Soft Order: the Squishscape Residence
Ida Marie Hansen
Artist Statement
Soft Order: the Squishscape Residence utilizes squishiness to combat rising levels of touch deficit—a lack of stimulation of the somatosensory nervous system—by embracing the occupants with affection. As a co-living provocation under the theme "psychosocial densities," the residence orchestrates encounters of all scales ranging from the tactile to the social. Walls swell and notions of separation versus connectivity blur as programs absorb into the membranes and pockets of the home. The dwelling becomes a thickened intertwined organism. With a desire to facilitate compassion and provide an emotional ‘lining’ that swaddles occupants, an architectural placenta that is soft, warm, and pulsating emerges. From the neotenic to the abject, Soft Order challenges our complicated relationships with the body and mind, through lenses such as erotology, feminist science fiction, and developmental psychology.