Umwelt

“The island of the senses, that wraps every man like a garment, we call his Umwelt. Objects, equipped with all the possible sensory characteristics, always remain products of the human subject, they are not things that have an existence independent of the subject. They become ‘things’ in front of us only when they have become covered by all the sensory envelopes that the island of the senses can give them.” This reminds me the over-reliance on the optical effect in architecture. Critics about lightness, transparency etc. challenges on the common perceptions of space: Lightness = something looks lightweight Transparency = something looks invisible How about the deployment of other senses we almost forget? sound/ aroma/ temperature or wind or humidity / flavor, they may be not the most sensitive elements but they are not insignificant. Reference: _ Christopher Hight, Michael Hensel and Achim Menges, Space Reader: Heterogeneous Space in Architecture, 2009, p.145-148. Jakob von Uexkull, An Introduction to Umwelt, 1936