{"id":{"repo_id":"vt","oai_identifier":"oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/140801"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/vt/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/140801","repository":{"repo_id":"vt","name":"Virginia Tech","base_url":"https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"IN/VISIBLE: Architecture as Somatic Experience","abstract":"IN/VISIBLE: Architecture as Somatic Experience investigates how architecture can emerge from the body’s own modes of sensing—what this thesis defines as somatic sensory intelligence. Rather than treating ramps as residual infrastructure for accessibility, the project positions them as primary architectural systems that generate form, cadence, and perception. By centering proprioception, vestibular balance, and interoceptive awareness as design criteria, the thesis develops a museum architecture in which movement, orientation, and material response are not secondary effects of form, but its generative origin. The research unfolds through a layered architectural method structured across ten ACTS. ACT I establishes the theoretical ground, drawing from phenomenology, ecological psychology, and sensory theory—particularly the work of Merleau-Ponty, Pallasmaa, and Gibson—to frame perception as a distributed condition between body and world. ACT II situates this framework within questions of somatic equity and universal design, arguing that accessibility can operate as a generative architectural ethic rather than a regulatory add-on. ACT III examines precedent case studies—including the Guggenheim Museum, Carpenter Center, MACBA, Kolumba Museum, MAXXI, and the Ed Roberts Campus—to analyze how ramps, thresholds, and light structure architectural time, cadence, and embodied presence. ACT IV translates bodily rhythms into architectural form through gesture drawings, material studies, and massing investigations, where contraction, release, torsion, and extension emerge from somatic motion rather than imposed geometry. These studies inform ACT V and ACT VI, in which site and plan logic are developed around paired thresholds, mirrored organizational halves, and a central atrium structured by parallel ramp systems that maintain equivalence in time and demand. ACT VII extends this inquiry through sectional analysis, revealing how circulation, structure, and vertical light operate as interdependent systems that register ascent, descent, and pause. ACT VIII turns to materials and details, examining mirrored façades, bottle-green laminated glass, CLT structure, resilient ramp flooring, hardwood gallery floors, and marble atrium surfaces as instruments of somatic registration rather than finishes. ACT IX focuses on light as a temporal and perceptual medium, analyzing how skylights, reflected fields, vertical gradients, and differentiated thresholds choreograph bodily awareness across ramps and galleries. ACT X synthesizes the thesis as an architectural proposition: accessibility redefined as a perceptual and structural driver, where ramps function as the architectural equivalent of a nervous system—guiding rhythm, attention, and presence through the building. The contribution of this thesis is both conceptual and architectural. It argues that architecture can be generated from the body’s invisible sensing—transforming inclusive design from compliance into a language of form. By making perceptible the in/visible thresholds of movement, balance, and perception, IN/VISIBLE proposes an architecture in which accessibility, sensory intelligence, and architectural order converge as a single embodied system.","abstract_html":"IN/VISIBLE: Architecture as Somatic Experience investigates how architecture can emerge from the body’s own modes of sensing—what this thesis defines as somatic sensory intelligence. Rather than treating ramps as residual infrastructure for accessibility, the project positions them as primary architectural systems that generate form, cadence, and perception. By centering proprioception, vestibular balance, and interoceptive awareness as design criteria, the thesis develops a museum architecture in which movement, orientation, and material response are not secondary effects of form, but its generative origin. The research unfolds through a layered architectural method structured across ten ACTS. ACT I establishes the theoretical ground, drawing from phenomenology, ecological psychology, and sensory theory—particularly the work of Merleau-Ponty, Pallasmaa, and Gibson—to frame perception as a distributed condition between body and world. ACT II situates this framework within questions of somatic equity and universal design, arguing that accessibility can operate as a generative architectural ethic rather than a regulatory add-on. ACT III examines precedent case studies—including the Guggenheim Museum, Carpenter Center, MACBA, Kolumba Museum, MAXXI, and the Ed Roberts Campus—to analyze how ramps, thresholds, and light structure architectural time, cadence, and embodied presence. ACT IV translates bodily rhythms into architectural form through