THE MEMORY THRESHOLD : A time scaled Allegorical Approach to cultural rituals of homemaking in Interior Design
This thesis proposes how the embodied communication and the way we remember space and share memories lead to a ‘co-creation’ of an interior space between the maker and the receiver.
Designer
Statement:
My cultural identity as a designer is an amalgamation of my Moroccan roots, my unique upbringing and my eclectic experiences living abroad. Mental snapshots of past-lived spaces have shaped my vision as a designer today. Waking up everyday to the smell of Moroccan spices, the call to prayer in the background, still provides to this day a vault of memories and spatial experiences which I continue to draw upon in experiencing and communicating my design philosophy. With a background in architecture, my work is situated within a complex intersection between memory, senses, and material explorations. In that sense, every square meter on the planet has a past condition, which appears in its form, sense of perception and/or interpretation. No matter the place, scale and identity of the design, memory is the main factor which can be applied under different forms and conditions. I’m most and out, designer person’s
interested in the in-between spaces, thresholds that prompt dialogue between in senses, imagination and the inhabited experience. In this project, my goal as a is to invite interior design to become an experiential canvas upon which a unique culture can be situated and a personal narrative applied.
‘ The Memory Threshold’ is a game of two players: the self and the other, the new self and the old, self and shadow… to provoke a memory drawn from a cultural ritual and how that can translate into the virtual animation experience. The boundaries between physical games and virtual animation are blurred.
SPACE + TIME + PLAY = PLAY - SPACE
If this study were to be continued, more participants could be invited to journey through the game environment, their passages documented and their experiences analyzed. There are endless possibilities, endless scenarios, and endless journeys to be experienced by new players.
| | thesis -provocation. txt
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| how can the virtual realm be used to help interior design methods better explore the experiential as a design generator?
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This thesis aims to: -
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RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 1: Explore how the embodied communication can activate and enable memories to resurface through allegorical methods as a tool for reinterpreting notions of interior design and the shift in spatial elements over time. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 2: Translate how narrative experience within the experiential can activate allegory by using cultural rituals as the foundation of homemaking in lost interiors. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE 3: Discover how digital animation milieu can be actively engaged as a tool in interior design and provoke agency to participate in creating new memory narratives of a past lived space.
Following the above mentioned objectives, a relational approach is adopted in understanding the new type of interior space through digital heterotopia. Therefore, qualitative analysis methods will be applied throughout the research, which enables ‘the other’ to observe, analyze and understand the dynamics of the space from its inhabitants’ perspective. Methods of Practice: Site Statement: This thesis seeks to challenge different spatial elements such as: threshold, spatial enclosure, visual axis. This investigation is grounded in speculative design that introduces the experiential “time” and spatial relationships as important factors in the reinterpretations of these elements - assessing how they become redefined through shifts in spatial conditions as events occurring over time. As such, the bounds of an actual site context and the physical limitations of a building environment are all outside the scope of the investigation. The aim of embodied communication situates contact, awareness and excitement through the process of making as an intimate exchange between the maker and the receiver.
The design process will be developed in two main stages: -
Design stage 1: Embodied Communication:
The first stage involves interviewing five family members to describe their memories of the lived space that they shared in three different countries: US, Saudi Arabia and Morocco. This will be used as a script that will be translated into abstract physical models in order to translate the memories rooted within the inhabited domestic sphere as a context for a larger narrative in the virtual realm. After conducting the dialogue, I have created a list of the objects that have been mentioned by the family members multiple times in the interview. The list highlights the objects that represented daily rituals for the family, and how they were the essence of the home making despite the spatial transitions. -
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SALT - The ritual of throwing salt in different corners of the house is a cultural belief that it will protect the home and ward off the evil eye. Salt as a material takes the shape of the corner, and it shapes the topography of the interior space. TEA POT - The ritual of drinking fresh mint tea and the process of pouring it itself remains alive and celebrated throughout the years. This ritual creates an atmosphere, the sound of tea touching the glass, and forming a foam on the surface of the liquid, like a crown. THE KHASMA - The ritual of hanging “Khasma” on the door as another form of protection. This specific object was treasured, and transmitted from one generation to the other. The khasma carried different meanings, but to the author the khasma created a form of dialogue between the self and the other and between in and out. This dual relationship will be applied in the virtual gaming experience between the old and new self, self and other, young self and old self, which invites contrasts of reality and memory, celebrates and activates rituals. SAGE - The ritual of burning spices as it has a significant importance in the cultural heritage. This olfactory experience gives the home an identity, a unique smell that differentiates the place that gives it a character. Smell has the ability to “remember”, and to evoke the interior atmosphere.
| | the first stage of the design process:
| location_childhood_house 1982
| | transitions 1974-2010
the_suliamans _family of 5.
