This project served as an exploration into both the convergence of music and architecture in the context of memory. This is due to its ability to heal and create a certain positive ambience for sufferers of diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Music brings us to a non-existent world, but not in such a way where we feel lost, just the opposite. It brings us to this ethereal moment captured in our memories, bringing us back to be found.

Music encapsulates a space away from the world, a space embedded within us to turn to, where expressions can be made unlike any other, composed by us. This project aspires to translate music through space and bring forward its evanescent value, providing opportunities to not only aid sufferers of Alzheimer’s but also to enrich the lives of all through the creation of exuberant spaces.

The first step was a collaboration with a student from the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Both music and paintings were created, these paintings were inspired by his synesthesia. This illustrated the link between the brain, memory and colour.

After creating the paintings I wanted to explore a poetic means of displaying them. Accordingly, I began to make music stands for the paintings in order to illustrate them as ‘pieces of music.’ The first iterations of the model are shown below, looking at the joinery of the music stands and how they would physically stand in an elegant manner. The final model is also shown below, this was made using a lathe, band and hand saws.

The paintings were then mimicked onto acrylic. The use of acrylic acted as an analogy for this state of lucidity and the possibilities colour and tone can have on this state. These were made through the use of resin on acrylic and mica powder. These pieces were then explored further through a collaboration, whereby a photographer helped photograph the pieces with the intention to capture the shadows they created. Thereby bringing importance to the trace they would leave and the quality of music they would bring to an architectural space.

This idea of being found in ambience can be satisfied by the terms used in the project: echo, trace, and tone. They can allow the resurfacing of ‘home’ and ‘identity’, a great loss to people with dementia. These concepts shift architecture to focus on the fundamental sensory experiences. The most important function of architecture is to provide shelter and enrich our lives, if this can’t be done, we are simply the ones who are lost.