Resilience Training Rooms
Phenomenal phenomenological phenomena.
In the western world, the built environment is often designed — first and foremost — to look good. Despite the pleasing nature of spaces that engage multiple senses, many designers are cautious about building them out of a fear that the result will turn out too ‘Disney’ and be taken less seriously as a result.
While I happen to love the magic of Disney, this is completely understandable, because designing for the senses is pretty difficult to do: Subtle sensations are not always noticeable, and if a stimulus is too intense, it might wear people out. Yet, despite the risks, designers all over the world keep trying.
When Architects refer to ‘Phenomenological’ spaces, they’re usually talking about projects that engage both the senses and the mind. They are not always physically pleasant, (though they usually are) because ‘sensation’ refers not only to our standard biological senses: sight, smell, sound, touch, and taste, but to other senses as well — our sense of right and wrong, good and bad, our sense of intuition, of beauty, of fear, and other things that are difficult to pin down but nevertheless are clearly and obviously there — in the background, and sometimes the foreground, of our experience.
What do I mean by that? Well, knowing that you have the freedom to leave a place can suddenly render even wildly unpleasant sensory spaces downright enjoyable. Imagine relaxing into a dimly lit library after taking the subway there, or stepping from a snow storm into a lodge with a roaring fire. Both scenarios are that much more pleasurable because of the presence of their opposite nearby. The challenge of ‘enduring’, paradoxically, is part of the joy of the experience.
Of course, not everyone finds elation in the same ways. Culture, experiences, and many other factors come into play. Regardless, universally, sensation defines the way people move through the world — it is intertwined with emotion, mood, memory, how people think and act, and what they feel is possible. Also, it is my personal belief that we are all more similar than one might think — most people hate the sound of a fly buzzing around their heads. Most people love the sound of leaves rustling as a gentle wind passes through the trees.
Finding a balance between comfort and challenge is the eternal quest — in physical environments, professional ones, and social ones, to name a few. Nobody likes feeling stuck or static. We, as a species, enjoy challenge — just so long as it’s not too difficult.
Balance is not a static state.
‘Eudaimonia’, is a Greek word that refers to the type of happiness that arises from living virtuously. It is a happiness that is tied to the ongoing practice of finding equilibrium between what is required by morality and what is required by self interest. Of course, ‘living virtuously’ isn’t something that people talk about too often nowadays, but bear with me, because it’s a useful paradigm through which to understand spatial ‘extremes’ that aren’t just physical (like sharp corners and soft curves).
In Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle talks about balance and sensation. He lays out an argument that puts virtues into the context of vices, where the excess of a virtue is a vice, and the deficiency of a virtue is, well, another vice.
Consider courage, which sits between the two extremes of rashness, and cowardice. Rashness is thoughtless action without care for consequences. Cowardice is inaction characterized by fear. Courage involves recognizing that there is risk, and persisting through it anyway.
Most people don’t fall perfectly within the ‘courageous’ bucket all the time. I know I don’t. Standing up for something, even if you know it’s right, can be hard. Learning how to balance — morally, thermally, professionally, socially, etcetera — is very difficult, and balancing virtues is of course no different. Yet, it’s much much easier if there are examples to follow.
Something that I’ve always found kind of fascinating is that when someone has an extreme phobia, they can heal through exposure to the source of their fear. Reductively, this is called ‘exposure therapy’, and it generally seems to work by demonstrating that there is a mismatch between perception and reality. It allows the person with the phobia to realize that they don’t need to be as afraid.
In Pesso Boyden System Psychomotor (PBSP) therapy, people are guided through scenarios where they act out traumatic memories and relationships with the aid of props. This process involves physically engaging mental challenges. By physically acting out memories, people are sometimes able to reframe them through more empowered personal narratives. The physical reenactment of a challenge — with a different outcome — provides a forum for practicing more resilient behaviors in the face of difficult encounters in the future, too.
Let me say that again, because it bears repeating, and gets at the core point I am trying to make here. The physical reenactment of a challenge — with a different outcome — provides a forum for practicing more resilient behaviors in the face of difficult encounters in the future, too.
Both exposure therapy and PBSP involve real world physical objects and environments. They help people overcome mental hang ups by mirroring internal conflicts in the physical world, and demonstrating paths towards re-balancing the inner world with the outer world.
For people who are traumatized in some way (and that’s statistically, well, nearly everybody), these therapies open the door to re-kindling sensations that are curtailed by physical and psychological limitations caused by bad stories that are clogging sensory receptivity. To put it bluntly, these therapies are kind of like trauma plumbers that clear out faulty perceptions by providing examples that demonstrate what is possible.
The relationship between an inner psychological world and an outer physical world, brings up an interesting series of questions. If a physical space were designed to mirror an internal conflict, could occupying it help someone see their own situation more clearly? I believe that the therapies described above suggest ‘yes’.
Resilience Training
In games, in love, in real life, and in any worthwhile pursuit that I am aware of, changing your position along any spectrum involves feeling both powerful and helpless. Learning about yourself and your values and changing your behavior so that it aligns with your inner compass doesn’t always feel good right away, but if you persist and get there, it feels unbelievably, well, phenomenal . Indeed, much much better than accepting your position anywhere else.
One of my good friends said to me once, ‘I’ve decided to be myself because being anyone else is just too damn hard.” True, it takes work, but it’s worth it. Phenomenal sensation ‘gyms’ as it were, might work like seesaws — balancing indulgences and ascetics, self interest and generosity, discipline and reward, to help people learn how to find their own balance and understand the rewards and drawbacks of any given place along a spectrum.
These spaces could be play environments where you test out how you truly feel, what your priorities are, and what feels most right for you. Of course, they would push you towards finding moderation between extremes, but finding the tipping point is completely an individual pursuit. There must be a way to succeed in every room, but that way might be very dependent on the occupant.
Spaces that function in this way could serve as practice rooms for finding inner balance. My hope is that designers recognize their power here in shaping the world for the good. I think these spaces, these resilience training rooms, can prove how much of a difference design can make.
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