Experiential Narrative

Purpose:
Current methods of contemporary architectural design fail to engage and provide both physical and mental stimulation for its users, through the active separation of the mind and body from occupied space, the intended architectural experience of space becomes diluted.  

Position:
The value of architectural experience lies within emphasizing the consciousness of its users; in contemporary architectural practice, the visual field is limited to two dimensional imagery and actively represses users from engaging with the built environment. 

Why is this necessary? Walter Benjamin, Illuminations
“Architecture is only viewed when one is distracted, slowly revealing its essence and is absorbed through experiences rather than one focus that demands full concentration.”

- reaffirm the reality of architectural experience through a more thorough method of communication
- reality of architecture should be a more experiential narrative of architectural ideas
(usually ones that are lost between design conception and construction)
 - not only representative of a culture, but becomes an engaging narrative of that culture

Creating a tangible narrative, experience of the dynamic narrative
Exploring the experience/ narrative of cinema – translation of the 2D into a 3D dynamic narrative

Designing through a sequential narrative promotes a visual understanding and engagement with space.
Using the imagery of film- is the experience of the 2D, dynamic image, more engaging and communicative than the dynamic user moving through a static space? Shouldn't the architectural experience have a similar degree of engagement?  

Hypothesis:
Strategy 01: Defining and Deconstructing the Narrative
Through restructuring current design procedures, with a greater focus on the creation of an experiential narrative before a structured functional program; the narrative of the architectural sequence informs and communicates an architectural idea into an experience for its user.

Strategy 02 : Heightening Perception
A more phenomenological approach to current building design, through a reinterpretation of design tools, allows for a more inclusive method of interaction as the body becomes reintegrated and with a heightened level of experience that is accessed through the engagement of the senses. 

Strategy 03: Conceptual Communication
The re-centralization of architecture through tactility, reconsideration of texture, weight, density can be more thoroughly perceived, and engaged with to fabricate the reality of space within the built environment.    

“The total perception of architecture depends on the material and detail of the haptic realm” (Holl, 91)

How can the experience of communicative imagery be translated into a model that engages with the built environment? How can it be interpreted in a haptic manner?