PROFESSOR

STUDIO

Every one of us has felt discomfort in a public space before. Whether we found that space too loud or too quiet, too bright or too dark, too spacious or too cramped, too hot or too cold. While these simple dichotomies fail to capture the nuances of spatial experience–nor do they give insight into how we reach these conclusions–they can nonetheless inform how we begin to think about how our surroundings affect us. This studio proposes that the future of the public library depends more on how people feel about spending time in that space, and less on what information wone has access to therin. For centuries, architects have manipulated sensorial properties of space such as texture, form, light, acoustics, and atmosphere, but there is much contemporary insight into these relationships that has yet to be incorperated into how we shape space.


The ideas which inform the work of the studio are based on current research and insight in fields such as: environmental psychology, spatial cognition, psychophysiology, psychogeography, disability theory, neuroscience, and evolutionary biology. Participants in this studio chose specific topics and areas of interest upon which to conceptually root thier designs.