A Clockwork Architecture: Digital Minds in Analog Spaces

Abstract

This thesis is an investigation of the way in which architecture can respond to and acknowledge the progression of time over long and short term periods. Much like the hands of a traditional analog clock, we use our bodies as a frame of reference to how time is passed by picking up on changes in the environmental qualities of light, shadow, temperature, organization, position, and growth. These qualities, each affected in some way by the natural cycles of the environment, are directly linked to our senses. Through repeated exposure, our body memories become accustomed to each space within a building and the qualities that are norm becomes increasingly apparent and requires adjustment on our part. Over the long term, the cycles of adjustment and re-adjustment become instances of ritual to us, typically created in tune with the passing days and/or seasons. By optimizing the use of each of these environmental qualities with sensitivity to the rituals within a building and its surroundings, it can ultimately be possible to create an architecture which helps increase one's awareness of their existence within many different scales of time and place.