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A Path to the Serenity

Peikai He, Shang Xinyi, Yangxue Ying
China

Different individuals in the world are facing a variety of psychological problems. Through preliminary research, we take occupational characteristics as the starting point to analyze and summarize the differences and commonalities of various psychological problems faced by different groups. Among them, we notice that many groups, such as doctors, soldiers and family members, may face a common psychological problem --death to lives. The inner emotional reaction of the living to death. With the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, this question has become more frequent. So we want to create a series of Spaces that externalize and expand each negative emotion of death and loss, and establish order and connections between these emotional Spaces. Walking in this series of Spaces, people can resonate with the space in it, and fully experience the relationship between emotions and the whole process of emotional development, in order to achieve healing results.

Death will bring people a series of negative psychological reactions, including fear, anxiety, pain, anxiety, etc. These reactions are collectively referred to as death anxiety (Neimeyer et al., 2004). In her 1969 book On Death and Dying, American psychologist Elizabeth Kubler-Rose proposed the "Five Stages of Grief." According to the order of people's emotional reaction, they are respectively: denial, anger, negotiation, depression and acceptance.
Psychologically avoiding death can cause us to have a heightened fear of death, despair and anxiety when we actually face it, as well as anxiety and doubt about how we should live. Confronting the negative feelings of death will not only reduce the fear and anxiety of death, it will also help us understand the full picture of life.

We divided the design into different emotional Spaces in sequence according to the emotional theme of the five stages, so that the "left behind people" facing death can fully and completely experience these five stages, infect and release negative emotions through spatial hypnosis, so that people can understand their current situations in order to better deal with grief. When we accept the truth, accept the sadness, and say goodbye to the "loss" in our hearts, it is true healing.

Water and root intention part: The design is based on the intention of the tree hole in Alice's Wonderland. The development of denial - anger - negotiation - depression is a gradual "falling" process, and the distribution of space seems to be attached to the root of the tree. And the final acceptance will skyrocket from the bottom up, looking back on the emotional experience of the first four stages, and finally look into the heart, remember but not escape, accept it calmly. There are many and complex Spaces in the five stages, among which there is a thread running through the whole space: water. Water is connected with trees. As a clue of space progression, water can be perceived by people through vision, hearing and touch, guiding people's progress in space, complementing space and shaping the diversity of space. And as a spiritual cue, water is fluid, endless, circular. The same is true of life and death, people have to experience many life and death farewell, put down and accept, in order to better move forward on the road of life.

The hidden healing space is designed to provide a rich process experience for groups experiencing the death of others. We extended from the five stages of grief, arranged different feeling prototypes, and applied the design techniques of different spatial prototypes to different Spaces to create different emotional Spaces, so that each space can not only express the emotional atmosphere, but also allow people to vent their current emotions. Let people fully experience the complete emotional process and release negative emotions.

The building starts from the above-ground part and slowly goes underground in the transitional space, opening the sequence of Spaces.

The first stage, denial: laying the groundwork for the spatial sequence of the five stages. The first stage of the underground space, denial space, is the stage where the experiencer enters the emotional state of the underground space. It is more like a "preface" of the emotional space, and it also undertakes the medium place where the "denial" psychology gradually turns to "anger". At the beginning, the experiencer will come to the entrance of the underground space in a freer state. The flowing curve and open space vision will ease the experiencer's mood, and the guided flow space will lead the experiencer forward. The gentle circling route will transition the experiencer from the above-ground space to the underground space. The experiencer seems to enter a different world, and the earth world feels more and more distant with the dim light. After experiencing a distance, the experiencer suddenly comes to a dark and damp closed space, the uncomfortable body feeling gradually stimulates depression, arouses the inner negative emotions and memories, the big space comes out to face a narrow path, the experiencer quickly moves forward, the narrow channel twists and turns around, and the suppressed emotions gradually climb, but the road seems to have no end.

The second stage, anger: After experiencing the denial emotional space, one reaches the angry space. In the angry stage, people's inner emotions will become chaotic and disorderly, and when they switch to space, they will first experience the oppression interspersed by sharp blocks in the space, and their emotions will gradually be suppressed and accumulated. Next, we enter a sprawling space of disorder, where the lack of clear direction can create anxiety in individuals. Having decided to follow a certain path, one descends into a relatively narrow enclosed bubble space where emotional stress reaches its peak. The material of this space is silicone, which has a soft texture, allowing people to release their emotions while avoiding injury. After the completion of catharsis, it will reach a more spacious and soft interface, and the mood will be temporarily relieved.

The third stage: negotiation: After experiencing anger, people in the negotiation stage will be inwardly entangled and confused, constantly struggling to go back to the past to correct their practices, but they are unable to do anything, and do not know where to go and how to do. A large number of repetitive spatial elements can easily create an illusion, each of which looks like an exit/passage, causing confusion and confusion to spread. The subsequent layers of revolving and sinking space seem to go to the end, trapped in the closed loop of thinking that always wants to return to the past. Finally, "go crazy" fell into the layers of the past "dream", and sank into the depression space in endless remorse and pain.

The fourth stage, depression: Upon arrival in the depression space, the individual feels tired and depressed due to the experience of the previous three Spaces. We design a long path of steps, and the individual will enter an endless path of three-dimensional, layer by layer retreat, which will leave them feeling exhausted and unable to find a way out. In an instant, the experiencer rushes out of the passageway that makes people want to escape and comes to a vast space beyond the human scale, with no edges and corners of the wall to show that the space has no boundaries, and in the distance overhead are scattered fragments, which are also part of the building. Thousands of lights hit the debris through a hole in the top of the building, refracted several times and finally reflected on a calm lake, where the light was weakened and softened. Standing on the stone steps of the lake, the experiencer appears small in this large space, and the scattered fragments also indicate the fall of life. The experiencer gradually accepts the fact in a quiet space. He began to think about his own state, experiences and feelings, and gradually found the direction to reinvent himself. The purpose of this stage is to give the individual the opportunity to face their heart, reflect on past experiences, and make positive preparations for the acceptance stage.

The fifth stage, acceptance: When individuals begin to look and reflect on themselves, they are finally able to discover the outlet to the center. Along this exit, they will see a babbling stream. Following the stream, through an opening, they will find a large and peaceful lake below, bringing them peace and quiet. With this serenity, they will gradually come to the center of the subject. There, they climb up from the deepest part of the building in a buoyancy elevator, taking in a panoramic view of the space they have experienced in each of the four stages, and reviewing the emotional experience they have generated, before finally reaching outside, returning to the starting point, and emerging from the tree hole. This stage represents the individual's acceptance and self-reconciliation. By going through the previous stages, the individual has found inner balance and peace, has also come to terms with his past, and is ready to meet the challenges ahead.

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