What Is "Parallax"?

Did you know, that parallax is as much a part of our everyday lives as the air we breathe? This makes it difficult for us to even notice it! Yet, parallax plays a fundamental role in how we experience architecture and the space around us. "Parallax" is an optics term. It deals with a phenomenon of perception in which the relationship of objects in our environment seems to change as we change our location. Think of how a building, and the objects in front of and behind it, change in appearance as you walk down the block. Now you're thinking like an architect.

As we move through space, our unique point of view is constantly changing. As our point of view changes, objects in the foreground seem to move in relation to objects in the background. Try this: Hold a pencil at arm's length, focusing on it. Close one eye, then the other. The background appears to move in relation to the pencil. This apparent change in the relation between background and foreground is parallax.

But wait, there's more...The instant we begin moving through space, our field of view becomes a fluid interplay of form, space, and light. We are surrounded by continuously shifting physical relationships that provide us with a multitude of sensations and subtle influences.

Set into motion by our movement through space, this lyrical interplay is one of the central delights of human experience. It is a sensation we depend on for orienting to our surroundings, and the basis for our enjoyment of all great architecture.

We at Parallax Associates adopted this word for our corporate identity not just because of its relevance to how we experience space, but because parallax is a powerful metaphor for the dynamic richness of architecture. Architecture is experienced as both background and foreground in ways that involve much more than the sensation of motion through space. A new building stands in the foreground of human culture and is dynamically related to a multitude of "backgrounds." It is constantly measured against adjacent buildings, it makes references to the history of its site, it expresses community values, and it becomes part of the evolving panorama of architectural history.