APPROACHING THE FOURTH LEVEL OF SPACE - NARRATING THE 4TH

DIMENSION

SPACE AND TIME STACKED WITHIN LAYERS

NARRATING THE SPACE – SPATIAL EFFECTS

OBJECTIVE
NEED FOR PROJECT

 INTENT

ABSTRACT

 INTRODUCTION
 BACKGROUND

CONCEPT

 THEORY OF RELATIVITY
 CONCEPT DEVELOPING QUESTIONS
 THESIS STATEMENT

RESEARCH METHOD

 CASE STUDIES
 DISSERTATIONS

INTER-RELATION OF TIME AND SPACE

 TIME IN ARCHITECTURE
 PERCEPTION OF SPACE

SPACE

 LIFE-CYCLE OR A TIMELINE OF A SPACE

 FROM SPACE TO TIME TO TIMELESS ARCHITECTURE
How does user develop perception about the space and what role does time play in achieving
that perception?

BACKGROUND
This thesis starts with a case study for better understanding of ‘narration in architecture’. The
case study being the movie ‘Inception’ produced in 2010 by Christopher Nolan. The research
study takes us through a road of layers, be it levels, where each is different than the other with
respect to space, time, perception, climate, architecture. The layers are stacked within one
another forming a level within a level therefore portraying space within a space. Levels can be
seen as change of spaces, variations in heights, as a rise from ease to difficult, whereas spaces
can be perceived as experiential areas, functional – non-functional, life cycle of spaces, decaying
of spaces.
Each level in research study is different than the other with respect to space, time, perception,
climate, architecture. Where all these terminologies meet is 4th dimension which is experienced
in the movie through the dream state.

Multiple questions arises when thinking of a 4-D world.

1-Can we live in fourth dimension world of Architecture?

When talking about time as the fourth parameter, it makes it appear as a physical, tangible quantity.
Which means that when time can be felt/touched, then a person will not have distinctive past, present,
future since then we will be using time to move back and forth. In simple words, the concept of life with
respect to the concept of past, present, future seems meaningless and useless in fourth dimensional
world. But a perception of 4d space may exist while neglecting reality.

2- What will be the architecture or essence of 4d world be like?

Moving in four dimensions may almost feel like a free roaming or a 360 roam. Hence the essence of 4D
may feel like a free fall where there is no gravity.

3- When can we develop a perception or actually experience the fourth dimension?

The perception of fourth dimension depends upon our vision on the 4D. Our vision leads us to feel spaces.
For instance my vision on 4d is that of illusion. Therefore when I perceive illusion as a 4D, I know that it
can be experienced in the present day and maybe on a higher scale in future.
4- How can we experience a 4d space in a 3d world?

4D spaces can easily be experienced in 3d worlds depending upon a viewer’s perception, a creator’s
vision, be it be classified upon activities or imagination.

5- What fourth dimension can do to a real space? How will it affect the space?

A 4D can change and mould the entire feel, essence of a space. It can make a vacant room turn into a
visually

6- Where in reality can we find an example of fourth dimension?

We can experience this nowadays in 4D cinemas that are trending also through virtual reality and majorly
depending upon perception.

7- Why is it impossible for fourth dimension to exist in reality?

It is not impossible for 4D to exist in reality but rather impossible for humans to live permanently in a 4D
world. 4D spaces can exist and many modules are known to be put up in different aspects to make users
experience a 4D rotation or a 4d space.

THESIS STATEMENT:
To understand the 4th dimension and it’s manifestation in real world through creating a space which makes
user experience time and perception through architecture.
Inception is a mind play, psychological movie in which dreams within dreams can be manipulated
by architects where they can construct imaginary realities, creating whole environments just by
using their mind source. The espionage team enters their target’s dream, by taking sedatives, to
extract information in their subconscious state and they can only be awaken from the dream
through a ‘kick’ such as dying, falling or getting hit.