gesture drawings, material studies, and massing investigations, where contraction, release, torsion, and extension emerge from somatic motion rather than imposed geometry. These studies inform ACT V and ACT VI, in which site and plan logic are developed around paired thresholds, mirrored organizational halves, and a central atrium structured by parallel ramp systems that maintain equivalence in time and demand. ACT VII extends this inquiry through sectional analysis, revealing how circulation, structure, and vertical light operate as interdependent systems that register ascent, descent, and pause. ACT VIII turns to materials and details, examining mirrored façades, bottle-green laminated glass, CLT structure, resilient ramp flooring, hardwood gallery floors, and marble atrium surfaces as instruments of somatic registration rather than finishes. ACT IX focuses on light as a temporal and perceptual medium, analyzing how skylights, reflected fields, vertical gradients, and differentiated thresholds choreograph bodily awareness across ramps and galleries. ACT X synthesizes the thesis as an architectural proposition: accessibility redefined as a perceptual and structural driver, where ramps function as the architectural equivalent of a nervous system—guiding rhythm, attention, and presence through the building. The contribution of this thesis is both conceptual and architectural. It argues that architecture can be generated from the body’s invisible sensing—transforming inclusive design from compliance into a language of form. By making perceptible the in/visible thresholds of movement, balance, and perception, IN/VISIBLE proposes an architecture in which accessibility, sensory intelligence, and architectural order converge as a single embodied system.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Mays, Margaret Ann"],"institution":"Virginia Tech","degree_name":"Master of Architecture","degree_level":"masters","degree_discipline":"Architecture","degree_department":"Architecture","school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":["Jones, James R."],"committee_members":["Borunda, Luis","Prochner, Isabel"],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-12-19","date_published":"2025-12-19","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:18:55Z","subjects":["Somatic Perception","Embodied Movement","Perceptual Thresholds","Architecture Temporality","Accessibility as Architecture"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["In Copyright"],"rights_urls":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://hdl.handle.net/10919/140801","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.uri"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.committeechair","label":"Committee Chair","values":["Jones, James R."]},{"key":"dc:contributor.committeemember","label":"Committee Member","values":["Borunda, Luis","Prochner, Isabel"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.department","label":"Department","values":["Architecture"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Mays, Margaret Ann"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.accessioned","label":"Dc Date Accessioned","values":["2026-01-14T15:47:24Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.available","label":"Dc Date Available","values":["2026-01-14T15:47:24Z"]},{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2025-12-19"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["Virginia Tech"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"dc:type.dcmitype","label":"Dc Type Dcmitype","values":["Text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Architecture"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["masters"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Master of Architecture"]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Somatic Perception","Embodied Movement","Perceptual Thresholds","Architecture Temporality","Accessibility as Architecture"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language.iso","label":"Language (ISO)","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["In Copyright"]},{"key":"dc:rights.uri","label":"Rights URI","values":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://hdl.handle.net/10919/140801"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["IN/VISIBLE: Architecture as Somatic Experience investigates how architecture can emerge from the body’s own modes of sensing—what this thesis defines as somatic sensory intelligence. Rather than treating ramps as residual infrastructure for accessibility, the project positions them as primary architectural systems that generate form, cadence, and perception. By centering proprioception, vestibular balance, and interoceptive awareness as design criteria, the thesis develops a museum architecture in which movement, orientation, and material response are not secondary effects of form, but its generative origin. The research unfolds through a layered architectural method structured across ten ACTS. ACT I establishes the theoretical ground, drawing from phenomenology, ecological psychology, and