Loci: A Memory Palace
A Memory Palace is a strategy of memory enhancement which uses visualizations of familiar spatial environments in order to enhance the recall of information.
This structure is the physical embodiment neurological process of creating, compartmentalizing, and recalling a memory.
Loci’s form and geometry is influenced by the sun’s annual path, through the sky, at its location. It utilizes this geometry to create highly-unique moments for the visitor throughout the year.
Loci provides various visual queues with its internal geometry, material use, light play, and haptics; providing a space for the visitor to utilize the memory technique of Loci.
In its simplest form, a memory, is information that the brain has encoded, stored, and retrieved. The brain naturally filters out and refines information in efforts to compartmentalize, objectively corrupting the original information. The geometry of Loci, as depicted above in the Parti diagram, is derived from this mental process. The observer enter Loci and continues through a narrowing corridor (filter), to a point where they can only observe (storage), finally to return back through the widening corridor (retrieval); thus directing the observer through the mental process of memory making.
The structure utilizes seven slits, of various width and depth, to create unique memory points for the observer to utilize in the process of Loci. This is a nod to the ubiquitous paper, “The Magical Number Seven, Plus or Minus Two,” often cited by Psychologists as the maximum quantity of memorable details. Further still, the entry point and back window, can be regarded as an additional two points; and the two slits contained in the storage area as the fewer two. The slits in the structure interact with the Sun’s position in the sky to allow beams of light to make various contact points and highlight various aspects of the internal geometry, providing a unique experience throughout the year.
I was awarded the honor of, “Best Project-Small Scale Installation-Memory Palace,” for this project in my Architecture Senior Class.
