Since humanity began building structures as shelter, we unlocked the ability to artificially divide spaces, which creates more possibilities of reality. Walls and barriers protect humans, yet blurs our perception on actuality as we are unable to see the reality of the other side of the wall during the exact instant, giving rise to the Schrodinger’s cat theory.

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On one fateful afternoon, I left my laptop in the architecture studio and went for lecture. Hours later, the laptop is gone. The possibilities of my laptop’s whereabouts are infinite. It might be stolen and never to be found again, sent to the lost and found, or a trick perpetrated by my schoolmates.

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Decisions determine the future. If I had not carelessly left my laptop in the studio, it would not be gone. The presence of the laptop within the architectural space is a metaphor to a living thing, such as a cat. With the presence of life within a room, the outcome after that as time progresses is unlimited as interactions are conducted.

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Approximately ninety percent of our lives are spent in architecture. Now, most human lives begin within such confinements, marking its prominence. Routine repeats within architecture. If particular events such as a missing laptop occurs, it is up to the mind to figure out its current location from clues perceived through our eyes.

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Since the moment the laptop disappeared, multiple probabilities set up a variety of parallel universes, from the worst to the best scenarios. However, this will not occur if it is in a parallel world where I did not leave my laptop unguarded. Time never stops and the room acts as an Akashic record, a compendium of thoughts and emotions encoded in a non-physical dimension. In this case, the spirit of the space documents the experiences of those within it. 

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When I left my laptop in the studio, my laptop is both there and not there until observed. However, my lack of mindfulness neglected this fact. Without realising, I suffered so much because of my trust of the studio’s safety. This shows the magic of architectural volume, hypnotizing me into recalling it as being safe as I bonded with the space by spending numerous hours engulfed within.

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Phenomena and events may have a beginning and an end, but ever since it started, its effects to the observable universe or a mind may last much longer than the period of its occurrence, as it may never end. For instance, ever since settlers of an untouched wilderness start laying bricks for a new settlement, the process of it developing into a community, a town or eventually a city never stops, be it fast or sluggish.

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War or natural catastrophes may destroy the entire urban metropolitan. However, memories of its existence are already sculpted in the Akashic record. Its ruins too capture glimpses of its presence in a corporeal manner. Even if the artefacts are never to be discovered, they are there, leaving its signature. The whole ‘process’ of it being present never ends until an apocalypse that annihilates existence.

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Architecture stays, but people come and go. It resembles the physical structure of an organism where atoms are constantly exchanged with the external universe. Every different time period, the architecture and its contents are different. As the Sanskrit saying goes ‘The mind is everything, what you think you become’, collective minds dictate everything from the form of architecture to its content, and each result diverges us into a fresh reality, ranging from dystopia to utopia.