DISORIENTATION IN ARCHITECTURE – ORIENTATION AND DISORIENTATION [2 OF 4]
- Authoradmin
- Date 3 December 2016
- CategoryThesis
Orientation Defined “One of the advantages of studying something as profound as orientation is that orientation is clearly not something given in itself; it never has a simple objective referent: which way is up depends, to some extent at least, on the way one becomes involved with things.” (Morris) Our position on this planet in terms of our physical, mental and temporal states form our own understanding of orientation, guided by predictable rhythms of naturally occurring phenomena in the physical world.
“The language of orientation, the order within movement that gives a sense depth, arises in the movement of a body that can be concerned for itself, and that is concerned with itself in place. Orientation thus has an emotional aspect.” (Morris) In contrast to its counterpart, orientation consists of a distinct personal understanding in self of rightness – spatially, morally, socially, psychologically – orientation implies an understanding of a baseline and a predictable relationship to the aforementioned baseline.
Disorientation Defined: The most basic definition of disorientation is a loss of sense of direction. A common symptom of brain injury, disorientation accompanies a function of sudden shifts in the fault lines of memory. (Previc and Ercoline) The experience of disorientation is felt in place, time or person – either in typological isolation or simultaneously – and against the base line of normative reality. (Tanner) Disorientation is as much a cognitive dysfunction as a physical sensation, both a disturbance in the limbic as well as in the vestibular systems affecting memory function and sense of proprioception. (Surhone)
The Basis of Physical (Dis)Orientation: The physical sense responsible for our understanding of the relative position of neighboring parts of the body and strength of effort being employed in movement of such parts is called proprioception. (Surhone) This sense is tested frequently in field sobriety exams where a person in question is tasked with touching their nose with their finger. Due to this sense, humans have a little known reflex termed ‘the law of righting ‘wherein upon the body tilting in any direction, a person will reposition the head to naturally align and normalize to the horizon – this is seen as neck muscles begin development and explains our intrinsic connection to the horizon. (Blascovich and Bailenson)
Physical Orientation: the user is able to orient the physical body in space through this means. We look towards a distal landmark in the natural or built form and nature. (Ellard) As an example of an orienting structure, we will study The Old Man in the Mountain, in the White Mountains Region of New Hampshire. The Old Man is a focal point of physical reference within the context of the larger distal landmark – Cannon Mountain, providing sheltered passage for the Kankamangus Highway.
Physical Orientation: the user is able to orient the physical body in space through this means. We look towards a distal landmark in the natural or built form and nature. (Ellard) As an example of an orienting structure, we will study The Old Man in the Mountain, in the White Mountains Region of New Hampshire. The Old Man is a focal point of physical reference within the context of the larger distal landmark – Cannon Mountain, providing sheltered passage for the Kankamangus Highway.
Physical Disorientation: The user is unable to orient themselves in space through this means. We look towards restrictive confinement of a user within space of hyper-order. In this example, we will study The Panopticon, an extreme example of physical disorientation in two ways – first in the hyper-order and sameness of the supporting rooms surrounding the central eye and secondly– the view through vertical bars constantly breaking the inherent horizons and disallowing natural righting.
The Basis of Temporal (Dis)Orientation: The elusive quality of time is defined as a period or interval, the period between two events or during which something exists, happens or acts; or measured or measurable intervals. (Seow) In our physical reality, we understand the passage of time through the ‘natural order’ – our orientation towards the sun, the difference in day and night, the tides, atmospheric phenomena and forces, and organic growth. We are able to quantify and predict rates of change and orient ourselves in time through routine and ritual.
Temporal Orientation: the user is able to orient self in time through this means. The elaborate methods of preserving the Old Man marked the passage of time for the people of New Hampshire “Freezing and thawing opened fissures in the Old Man’s forehead. By the 1920s, the crack was wide enough to be mended with chains, and in 1957 the state legislature passed a $25,000 appropriation for a more elaborate weatherproofing, using 20 tons of fast-drying cement, plastic covering, and steel rods and turnbuckles, plus a concrete gutter to divert runoff from above. A team from the state highway and park divisions kept the patchwork up to date each summer” (Ford)
Temporal Disorientation: The user is unable to orient self in time through this means. The confinement to the extremely controlled interior environment with little change in condition compounded with constant light levels on the interior regardless of day or night conditions allow the Panopticon the distinction of the perfect example of temporally disorienting users.
The Basis of Psychological (Dis)Orientation: We also orient ourselves in the interior mind space of consciousness. The psychological factor responsible for our understanding of being and our own existence is memory – the phenomenological reference through which we understand, assume, categorize and interact. The mind forms mental landmarks and routes, and can quickly recognize the size and shape of spatial nodes. (Ellard) We construct our sense of self through space, in a constant dialogue of existential projection and perception.
Psychological Orientation: the user is able to orient themselves in mind through this means. The collapse of the Old Man has brought about innumerable methods of recollection, utilizing physical and digital technologies to recreate the profile, even consideration of reconstruction in granite again. This profile served as a metaphor for the character of the people of New Hampshire – wrought of granite, standing boldly in the face of the elements and defying all natural forces and hardships.
Psychological Disorientation: The user is unable to orient themselves in time through this means. Due to the constant light levels, prisoners were unable to know when they were watched by guards in the central eye, thus creating constant public existence and eroding sense of self in space. Bentham himself described the Panopticon as “a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.” Critic Foucault in his book Discipline and Punish typifies the Panopticon as belonging to “disciplinary” societies and their pervasive inclination to observe and normalize.”
