There are various ways to raise confusion.
The project examples show us that a way to raise this feeling is to use contrast with its environment. This contrast can be achieved with deviating shapes, colour and/or material.
Material can play a big part in the creation of confusion, for example: the use of reflecting materials to create a disorienting feeling. One’s expectations can also be subverted by using a material that is normally used for luxurious functions, in a very ordinary programme. For example, a public toilet executed in marble.
Yoro Park is a good example that uses confusion as a way to subvert one’s expectations. In the experience park, you find carefully considered constructions of undulating planes, shifting colours and disorienting spaces. These spaces are very different from what you are used to, making you uncertain how to act and move yourself around them, thus making you confused.Large repetition of shapes at human scale can also raise a uncertain feeling. An example of this is the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. The memorial consists of 2711 abstract concrete slabs that represent a ordered system that has lost touch with human reason. Visitors have described the monument as isolating, in between the slabs they are separated from the street noise and sights of Berlin and get lost.
Confusion is often found together with curiosity, probably because confusion makes us curious. When you see something you do not understand, you usually have a desire to know more about it.