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Architecture in Microgravity

Part 2 Dissertation 2015
Pradeep Lindagedara
City School of Architecture | Sri Lanka
Spatial Orientation is an important aspect of architectural design. It conveys not only the designer's vision, but how the average user perceives space and its context in the larger scheme. On Earth orientations in architecture are judged on principal axes, and are established in relation to gravity. Verticality and Horizontality are visual concepts that hinge on these seemingly inexorable principles. Thus conditions that exist exclusive of the effects of gravity pose a problem to the traditional directives of visual orientation.

As technology improves to allow the colonization of exotic environments, it presents the opportunity to re-evaluate the fundamental principles of spatial orientation, and how visual strategies can incite changes in all environments.

In zero gravity architecture does not need to be structurally resistant to exist. It is free to explore the limits of human perception. Therefore traditionally redundant components of built environments become usable, and a form of dynamism and utility applies to all surfaces. More importantly it presents a juncture that may determine if the contemporaries of architecture are prepared for the demands of an imminent and volatile future. Hence lays the need to understand the relationship between Visual Information and Spatial Orientation, with a special reference to the constraints of Non-Terrestrial Environments.

Pradeep Lindagedara

Tutor(s)
Tamara Wjayapala
2015
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