Student Work
Title
Ganzfeld Center
Project Description
The Ganzfeld effect is that of a complete field. It utilizes the phenomenon of perception through exposure to an unregulated stimulation field. The brain is forced to amplify neural noise in order to look for missing visual signals. Often, exposure to this stimulation field causes one to see shifting geometric patterns and colors that continuously reorganize themselves. Our site, as well as our task to build a visitors’ center for a deep ocean site that the majority will never be able to visit, drove me to explore the possibility of designing architecture that does not immediately provide the typical visual clues of man-built structure. The endless depth and complexity of the Napali cliffs and the infinitely folded surfaces of the Kilauea lava fields provoked me to see if a building could achieve perceptual deprivation through perceptual distortion.