Abstract

This design research project explores ways to increase social interaction and connectivity, between people and their sense of place. By rethinking the way in which we inhabit spaces and strengthening this connection, the aim is to produce a heightened relationship to the environment that creates a sense of care and need in the city through the way we work, play, and live.

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Through several interventions in my home and a process of documentation, the production of blurred physical boundaries emerged, whereby the materiality on the surfaces of everyday objects I use daily start to affect my activities and behaviour in a dysfunctional way.

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Furthermore, as I investigated the interior/exterior boundaries and edges of my home, I started to unpack how different thresholds such as windows, doors, and balconies can provide different degrees of privacy and instigate social interaction and movement. Through the act of filtering, layering, framing, and connecting views, this can challenge the action of a threshold which in turn has the potential to shift its affordance. By understanding what governs the way people interact and afford different objects and materials, the level of human activity can be increased. This research framework will focus on redefining the potential of adaptive spaces and their boundaries in regards to materiality, affect, and affordances.