sensory theory—particularly the work of Merleau-Ponty, Pallasmaa, and Gibson—to frame perception as a distributed condition between body and world. ACT II situates this framework within questions of somatic equity and universal design, arguing that accessibility can operate as a generative architectural ethic rather than a regulatory add-on. ACT III examines precedent case studies—including the Guggenheim Museum, Carpenter Center, MACBA, Kolumba Museum, MAXXI, and the Ed Roberts Campus—to analyze how ramps, thresholds, and light structure architectural time, cadence, and embodied presence. ACT IV translates bodily rhythms into architectural form through gesture drawings, material studies, and massing investigations, where contraction, release, torsion, and extension emerge from somatic motion rather than imposed geometry. These studies inform ACT V and ACT VI, in which site and plan logic are developed around paired thresholds, mirrored organizational halves, and a central atrium structured by parallel ramp systems that maintain equivalence in time and demand. ACT VII extends this inquiry through sectional analysis, revealing how circulation, structure, and vertical light operate as interdependent systems that register ascent, descent, and pause. ACT VIII turns to materials and details, examining mirrored façades, bottle-green laminated glass, CLT structure, resilient ramp flooring, hardwood gallery floors, and marble atrium surfaces as instruments of somatic registration rather than finishes. ACT IX focuses on light as a temporal and perceptual medium, analyzing how skylights, reflected fields, vertical gradients, and differentiated thresholds choreograph bodily awareness across ramps and galleries. ACT X synthesizes the thesis as an architectural proposition: accessibility redefined as a perceptual and structural driver, where ramps function as the architectural equivalent of a nervous system—guiding rhythm, attention, and presence through the building. The contribution of this thesis is both conceptual and architectural. It argues that architecture can be generated from the body’s invisible sensing—transforming inclusive design from compliance into a language of form. By making perceptible the in/visible thresholds of movement, balance, and perception, IN/VISIBLE proposes an architecture in which accessibility, sensory intelligence, and architectural order converge as a single embodied system."]},{"key":"dc:description.abstractgeneral","label":"General Abstract","values":["This article provides educators in fields such as Middle Eastern studies, refugee studies, cultural and Islamic studies with a framework from documentaries to challenge stereotypes about Muslim refugees and migrants. Using the framework of lived Islam, the article explores how Syrian Muslim migrants, as seen in documentaries, draw on their faith to build resilience that enables them to continue striving for better lives. Resilience is defined as the ability to overcome challenges and catastrophes, envision solutions, and lead a purposeful life. This article conceptualizes resilience not only as a personal trait but also as a collective tool for survival and empowerment. Drawing on the three documentaries as primary sources: We Walk Together (2015), Meet the Syrians (2018), and Dalya’s Other Country (2017) the study analyzes how lived religion provides coping strategies that are relevant to contemporary crises such as epidemics, natural disasters, and war. The cultural insights gained through analyzing films from a strength-based model contribute to understanding, empathy, and humane thinking and emphasize agency and resilience. The article makes two significant contributions. First, it enriches the underexplored field of lived religion among Muslims, particularly in Western countries, by demonstrating how religion is embodied beyond places of worship and serves as a vital aspect of private life. Second, it offers a constructive teaching approach that uses films to highlight Muslim lived experiences in the diaspora while countering Islamophobia.IN/VISIBLE: Architecture as Somatic Experience is a design thesis for a new art and architecture museum that asks a simple but radical question: what if buildings were shaped not by image or geometry alone, but by the body’s own sense of movement, balance, and rhythm? At the center of this project is the ramp. In most buildings, ramps are treated as secondary paths—added only to meet accessibility requirements. This thesis reverses that logic. Here, ramps form the core structure of the building. They organize circulation, shape the plan, guide light, and give form to the museum itself. Accessibility is not an obligation to be accommodated, but the creative engine of the architecture. The museum sits at the meeting point of park and city. Approaches from both landscapes are designed to take equal time and effort, so no visitor is privileged by speed, ability, or direction of entry. Inside, the building unfolds in paired halves around a tall central atrium. Parallel ramps rise and branch through the space, allowing visitors to