Engaging with ku: From abstraction to meaning through the practice of noticing

This paper presents a design project that explored the practice of "noticing". Noticing is a way in and through which we are able to understand and create our relationship to space and place. The practice of noticing can facilitate awareness, reflection, learning and transformation (Mason 2002). Noticing is a practice that enables us to engage with the concept of Ku~, meaning "space", in Japanese. In this project context, Ku~ is interpreted as a space of potentiality rather than emptiness or nothingness. Engaging with Ku~ through the practice of noticing can enable a transition from abstraction to meaning. Ku~ can also be an expression of the ambiguous potential of design investigations: including knowing and the unknown, the limitations and the challenges. To practice design in this way is to step outside of the confines of certainty and embark on an exploratory path of discovery. Just as design is a way of engaging with space - to enunciate the unknown, to create meaning from the abstract - so too is noticing as a temporal practice of discovery and place making. Through the act of noticing the ambiguous openness of space is transformed into the connectedness of place (Casey 2001).