wip project statement

Throughout architectural history, when enfilade slowly split and separate into rooms and corridors, the architectural experience has fundamentally changed.  It is no longer manifested through the act of "moving through", but through the glimpses of spaces during the act of "walking pass".  While the subdivision of space into individualized rooms results in a more fragmented space, thresholds such as doorframes that always reveal part of the whole room make the notion of framing and sequence play a more central role in articulating spatial experience.

When the rooms with many doors (enfilade) gave way to the rooms with one door, a form of compensatory illusory freedom of the eye is developed, as written by Robin Evans: "As the room closed in, so the aesthetic of space unfolded, as if the extensive liberty of the eye were a consolation for the closer confinement of body and soul."  The glimpsing of spaces of rooms beyond doorframes from the corridor becomes comparable to looking at a picture on the wall. Both the glimpsing of space and the subdivision of space into rooms suggest the tendency of flattening of architectural experience from spatial to visual; from three-dimensional to two-dimensional.

This project explores the notion of sequence and framing, not only their role in architectural experience, but also their role in architectural design process, as well as in the understanding of the relationship between architectural form and narrative, through the narrative of the Great Escape.