As memory fades the importance clarifies
We are constantly remembering and re-remembering, and as we grow memories fade but through this distance the significance becomes clear.
When we remember a room from our childhood, it isn’t necessarily the construction and relative proportions we remember most, but the emotions felt in that space, the relationships held in that space and the self-discovery achieved in that space. Through memory, spaces mix together. Rooms are joined, not by how the built world is expected to behave, but linked in our minds through similar emotions, shared relationships and related steps in our personal growth.
Within the built world, the physicality of a simple stud wall suggests an interiority, exteriority, permanence, and function. In contrast, a memory suggests a world where an interior doesn’t need an exterior. A world that is both solid and fluid. A world that can be infinitely large one moment and infinitely small the next. A space where the tiniest detail and the most all-encompassing environment are of equal importance and physical size. This thesis reflects the dissonance between the present built reality and the memory of a home through collective memory.
Often these memories are attached to simple structures and ordinary elements of a home. Afterthoughts and by-products of design conventions end up existing in our memories as the most remarkable aspects of a home. But viewed through memory, the ordinary becomes remarkable. The architecture that matters most is the architecture that we connect to through simple yet profound human experience: a countertop too large to reach, the patterns of the curtains, and the transition from carpet to wood.
By designing a space centered around the ‘main’ spatial elements of a memory, a new set of precedents and architectural priorities are created.