Endless Landscape: Sleep Research Centre Part 2 Project 2011 Petra Matar American University of Sharjah | UAE “There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition.” -Rod SterlingThe Empty Quarter Desert is one of the largest sand deserts in the world located in the Middle East. Part of it is in the United Arab Emirates. In its landscape the horizon dissolves into endless undulations of wind-formed dunes. The infinite landscape, mirage and the hypnotic character of Empty Quarter Desert inspires the proposal of a structure which is suspended in time as a prismatic cantilever and provides spaces and illusions for therapy as a sleep disorder research centre. The endless quality of a forced perspective core echoes the mystifying nature of sleep when viewed at the beginning, and as patients progress through their treatment, they understand their disorder represented by the diagrammatic clarity of viewing the core from the other end of the forced perspective. Tutor(s) George Katodrytis