This project aims to explore the nature of in motu perception and its importance in our formation of place and atmosphere—putting together ideas from a range of academics from the fields of architecture, landscape, and philosophy to help aid and contextualise my field and design research. By developing my prior understanding of the nature of perception to include embodied movement, interesting questions arose as to how this might aid in widening the frame of information available to architectural practice to include a more concrete conception of place. Questions such as:

What is the nature of the experience of an embodied perception in motu? How does this embodied perception in motu work to inform our notion of place? Can place rhythms be a useful lens to survey S.E.M’s (Space. Event. Movement) of spatial sequences? Would then, using a more embodied criteria than Tschumi’s “walking notation” give a more appropriate understanding and measure of place rhythms for a more concrete survey?

What started by trying to understand the visual perception of space then grew into an understanding that, in motu, the clarity of this perception isn’t of consistent quality. By combining the way that our attention focuses in and out of spatial clarity while we are in movement with the radial nature of our optical focus I started to gain an understanding of the form of space as blotchy vignettes of detail formed out of implied fields of atmosphere. What also became apparent was that these moments of clarity where constantly varying dependant on ever-changing and temporal physical, environmental, social, and psycho-personal conditions—meaning that the perception of space in motu is less concrete than what can be read from a traditional spatial survey and with only moments of actual spatial clarity or focus.

Walking rhythm patterns have been used as a way to analyse a more concrete in motu perception of space. The intention of this is to build a base of information to serve an ambulo sensitivity to a Pallasmaa-esque conception of atmosphere and place. The idea here being that the architecture for a walked path resembles the nature of perceptive momentary focus (or detail), formally, amongst a wider less defined atmosphere—an overall effect akin to architectural depth of field. Decisions of composition, form, and sequence are being driven by analysis from my site using the tools and ideas developed out of the design research phase, with this new embodied, in motu, understanding suggesting the manner(s) in which I could strengthen the sites pre-existing features—paring back the rhythm to exaggerate the essence of the sites performative qualities.

For this site, the connections between spaces are both abrupt, and tenuous. My proposal is to simply pronounce the existing natural space rhythm of the garden more clearly more definition to the points of focus and creating architectural smudges in between. For the focussed vignettes, this means refining the natural formal characteristics that make the space-moment engage your conscious (for example with irregular rhythms in the riser heights and directional axes, or clear, sharp form emerging from soft gradations) and having the craft and materiality reinforce both the formal logic and the existing language. For the blurred spaces, this means designing them to graduate into a less-descript space formally and then using this new ambiguity as opportunity space where a user might change course to the places of pause in the garden—these being the grass knolls at the upper level with afternoon sun and views out over the harbour and a new lower meadow with informal seating and a new cherry tree (in reference to the demolished fruit gardens of an neighbouring ex-nunnery).