Xiaofei Wu
China

Uncertainty is inevitable. How we deal with it collectively and individually varies for each of us throughout our lives. This thesis speculates that internal public spaces could be designed to play a therapeutic role in how we deal with our mental wellbeing. Could we create spaces that are designed to exercise our emotions? Could this be a programme funded as a primary healthcare site in the future?

The Sensory Market is located in the East Smithfield Market, itself a site of uncertainty; with Crossrail arriving, the Museum of London relocating to the West Smithfield Market and the meat market itself being relocated. A repurposed marketplace – somewhere to find a spatial therapy.
The programme negotiates the structure and grid of the existing building creating a series of zones, each designed to meet specific feelings such as jealousy and anger and offering spaces for contemplation. At the heart of the structure is a meeting place offering a space for events and market pitches. The sequential experience through the zones is designed to offer multiple routes for the visitor with several entrance and exit points allowing shorter or longer visits and emotional journeys prescribed and/or discovered.

The design of each zone has been developed to communicate its purpose with the visitor. The spatial, material, atmospheric and temporal qualities of each zone have been considered to do sp. Correlations between geometry and scale, relationships with the existing context, material properties, temperature, humidity and acoustic quality create each zone’s atmosphere. Prescribed actions such as fixed view points, climbing walls, jumping surfaces, lagoon type pools are inspired by emotional idioms and from readings into the cognitive sciences. Thresholds between zones are treated as sensory transitions and places of exit and entrance are considered integral to the journey.

Keywords: Multi-sensory/ Immersive Interaction/ Emotion/ Wellbeing/ Uncertainty/
Mediums: Drawing/ Sketch Model/ Text/ Collage
Download:
Interior_Future_Xiaofei_Wu.pdf

Insta: cassie_wu_wxf
Website: https://www.behance.net/gallery/95472745/Portfolio2017-2020-XIAOFEI-WU-Royal-College-of-Art-ID
Video: later