Fusing Horizons Through Abbott’s Flatland

Abstract

This study investigates how two-dimensional spatial conception can function as a generative pedagogical framework in architectural design education. Drawing on Edwin A. Abbott’s Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions and its 2007 animated adaptation, an experimental studio was conducted with nine second-year architecture students at Istanbul Aydin University within the ARC214 Methods of Architectural Design II course (2023–2024 spring semester), structured as a qualitative, design-driven inquiry across four sequential protocols. Students designed spatial environments—a university campus, residential building, government complex, prison, or asylum—entirely in two dimensions, operating within the perceptual, geometric, and social constraints of Abbott’s narrative; proposals were subsequently assembled into a collective city plan. Grounded in a hermeneutic-phenomenological approach—drawing on Gadamer’s fusion of horizons and Heidegger’s notion of aletheia—the study repositions the architectural plan not as a secondary representation of volumetric space but as an ontological condition in its own right: a mode of spatial disclosure that simultaneously reveals and conceals. Analysis of student design proposals, written reflections, and studio observations reveals four interconnected outcomes: (1) a shift from object-based thinking to relational thinking; (2) heightened perceptual awareness of movement, visibility, and access; (3) the appropriation of geometry as an active organizational and social medium; and (4) the development of coherent, rule-based spatial logics informed by literary narrative. Findings suggest that two-dimensional design operates not as a reductive constraint but as a conceptually productive framework—offering a replicable and theoretically robust model for narrative-based architectural pedagogy.