see and be seen, between fringe and center: surveillance, fashion and prison: emily hsu

Architecture is like a shelter that people cannot move or bring anywhere and clothing is like a movable building for our body. In both architecture and fashion design, there are many components which have some reciprocity with each other. Walls and floors weave the space and the interlacement of solid and void spaces connect and define the territory. The space between our skin and clothes exists the outside and inside of vision and hidden and exposure ambiguous relationship. For example, fashion designers and architects use the concept with folds, present not only the texture of the clothing design but also characteristics of the form and structure of architecture. Folding expresses a continuous force filed and presents a concept of infinite repetition. Folding structure clothe with wearer’s moving and the architecture with solid and void spaces intertwining, there is fluidity presents the sense of three-dimensional, expansion, scale, order and gradation.

The other issue of this research is surveillance. People’s lives are controlled by monitors, cameras, and information systems, along with other improvement of technology. This system blurs the boundary of private and public space and changes the definition of “watching and being watched” in our surroundings. So how architecture and fashion respond to this surveillance in our milieu and culture structures is the issue which will be studied in this thesis.
According to the surveillance issue and “see and be seen” concept, a prison will be the project of this thesis. The site will be chosen in downtown Manhattan instead of isolated space or a place in a boundary and try to deal with the issue between a prison and a neighborhood. So the surface of the prison here will have some dialogue with the neighborhood and will be a main design object for studying how it can define or blur the boundary.