Pleasure: The Realisation of Place through the Senses

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PLEASURE: THE REALISATION OF PLACE THROUGH THE SENSES

“The pleasure of space. This cannot be put into words, it is unspoken. Approximately: it is a form of experience - the "presence of absence"; exhilarating differences between the plane and the cavern, between the street and your living room; symmetries and dissymetries emphasizing the spatial properties of my body: right and left, up and down. Taken to this extreme, the pleasure of space leans toward the poetics of the unconscious, to the edge of madness”. Tschumi (2009),
INTRODUCTION

different individuals experience different forms of pleasure given the same situation, this makes the experience of pleasure subjective. The way people perceive spaces is very personal, a space that is pleasing and attractive to one might be depressing and uninviting to the other, this is because people are diverse and seek different forms of pleasure. Pleasurable experiences are usually associated with infinite human desires, pleasure can also be associated as a means of satisfying both biological drives such as eating, sex, sleeping, and social drives such as wealth, recognition, success.

The issue of space and place has often been a controversial one as the two are described or defined relative to each other. Place surpasses space when meaning is attached to that space. Sime (1986) argues that place as opposed to space, suggests a strong emotional tie an individual attributes to a certain physical location whether permanent or temporary which gives that space character. According to Tschumi (2009) The pleasure of space cannot be put into words, it is unspoken. It is the form of experience. In order to attain pleasure in a space one must experience it first, it is through these experie...

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...o the sensorial qualities. Architecture heavily focuses on one sense - the visual sense that it regards as most important and other senses are unfortunately often neglected, this is unfortunate because it is through these sense that architecture can be said to have profound effect. According to ---Lehman, ()------- 'Architectural space is about layering for all of the senses. Like a musical composition, spatial features come together into a symphony for occupants to experience. Bringing a space to life implies that architectural function and form is not just primarily for the visual sense. By engaging all of the senses, form and function may be more fully expressed so occupants can have deeper, more meaningful moments. It is thus through these sensory qualities of a space that memories, fantasies and places are created hence elevating the architectural experience.

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