Diploma Unit Two. Architectural Association School of Architecture

Tools for Architecture is a research unit based at the Architectural Association in London formed by a team of MArch AA Diploma students and lead by Space Popular directors Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg.

Within

You enter the building on the right hand side of the street.

As I languidly saunter through the darkness,  spasmodic slivers of light perturb the idleness of my sight, sending gaudy spots quivering before my torpid eyes. The radiant aggression they exhibit hurls me into a quandary, and I try to focus unremittingly in the already depthless environment. Still, my vision seems unable to cling to anything, only swaying back and forth between imaginary milestones. Moments have to pass until I eventually accommodate. How long exactly, I am unable to tell nonetheless.

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In this visual purgatory, the dimmest vibrations grow louder and louder. I can hear myself breathing and wonder whether the sound of my constant inhalation and exhalation has always been so powerful. I realise, a sweet odour tinges the air passing through my nose and into my lungs. I have never before been aware of the smell of the walls surrounding me; I swear, I could almost taste them. Had I continued my walk ever so carelessly, would I have ever noticed this?

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I wait in wonder until I finally regain the ability to decipher the illuminated fragments of my surroundings. The glimmer I had hoped to contemplate, however, has vanished. It feels as though I had transcended eternity a few hundred times since the moment I saw it. This constant vesper  – has it led to my losing any temporal perception, let alone acuity? Transitivity seems to be the single quantum by which I am allowed to measure my presence in this embodiment of eternal night.

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At once, a strange glow on the surface of a smooth figure attracts my attention. Instinctively, I start walking towards it, the faint reverberation of my steps coinciding rhythmically with the soft throbbing of blood flowing through my veins. I advance, fingertips pulsating with sheer curiosity, and reach out into the twilight in reception of my target. My consciousness is overcome with the pictures I create in expectation: a sphere, of cold metal will echo when my hand will reach its shell. I am baffled, however, by what I touch.

Contrary to my preconceptions, the object feels porous. Microscopic displacements nudge the apexes of my extremities, as I shiver in excitement. I let my hand slide across the rough material, trying to form an imaginary version of its body. Suddenly, the surface turns a corner. A sphere with an edge? Certainly, I have been deceived by own mind.