How Can a Building Be a Better School?

Why is Spatial Creativity Important?

How are People Spatially Creative?

What is Spatial Creativity?

Restatement of Proposal

Architecture can be designed to increase or spark spatial creativity through engaging the unconscious memories and conscious navigation and movement of humans. Architecture has the power to elicit emotions by recalling memories within people’s minds. People interpret architecture in their own ways, and people can feel different emotions in a space based on their memories. Memories can be used to remember how to use a space.   This is one layer of spatial creative thought, interpretation and unconsciousness.  The second layer of spatial creativity is the conscious, where people consciously move and navigate space. 

Spatial creativity is an important mental skill for people. The lack of creativity in any person means that person does not have the capacity to experience or create anything new to them, their culture or history.  The lack of spatial intelligence in any person means the lack of skills to interpret connections in physical and psychological space. A high level of spatial creativity means not only an awareness of movement through space, but also the skills and motivation to change how they navigate and use space.  I am not attempting to invent spatial creativity [because it already exists], but I believe singling out spatially creative actions can help to create better environments for humanity.

Arguably, architecture can teach spatial creativity in several ways.   Spatial creativity can occur in five modes: change of locomotion, spatial redefinition of use, object manipulation, path alteration and adjustments in spatial perception.  For my proposal, I will design a facility that not only promotes creative inquiry but also promotes better educational performance.  This will involve creating an environment rich with stimulus, opportunities, and personal definition and a lack of uniformity, repetition and absolute definition.

Definitions

To continue progress for my thesis proposal, I would like to begin by defining a few important terms:

Physical Space is the way the world is truly manifested, not concerning any biased opinion or perception.

Psychological Space is a person’s interpretation of the world in connection with emotions, memories and their imagination.  

Creativity is an imaginative process that goes on within a person [intrapersonal] or between persons [interpersonal] that results in a novel, public work that holds significance for a single person, society or history.

Spatial Intelligence is the capacity for seeing patterns, connections and relationships among physical and psychological space in the world.  It is evaluated by looking at a person’s performance level in everyday instances, such as judging the amount of leftover food to fit into a container, estimating the amount of space to parallel park, and the ability to navigate a familiar space.

Spatial Creativity is the conscious manipulation of patterns, connections and relationships among physical and psychological space in the world.  These new connections are helpful and novel to a single person, to a society or in history.   Furthermore, the actions carried out through a spatially creative process refine “everyday” actions.  

These definitions are key to my proposal because I will begin to use these definitions to state how people can be spatially creative.  Currently, I believe people can be spatially creative in 5 different ways:

1. Change of Locomotion: This involves changing the way you move through a space.  This would involve literally changing the way you move [crawling vs walking] or involve changing how you control your movement [riding a train vs walking].  I argue that having a more active role in your movement through space makes you more aware of your travel through space, not just the destination. 

2. Spatial Redefinition of Use:  This involves manipulating your schemas about a certain environment.  As an example, someone would be spatially creative by entering a defined study space and turning it into a performance space.  

3. Object Manipulation:  This involves the manipulation of an object in physical space. This can be referred to as "hacking" an object, where you can redefine the use of an object for your personal purpose. 

4. Path Alteration:  This involves navigating a space in a way that people would normally not.  Often times this is seen when people do not walk on designated paths.  Though this may be an intuitive navigation of space based on wants/needs, it is spatially creative because it is defying social norms.  

5. Differ Spatial Perception:  Lastly, this involves a reinterpretation of space psychologically.  A person's imagination is highly engaged and their new interpretation of space involves a reevaluation of connections and affordances in space.

Overall Methodology

Method To My Madness: Semester 1

1 + 3 + 9 = PROPOSAL

Architecture can be designed to increase or spark spatial creativity through engaging the memories of humans. Architecture has the power to elicit emotions by recalling memories within people’s minds. People interpret architecture in their own ways, and people can feel different emotions in a space based on their memories. Memories can be used to remember how to use a space. In contrast, the lack of memories in a certain space can elicit improvisation and/or creativity within that space.


Spatial creativity is an important mental skill for people. The lack of spatial creativity in any person means the lack of skills to remember their movement through space. A high level of spatial creativity means not only an awareness of movement through space, but also the skills and motivation to change how they navigate. Arguably, architecture can teach spatial creativity in several ways. Spatial creativity can occur in five different modes: change of locomotion, spatial redefinition of use, object manipulation, path alteration and adjustments in spatial perception. These five examples cover physical changes of space and mental changes of space.   For my proposal, I will design a facility that not only promotes creative inquiry but also promotes better educational or job performance.  This will involve creating an environment rich with stimulus, opportunities, and personal definition and a lack of uniformity, repetition and absolute definition.