Transparency and the Construct of Perception

At the height of Modernism, transparency was propagated as an expression of a new and open society in harmony with nature. Glass became one of the primary tools to visually connect both sides of a physical, yet invisible surface. This apparent erasure of boundaries often neglected the surface’s capacity to interact with the perceiving user.

Through transparency, reflection, and projection this thesis is an attempt to expand surface into a series of spatial atmospheres, constructing an architecture that is simultaneously real and unreal—physically present while perceptually outside of all places—one that is constantly in shift, imbuing both a maximum of the immediate and a maximum of abstraction.

The culmination of this thesis is not a comprehensive design project, but rather a process of design; an exercise consisting of two simultaneous methods of working: perspective drawing and modeling. Completed in tandem, drawing influences the physical model and the model influences the drawing, creating an informative dialogue between mediums.