. For example, to achieve a ‘moving’ state within a built environment it must have space for someone to move in all directions and not feel restricted.
This is a mind map of everything discussed above with the encircled text indicating the elements associated with claustrophobia, reversed elements in yellow highlight and blue text representing the characteristics of the space.

I decided to create a vessel that progresses from a claustrophobic space to an open one or vice versa, depending on how it is accessed. As explained below, the claustrophobic space or space 1 opens into an intermediate transition space 2 and finally into a free open space 3. This process can however, be reversed if a person enters the vessel from space 3 and moves towards 1.

Space 1 will consist of a dark and narrow space that I created using a cardboard tube. This gives us a narrow, dark and tunnel-like space evoking a sense of claustrophobia.

This opens into a similar tunnel-like space except it is transparent and allows sunlight to come in. Although the person can’t escape or leave the tunnel in that space, visually, they can explore what’s outside from all directions. This connects us to a previous blog entry about portals, where we discussed portals for the body and portals for the eyes. This second space is meant to act as a portal for the eyes.

The third space acts as a portal for the body and is meant to evoke a sense of freedom and allow a person to escape. The ceiling is much higher to avoid interfering with one’s personal space, there is a feeling on emptiness and flow as well as ample sunlight.

The experience of a person walking through this vessel will depend on which side they choose to access it from but the idea of the creation of such a vessel is to have a more dynamic understanding of the space with different degrees of claustrophobia rather than a singular meaning attached to it as I did with the temple at Tirupati.

When I hear the word “wall” I immediately think of a flat rectangular surface flanked in between two similarly shaped and perpendicularly placed walls. Something that fascinated me from this week’s lecture was the walls of the Borromini in Rome. These walls are not only theatrical and sculptural but also flexible and dynamic. They beautifully transition from the skin of the building to a space that belongs to both the building and the street. The folds and curves help in creating a multi-layered system that creates unique choices and experiences for the user.

As I had mentioned in my previous blog, my understanding of these elements are quite limited, explaining my choice of using a rectangular piece of cardboard as a membrane in the previous exercise. While creating my model this week, keeping in mind the mistakes from last week, my process was slightly different.

I started with two rectangular pieces of cardboard, one that would act as a base and the second which would be manipulated to create a membrane. I played around with these pieces to understand where I could make folds and bend the material comfortably. Incorporating my emotion of claustrophobia into the current model, I created two folds on one of the pieces of roughly 1:4 proportions. The two folds were meant to create pockets of space that were narrowing in, evoking a sense of claustrophobia. This first model was to be viewed in plan and the folds were made inside and out, creating interior and exterior spaces based on how they were viewed.

The second model was to be viewed in section, this meant that the folds made, and therefore, layers created must add an element of vertical dimension to the wall, making it thicker and easily manipulative. Initially, I had bent the cardboard in such a way that it created a curved wall.

Although this allowed me to create a flexible wall, it didn’t align with the emotion I had chosen. I needed to create more narrow spaces for my mini-me to experience a sense of claustrophobia. Instead, I decided to create two similar folds as I did in the first model, except I made these folds vertically instead of horizontally.

The third model I made would have to incorporate both of these models to create one flexible membrane. I didn’t necessarily replicate either of them but tried to include elements of both to heighten the sensorial experience of claustrophobia once would experience if they were to use this space.

Unlike the previous weeks, while making this week’s model, I didn’t have an initial idea of it before I started working on it. I didn’t impose an idea onto the material, instead, I allowed the material to guide me through what my model was going to look like. The method of creating two initial models and then incorporating them into a third one was challenging and exciting. By doing this I realised that I had so many choices and places to make decisions rather than when I had to replicate an idea that I had in my head. I feel that we are largely conditioned to believe that good work comes from “creativity” or “originality” when this is not the case. By removing our biases from our work, we can find so many opportunities that would have otherwise gone unnoticed

“If openings are the eyes of the building, portal is the mouth, the aperture most able to tell us about what is beyond.”

Charles W Moore, Chambers of a Memory Palace

Simply put, a portal is an opening that bids welcome and cultivates experiences of what lies beyond. It allows one to imagine life outside from within it, edit the unwanted parts and emphasise the parts that need to be seen. A portal or opening translates a tight membrane into a flexible system.
To better understand this concept we made models of portals using scrap materials that we found lying around. After gathering the material, we were given sheets of cardboard to use as the base for our models.
The task was to create two portals, one that we could move through or enter, and the other we could see or access but only through our eyes. I immediately understood them as windows and doors, the former being the portal for the eyes and the latter, for the whole body.

To go about the making, we were instructed to select an object that we could use as a human scale reference or a ‘mini-me’. Essentially, whatever we make should be able to use by our mini-me. I chose a pencil lead refill container as mine.
To create the portal, I cut up an empty sweets box made of cardboard and decided to use it as my membrane, i.e the rigid part of the structure. Since the box had folds in it, I decided to use it as adjacent walls and used the pre-existent flaps to attach it to the base. I created my first portal by simply cutting out a rectangle from one of the surfaces. This was supposed to be the portal that my mini-me could move through. Because I had initially limited my understanding of openings on walls to doors and windows, I added a curtain I cut from tracing sheets.
Next, using empty tablet packages I decided to create my second portal. I roughly estimated where my mini me’s eyes would be and placed this portal on the membrane accordingly. I created two spaces, one where the mini-me is standing and the second, on the other side of the membrane

I had now created, an incredibly generic house setting with a door and window. Upon consultation with a faculty member, I was advised to create three spaces. Each of the portals opening into different spaces, unlike what I had previously done.
To create this new space, I decided on a semi-interior space, almost resembling a porch. This porch was meant to create a partially enclosed private space, within the public realm.
Additionally, I relocated the windows to create a vertical element as shown.

Reflecting on this exercise, I realised that I wasn’t satisfied with how my model turned out. Although I managed to create two portals on a membrane, I had used concepts of openings and portals in quite a conventional way and tried to play it safe. This doesn’t mean, however, that I didn’t learn from this exercise. Looking at and engaging with my friends models I was able to pick up a lot that I intend to incorporate into my following models.

Some of them stepped outside of the idea that portals for the eye have to be smaller than the ones you can walk through, which is a misconception I had constructed in my head. They played around with the shapes and proportions of it to create different kinds of portals, not restricted to doors and windows.

Another interesting element some of them brought in was switching membranes from surfaces to spaces. They created portals through spaces rather than walls or flat surfaces, bringing in a three-dimensional aspect to it.

These interesting models made by my friends helped me widen my understanding of portals, from windows and doors to something interactive and dynamic. By strategically placing flexible openings on different kinds of membranes, we can create multiple sensorial experiences. In the upcoming models, I hope to start thinking of some of these elements in ways outside of what I imagine them to be.