ALEXANDER STINCHCOMB

Reshaping the perceptions of home through the haptic sense and temporal changes, this project seeks to explore how the house can become ‘home’ with the use of the haptic, tactile, sense and with the study of change throughout the day, the year, and the life of the residents. Haptic sensory perception is the experience of a space, place, and material that becomes a genuine physical encounter; it is extended to address the essence of spatial sensory perception that reflects our bodily experience of material textural qualities; how can the changing materials, which gather age and color, light, and temperature, create a sense of the homeplace? How can the changing light, daily activities, and seasonal colors affect our sense of home? 

 

Relating to the We Care of Dayton mission, the design seeks to engage the residents in a housing community that relies heavily on creating a sense of homeplace for those who have been displaced. We believe it is important to understand the implications and perceptions of time in the context of the We Care project because of the transition of users to a new location, offering a change to be measured against the familiarity of daily life. It is when things change that time is best perceived; the changing life of aging adults is perhaps, then, the best platform for understanding time.

 

Using a single building design, we believe that a community, a homeplace, is inherently created; not only are the residents more likely to come together as a family, but they are also given greater use of the site, due to the density of the units, providing more exterior opportunities to notice the changing light, colors, and temperatures of the day and of the year. Morning light is shared by all residents, exterior and interior colors change at different rates, and pleasant temperatures may be enjoyed outside the building or harsh ones avoided within the interior -- all considerations within the single building design. Another advantage of the single building is that of greater efficiency in construction and cost, allowing for a greater palette of materials, a strong basis for the haptic sense and its relation to the meaning of home and of homeplace.