Levels of perception are composed of 3 sections: the infrastructure, the experiential + cultural, and the historical. The focus is to connect people both physically and mentally through different levels of perception and to provide easier access points to the forest and the infrastructure
THE CONCEPT AND DESIGN
The focus is to connect people both physically and mentally through different levels of perception. Inside the main infrastructure building there are various elements that are designed to lead people to the forest, one being a few green outdoor rooms, two being the directional view, and three being a bathroom with great opening to the sky. These elements are meant for people to experience somewhat similar spaces as those in the forest.
Then the water pavilion is a underwater structure with pathways that lead them up and down into the spaces. Inside the pavilion is a waterfall where water from above goes in and people can either walk in the waterfall or outside the waterfall but still being able to see each other from either side.
Finally, the forest pavilion, is a cafe library, that is supported by pathways and stairs. One leading to the direction of the main structure and two to the forest and onto the original path. From here we can see that you can start changing the dynamic of the commuters in this area, and even for people that just stay around this area.
NARRATIVE OF THE SITE
Walking through the bridge, I was at the center of a busy transportation hub. There were layers of infrastructure passing by each other. Trains, boats, subways, cars, helicopters, and people are moving at different times creating a rhythmic tempo in the quiet neighborhood. Standing in the middle of the bridge, I see both cities, one a place with dense trees and greenery that was not expected or hinted when approaching the bridge, and the other an industrial and developing city. As I walk along the river I continue to overlook the trees, and there came a fenced up space that stopped me from continuing.It was a floating basketball court enveloping the train tracks. It was almost too interesting to see the layer of activities going on at this specific spot surrounded by all the natural elements. It suddenly reminded me of a shocking image where mountain road was supported by shipping containers. But why? I wondered. Was it because of this moment, where so much of the nature component was present that I almost forgot that I was actually standing in the industrial side? Or am I confused of where I am at? A space with natural coexisting with the industrial manmade infrastructure. An element that was even more clearly experienced and seen on the other side of the city. A moment where the road widened leading to the greens and a public space was created allowing people to sit by the water. The water had a strong divide line, one being a mushy muddy texture with crabs and different spices living on them and the other smooth reflective surface and they was just leaning against each other. Then at the back of this is another interesting imagery where the presence of the buildings and bridges reminds you that you are still in the city. As I continue to follow the path into the greenery, I came to realize it is a forest. A forest? in the city? and what’s even more shocking is the huge stones pilling up against each other creating a special moment with the light, trees, and the rocks. Different shadows casting onto the rocks depending on the sway of the tree. You have completely lost the sense of where you are once you entered here. It a forest with barely any noises of trains passing by while helicopters noise amplified when crossing. When a stranger suddenly asked where her friend is, it was another interesting moment. Now our first instinct to find a friend is through texting or calling from our phones, but instead, they were shouting in the wild, going back to the most natural form of communication.
WHAT IS TIME?
DOES WHAT YOU SEE CHANGE THE WAY YOU PERCEIVE TIME?
DOES IT BRING YOU SOMEWHERE ELSE TRIGGERED BY A CERTAIN MEMORY SOME OF WHAT IS FAMILIAR & SOME OF WHAT IS UNKNOWN?
About this graph....
This graph is separated into 3 layers, time, senses: vision and sound, and memory. Within time, there is past, present, and the future and each explains some reasoning behind how we perceive time. Let me explain briefly this graph. It starts with the basic of us feeling that time goes by so quickly when we are younger but when we get older, a day might feel a lot longer than it used to and the reason may be because when we are younger we are absorbing and learning more new information and constantly adapting to new environment or circumstances and whereas when we get older, our lives become more of a pattern and habit that we are already familiar with that we don’t need to process as much information. But within that there are also various reasons of how we might feel time being longer or shorter in normal lives, in the present. For example, when we are having a pleasant experience time may feel shorter in time but when it is a awful dreadful experience time feel a lot longer. This is the same concept but it is broken down into more details that can be seen on the graph. Focusing on time, I also looked into why a certain memory in the past that happened at the same time with another event might feel closer in time than the other. The reason for this is that one might have more similar event that happened which makes us perceive it very differentlycompared to a similar event that doesn’t happen that often. After the circle of time, it is the circle of senses based on our auditory and our vision. On this graph you could see some lines along the circle are wider than the majority line of the circle, that represents sound. A sudden sound that brings us back into reality. Then while we are perceiving these different emotions, we are creating new memories but at the same time recalling the memories from the past triggered by something that happened in the present. From here, we can see the interconnection between these three things and how importantis to know that and to remember how people’s mind work because at the end of tday, your design and your work is for people to perceive it through different ways and hoping it will be a positive experience. NOT ONLY MENTALLY BUT ALSO PHYSICALLY. These interconnections between how we perceive memory, senses, and time to us seems to be only in our mind but in actuality it is present in our physical body. An emotional perception becomes a physical reality. A study done by a Japanese researcher Masaru Emoto has shown various examples microscopic images of water that is frozen under different circumstances and different patterns was seen depending on the condition the water is under. One specific example is when labels ‘ love and appreciation’ and ‘ you make me sick, I wanna kill you’ are stuck on to the glass for a night. The water with the negative label reassembles an image of the polluted water. This study shows that what we think creates reality in our body because our body is made with 70% water.