Draft One

DraftOne.wmv

Draft One presents a scheme that develops ideas of decay and erosion, which were present throughout semester 1, into a broader experiential concept. The circulation experiment of experiment 4 is continued in a more physically achievable way through the use of different spaces that are linked in a variety of ways. This diverse honeycomb provides a canvas for observing the behaviour of the dementia sufferer and experimenting with various organisational and hierarchical strategies.
The disorientation of the dementia sufferer is highlighted in groups of similarly proportioned spaces that serve to educate and test progress of the patient. Current activities to try to prevent or delay the onset of dementia are generally removed from everyday activities. The activity of living in this space replaces these more traditional methods with the idea that a relatively unhindered sufferer can be admitted and can find the spaces stimulating and challenging and encourage brain activity in areas of more use than could be achieved with crosswords or similar mental stimulation. The breakdown of the sufferer is accommodated in the variety of spaces and their varying degrees of spatial difficulty or interrelations.
The building form itself is a product of such diverse spaces being bundled together but also draws influence on the idea of the dementia sufferer itself. Composed initially of a large mass, spaces are then carved out as required forming paths and nodes linking activities and occupants in much the same way as the brain forms such paths. These nodes are an integral part of the building. As spaces are carved out nodes are left. Peculiar reliefs, the interplay of light, or monumental forms can all be used to help orientate the occupant. These points of reference are experienced subjectively which breaks the repetition that is commonly experienced in current dementia treatment facilities which create monotonous spaces that are cold and calculating. How each occupant uses such node points in their experience of the space is an area that would be of great interest to the carer and is one of the many outcomes that this scheme has for research in the treatment of dementia sufferers.
The challenge in this scheme lies in making the spaces responsive to a functional treatment facility brief while retaining the elements of diversity and repetition that are required for it to succeed as an experiential experiment. This could be achieved by imposing a method to the way spaces are brought together, in a fractal arrangement, for example where spaces are created to follow an overall planning scheme that will create the repetitive labyrinth needed to create disorientation but allow for each space to be used in the overall operation of such a treatment/training facility. What each room’s role is and how they interact with each other is just as important as the interaction of the occupants themselves and will play an important role in the creation of node points and how the building is navigated.