Program Visualization

Interesting find: Modifying Temperature and Humidity to Alter the Experience of Space at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale

I visited the Biennale and found this project by Transsolar and Tetsuo kondo architects.

“By controlling the microclimate of the space in the arsenale building, a layer of artificial clouds is made to hover above the ground level, remaining in balance above the heads of the viewers.”

The installation certainly awed the visitors. I have made a small film trying to convey the experience by altering the red color filter intensity trying to associate the visual perception and the thermoception.

Transsolar Cloudscape at 12th Venice Biennale from Differentenergy on Vimeo.

Updates - Interview with a visually handicapped patron at the Carnegie Library for the Blind

 

Published with the permission of Mr. Wassermann

On 13-10-2010 I had an interview with Mr. Wassermann at the Carnegie Library for the blind. I asked him a set of 21 questions in a 60 minute session, attempting to understand how one experience a space without relying on vision. The interview session was incredibly informative, I can say it has profoundly changed the one I starting to notice things I never noticed before.

Below are some of the excerpts of the interview. 

 Me: When you walk inside a room, what is the first thing that is most noticeable to you? The temperature? The floor? The noise or?

Wassermann: Probably (I'm) most aware, to the best I am able to discern it i s the size of the room I am in. Probably because of the ambient noises and a little bit of air flow. You know right now I am picking up a little bit of noises from a ventilation system or whatever, any of those noises, start to give you a little bit of the size of the room, or either the lack of or the presence of things between me and the next obstacle

 ...

 Me: Where and when do you ever feel too hot or too cold?

Wassermann: anything that's asphalt, that's black top on it, you will get lots of heat reflected off of it.

...

Wassermann: I don't think we will able to control nature, there are lots of things we should concentrate on, other than nature.

Me: For example, what should we focus on?

Wassermann: Human relations.

I will be re formulating my questions to get more specific answer on the thermal experience of the built environment, and indoor environment. I would love to have some suggestions.

Thermoception