Site Location: Open field of the Totem Park Residence – həm’ləsəm House
Health issue: Loneliness
According to a study on determining loneliness and its association to the year of study in University of Gondar, it is reported that first year are in higher risk of loneliness compared to other years, and this may due to the short duration of stay in the university and the need to abruptly adapt to a new environment, and this is found in a study in Washington University. Furthermore, in the article of “Students are lonely. What can we (and UBC) do about it?” published by The Ubyssey, Cardenas who was a second-year business student shared that “My transition to UBC was very hard. I felt so lonely during my first year that I actually considered dropping out of UBC”, and how even though she had “friends but they were not really friends. How could I even call them friends? We barely [knew] each other and it was very hard to be able to find them around later.”.
Loneliness is defined as an unpleasant emotional response to perceived isolation. However, I am also interested in understanding loneliness in different facets, that loneliness could be voluntary and involuntary at times.
Research on different understandings of loneliness:
- RS Weiss’s three realms of loneliness
- Intimate loneliness: Perceived absence of emotional support
- Relational loneliness: Perceived presence/absence of quality friendships or family connections
- Collective loneliness: Absence of a person’s valued social
identities or “active network”
- Salutogenesis Theory to reshape the positive perception of loneliness
- Lonely individual concern less about the feeling of loneliness per se than the way loneliness is related by society and the disturbances to others by being lonely; to lonely people, privacy and company is a way to de-pathologize loneliness.
- Model faces one’s physical and mental health condition positively, and could be in the form of “Spiritual infrastructure”.
Concept statement:
This design aims to provide a healing space for lonely people, for those who says “I am lonely” and “I like to be alone”. The healing space offers comfortable shelters and refuge for lonely students to spend time in the outdoors and communicate with nature elements through multisensorial experience. This space is also perceived as the first step of stepping out of their comfort zone- their dorm, and a space to encourage social interaction. Different types of spaces and activities would be explored in the site to create a space of healing and multisensorial experiences for lonely people of different needs.
Concept development
Programming & Design
Isometric drawings
References:
Dagnew, B., & Dagne, H. (2019). Year of study as predictor of loneliness among students of University of Gondar. BMC research notes, 12(1), 1-6.
https://www.ubyssey.ca/features/breaking-down-loneliness-at-ubc/
Weiss, R. S. (1973). Loneliness: The experience of emotional and social isolation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Cacioppo, S., Grippo, A. J., London, S., Goossens, L., & Cacioppo, J. T. (2015). Loneliness: Clinical import and interventions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(2), 238-249.
Gandong, C., & Mingjie, C. (2020). URBAN MENTAL DESIRE–TOKYO LONELINESS TREE HOLE PLAN. Landscape Architecture Frontiers, 8(6), 120-127.