Ma

I read this great Medium blog about the Japanese concept of Ma. It resonated strongly with what I think we need more of in our public spaces - a place to pause, rest, be, to imagine, to not know.

Ma is the fundamental time and space from which life needs to grow.

The more I read, the more it resonates in thinking about the Imaginary Museum and an invitation to not know…

The empty boundary provides a place for everyone’s vision of reality or imagination to exist.

And it applies to architecture too - wherever it manifests, the Imaginary Museum should be exactly this, energy filled with possibilities.

In the architectural context Ma refers to the dimension of space between the structural posts of an interior. The layout is intentionally designed to encompass empty space — energy filled with possibilities.

There’s an interesting question about how to design experiences that hold an open horizon for audiences and participants to explore and feel like active agents in not knowing together, at the same time as scaffolding the experience to feel safe, with enough for people to hold on to.