The Space of Zero Gravity

Friday, May 7, 2010

The Space of Zero Gravity

Gravity, being the most fundamental force on earth, affects the way we perceive our surroundings. I often think what life would be like without gravity. How it would feel, how we would move, how we perceive the basic elements of daily life, like up and down: left and right.

Few people feel and experience that sense and with the federal funded space program closing, there will be even fewer Americans traveling in Space. People are obsessed with Space; whether you’re a Star Trek or Star Wars fan (there is a little of either in everyone) the notion of Space is beyond our grasps, and it is so amazing we can help but fantasize about it.

Dr. Nicholas Patrick an Astronaut at NASA came to speak at the Ted x USC event in March. Logging over 680 hours in space Dr. Patrick certainly understands the complexities of space in Space. Everything changes in Space; as earth bound creatures we take gravity for granted. Imagine eating in Space, or rather squirting goo in your mouth with the hopes it just doest float away.

Nothing in Space has a direction; there is no up or down, no floor or ceiling. Imagine a 30,60,90 triangle and there is something you want to get at the very tip, a gravity oriented person would take long way traveling along each straight line (the ground and the wall). When you realize you have other options in Space, you take the hypotenuse, straight through the space the shortest route. Patrick said that realizing this phenomenon was freedom, letting go of what you understand as space with gravity, and understanding your body with out it.

The spacecrafts are all so designed with these concepts in mind. All of the controls can be read in any direction. The International Space Station itself is color-coded, this allows you to orient yourself so you don’t end up in Russia, when you meant to go to Japan.

Without great explorers like Dr. Patrick how will we as Americans understand Space? We do get incredible images from the Hubble telescope which teach us all about the cosmos, but nothing can replace, or is greater than, the human experience.

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VICTOR JONES

The Public Eye L’Oeil Public is a feature of the seminar course, ARCH432, offered at USC’s School of Architecture by visiting professor, Victor Jones. Set against looming geopolitical crises, the design discipline must be equipped to address the cultural and social entropy of a world in flux. The urgency and scope of instability demands the consideration of alternative methods, models and products beyond the reach of conventional standards and means.

"Architecture is a media to participate in social reform, a device to enhance urban transformation and the mixture of cultural differences."
Qingyun Ma, Dean of the School of Architecture
Della and Harry MacDonald Dean's Chair

Focusing on cities and the public realm, the The Public Eye L’Oeil Public provides an expanded opportunity to gain exposure to an evolving arena of global thought and actions distinguished by enterprising social, technological, and ecological design initiatives. Seen through the lens of public space, The Public Eye l’Oeil Public will identify alternative models and emerging efforts by architects, artists, designers, landscape architects and planners as they intervene to cultivate enriched local and global environments. The Public Eye l’Oeil Public will feature innovative design approaches conceived to impact the organizational and institutional structure of cities and the people that inhabit them. These presentations will expose the burgeoning potency of interdisciplinary dialogue, collaboration, and collective thinking that is amplifying the capacity of design to influence the human experience.

The Public Eye | L'Oeil Public

Friday, May 7, 2010