Phase 1: Assignment

More than Sharing

DEADLINES:

• 1/15/20 Wednesday, 2:00pm. (desk crits) draft of all 6 images/diagrams
• 1/17/20 Friday, 2:00pm. Final Requirements for review

Closely review the assignment posting on the studio site. Always do this. Not just for the basic requirements, but also to better understand the point of the assignment: what we’re interested in. What stands out to me on close reading is the following phrasing in the 1A deliverables section:

Find 6 conditions where private or personal space is being pushed beyond limits of comfort through the design of space surrounding it

Even though sharing is a focus of our semester, we’re starting off asking you to look at how personal or private space can be shaped through design; specifically, how it can be “pushed” to the point of challenging comfort. A couple of things this suggests:

• We’re not asking you to identify conditions where design simply creates (or helps the occupant create) privacy. Instead we’re asking for example where design affects the occupant’s ability to be comfortable by somehow changing their personal space.
• It’s worth considering what comfort means and how we achieve it: What does it mean to be comfortable? How do we become comfortable with a situation, with a space? There are aspects of comfort that likely have nothing to do with our personal or private space and thus this assignment (ie temperature or thermal comfort) but understanding comfort and it’s limits in a general sense may still be helpful.

It seems clear that not having personal space or privacy in a situation where we would expect to can cause discomfort. But we want you to also investigate this in a nuanced way:

• how can design change personal or private space in a way that impacts comfort? (Not just the complete absence of one or the other.)
• Is the impact always going to be the same on all occupants? Does it vary by person? By culture? By other conditions?

The examples in the lecture included several designs that somehow differed in their creation of personal space from the “normative” design we might have expected (ie the bedroom and bathroom without the expected wall between them diminished privacy when showering, pushing the limits of comfort in being visible naked, bathing…). Examples of this type are a great way to identify where our expectations of personal/private space are challenged, but needn’t be the only type you consider. Are there also examples where:

• The intent of a “normative” design is to challenge privacy? to affect our comfort by changing our personal space?
• A design might be unintentionally affecting the comfort of some users through privacy or personal space?

In addition to the requirements in the assignment I’ve asked for your drafts on Wednesday for both your personal and found examples to function at three different scales. This is not more important than finding interesting examples so don’t junk anything prematurely but I want you to try to identify different scales of personal space and different scales of environments. Some possibilities:

• 1 on 1. Your privacy with regard to one other person: intimate, casual acquaintance, total stranger…
• Within a group. You are part of the group, but assumedly still have some desire/need for privacy or personal space.
• Outside of a group. Sharing a space or otherwise interacting with a group that is distinct or separate from you.
• Multiple groups in a space.
• Multiple spaces, but interconnected in some way

I was initially asking that you use examples you found in your everyday life to prompt you to find similarities in the examples outside of your life (and vice versa) and still hope that might be a useful approach for you but it’s not a requirement for Wednesday.