The Panels of Perception: Parasitic Architecture Reclaiming Lost Urban Dimensions

Recovering Lost Dimensions Within a Dense City

The Panels of Perception is a speculative parasitic architecture project that explores how an overlooked rooftop can become an active platform for culture, public gathering and sensory experimentation. Located within the dense urban environment of Santiago de Chile, the intervention occupies the upper level of an existing building without attempting to erase or replace its architectural host.

Instead, the project introduces a lightweight framework of structural beams, platforms, fabric surfaces and projection panels. Together, these elements form a flexible cultural installation that can operate as an exhibition venue, audiovisual environment, performance stage or experimental projection laboratory.

The proposal is guided by a central idea: every person experiences a unique version of reality. Time, space, memory, movement and individual sensitivity influence how people understand their surroundings. Architecture therefore becomes more than a physical enclosure. It becomes a mediator between objective conditions and personal perception.

Through this approach, The Panels of Perception seeks to recover dimensions of urban experience that are frequently lost within the density, speed and visual saturation of the contemporary city.

  Project: The Panels of Perception

Project by: Pablo Espinoza

Collaborators: Francisca Moya and Bruno Ramirez

Academic guidance: Fernando Carvajal and Tadea de Ipiña

Location: Santiago de Chile

Recognition: Honorable Mention entry of Parasitic Architecture 2020  

Architecture as a Framework for Perception

Every human being constructs a personal narrative of reality. This narrative emerges from what is physically observed, but it is also shaped by emotion, memory and consciousness.

The Panels of Perception translates this philosophical position into an architectural system. Rather than presenting the city as a fixed image, the project creates changing frames through which the surrounding environment can be interpreted.

Its panels function as screens, walls, visual filters and surfaces for projection. They alternately reveal, conceal and reinterpret the city. From one position, the installation appears as a dark object rising above the rooftop. From another, it becomes a scaffold framing the sky, the neighbouring buildings and the movement of visitors.

The architecture does not prescribe a single perspective. It provides a sequence of perceptual conditions, allowing every visitor to develop an individual relationship with the structure and its urban context.

Parasitic Architecture as an Urban Strategy

The project adopts parasitic architecture as a strategy for extending public activity into an underused layer of the city. The intervention depends on an existing building for its location, access and urban presence, yet it establishes a distinct architectural identity above the original structure.

This relationship between host and addition is carefully expressed. The proposal does not attempt to imitate the existing building. Its exposed structural frame, temporary surfaces and technological components remain visually independent from the solid mass of the architecture below.

The contrast makes the intervention legible as a new layer within the city.

By occupying the rooftop, the project expands the conventional understanding of public space. Instead of limiting civic activity to streets, plazas and ground-level courtyards, it positions cultural programs vertically above the city.

This elevated public environment allows visitors to encounter Santiago from a different perspective. Familiar buildings, roads and pedestrian routes can be viewed from an unfamiliar height, transforming the city itself into part of the exhibition.

Connecting Public and Private Urban Layers

The sectional and axonometric studies examine the relationship between the intervention, the Turri building and the surrounding pedestrian environment. These drawings reveal that access is not treated as a secondary technical requirement. It forms an important part of the project’s spatial narrative.

The existing building contains a clear distinction between private internal areas and publicly accessible routes. The rooftop intervention introduces another layer into this arrangement, connecting the cultural platform to public circulation while maintaining the privacy of the occupied floors below.

As visitors move vertically through the building, their perception of the city gradually changes. The journey begins at the scale of the street, passes through the enclosed mass of the host structure and concludes within an exposed rooftop environment.

This transition from ground to roof, enclosure to openness and private building to public cultural space reinforces the conceptual foundation of the project.

A Rooftop Transformed Into Public Infrastructure

The rooftop is treated as more than a residual surface. It becomes a new piece of cultural infrastructure capable of supporting collective activities within a dense urban district.

Low walls, open terraces and circulation zones organise movement around the central installation. The main structure rises above these horizontal elements as an inhabitable frame, drawing visitors toward its screens, projections and performance spaces.

The resulting composition remains open to the surrounding city. Visitors can circulate around the object, enter portions of the structure, observe activities from different levels and experience projected content from multiple viewpoints.

This openness prevents the installation from becoming an isolated architectural sculpture. Its meaning is produced through occupation, movement and interaction.

A Flexible Structure for Changing Cultural Programs

One of the most significant qualities of The Panels of Perception is its programmatic adaptability. The same architectural framework can accommodate several types of cultural activity without requiring a complete physical transformation.

The visual studies present four principal scenarios:

Art Gallery and Exhibition Venue

In its first configuration, the project operates as an elevated gallery. Artwork and visual material can be displayed across the central surfaces, while the surrounding framework creates platforms and viewing positions.

The open rooftop environment changes the conventional gallery experience. Art is no longer isolated from its context inside a neutral room. It is viewed alongside the skyline, changing weather, surrounding buildings and movement of people.

Audiovisual Exhibition Space

The second configuration uses the structure as an immersive audiovisual environment. Projection surfaces, dark fabric and controlled atmospheric effects create a setting for film, digital media and experimental visual installations.

The city remains present beyond the structure, allowing projected images and physical surroundings to overlap.

