Abstract:
What does architecture mean to us? Its various forms and colors, its different gestures and movements, its ornaments, textures, and messages, how much of these really entered into our lives, caught our attention, touched our heart and placed a meaningful mark in our memory? Or perhaps in our daily lives where our thoughts and emotions took most of the place, those delicately created beauties have never been existed. Or maybe they are just like the clouds, only pass by in front of our eyes, left no trace in our minds. We only give them a glance when our minds become empty. But what if it shapes our feelings, what if its form gives an unnoticeable effect in our subconscious? What if it stimulates certain atmospheres? What if it triggers our thoughts and inspires our lives? Then architecture would become more meaningful to us as it makes a connection with our inner beings, the origin of our world. This thesis will investigate how much effect architecture can give to our inner beings. Through looking into our inner beings, investigating our feelings, and our nervous systems, we found that architecture’s meaning and existence in our world is to firstly provide safety, secondly provide physical comfort and partially affects our mental states. Within us, architecture has found its root and position. It is giving care to our feelings by keeping a balance between both mental and physical worlds. By studying architecture’s relationship with our memory, association and attention, we found some clues for making design decisions thus simplifying architecture in order to achieve more meaningful effects.
