As a kid, my family used to take week long trips down the St. Lawrence Sea Way in our musty old cabin cruiser. I always got great pleasure from leaving the relative safety of the cabin and moving to the front deck - a maneuver that required precariously hanging off the side of the boat via a handrail and navigating a foot-wide ledge, all while the boat was in motion ad bobbing on the waves. It wasn’t terribly dangerous, but just precarious enough to put a land-lover like myself slightly on edge, and get me out of my everyday complacency. I found myself just slightly energized by doing it.

Now imagine if you had a similar experience every single day. Imagine if walking to your kitchen was enough to put you slightly on edge. That seems to be the goal of the house recently designed by architects Arakawa and Gins, featured in this article in the New York Times.¹

In addition to the floor, which threatens to send the un-sure-footed hurtling into the sunken kitchen at the center of the house, the design features walls painted, somewhat disorientingly, in about 40 colors; multiple levels meant to induce the sensation of being in two spaces at once; windows at varying heights; oddly angled light switches and outlets; and an open flow of traffic, unhindered by interior doors or their adjunct, privacy.

It also brings to mind Francois Roche’s Asphalt Spot, a similarly designed undulating parking lot designed to make people question their safety and complacency.

1. Found Via Good Experience

Tags: Architecture, Psychology