The Attention System

The Attention System: Architecture in an Image-Dominated City

Masters of Architecture Thesis

Instructors: Manuel Bouzas Barcala & Iroha Ito

Cornell University Department of Architecture | Fall 2025

The contemporary city has become a perceptual field where image and architecture operate on the same surface.

Media saturation multiplies vantage points, dissolves perceptual hierarchy, and challenges architecture’s ability to structure experience. In this condition, the pixel rivals the brick, and digital surfaces increasingly function as architectural material.

This thesis proposes the attention system: an operational framework for designing space through the calibrated coordination of vision, image, and spatial geometry, where image is not a mere representation of space, nor architecture the tangible execution of an image, but complementary forces shaping perception together.

Fashion scenography serves as a primary research lens, revealing how anticipation, presence, and memory are choreographed across physical and mediated environments.

Times Square is positioned as the epitome of this mediated condition and as a testing ground where the attention system is spatially examined.

Rather than resolving a single building, the thesis advances a method for constructing spatial presence and perceptual clarity within an image-dominated urban environment.

Trailer:

Unrealized Times Square:

Summer Nights

Fall Harvest

Winter Warmth

Site Analysis

Topo Section
Site Model Scale: 1/16” = 1’-0”

Program & Formal Dichotomies

public | private

intersect | interact

light | heavy

empty | filled

continuous | distinct

Floor Plan

Longitudinal Elevation + Section
Facade Section Details

Glue Laminated Timber Framing

Rammed Earth Structural Wall

Cross Section + East Elevation
Components

Material Processes

Sectional Model Scale: 1/4” = 1’-0”

Prev Next