An Architectural Investigation of the Haptic Sense: A Material Exploration of the Balance Between Building, Body, and Landscape

Abstract

Missing from much of civic/public spaces today is the potential choreography between body, imagination, and the built environment. This is often a result of a diminished sensation between ourselves and the coupling of constructed and natural spaces. It is precisely this miscommunication which led to an exploration of the haptic sense and a material investigation of the choreography between our bodies, our buildings, and our landscape.

In order to create a memorable space or in the case of this exercise, create place from path, a conservation of the spirit of the players/pieces is necessary. The experience of being in a place occurs in time, is much more than visual, and is as complex as our bodies and as immense as our imaginations.

The movement of our bodies traversing a built environment gives value to the spaces we inhabit. Through the investigation of a little league baseball park along the Potomac River in Alexandria, Virgina, a series of haptic patterns with distinct pauses and progressions in which the body and mind responds to the situation presented is created.