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Design stage 2: Into the Game
This stage introduces the digital gaming environment as a medium within which the previous design stages explorations can be framed and tested in relation to narrative theory. It establishes self positioning of the player “the self” as an important factor for interpreting and navigating through one’s own spatial experience within the interiority fabric. Furthermore, this stage aims to present a shift in the spatial perception, by representing a personalized experience of the player “the other” that could be redefined through the diverse perceptions of the participant. Our interpretation of the space is in a constant state of flux, it is fluid and undetermined. The construct of the spatial experience in this design stage is based on Bruner’s narrative theory and thus applied through Ganoe’s propositions implemented within a spatial context in the digital gaming environment. The four zones that were previously explored in Design stage 2 are organized within a fabricated context in the digital environment, where each passage leads to interior spaces (The Salt room, The Spicy cabin, The Tea room and The Threshold) that represent the cultural ritual. Each one of these interior spaces contribute their individual allegorical narratives perceived through the animated spatial configurations. This coexistence between the cultural rituals and the interiority of these spaces, and the relationship between the two players: the self and the other allow for opportunities and dialogues to be formed as a method of overlaying different theories, time and narratives into one spatial experience.
The diagram above represents the four zones of the memory threshold game animation and how they connect through shift in spatial conditions and different passages as a representation of time (past and present), lack of control (memory labyrinth), growth, and entry. Their common trails are mapped out through the axes and lines, both horizontal and vertical to represent opportunities for the conception of transitional elements as the design manifestation of the connection between the zones. Through the element of agency, players have the tool and ability to navigate the game environment, constructing their own personalized experience. Thus, this shifts the exploration from the cinematic spatial perception and more towards the architectural spatial perception (the experience of the space through own perception). Two game-players ( the self and the other) are recorded in this stage to represent the two different journeys taken by them resulting in two completely different experiences of the digital spatial environment. The self and the other’s route taken throughout the journey is mapped out and screenshots of the main interior places (moments of pause and reflection) within the game-play are exhibited in the following pages. You too can be a player. You too can construct your own spatial journey and narrative experience within this fabricated reality. Enjoy! (QR code of the animation)
| | zone 1: the salt room
___ the-salt __was part of the house landscape __ it covered all the corners in the living room __I would see my little sister’s footprints __the home’s topography __it was my mother’s way of protecting us __protecting the home
| | zone 1: the salt room
| | zone 2: the spicy cabin
___floating in air __ I would follow it with my nose until __I don’t differentiate that smell __anymore…. __it was our home’s smell __the olfactory portal to the house
| | zone 2 2: the the spicy spicy cabin cabin
| | zone 3: the tea room
__that fabric ______that sound _______that fresh smell of mint in the early afternoon __________my reflection on the tea pot ____________ that’s me and the other having tea
| | zone 3: the tea room
The other
Self
| | zone 4: the khamsa
__ When guests arrived __I would sneak peaks at their expressions prior to entering __the home. __This was my way of experiencing the threshold __the space that exists in between”
| | zone 4: the khamsa
Final Thoughts & Critical Reflections: “ A film. Artwork or text is not necessarily architecture but it can, at the very least, be architectural in specific ways, whether spatial, material or temporal, especially if it is considered as a series of strategies, elements and techniques rather than an indivisible whole. This suggests that anyone wanting to produce architecture should, first, discard the preconceived boundaries of the discipline and, second, be prepared to learn from architecture wherever it is found, whoever it is produced by.” -
Jonathan Hill
Another set of explorations was discussed during the final review where I proposed to fabricate a physical model of the game space with the four zones modeled, each panel representing one of the interior spaces and hinged together so that the participants can move them freely. The idea here was to highlight the physicality aspect of the memory threshold game and introduce extra depth of agency for the participants to not only be able to experience it virtually and choose their paths in the game environment, but to also have authority over the architecture itself and its constituent zones. Agency will allow the players the ability to navigate the game environment, and construct their own personalized journey. This shifts the exploration from the virtual/ cinematic spatial eye towards the physical spatial eye. (the experience of space through own perception) The players are recorded in this stage to highlight the two different journeys taken by two different players (the self and the other) and resulting in two different spatial experiences.
As the structural nature of the design proposal determines how each zone is read and interpreted, the game board model would allow the participant/ player to construct and experience their own experience along the way. After a thorough discussion, reflection and critical thinking with the help of the reviewers, we came to the conclusion that in the future, building the memory threshold in UNITY, and eventually experiencing it in the virtual reality format could be interesting. Although this step might be beyond the scope of this thesis, given the fact that this thesis began from an autobiographical genesis, with personal experiences and artifacts; the project should stand as a self positioning experience within a controlled landscape. This concept ties back to the idea of who the designer is and who the viewer/ participant of the space is to ensure that the personalized elements of the cultural rituals are not lost through the influence of the readers, but is rather experienced and enjoyed through their own personal interpretation of a virtual space designed through the abstraction of my lenses.
If this study were to be continued, more participants could be invited to journey through the game environment, their passages documented and their experiences analyzed. There are endless possibilities, endless scenarios, and endless journeys to be experienced by new players.
“ There are as many versions of a story as there are listeners. There are as many experiences as there are players. It is not the voice that commands the story: It is the ear” -
Italo Calvino