Seeking new horizons

We yearn for uncertainty in our environment; the uncanny balance between yours and mine, alien and home. While protected and intimate enclosures at the end of a familiar path offer security, opportunity rises from ambiguous territories that allow for exploration. We seek out suspense in space.

"Though the house is an area of security and peace for man, he would pine away if he locked himself in his house to escape the dangers of the world outside; the house would soon become a prison. He must go out into the world to transact his business and to fulfill his role in life. Both security and danger belong to man, and consequently both areas of lived-space, as life develops in the tension between outer and inner space. " (O.F. Bollnow)

There is a growing obsession in contemporary culture with the awkward systems prevalent in both our homes and the city. At each scale there is a personal investment made by the inhabitant to understand and move through space. The impulse of the traveler is to pursue; either for sheer enjoyment or personal pleasure, but always for satisfaction. As early as ancient Greece, Aristotle contended that strange things with complicated aesthetics brought pleasure to the viewer. The process of trying to understand how and why things are the way they are has followed us ever since. Edmund Husserl and M. Merleau-Ponty indicate that our perception of the world is not a series of unrelated shots but rather hinges from one phase to the next, forming a continuous; we constantly imagine what lies behind closed doors.

The following is a study on design guidelines that will be investigated as a template to understanding how to craft the identity of spaces that offer both security and opportunity.

The Basic Structure of a suspenseful situation consists of seven components: a barrier; realms created by the barrier; a target hidden in the unknown realm; human interest associated with the target; hints disclosing the target; various expectations aroused by the hints; and the feeling of suspense proper generated during this process.

Diagram Credit : Miao, Pu

Prescribing Four Patterns of Uncertainty to specific forms of suspenseful places.

Diagram Credit : Miao, Pu

Reduplication

Spiritual Barrier and Hint

Guiding Element

Movement

Unusual View

Incompleteness

Association of Human Being

Infinity

Light from Unseen Sources

Relevance in

Intimate Space. The House

Sacred Space. The Temple

Public Space. The Piazza

Circumstantial Factors in Spatial Suspense

Cultural Factors

Viewer's Previous Knowledge: frequency of users in the space

Reference: Pu Miao, Suspense of Space: Theory and Design.