The movie starts with the main character, Cobb, present in a Japanese man’s dream, where he is
to extract confidential information. The team falls back form that dream to one of their mate’s
dream and just a few scenes later it is known that the extraction task they carried out was just
an audition before the performance for the actual and a difficult act of inception, this was to
implant an idea in a business man, Fischer’s, mind. The Japanese man wished to break up his
competitor’s energy by planting the idea in his son’s mind to part his father’s company. If Cobb
would succeed then Saito, the Japanese business man, will use his influence to clear murder
charges against him, which had been put up by his wife, so that he can go back to the States to
his children.
The task is although a difficult one but is not impossible because Cobb has performed the
implantation of an idea in his wife’s mind before and succeeded. He requires a team for the task
and is in need of a new architect for the designing of dreams landscapes and architecture. He
carries a test from the student architect Ariadne by assigning her a less than two minute task in
which she has to design a maze that takes more than a minute to solve. The architect draws a
maze on a paper with the typical grid on the background, but fails to impress. On her third
attempt, she turns the notepad over on the blank graph paper sheet so she can outline her design
on the blank non-ruled cardboard back. And this time, she draws a circular maze. Cobb reviews
her third version of a labyrinth with sudden interest and undecidedly hovers his pen over the
circular maze, not sure where to enter it. This scene lays down the foundation of one of the key
elements and establishes the labyrinth as the central motif of the movie.

After the test pass, Cobb takes Ariadne into his sub-conscious dream, to teach her of the very
basics, where they are seen sitting in a road side café. The architect does not yet know the
difference between reality and dreams and it is when Cobb tells her that she is not in reality and
also the people she is seeing around are projections of his sub-consciousness. Cobb then imagines
the decay of the surrounding objects, as if they are hit by a tornado. This is how they get their
kick and fall back from dream to reality.

Ariadne then proceeds ahead in her training by going into her dream and creating her imaginary
world, where Cobb accompanies her. They are seen walking in the city, when suddenly the
forward route/path starts to rise up in a flexible way and rests above the buildings where the two
were walking. They move forward and start walking upwards in another dimension/direction.
This scene shows how they move from a one fixed direction to another which they choose. A
simple way of understanding is that they moved beyond the defined dimensions.

Cobb assembles his team for the task with a conman, a chemist- for making powerful sedatives
for a stable dream within dream strategy and an architect who is tasked with the design and
creation of dreams city and its landscapes through labyrinth. The Japanese man also accompanies
in the dreams to know whether they succeed in the act. They plan their way of carrying out the
job and in a scene are shown with a dialogue/ statement, written up on a white board, “I WILL
SPLIT UP MY FATHER’S EMPIRE”. This line is repeated by the team siting there, brainstorming on
how to get this into Fischer’s mind.

The team plans their job in a series of or in levels of dreams. Where any one member of the team
will stay back in each level to sedate the rest and bring them back through kicks.
The mission starts from what they call reality, in an aeroplane where they accompany young Mr.
Fischer in business class.

After being sedated and falling in Fischer’s dream, the level starts in a rainy downtown where the
team abducts Fischer and there comes a train barreling down through the center of downtown
LA. This is when Cobb wonders and yells ‘WHO PUT THAT THERE?’ Not a part of Ariadne’s creation
but the projections of Fischer’s sub-consciousness. The Japanese man gets shot by those trained
projections. This layer does not show more around the city for depicting its essence.. After
abducting Fischer, the team takes him to a van, where the chemist is the one who is driving, while
the rest take sedatives and move a level further into dream. Therefore, the chemist is the one
who stays back in the first level.
In this level, into another team-mate’s dream, the team is present in a hotel where they have to
convince Fischer that he is not in his conscious state but is present in the sub-conscious state of
his father’s P.A and that only the team could help him out.

The team goes in the hotel room in the above layer and that’s where they fall in level 3, the dream
space of Eames, where there is a snow fortress. Here, in this level, they have to perform the
inception. The architect designs a vault in the fortress where Robert Fischer Sr. is lying on a death
bed. The final goal here was to implant the idea in Robert Fischer Jr.’s mind – that his father
actually did love him. That he was only disappointed in the fact that he worked so doggedly to
follow in his own footsteps. The team successfully accomplishes the goal – with the final scene
there in the vault with Fischer’s father dying and recreating everything Jr. understands about
himself.
The Japanese man, who got shot in the first layer, is getting weaker and is not being able to
recover as he went into further layers. Here in this level, the kick is to explode the fortress using
a grenade and this is done by Saito, the Japanese man, who then dies and therefore falls into
Limbo. Since in highly sedative dreams, one who dies will fall into limbo, the last and greatest
level, where the person is awaiting and is stuck between reality and dream.

