“It is in the dialogue with pain that many beautiful things acquire their value. Acquaintance with grief turns out to be one of the more unusual prerequisites of architectural appreciation. “- Alan de Botton *
Changes big and small have been the result of a pandemic that has swept our everyday lives. It changed our focus. Developing our once blurry gaze into a sharper focus of what's around us.
When loneliness, limitations and worries were a constant, I wanted to highlight the design and architecture contribution to raise the spatial quality we are capable of. Also, challenging the industry itself to create breathing room in everyday life through sound and atmosphere.
By focusing on the power of loneliness that so many feel, it lays as a heavy blanket making it difficult to shake off. I translated the vulnerability and created a sound wall with 2489 folded 80 gram thin pieces of paper to demonstrate our movement when entering a room.
Each piece symbolizes the feeling that is capable of washing over you. Everything from a subtle sound, to overwhelming an entire room in one swift past the wall. Small fragments that rustle gently until the whole world storms. The wall modules are intended to make us use our senses in a simple but communicative way. Stop everyday life and give way to playfulness. Walk past, observe, examine and experience.
A visual sound wave that conveys presence, movement and reminds us that our existence in itself affects the architecture we surrounded by. Just as Alain eloquently describes; the vulnerable can make us more receptive to our perception of the spatial qualities.
* Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness, p.25, Förlag. Penguin Group 2007.