re-situating our built environment

We cannot hope to exist in total sympathy with the motor processes of other species. But, exploring alternative perceptions within a world that we artificially perceive, is rewarding in individual cases. In situations of crisis, we might hope that the anecdotal application of these scientifically proven (important) perceptual differences provides basis for a reconsideration of our present bounded worldly activities.

The mound builds up precisely because the material of which it is made is continually falling down. (Ingold, 2013, p. 75)

Whether building subsidence or falling sand, the effects of gravity are not infinitely resisted. What we build is purely for our thought, conceived with reference only to the scale of our time. Are there ways we can more sensitively facilitate the shifting surface of our built environment? To enable an (inevitable) changing condition, must we reposition our architectural perception closer (than our sensory apparatus leads us to believe) to that of Laura Vinci’s ‘Máquina do Mundo?’

Whilst our current systems are (naturally) geared towards the unique function of our own species’ motor processes, our very ability to establish this uniqueness demands a re-situation of the processes which currently destroy the environment we perceive.