Within the diagram, we see that senses are activated at varying distances, forming bodily territories. Within each of these territories, different changes in the environment are registered and the body is calibrated accordingly. The primary bodily interface is composed of the five human senses: hearing, sight, touch, taste and smell. Senses are responsible for processing information affecting us, and can be quantified through thermal, electromagnetic, acoustical or chemical fluctuation. Although the diagram illustrates a simplification of threshold distances indicated between concentric lines, in reality the state of these territories is in constant flux and is completely subjective. A myriad of variables such as physiology, emotional state, past relatable memory and ambient environmental stimuli, can all factor into the spatial quality of each sensorial envelope. This bodily awareness can extend beyond our sensory functions and can occupy realms of thought and expectancy. It is the mirrored simulation of the mind that allows us to build possible realities even for facets of our reality that we can not immediately sense. ( figure 2 ) However, what this mode of thinking does is expand the ways upon which we confront all our relations. Through the broaching of personal, intimate territories, we insinuate potentials for connection and interaction, be it physical or emotional, between individuals or groups. These territories are also inherently inclusive, and do not preclude relations beyond human interaction, welcoming other beings, bodies and forms into the fold. If we accept this world of constant change then fluctuation and interaction become key design factors in the choreography of gradated, individual boundaries between bodies and the environment. Although the awareness and importance of the relationship between the body and architecture is historically prevalent, the depth and breadth of influence has — for the greater part of thousands of centuries — been solely formal, and mostly reductive. The human form was used both literally and symbolically in the formation of temples in Ancient Rome. Caryatids lining front thresholds and notions of symmetry related the ideological alignment of humans with deity. (figure 3 ) This relationship was explored and indicted by Vitruvius, whose theories were instead organised around notions of representation, proportion, symmetry and eurythmy. Geometry, still, relentlessly tethers the built environment to static artefacts.
Connor OGrady
figure 2: Localised spatial connections
When Vitruvian ideals were included as part of the humanist movement that accompanied modern architecture of the twentieth century, the body was no longer thought of as a physical analog for built form, rather spaces were body-centred in their design. Unfortunately, the humanist ideals of the modern era were superseded by the technological inventions of the first and second machine ages. Architecture attempted to create a machine which seeks to provide for the individual needs of the end user. This endeavour to construct
environmental homeostasis, inherently made places for people in opposition to their natural environments, antagonising relations to our greater environment and ignoring individual subjectivity in the design equation. At the end of the twentieth century and with the establishment of the digital turn an alternative approach to humanism may prove favourable. Posthumanism redefines ‘human’ as an entity inseparable from its environment. This positioning acknowledges human impact so widespread that we can no longer be defined independently from our environment. The consequences of human action have left the boundaries of bodies and the territories of nature intertwined and fraught in their coexistence. Through this learned understanding of embodied cognitive simulation, and unique subjectivity of experience, along with the understanding that we are intrinsically related to our environment, a proposal for alternative modes of living may be considered. How does architecture itself emulate the complex territories of the skin and its bounds? How can we imagine a post-human architecture? Can buildings be active contributors in fostering continual and individualised well-being? Now that we have imagined a slightly different world, let’s imagine a possible architecture for it.
Richard Dalton, ‘Antiquities and views in Greece and Egypt’, 1751
figure 3: Caryatid at the Erechtheion
on site review 38: borders, lines, breaks and breaches 35
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