Emily Xintong Yan

Emily Xintong Yan

Wind seeps through mouthpiece created by exterior walls so the invisible wind is no mystery to the blind person.
Wind seeps through mouthpiece created by exterior walls so the invisible wind is no mystery to the blind person.
In the courtyard, the blind occupant is united with the totality of the world.
In the courtyard, the blind occupant is united with the totality of the world.
5 A stair is a surprisingly safe and predictable place for a blind person. Projected from tangents of a spiral, the staircase not only moves the blind person forward but also inward at a constant pace. Guided by a continuous wall, sense of direction and movement are experienced in synchrony with each turn from room to room like an accordion.

6 The inverted cone shaped roof is made from rotating a surface to overlap two spirals. In the rain, the roof is a drum skin. Raindrops circulate through the spiral gutter, making a note of an acoustic painting, passing each room, an echo in a symphonic harmony.

7 Pull of gravity will unchangingly be felt in the body; the pull of gravity makes the ground of the house. A mound aggregates at the angle of repose. The blind inhabitant is guided to the entrance of the house by an ascending slope overflowing the borders of the house. 

Perceptive Field: 
a house for the Blind

1“Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers/ Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist dispel from thence/ Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell/ Of things invisible to mortal sight"
John Milton "Paradise Lost”


2 The experience of blindness is not only the loss of vision but also the acquaintance and re-acquaintance with other ways of sensing, knowing and appreciating the world.


3 Perception of vision is the condition of sight; the perception of the celestial is the condition of insight. The loss of sight should not hinder seeing the divine. The relationship between the sky and earth is reciprocal, for knowing the earth is knowing the sky and knowing the sky is knowing the earth.

4 The spider makes its home by entangling a strand of thread into a intricately structured web. Atop its cobweb, the spider reposes and catches changes in its surroundings.The web acts as an extended and reconfiguable auditory sensors.
5 A stair is a surprisingly safe and predictable place for a blind person. Projected from tangents of a spiral, the staircase not only moves the blind person forward but also inward at a constant pace. Guided by a continuous wall, sense of direction and movement are experienced in synchrony with each turn from room to room like an accordion.

6 The inverted cone shaped roof is made from rotating a surface to overlap two spirals. In the rain, the roof is a drum skin. Raindrops circulate through the spiral gutter, making a note of an acoustic painting, passing each room, an echo in a symphonic harmony.

7 Pull of gravity will unchangingly be felt in the body; the pull of gravity makes the ground of the house. A mound aggregates at the angle of repose. The blind inhabitant is guided to the entrance of the house by an ascending slope overflowing the borders of the house.