This return to more traditional methods of treating certain kinds of ailements is not the only one that I have heard of recently, but the comprehensiveness of the spa was very impressive. The entire complex was devoted to, and designed around, the idea of light therapy. I wonder though, why this new openness to reintroducing ideas like this still seems to have a block on focusing on a variety of methods. This suggests that the proponents of this spa think that any other method is inadequate for treatment, much like those in the field of medicine who rejected all methods but their scientific one. Why do these treatments need to be mutually exclusive, that is why you cannot have numerous treatments in one locale. Surely some methods work better for certain treatments than others, and it would seem natural to me to have a fully comprehensive spa or treatment facility than many single function spas. Perhaps the second project that we were shown is a better attempt at this, though there was limited discussion. It seemed to be a sort of healing village, and I was very impressed by this, though I thought that the ideas it explored could be extrapolated to our society in general. All this time and effort is made to help people recover, but what if some of that effort was put into preventative design. It is said that prevention is better than cure, so why should we not focus more on the world we live in and not just the one we try to avoid. Still, the ideas and design merit great appreciation. I think that the community bonds that both projects try to forge is just as important as their ultimate aims. The idea of a community built structure is a strong one since people can feel like the building really is a part of their community and they can enjoy the connection with it. It makes me think of habitat for humanity projects where at the end of the day people feel great about having done something.
I have become curious since these classes began to talk about the psychology of colour to know why we like certain colours. Does a calm person feel naturally drawn to blue or green, or can we like colours without necessarily liking our reactions to them. I suppose in my case my favourite colour seems to match my personality to an extent, but I still feel unsure as to why exactly I like it so much.
Scott Irvine