move at their own pace—ascending, pausing, or circulating without interruption. Like a nervous system, the ramps carry movement, orientation, and awareness through the building. Materials and light deepen this bodily experience. Resilient rubber ramps compress slightly underfoot, helping visitors feel cadence and effort. Hardwood floors in the galleries soften sound and encourage stillness. Marble in the atrium heightens awareness through coolness and echo. Light shifts gradually across ramps and landings, guiding movement through brightness and shadow rather than signs. On the exterior, mirrored panels reflect the city and park back to the visitor, while bottle-green laminated glass absorbs light and motion into a quiet, shimmering surface. Together, these elements create an architecture that responds to how people actually move and sense space. Rather than designing for a single “ideal” body, the museum supports many ways of moving—walking, rolling, pausing, lingering—without hierarchy or exception. This thesis proposes that architecture can emerge from the body’s invisible intelligence—its balance, pace, and perception of time—and make those forces tangible through form, material, and light. The result is a museum that does more than display art. It becomes an experience of architecture itself: one that moves with its visitors and makes movement meaningful."]},{"key":"dc:description.degree","label":"Dc Description Degree","values":["Master of Architecture"]},{"key":"dc:format.medium","label":"Dc Format Medium","values":["ETD"]},{"key":"dc:format.mimetype","label":"Dc Format Mimetype","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["IN/VISIBLE: Architecture as Somatic Experience"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor.committeechair":["Jones, James R."],"dc:contributor.committeemember":["Borunda, Luis","Prochner, Isabel"],"dc:contributor.department":["Architecture"],"dc:creator":["Mays, Margaret Ann"],"dc:date.accessioned":["2026-01-14T15:47:24Z"],"dc:date.available":["2026-01-14T15:47:24Z"],"dc:date.issued":["2025-12-19"],"dc:description.abstract":["IN/VISIBLE: Architecture as Somatic Experience investigates how architecture can emerge from the body’s own modes of sensing—what this thesis defines as somatic sensory intelligence. Rather than treating ramps as residual infrastructure for accessibility, the project positions them as primary architectural systems that generate form, cadence, and perception. By centering proprioception, vestibular balance, and interoceptive awareness as design criteria, the thesis develops a museum architecture in which movement, orientation, and material response are not secondary effects of form, but its generative origin. The research unfolds through a layered architectural method structured across ten ACTS. ACT I establishes the theoretical ground, drawing from phenomenology, ecological psychology, and sensory theory—particularly the work of Merleau-Ponty, Pallasmaa, and Gibson—to frame perception as a distributed condition between body and world. ACT II situates this framework within questions of somatic equity and universal design, arguing that accessibility can operate as a generative architectural ethic rather than a regulatory add-on. ACT III examines precedent case studies—including the Guggenheim Museum, Carpenter Center, MACBA, Kolumba Museum, MAXXI, and the Ed Roberts Campus—to analyze how ramps, thresholds, and light structure architectural time, cadence, and embodied presence. ACT IV translates bodily rhythms into architectural form through gesture drawings, material studies, and massing investigations, where contraction, release, torsion, and extension emerge from somatic motion rather than imposed geometry. These studies inform ACT V and ACT VI, in which site and plan logic are developed around paired thresholds, mirrored organizational halves, and a central atrium structured by parallel ramp systems that maintain equivalence in time and demand. ACT VII extends this inquiry through sectional analysis, revealing how circulation, structure, and vertical light operate as interdependent systems that register ascent, descent, and pause. ACT VIII turns to materials and details, examining mirrored façades, bottle-green laminated glass, CLT structure, resilient ramp flooring, hardwood gallery floors, and marble atrium surfaces as instruments of somatic registration rather than finishes. ACT IX focuses on light as a temporal and perceptual medium, analyzing how skylights, reflected fields, vertical gradients, and differentiated thresholds choreograph bodily awareness across ramps and galleries. ACT X synthesizes the thesis as an architectural proposition: accessibility redefined as a perceptual and structural driver, where ramps function as the architectural equivalent of a nervous system—guiding rhythm, attention, and presence through the building. The contribution of this thesis is both conceptual and architectural. It argues that architecture can be generated from the body’s invisible sensing—transforming inclusive design from compliance into a language of form. By