How Buildings Perform – The Invisible Actor.
Jagan Subramanian |
TEDxNYUAD
• April 2019
How do buildings influence the way we feel and shape the way we live without us even realizing it? As a senior civil engineering and theatre major, Jagan is interested in the relationship between the design of our built environment and the performativity of everyday life. He draws on personal experiences and the related fields of neuroscience (how buildings ‘mean’ and how our brains are naturally programmed to understand it), phenomenology (how our individual memories are stored in buildings to form a collective experience over time) and semiotics (how buildings entice us with alternate realities) to see how buildings have historically contributed to the formation of these social codes and how if used correctly, good building designs could serve as a way to undo social hierarchies and create more inclusive communities in the 21st century.