A Tight Squeeze

For this project the challenge was to design a room that someone would be confined in 24/7. My concept was to design a room for someone to overcome claustrophobia. The room has moving wall and ceiling planes that start as close to the three main living spaces (bed, bath and kitchen,) as possible. As you spend more time in the room the walls and ceilings gradually move out and up, essentially becoming less claustrophobic along with the tenant. The heated wall panels would also be painted with color changing paint which changes to a lighter color when heat is applied. The ceiling panels contain the lighting and are wrapped with black lycra material about a foot away from the bottom of the panel to allow for the ceiling to be visually lower and closer in than it actually is. This also makes the room visually dark at first when the lights are off, and as the ceiling panels gradually move the lights also gradually get brighter, which is why I used lycra since it allows about 75% of light to pass through it. Lastly as the ceiling and wall panels move, they will reveal windows which then allows more light in the room gradually. The overall dimensions for the room are 16' x 11' 6", already a fairly tight room, especially for someone suffering from claustrophobia. The goal of this room is to help someone overcome claustrophobia using a "flooding" approach. By confining the person to a room that starts out so tight at first and gradually changes into a brighter and less confined room in the end, will help the person feel more comfortable in a fairly small sized room.