Ariadne, the architect, and Cobb move a level further in Limbo. They did so to find and bring
Fischer Jr. back, who was brought there by Cobb’s sub-consciousness of his wife. Cobb’s wife lets
Fischer go on one condition- that Cobb would stay with her in the limbo world forever. This is
where Cobb reveals that he had performed the very first act of inception on her wife to get her
into reality but her mind had been stuck with believing that limbo was the reality therefore she
jumped from the hotel building to wake into her world but died. Ariadne shoots his wife, killing
his sub-consciousness to get his focus back on the job. She brings back Fischer to the level before
by jumping from a skyscraper and Cobb stays back in Limbo to find the Japanese man and bring
him back to real world, since he is the only way Cobb will be set free from his charges and will
meet his children back in U.S.
Cobb finds Saito in a Japanese temple by the sea, he had gotten old. That is where the two
remember their deal and therefore kill themselves to be awaken to the real world.
During it all, in the dream layer one, where the chemist drives the van around is under assault
by trained projections and so he initiates his kick a bit soon by driving off a bridge. But time
varies from real world to each dream layer, elapsed time in each dream is 20 times greater than
the level above it. In first layer, 5 minutes of outer world would be 1 hour in the first dream
space, whereas in Limbo, the greatest level, 24 hours of outer world would be half a century.
When the chemist initiates his kick, the reaction as per time starts to occur in all dream layers.
The fight scene in the hall way of the hotel, as the van is falling off the bridge, sends everything
into a gravitation-less state and causes an avalanche in Eames’ dream, the snow fortress.
Arthur, the one stayed back in the hotel dream level, improvises a new kick using an elevator
that will be synchronized with the van hitting the water, while the team in Eames’ dream races
to finish the job before the new round of kicks. The pre limbo world, from where Ariadne
jumped, is also falling. These kicks brings the team back to reality, in the plane, from where
they started their journey to inception.

1.2: UNDERSTANDING DEVELOPED FROM ‘INCEPTION’

The movie leads to a great perception of architecture with its ideology. It tells us that ‘an idea’
can be generated into something larger. An idea can be highly contagious as well. And that once
it takes hold of the brain, it becomes almost impossible to eradicate. Our understanding starts
with the basic to complex labyrinth and how going out of the defined spaces/out of the box
emerges creativity. This follows with ideas that generate strong interpretation. Like ‘Penrose
steps’- in dreams we can cheat architecture into impossible shapes that lets us create closed
loops like the infinite staircase. These Penrose steps are a part of ‘Paradoxical Architecture’ in
the movie which teaches us that a closed loop helps to disguise boundaries of a level that is
created.
It reminds us of how architects create and perceive the world simultaneously and also on the
other hand that we consciously create each aspect of a building but then it feels like that it’s
almost creating itself.
ARCHITECTURE OF THE DREAMS:
Although the movie may seem different and not much of reality but the architecture it shows
does not depict a very futuristic approach but rather shows infrastructure and buildings of the
current common reality throughout the world. Slight variations in the region, climate and such
can be depicted between the dream levels that are not very distinguished from each other.

This moves around the downtown with rain pouring down. An inside of the building is
approached that shows ‘the integration of light in space through roof’.

It brings us into a hotel building like any other in our country. What brings out this level is the
essence we get of the gravity shifts or the gravity free zone in the lobby, due to change in first
dream space.

Here we are in a snowy mountainous region with a fortress seen in a distance, covered with snow.
The fortress is very much like a working space but it has a hidden space within, a vault. The vault
portrays a different approach to the building concept. Its entrance gate reminds us of micro-
processing chips of remote controls or computers. Whereas the interior of the vault is all black
marble tiles shining from floor to roof hence not showing a clear end to the room with two narrow
exit doors similar to the entrance one and being specified due to the green indicating chip like
lines as the design. The all black room has a white stretcher in middle, on which the old Fischer
is lying in white gown. The essence this contrasting coordination gives is that of ‘hope- a ray of
light or hope.’

This is the limbo world where we see a contrast of elements. The place is vacant with no
projections at all. Damaged structures are highlighted at the start of this level which then leads
to place of high risers. Most of these are very much alike glass towers. With river flowing by the
sides and some houses reconstructed from the memory.
The similar skyscrapers depicting the world of today, construction of high rises with glass facades
and same/typical design, not really different than any other.