making perceptible the in/visible thresholds of movement, balance, and perception, IN/VISIBLE proposes an architecture in which accessibility, sensory intelligence, and architectural order converge as a single embodied system."],"dc:description.abstractgeneral":["This article provides educators in fields such as Middle Eastern studies, refugee studies, cultural and Islamic studies with a framework from documentaries to challenge stereotypes about Muslim refugees and migrants. Using the framework of lived Islam, the article explores how Syrian Muslim migrants, as seen in documentaries, draw on their faith to build resilience that enables them to continue striving for better lives. Resilience is defined as the ability to overcome challenges and catastrophes, envision solutions, and lead a purposeful life. This article conceptualizes resilience not only as a personal trait but also as a collective tool for survival and empowerment. Drawing on the three documentaries as primary sources: We Walk Together (2015), Meet the Syrians (2018), and Dalya’s Other Country (2017) the study analyzes how lived religion provides coping strategies that are relevant to contemporary crises such as epidemics, natural disasters, and war. The cultural insights gained through analyzing films from a strength-based model contribute to understanding, empathy, and humane thinking and emphasize agency and resilience. The article makes two significant contributions. First, it enriches the underexplored field of lived religion among Muslims, particularly in Western countries, by demonstrating how religion is embodied beyond places of worship and serves as a vital aspect of private life. Second, it offers a constructive teaching approach that uses films to highlight Muslim lived experiences in the diaspora while countering Islamophobia.IN/VISIBLE: Architecture as Somatic Experience is a design thesis for a new art and architecture museum that asks a simple but radical question: what if buildings were shaped not by image or geometry alone, but by the body’s own sense of movement, balance, and rhythm? At the center of this project is the ramp. In most buildings, ramps are treated as secondary paths—added only to meet accessibility requirements. This thesis reverses that logic. Here, ramps form the core structure of the building. They organize circulation, shape the plan, guide light, and give form to the museum itself. Accessibility is not an obligation to be accommodated, but the creative engine of the architecture. The museum sits at the meeting point of park and city. Approaches from both landscapes are designed to take equal time and effort, so no visitor is privileged by speed, ability, or direction of entry. Inside, the building unfolds in paired halves around a tall central atrium. Parallel ramps rise and branch through the space, allowing visitors to move at their own pace—ascending, pausing, or circulating without interruption. Like a nervous system, the ramps carry movement, orientation, and awareness through the building. Materials and light deepen this bodily experience. Resilient rubber ramps compress slightly underfoot, helping visitors feel cadence and effort. Hardwood floors in the galleries soften sound and encourage stillness. Marble in the atrium heightens awareness through coolness and echo. Light shifts gradually across ramps and landings, guiding movement through brightness and shadow rather than signs. On the exterior, mirrored panels reflect the city and park back to the visitor, while bottle-green laminated glass absorbs light and motion into a quiet, shimmering surface. Together, these elements create an architecture that responds to how people actually move and sense space. Rather than designing for a single “ideal” body, the museum supports many ways of moving—walking, rolling, pausing, lingering—without hierarchy or exception. This thesis proposes that architecture can emerge from the body’s invisible intelligence—its balance, pace, and perception of time—and make those forces tangible through form, material, and light. The result is a museum that does more than display art. It becomes an experience of architecture itself: one that moves with its visitors and makes movement meaningful."],"dc:description.degree":["Master of Architecture"],"dc:format.medium":["ETD"],"dc:format.mimetype":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier.uri":["https://hdl.handle.net/10919/140801"],"dc:language.iso":["en"],"dc:publisher":["Virginia Tech"],"dc:rights":["In Copyright"],"dc:rights.uri":["http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/"],"dc:subject":["Somatic Perception","Embodied Movement","Perceptual Thresholds","Architecture Temporality","Accessibility as Architecture"],"dc:title":["IN/VISIBLE: Architecture as Somatic Experience"],"dc:type":["Thesis"],"dc:type.dcmitype":["Text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Architecture"],"thesis:degree_level":["masters"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Architecture"],"thesis:institution_name":["Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:18:55Z"}