THE COGNITIVE FRACTAL: EXISTENTIALISM, REMINISCENCE, SYNAESTHESIA

Abstract

A person’s diagnosis of dementia is often seen as an emotional ‘life sentence’ (Loh, 2020). The root cause of this fearful association is that any form of cognitive degradation associated with the diagnosis is irreversible. There is the lack of awareness on living with dementia. Rather, the public’s impression on dementia is often negative, as we only notice apparent symptoms when a person is at the later stages of dementia. These symptoms include being physically lost, being unable to carryout independent daily living tasks, bed ridden, or even losing one’s psychological self. There are attempts to design spaces for Persons with Dementia (PWD). These design traits can be seen through various successful dementia care facilities such as Hogeweyk’s Dementia Village nursing home. However, a PWD’s requirements to cope with daily living is highly personal and subjective. It is challenging to design physical spaces that can be personalised and therefore effective to an individual. In architectural discourse, we are in a point of transition from designing physical spaces, to adopting digital tools such as Virtual and Augment realities to create new spatial narratives in these digital spaces. Digital spaces are inherently fluid and dynamic by nature that deviates greatly from present architecture theories where designs are comparatively ‘frozen’ and not sufficiently robust to cater for personalised needs and societal changes over time. It is this fluidity that digital tools can offer that I believe is highly suitable and would prove to be the key in catering for personalised needs and empowering PWDs.