Paradox and Subjectivity in (Dis)Orientation: The reality of orientation and disorientation is that they are both dynamic phenomena with contradictions – neither good nor bad, but subjective. They may exist as a paradox depending upon the instance in question, combining contradictory features or qualities. In Times Square, New York City, a bright sign is a paradox because one can be orienting, but the accumulation and spacing of many bright signs creates disorientation for the user – this falls into the category of hypermedia and correlates to the type of disorientation experienced by web users conducting random but deeper searches in Google Wiki links. Repetitive sameness and uninterrupted information create a type of psychological disorientation for the user, distorting time and sense of self.
The Times Square signs are simultaneously orienting and disorienting and, depending on user intent, more or less appropriate. A user approaching Times Square looking to easily navigate to a specific location may struggle and find the overabundance of signs irritating and disorienting. Another user approaching Time Square looking to experience the energy and vibrancy of New York City may find the signs of times Square charming, appropriate and orienting in space. The conclusion is that a space may simultaneously orient and disorient. Similarly, disorientation may cause a new orientation and orientation my actually severely disorient thus marking the phenomena multi-dimensional and difficult to quantify scientifically.
Place: Balance and Sameness: Sameness is the root of disorientation. Sometimes spaces seem orderly and organized are actually disorienting in nature – it is the quality of sameness that creates a lack of understanding in person, place and time as revealed in studies of visual (dis)order. Sameness manifests itself as constant signage, constant lack of signage, constant public exposure, constant public disconnect, constant order and symmetry in plan, constant chaos and asymmetry in plan, constant light levels whether bright or dark, constant landmark, constant lack of landmark, etc.
Time: Haptics and Connections: In order to understand the happenings that over time compile into existence, the user in space integrates beyond the physical form towards a holistic sensory understanding of space. In the depths of all senses, the user accounts for formal relation beyond the materiality of the composition but also considers the connection to the environment and the interplays that consciously or subconsciously attune to in the physical world. In this complex understanding of multi-dimensionality of space we touch on the sensations of orientation and disorientation and sense of self in space.
Juhani Pallasmaa provides an excellent example of this multifaceted sense of orientation: “I confront the city with my body; my legs measure the length of the arcade and the width of the square; my gaze unconsciously projects my body onto the facade of the cathedral, where it roams over the mouldings and contours, sensing the size of recesses and projections; my body weight meets the mass of the cathedral door, and my hand grasps the door pull as I enter the dark void behind. I experience myself in the city and the city exists through my embodied experience. The city and the body supplement and define each other. I dwell in the city and the city dwells in me.” (Pallasmaa)
Person: Metaphor and Meaning: The analytical derivations of physicality and the built form, ethereal qualities intrinsically related to physical orientation in space, elevate the understanding of where a user exists in place and begins to answer the questions of how the user experiences subjectively their experience in place. The latter, following a user to know where they are in relation to something, knowing how a user is feeling in relation to something, is key to understanding the psychology of spatial (dis)orientation. “One can say that the city itself is the collective memory of its people and like memory it is associated with objects and places. The city is the locus of this collective memory.” (Rossi)
Architects intentionally use methods to orient and disorient users in space. Even in the earliest of architectural treatises in book IV on the aspect of the temple Vitruvius states “the temple and the statue which is in the shrine should look towards the western quarter of the sky, so that those who come to the altar to sacrifice or make offerings may look towards the eastern Heaven and the image in the temple. In like fashion persons undertaking vows may look upon the temple and the eastern Heaven. And the very images may seem to rise up and gaze upon those who make vows and sacrifices. For all the altars of the gods should look to the east.” (Vitruvius) In this example Vitruvius seeks to orient the building in physical space to affect the user’s sense of psychological orientation spiritually, physical orientation in physical space and temporal connection to the happenings of the sky.
In the 20th century controlling orientation and disorientation alike has expanded into the commercial realm for increasing profitability in building typologies such as office and retail and beyond as exemplified in the casino and shopping mall. “When entering a casino it should be apparent that management does everything it can to disorient the customer… There are no windows (disorientation to time); where state law allows, alcohol is provided (disorientation to circumstances); frequent visitors are treated like big shots (disorientation to person); and the gaming floor is usually dimly lit with loud and disorienting “music” that is not like any music heard anyplace else (disorientation to time [timing, beat] and disorientation to place.” (Maddock and Fulton)
Physical Orientation: the user is able to orient the physical body in space through this means. We look towards a distal landmark in the natural or built form and nature. (Ellard) As an example of an orienting structure, we will study The Old Man in the Mountain, in the White Mountains Region of New Hampshire. The Old Man is a focal point of physical reference within the context of the larger distal landmark – Cannon Mountain, providing sheltered passage for the Kankamangus Highway.
Tactics for orientation: “Ultimately our own species evolved the ability to create abstract mental models of the world we experience and to contemplate the rational implications of these models. We have the ability to redesign the world in our own minds and put these ideas into action.” (Kurzweil) Out of the imaginative ether of creativity, architects utilize the following elements in design to create a sense of orientation: symphonic composition, functional rhythmic light fluctuation, balanced color palettes, interaction with natural rhythms, framing natural rhythms, focal points and paths, unraveling and revealing of information, clear connection to the horizon, honest materiality, interior exterior relationships, areas of voyeurism and intimacy, allowing a natural flow of time, clear paths, hierarchy, creating space with views both local and distal, elegant signage, nodal navigation, form following memory
Tactics for disorientation: Similarly, architects also make intentional use of schemes to disorient: constant public exposure or denial, interior exterior disconnect, dishonest materiality, disregard for horizon, constant information exposure, constant hierarchy, constant spatial rhythm, constant color tones, constant light levels, cacophony in composition, extending or shortening time, unclear paths, lack of hierarchy, forcing only local or distal views, overflow or lack of signage, fractal navigation, form crushing memory
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