Perception and the duality of spaces hidden inside the box

Abstract

Modern technologies, industrialization and efficiency are profoundly influencing the way we view and create architecture, starting from the residential type, where there is always the tendency to reduce it to just a functional box – a box meant to be planned and executed as cheaply and quickly as possible. This box is also meant to afford everything a common person needs between their four walls, as well as offer an opportunity to its inhabitants to leave their personal mark inside it. But the box in this case represents just the shelter, the private space, the family space. To get the full picture of how we build and experience architecture today it is to be observed separately from the public place, the place that should not only offer meaningful space to a few, but afford a sense of belonging, of identity, to the whole community. Both can be characterized as boxes though, each in their own way, and both can simultaneously be something else, something meaningful, depending on the person perceiving them. The complexity of spaces lies hidden in their duality, of what they are to one, what they mean to another, the distinction in between. But also in the moment, in the conditions that are present in it. And the fact they can always be more, afford more than what meets the eye. As architects, our job is to create, to build, to give a place meaning and function. With that comes the power to influence how people perceive that place, to influence the feeling it offers as well as guide the people’s behaviour while interacting with it. Also, we have the tools to cause delays, to disrupt norms and to convince, even manipulate, people to exit their comfort zones, stop for a moment to really observe, and experience the richness of the world around them. This research explores how the reduction of architecture to functional boxes accompanied by rise of anonymous non-places is reshaping perception, human behavior, and belonging. By analyzing affordances, heterotopias, and embodied perception, through built examples and theoretical frames such as Pallasmaa’s multisensory architecture, Auge’s non-places, and Foucault’s heterotopias, it investigates how design can move beyond efficiency to create environments that engage the senses, disrupt habits, and foster connections between people and place.