in, The House of Glances*Janice LaFlair Neil Minuk (advisor)

From phenomenology and studies on embodied cognition it is understood that space is perceived through the actions of a lived body; that there can be no spatial perception without embodied action. Vision and mobility are par-ticularly linked, as reflections of one another in the spaces we mentally and physically construct. In this design thesis, I develop the use of reflection, of the doubled frame, to manipulate the experience between what can be seen and touched in a proposed architectural space. Distinct areas of the building and its surrounding site are visually framed such that their connection and/or subsequent gap is made apparent upon moving through a space. Subsequently, two simultaneous investigations are present within this body of work. In the first, the potential of the frame is considered in its multiplicity:

1. as a frame of reference in the foreground, which is compared to its reflected other in the distance2. as a single step in a sequence of programmed spaces 3. as a means to prearrange (a system) so as to ensure a desired fraudulent outcome

The frame is understood as an extension and/or delineation of a threshold, a space that “sustains the middle in which the two, the outside and the inside, penetrate each other. The threshold (that) bears the between”. (Taylor 1989:19)

The results of my visual investigations show that this connection distorts scale and depth perception but fails on its own to develop the space between, to charge the gap between frames with meaning, narrative, and/or pro-gram. To discuss the importance of vision and mobility in architecture, of their ability to fragment and yet connect space to the active user, a second investigation into the potential of the gap is necessary. In his book, Actions of Ar-chitecture, Jonathan Hill discusses three types of gaps that become critical to the second phase of this thesis: the spatial gap, the sensual gap, and the semantic gap. Spatially, the gap is discussed by collaging fragments from various sites and/or areas of a building together. This act is implicitly suggested by the doubling of the visual frame/threshold in a building but can be taken further using programmatic and/or narrative juxtaposition. The sensual gap occurs when these juxtapositions confuse the senses, forcing irreconcilable but potentially pleasurable differences between them. Lastly, the semantic gap is made present when the active user experiences an absence and/or undermining of their expectations of the building. This is a proposal for an architecture that plays with the expectations of its inhabitants, that depends on their mental and physical actions to activate, i.e. - construct spatial, sensual, and semantic connections between spaces.