Presence, by Design: Architectural Pauses in a Hyperactive World

By Raffi Arzoumanian

"Carefully designed architecture doesn’t demand our attention with beeps and pings; it gently suggests that we pay attention. To where we are. To how it feels. To what’s around us.”

Architecture as Antidote 

In a time when the world races past our fingertips—news alerts, push notifications, status updates—it’s easy to feel that life happens to us rather than through us. Amid this blur, architecture has a peculiar superpower: it can slow us down. 

Not in the sense of stopping us, but in offering something more generous: room. Room to gather ourselves, to breathe, to arrive. Carefully designed architecture doesn’t demand our attention with beeps and pings; it gently suggests that we pay attention. To where we are. To how it feels. To what’s around us. 

That’s the balancing act. In an age of constant stimuli, the built environment can give us a moment back. 

Telling Stories Without Shouting 

There was a time when buildings told their stories in calmer, more static tones. A cathedral’s stained glass might unfold the gospel over centuries. A courthouse façade, inscribed with ideals, spoke to civic purpose. Even homes curated memory with a few framed photos—humble yet meaningful markers of personal history. 

But today, space is rarely permitted to be quiet. Step into any commercial lobby and it’s a barrage: weather reports, company stock prices, wayfinding signage—all before you know where to look. 

In a time of over communication, architecture must carefully rethink how it communicates. Clarity becomes more important than complexity. Spaces must invite choice: to look, to linger, or simply to be. The goal is not to silence information but to orchestrate how and when it arrives. 

For this reason, much of my design work favors simplicity. Austere palettes, restrained materiality, and considered sequencing. An opportunity for a breath between movements, a frame around what matters. 

Building Pauses into the Experience: Three Examples 

Designing for presence requires structure that creates an intentional unfolding of experience. It starts with layering. This approach has taken many forms, depending on context and program, but it always begins with the same intent: give people much-needed moments of stillness, reflection, or awareness. 

At the Matrix Club, a 75,000 SF arts, performance, and private event venue, the building is often alive with activity. With such a varied program, a less thoughtful approach might plunge guests directly into that world. Instead, we created a threshold: a large, museum-like vestibule. One wall displays an array of musical instruments. It doesn’t move, flash, or speak. It simply suggests: “This is a place of music, of celebration.” 

Just past that is a fountain. Then, a bar. Then screens and signage with practical direction. Each component lives in its own spatial and sensory layer. This gives guests time to register their surroundings rather than feel ambushed by them. They’re not just walking through a space; they’re gradually inhabiting it. 

In sacred spaces, moments for contemplation are key to the experience. For the Elim Church, we wanted visitors to experience a subtle transition from the hectic outside world to the quiet and calm of the inner sanctuary of the church. To do this, we first created a modest pre-function space with lower ceilings. Coming in from the limitless outdoors, this narrowing provides an opportunity to readjust to a different environment by offering a moment of pause.  

Then, a widening. The sanctuary reveals itself: open, light-filled, calm. The pre-function space isn’t just an entryway; it’s a transition that encourages visitors to begin re-focusing on the spiritual. The act of moving from one space to another becomes part of the experience of worship, not separate from it. 

Pauses matter in the home as well. In a private residential project still under construction,  upon entering, all attention is drawn to a striking, sculptural stair. It is the only focal point. Materials are pared down. There’s little to distract. The entryway’s minimalistic design helps to de-clutter the visitor’s mind and redirect their attention to the specificities of this environment. 

Only after turning a corner does the full sweep of the house reveal itself: the openness, the size, the fireplace, and the quality of the finishes. The visitor is able to fully enjoy and absorb this space after being given the opportunity to pause at the start.  

Designing for Presence 

We cannot subtract the world’s noise. But a thoughtfully designed space can provide a respite from it.  

Good architecture doesn’t compete with distraction—it creates clarity. It offers a counterbalance, not by erasing complexity but by guiding how it is experienced. It values pacing, framing, and silence. 

Design, at its best, creates space not just for bodies, but for thoughts. For stillness. For decision. And occasionally, for wonder. 

This is the kind of work we strive for—spaces that honor the world’s pace, but that also give us just enough distance to feel present inside it.