The architecture of the mind

The architecture of the mind is a place in constant motion, where nothing has a fixed geometry. It makes one association to the other using the environment as a sign for memory. Colours, as an abstraction of the real, act as a sign for an intimate moment of ours. But we are all made of the same mechanistic flesh: the way we perceive the environment is the same, only the association it triggers is unique to our minds.

Architects don’t not have the ability to grasp the infinite possible ways in how the spaces they build will be perceived, so instead of fighting human nature, neurosciences today could allows us to understand how our inner reality, structures the outer world. Memory, imagination, dreams, nightmares all share a common link - visual images - and they can be looked upon as a continuum, rather than as entirely separate experiences.

Could we use a material that is available all around the globe to construct an architecture of potentials: the fluid mechanism of the mind, as matter, magnified, in light. It constructs an architecture of instability and ephemerality that brings back the human at its core, to make space for the unexpected, imagination and dreams.

Design research conducted by Antonin Hautefort at the Architectural Association School of Architecture 2019-2020 as part of the diploma unit 21 led by Didier Fiúza Faustino, Anna Muzychak