How do you define your personal space?
How close can a stranger physically walk toward you until you feel uncomfortable?
Do you know the shape of your personal space?
"The shape of personal space was remarkably close to a circular zone around the subject with the radius of about 1m" (Hecht et al. 2019,117)
What if your invisible personal space visible to other people?
INVI-CLOUD
in collaboration with Nik Lee & Henrik Green
With the brief to design a sleeping pod for university students who need take a quick nap in between classes or during break time at uni, the team of two architecture students and an engineering student studied the idea of personal space and came up with a mobile pod that you can comfortably wear to anywhere. You just need to pull it out, put on your shoulder and take a nap without being scared of people staring at your "ugly sleeping face".
THE MECHANISM
The design is based on FRAME & PANEL mechanism
The PANEL part was inspired by the image of butterly's wings. Above sketch model is a series of folding butterfly-wing-shaped papers into a 3d sculpture.
Different angles offer different scale of density, which plays an important part in testing privacy scale in 3D environment.
Translucent polypropylene panels limit the the observation from outside, helping create a visual boundary between users and surrounding context.
Sharp edges at connect point between panels clearly define one's personal space and act as a visual warning to people who attempt to approach user. In another word, it is a " Do not disturb" gesture.
The FRAME part acts as a skeleton of the pod, providing lateral support to the panels. Unlike the angled geometric form of the panels, the frame is design in a curvilinear form that is shaped along user's neck and spine to enhance comfort, flexibility and offer a balanced look to the pod.
ALL CONNECTION BETWEEN PANELS AND FRAME ARE GLUE-FREE, USING SLOT JOINTS INSTEAD
THE PROCESS
Group project @ The University of Melbourne
Collaboration with Nik Lee & Henrik Green
2016
