The room is the basic spatial unit of a building. Relativity interrogates the room for its potential to structure human occupation, experience, and perception.

The studio was tasked with abstracting and distorting an existing room according to certain supplied parameters. This process of abstraction and distortion was then translated into a design strategy for a small neighborhood cultural center building.

Relativity explores the alignment between the perception of space and its actual physical dimension. The form of the project is articulated through strategies of reflection, repetition, and compression/expansion that perpetually flip-flop as one moves through the building. This yields a rhythmic effect of space where one does not perceive its true form; instead, one perceives its idealized form. Rhythmic form becomes interrupted when the gallery’s form unexpectedly changes or breaks into other rooms, creating a gradient effect of material intensity between spaces.