Still trying to figure out what it is that i really want

I’m not trying to disregard Engineers or aesthetics or function, or form or anything, I’m trying to understand from a scientific and a logical perspective of how a person reacts to his surroundings, how he sees and interpret and inhabit his space so that I can understand what triggers emotions of happiness, comfort and total experience, which in my opinion, is beautiful architecture.

While writing notes and reading Architecture and Happiness, i had to write the above down to clarify for myself what it is that i'm trying to do and not trying to do. Assuming the above is well written and can sustain a wonderful thesis, what kind of product design would i end up with? Still feels like that on the way to explaining the above, i would have to produce a lot of research initiated design solutions to convince my reader, to show them. So stuck!

Neuroscience

Have finished my current neuroscience and architecture book. Unfortunately the information was quite limited.

From it i have basically learnt that while humans have a general blue print which determines their likes and dislikes, [for example humans are more sensitive to golden ratios] the environment and culture has a major impact on their growth [which is more or less obvious]. A person's experience and their value system[what they find more significant due to something which triggered attention at the time] determines someone's current perceptional views. These ideas were already obvious to me, however now i have scientific research to back it up.
So the key points were :
memory
Experience [derived from memory]
Conscious
Vision
Everything else really just follow the above three, even those three are very closely linked. I will not read more towards psychology, poetry and ideas that are less scientific and hopefully arrive at something.

I did not see Richard this week so i have no feedback.

I have decided to do some experiments to test some hypothesis regarding the human value system and sensory systems. Also decided that the final design requires more than text and pictures- after the book convincing me the lack of information in images as the brain requires all senses to form a real image for a real experience.

I will also start to collect more pictures, and read more thesis.

Week 3

need to read:
Poetry of space
neurology and architecture

print/research:
successful thesis ideas- people often have fascinating ways to document their progress

-start coming up with experiments after reading about neurology- beat W to it
-diagrams
-check for more talks
-Keep a physical folder for the talk each week to take with.

Meeting 02

In this meeting i elaborated on the book i currently finished : architecture inside out. [which i will write a blog review about so i can keep a list of books]


Richard:
- does not agree much with the architecture inside out book- the main issue of architects who do not pay enough attention to the functional and internal needs of the occupants.
- feel that there are two types of architecture, one that is built by demand and the other by mass production. 
- agrees with the issues of the body and seeing the body as both an object and a subject, that we are not bound by our skin.




for the design:
-he's fine with me having no clue as to where i want to build it, or what i want to build. 
-he suggested a museum of beauty, that beauty is the object in the museum to be shown- then there are rooms of certain beauty? 
-I suggested a selection of beautiful designs, because of the bigness of this subject, i said perhaps i could build a whole lot of things along the way, rather than one design.
-Perhaps i could design numerous random spaces and do three prototypes of each space, one that is viewed to be beautiful based on culture for example, then one based on purpely psychological then a joint one. 


key ideas that emerged:
Alvo Alto
Humanist branch of modernism
Architect's experience is different than that of a man down the street
existential senses
connecting the nodes of existence
POETRY
deconstructivist
TYPOLOGY OF BEAUTY

Meeting 01-response

In response to my current proposal [which won't be writtenly changed for a long time]
:
Thanks Brenda. I think your outline is good and will suffice for your submission today. I think we will need to very quickly start work on clarifying the issue of beauty. I think you should start immediately on an overview of ideas of beauty through the ages, restricting this to perhaps either the western or eastern traditions (otherwise there will be to much to handle). At the same time you need to start your research into the neurophysiology of beauty. In this way you may be able to track the development of beauty as both a cultural and scientific phenomenon. It may be an interesting insight that perhaps a scientific understanding of beauty is of course a cultural one too! (that is, science, and the belief in science being a cultural phenomenon/position?)


- Clarifying the issue of beauty
- Overview the ideas of beauty through the ages 
- Neurophysiology of beauty

Meeting with Richard Goldie 01 + New proposal

I met with Richard Goldie last thursday morning with Weixin and Joe. 
He was pleased with my proposal but suggested i clarify it. 
I think his main concern is how i plan to tackle such a big and old topic like beauty. I think i may be confusing myself. What i want to do is examine what makes people enjoy buildings- i used the word beauty because of it's vagueness and bigness.
He was displeased with weixins and very happy with Joes.
I'm really worried about my actual design project. it feels like everyone [including the thesis i read] had a very clear idea of what they wish to build then researched into how to build it successfully. I'm taking a route which is technically ideal [from how i understood Goldie]- it's not knowing what the outcome will be and suprising yourself through your research. But that's just risky.
He did say that site picking will be a very crucial part of the investigation...
The design and location of my thesis will be developed through understanding and revealing the topic.

From the first day I was introduced to Architecture I have denied the idea of aesthetics & the need for beautiful architecture, after seeing function and basic sustainability methods being sacrificed for aesthetics I began to lose hope in Architectural buildings. This thesis will challenge my long-term stubborn belief and access how the human brain identifies what 'beauty' is in architecture and how does a ‘beautiful’ architecture form impact our emotions and life. 

This thesis will

- investigate the individual ideas of 'beauty' as understood by numerous famous architects throughout time.

-explore the various intellectual and different cultural movements that inform how people create and look at architecture

-Attempt to understand neurology and psychology- determine how we, as humans, really identify the complex and personal concept of beauty.

Architecture is a multisensory art and requires to be understood on more than just visual terms, it must not only take into account of the other senses but also the effects of being human. Through an understanding of the neurology and psychology, I will attempt to use and manipulate the essence of being human, i.e. emotions, memory, compassion, personality & spirituality within architecture to create a personified, multisensory architectural form with the capacity to affect and reflect the deepest reaches of my existence. 

Critical Question of your thesis      Aesthetically successful architecture often follows certain rules of beauty which have been taught to us over time, but can architecture be challenged to evolve our emotional connections with our surroundings if we understood the neural basis that triggers feelings of appreciation, joy and happiness, i.e. ‘beautiful’ architectural spaces?

Major architectural and architectonic ideas you will be investigating

-        The impact of beautiful architecture on human (The importance of beautiful aesthetics )

-        How architecture speaks to us

-        The culture cause of our understanding and perception of ‘beauty’

-        The scientific cause of our understanding and perception of ‘beauty’

-        Individuality in the perception of architecture

-        How understanding psychology and neurology we are able to design ‘beautiful’ architecture and spaces for the unique individual

-        The definition of beauty

Books

Architecture, animal, human: the asymmetrical condition

 By Catherine Ingraham

The architect's brain: neuroscience, creativity, and architecture

 By Harry Francis Mallgrav

Brain landscape: 

the coexistance of neuroscience and architecture

Architecture: celebrating the past, designing the future

 By Nancy B. Solomon, American Institute of Architects

Have done no work

I have done no work in the past week. Kind of a break- i did read a lot more and spent more time than others [because i felt like i was more stuck]. However thinking about it now, i really should have used this time to read past thesis'! I guess i gave my self a break-

Tomorrow or the day after i will be meeting my supervisor and we will go over my proposal to refine it. I fear that it would be changed too much- Currently it seems that i have no design topic. I need him to help me on that. It would be so awesome if i did biomimicry- the design topic would be so easy! We will just wait and see i suppose. I'm a bit frantic. Need to read more!!! I'm so busy with other things!