2- LITERATURE REVIEW:

i. LIMBO:
Limbo is a state where one stays for a long duration. It is an intermediate condition or state. A
state where there is nothing but neglection.
Understanding limbo with current reality may be simple yet complicate things. The perception of
limbo varies with person to person. For instance, a person living with luxuries may be in a state
of limbo whereas a person wanting or running for luxuries has his perception of limbo as luxuries.

ii. SPACE:

“The dimensions of height, depth, and width within which all things exist and move.”
Dictionary
In my understanding, a space is a certain area to move around and that makes our experience
grow. A space may or may not be functional. Functionality in space has a broader aspect.
Like any other living, non-living thing, a space also has a lifecycle. For instance, a vacant patio
then planted that grows into a fruitful tree. It gives shade and eatables but then it’s wood used
for lighting fire and furniture making, therefore the cutting of tree. Hence leading the space to
being barren again. Therefore a space also decays with time.
Like historic buildings in our surroundings in Karachi, that were once the limelight of their era
and are now barren, not even being maintained or conserved as sightseeing.

iii. TIME W.R.T SPACE:

Time is defined as,

“The indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future
regarded as a whole”
Dictionary
Space and time are inter-related with each other. There are various concepts and theories
present in physics, where “space-time is any mathematical model which fuses the three
dimensions of space and the one dimension of time into a single four-dimensional manifold.”
Wikipedia
These theories help us in understanding the relation of time and space. We consider space as a
three dimensional since it has three different dimensions. We can understand this through a
simple example of a room where its dimensions are known through length, width and height.
Therefore the three dimensions leading to a space. For a more clear vision on these spaces, we
should start with the basic of dimensions.

In simple terms, it tells us of a single direction. Where an object can only move forward in a single
path/ direction. This dimension may be considered in length.

With respect to 1-dimension, we can now understand 2-dimension through an object that moves
forward in two different directions such as length and width.

The dimensions in 2-D can move forward and backward but not upwards or downwards. To make
this movement possible is where 3-Dimension comes in.
Therefore length, breadth and height are the three essential parameters in a 3D world where we
move and live in.

Then, what is the fourth parameter of a ?

is explainable through a 3-D cube that has six surfaces whereas a cube in 4-D has eight surfaces.
This is also known as a tesseract. Whereas Tesseract can be understood as a cube in a 4-D space.
It is to the cube as the cube is to the square i.e 2-D to 3-D to 4-D.
To visualize 4th dimension, Einstein’s Theory of Relativity plays a vital role in which he explains
how space and time are linked. It tells us that space and time are not different directions or
separate but are rather related to each other. An effect on any one of these will show impact on
the other. This is called ‘space-time continuum’.
Hence this research leads us to the path that space-time or time is the parameter of 4th
dimension. And can be known as ‘Temporal Dimension’. It is explainable through the movie and
as well as through different visions of space such as a lifecycle of space- a space or spatial
dimensions changes with time.
According to a Mathematical theory,
The fourth dimension, is a spatial expansion of the third and physical dimension. It expands the
current space into a direction perpendicular to those currently known. It is not left and right,
nor forward and back, nor up and down. It is a new, undefined direction.

Katelyn Wurts, 2010

viii. PERCEPTION:

“The way in which something is regarded, understood or interpreted”

Dictionary
Perception is term used for the mind of user where it defines the way a person perceives
something. It is the way or the mindset of the person of how he absorbs surroundings, in
architecture.
How a person has been trained throughout his life plays a major role in developing a perception
of a person. It is then that way he looks at things and understands. Perception is the
understanding through thought, experience and senses. Where senses, on the other hand, also
plays major role in percepting. Such as, a normal person perceives differently than a person who
is specially abled with one or two senses more strong than the rest.

With my perspective of the case study, Inception, it tells us of how an idea can get stuck and that
it then has to be developed to form it into something. Major scenarios depicted imaginations
with key words or key elements. Upon studying those, I reached to the conclusion of the
existence of another dimension, of what might be known as the fourth dimension. But since
fourth dimension requires a parameter, and that parameter being time which is not tangible,
complexes things. What is fourth dimension, is vastly told through theories and philosophies
whereas perception also plays its part. In my view, 4th dimension is an ILLUSION. To experience
this dimension in the world we live in today can be obtained through illusion that have been used
since antiquity in architecture. . In art, a common visual illusion is the perspective. Perspectives
represent a 3D scene which is inferred from a 2D image. The deception of the perspective is that
it persuades the viewer that the 2 dimensional image is 3 dimensional. Similarly, how can
architecture persuade viewer and represent a 4D scene through a 3D building.