Stage for Music and Performance

The framework can also function as a stage for musical performances and public events. Its screens become visual backdrops, while the rooftop terrace provides space for audiences to gather.

This configuration turns an unused elevated surface into a social and cultural destination. Performance becomes visible not only to those occupying the rooftop but potentially to observers in surrounding buildings.

Experimental Projection Laboratory

A fourth scenario transforms the project into a laboratory for temporary images and conceptual projections. Text, graphics and abstract visual compositions can be displayed across the panels, continuously changing the appearance and meaning of the intervention.

The architecture becomes a communication device within the urban landscape.

Projection, Fabric and Atmospheric Effects

The project combines conventional structural components with media-based technologies. Steel framing provides the primary support, while black and white PVC fabric forms adaptable surfaces for projection, enclosure and visual contrast.

Projectors are positioned to direct images onto the central panels and fabric membranes. Steam valves and dispersal devices introduce a temporary atmospheric layer, allowing light to become visible within the air surrounding the structure.

Steam, shadow and projected imagery create scenes that are inherently unstable. They appear, transform and disappear. This temporality reinforces the project’s investigation of perception.

Visitors do not encounter the same environment twice. Changes in wind, daylight, projection content, viewing position and atmospheric density continuously alter the installation.

Architecture is therefore understood not as a finished object, but as an evolving field of sensory events.

Technical Clarity Behind the Concept

Although the project is highly conceptual, its presentation includes a detailed examination of construction and assembly.

The architectural system incorporates:

• Structural beams with welded and bolted connections
• Slatted floor surfaces
• Fabric tension anchors
• Projection panel and billboard joints
• Modular display panels
• Supporting braces and vertical frames
• Steam dispersal equipment
• Black and white PVC fabric structures
• Projectors and media equipment

The exposed framework gives the proposal an intentionally provisional character. Connections, braces, supports and technical devices remain visible rather than being hidden behind a finished facade.

This honesty allows the structure to communicate how it works. The installation appears capable of being assembled, modified and potentially removed without becoming a permanent extension of the host building.

Its temporary expression is not a weakness. It is central to the project’s identity as parasitic architecture.

The Billboard Reimagined as Cultural Space

The visual form of the intervention recalls the urban billboard, an object commonly used to distribute commercial images across the city. The project reinterprets this familiar infrastructure as a platform for collective expression.

Instead of displaying a fixed advertisement, its surfaces support art, music, moving images and temporary installations. The billboard is transformed from a passive visual object into an inhabitable cultural framework.

This shift is particularly significant within a dense city, where large surfaces often communicate messages without providing any opportunity for public participation. The Panels of Perception reverses this relationship.

People are not simply viewers of the screen. They occupy the structure, move behind it, gather beside it and contribute to the social activity surrounding it.

A New Perspective on Santiago de Chile

The dark visual language of the presentation emphasises the project’s relationship with night-time culture, projection and urban illumination. Yellow figures and highlighted structural elements identify movement across the site, contrasting with the dense charcoal background of the city.

The rooftop installation appears as both an architectural object and an optical instrument. It frames surrounding towers, reveals pedestrian patterns and creates a new landmark above the existing urban fabric.

From the street, it may be perceived as a changing image or illuminated surface. From the rooftop, it becomes a space of participation. From neighbouring buildings, it operates as a cultural signal within the skyline.

Each position produces a different understanding of the same intervention.

Public Space Beyond the Ground Plane

Contemporary cities often contain numerous inaccessible or underused surfaces. Rooftops, service zones, structural voids and residual areas remain disconnected from everyday public life.

The Panels of Perception demonstrates how parasitic architecture can activate these spaces without requiring extensive demolition or new land development. By attaching a flexible program to an existing structure, the project introduces public value into a location that might otherwise remain unused.

Its importance lies not only in the physical occupation of the rooftop but also in the recovery of a neglected urban viewpoint.

The project allows inhabitants to observe their city from above, reconsider relationships between buildings and rediscover spatial dimensions hidden by the routines of street-level movement.

Honorable Mention in Parasitic Architecture 2020

The Panels of Perception was recognised as an Honorable Mention entry of Parasitic Architecture 2020.

The proposal combines philosophical inquiry, urban analysis, structural thinking and adaptable cultural programming. Its architectural language remains intentionally open, allowing projected imagery, atmospheric effects and human occupation to determine how the intervention is experienced.

The project was developed by Pablo Espinoza, with Francisca Moya and Bruno Ramirez, under the academic guidance of Fernando Carvajal and Tadea de Ipiña.

Architecture That Changes With Its Observer

The Panels of Perception does not attempt to create a singular or permanent urban image. It constructs a framework through which multiple realities can emerge.

Its meaning changes according to the observer, the event, the time of day and the projected content. A rigid structural skeleton supports an architecture of temporary experiences, while an overlooked rooftop becomes a stage for public life.

Through this transformation, the proposal demonstrates the potential of parasitic architecture to recover unused space, extend cultural activity and challenge conventional boundaries between building, media and public realm.

The project ultimately suggests that architecture does not need to occupy more land to create meaningful urban experiences. It can attach itself carefully to what already exists, reveal forgotten dimensions of the city and provide new ways of seeing familiar surroundings.