Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal had a front page feature on a New York couple who design environments that challenge our cognitive assumptions — and, they believe, stimulate us in ways that prolong our lives, perhaps to the point of immortality.
The couple’s savings were lost in the Madoff scam, halting their work.
Mr. Arakawa and Ms. Gins are conceptual artists challenging loft apartments in Japan feature brightly colored walls, bumpy, undulating floors and floor-to-ceiling ladders. They’ve also done a house in the Hamptons, priced at $5.5 million. Their goal was to build an entire village based on “transhumanism” priciples.
I’m intrigued by this approach, and would very much like to spend a week or two living in one of their lofts. Until the past century, humans spend much of their lives in environments that were extremely challenging, biologically and psychologically. It makes sense to me that, at some level, we need this more than we do CAT-5 wiring, motion sensing lighting, and bug-repellent clothing.