Prisons of Invention: Towards an Architecture

How would it be to inhabit the fourth dimension? A hypercube is a fourth-dimensional geometric figure consisting of eight cubical cells. The aim of the project is to design the architectural spaces located in these cells. Virtual Reality enables an architectural promenade that cannot be built physically. Does this experience constitute architecture?

The aspiration of the project is to explore the link between theoretical thinking and creative practice. Theory is not just an additive to enrich the project after its creation nor an empty way to garnish the discourse of an established process with a certain end. It constitutes a guide through the entire process that is enriched by the production of visual materials that affect it. Through the question ‘what is architecture?’ the project intends to explore the limits of the design practice and its relationship with the fields of art and philosophy. The choice of the hypercube as the location of the project attends to that purpose. This structure implies the production of eight architectural spaces whose peculiarity is having neither a determined floor nor walls or ceiling. Every plane of the space can be crossed, depending on the direction you approach. That is impossible to achieve by the usual architecture means of representation or creation. The use of Virtual Reality (VR) as the technology which enables the fourth-dimensional experience implies the exploration of new methodologies and techniques in order to confront that challenge. Moving through the virtual space with the help of VR, allows the architect to establish new spatial phenomena such as crossing through mirrors, accessing to the interior of a sphere or walking through a cavity of strings. A new cognitive way of experiencing the space transcending the representational universe is established. That is directly related with the new philosophical theories of mind based on the concept of embodied mind (EM), which allow to think about architecture from a new paradigm. EM states that the process of cognition involves the brain, the body and the world altogether. The dualism between mind and body is overcome by this new conception. VR allows to experience the space through that perspective, making it possible to consider the virtual world under the same parameters as the material one. It brings back the question: Does this experience constitute architecture?