I live in a society where a state of multi-tasking and over-stimulation is common. I am inundated with excessive information and seemingly addicted to distraction. My love affair with hi speed digital devices devours all sense of time and space. But in the process of making all information available to everyone, all the time, we are losing our connection with the value of direct experience. What I can see, feel, taste, smell, touch and hear is losing significance and with this loss I am becoming isolated from my own nature and perhaps even my own body.
In response to this contemporary condition this thesis proposes a place dedicated to rediscovering our innate sense of rhythm and to re-connecting with our place in the cosmos. This is not intended as a rejection of current technologies, but rather a place that examines the potential of architecture to bring us into the present moment. In doing so we are able to attend to the experience of being in our body and moving from moment to moment in the world; we learn to slow down and enjoy the incremental life of our senses.
The site for this exploration is an island in the rocky landscape of the Canadian Shield. Known as Twin Island, this place is the site of my family's cabin where I spend each summer. The journey to the island and the place itself are both a physical and spiritual symbol of transformation; of disconnecting then re-connecting. Architecture is used as an instrument to heighten one’s awareness of the primordial power of water, stone, fire and darkness to spark the cosmological imagination.
Sinking deeply into her bed she penetrates earth, rock and ancient memory. Here, she finds her place. This is ‘architecture minimum’; we are simply sheltered within the expanse of the universe.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:WATERLOO/oai:uwspace.uwaterloo.ca:10012/7624 |
| Date | 14 June 2013 |
| Creators | Snyder, Elyse |
| Source Sets | University of Waterloo Electronic Theses Repository |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis or Dissertation |
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