SUB/SURFACE: ENCOUNTER AND DOMUSTALGIA Experiments in Reconnecting the Self to an Unmediated Experience of Place
As we live increasingly in virtual worlds, we grow less connected to our homes. This disconnection is experienced as unsettledness, an emotional dislocation of the individual from his primary space (domustalgia). Music playing on headphones, for example, disrupts the connection of the individual to their sense of home by overpowering the familiar creaking floor, the sound of that space. There are, however, times in a body's routine when the self is left to perceive the home uninterrupted. These moments offer an opportunity for reconnection with place and the self-knowing that comes from place-knowing, an opportunity for which interior designers are well positioned to design.
In light of this dynamic, Sub/Surface: Encounter and Domustalgia investigates the surface of the domestic interior. By developing a series of guidelines driven by psychological principles and perceptual tendencies, I propose an approach to interior design in which designers "adjust" the interior, creating for clients a network of seemingly anomalous but site-and client-specific, human-scale "incidents" which subtly shift perception towards the fabric of the interior.
Thesis Advisor: Jonsara Ruth
Secondary Advisor: Alexa Griffith-Winton