PRIORITISING THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE IN DESIGN
Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction 3
2.0 Heidegger, Norberg-Shultz and Merleau-Ponty 4
3.0 The Application of Phenomenological Principals in the work of Steven Holl 6
Thoughts 9
Glossary 10
Websites 10
Referenced Images 10
Bibliography 11
Notes 12
Architecture Phenomenology
Philosophy Movement
Spaces Dwelling
Design Experience
Theory
KEYWORDS
1.0 Introduction
Now it is time that gods emerge
From things by which we dwell …
Rainer Maria Rilke (Insel ed., II, 185)
Architects design spaces that are meant to be inhabited, places that are meant to be interacted with. Humans need shelter from the elements, protection from nature’s worst privations and a place to feel secure. But why is it that structures built from inanimate parts can stir within us such strong emotional responses? Responses that can vary from a sense of home to one of dread and foreboding!
Juhani Pallasmaa asks,
“Why do so very few modern buildings appeal to our feelings, when almost any anonymous house...or the most unpretentious farm outbuilding gives us a sense of familiarity and pleasure?”
While Pallasmaa’s question presupposes that there is a clear distinction between past and present in the built form. His questioning of the feelings that are aroused by our perception of these buildings, buildings that are familiar to us, still stands. It thus follows that if we want to create spaces that evoke desirable feelings and are fit to inhabit, we must firstly question how we derive our understanding of the world around us. How do we begin to comprehend the things that we see and engage with our five senses? The incorporation of ideas generated by philosophers, such as...
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...Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Embodied Image – Imagination and Imagery in Architecture. John Wiley & Sons: Chichester, 2011.
Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes of The Skin ‐ Architecture and the Senses. John Wiley & Sons: Etobicoke, ON, 2005.
Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Thinking Hand – Existential and Embodied Wisdom in Architecture. John Wiley & Sons: Chichester, 2009.
Zumthor, Peter. Atmospheres. Birkhauser: Boston, 2005.
Dreyfus & Dreyfus Sense and Nonsense, trans., Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1964
Holl, S., 1996. Intertwining (NY: Princeton Architectural Press).
Holl, S., 2000. Parallax (Basel: Birkhäuser).
Moran, D., 2000. Introduction to Phenomenology (London: Routledge).
Moran, D., 2005. Edmund Husserl: Founder of Phenomenology (Cambridge: Polity Press).
Norberg-Schulz, C., 2000. Architecture: Presence, Language, Place (Milan: Akir).
In his opinionated book, From Bauhaus to Our House, Tom Wolfe describes his views on the way architecture has framed our modern world. He frames his book long essay with an excerpt from America the Beautiful, "O Beautiful, for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain, has there ever been another place on earth where so many people of wealth and power have paid for and put up with so much architecture they detested as within thy blessed borders today? . . . Every child goes to school in a building that looks like a duplicating-machine replacement-parts wholesale distribution warehouse . . . Every new $900,000 summer house in the north woods of Michigan or on the shore of Long Island has so many pipe railings, ramps, hob-tread metal spiral stairways, sheets of industrial plate glass, banks of tungsten-halogen lamps, and white cylindrical shapes, it looks like an insecticide refinery." (Wolfe 1) This quote, in short, is the premise of his critique. He does not like the way modern architecture
Gehry draws his inspiration from famous paintings such as the Madonna and Child which he qualifies as a “strategy for architecture” (Friedman M. , 2003, p. 42) and which he used as an inspiration for a project in Mexico . Through his interpretation of the paintings and artwork, Gehry looked for a new kind of architecture. His search for a new type of architecture culminated in 1978 with his own house in Santa Monica. What was once a traditional Californian house would be redesigned to become one of the most important and revolutionary designs of the 20th century, giving Gehry international prestige and fame. Frank Gehry’s “Own House” uses a mixture of corrugated metal, plywood, chain link and asphalt to construct a new envelope for an existing typical Californian house. This house has been inspired by Joseph Cornell, Ed Moses and Bob Rauschenberg. Gehry comments on his house by saying that there was something “magical” (Friedman M. , 2003, p. 54) about it. He admits having “followed the end of his [my] nose” (Friedman M. , 2003, p. 54) when it came to constructing the “new” house, which led Arthur Drexler, former Director...
Using the quote by Habermas as a starting point, select up to two buildings designed in the twentieth century and examine what ‘sudden, shocking encounters’ they have encountered, or created. Analyse the building’s meanings as a demonstration of an avant-garde, or potentially arriere-garde, position.
(Image taken from Tranchtenberg, Marvin, Isabelle Hyman. Architecture: From Prehistory to Postmodernity. Second Edition. Prentice Hall, Inc. New Jersey: 2002.)
As someone with a passion for writing, my final project will be an extended expository essay about the history of homebuilding from ancient to modern times. It will discuss the different types of dwellings throughout recorded human history from the perspective of how art and culture influences building design. This will fulfill my own curiosity to understand the different influences on homebuilding and design over the years and how people have dealt with these changes.
But these contrived differences give rise to esthetic difficulties too. Because inherent differences—those that come from genuinely differing uses—are lacking among the buildings and their settings, the contrivances repre...
To that end, he included ornamentation, allusion, quotation, irony, wit, mannerism, color, and decoration to his architectural repertoire. Fundamentally, Venturi never forgot who architects design: people. He placed meticulous effort on architectural scale, variety, and visual detail to make buildings meaningful and vivid for humanity. Venturi applied these theories in practice in the Vanna Venturi House, a private residence he constructed for his mother. The project’s interior focuses on the individual needs of ordinary people, which epitomizes Venturi’s overriding ethos.
True architects are needed to create architectural beauty and they do so by using “elements which are capable of affecting our senses, and of rewarding the desire of our eyes...the sight of them affects us immediately” (16). Le Corbusier’s says that we must standardize architecture with respect to function so that we can mass produce it until we perfect its aesthetic through competition and innovation. Le Corbusier believed that Architecture schools weren’t teaching students correctly and that engineers would be the ones who save architecture. Architecture is a thing of plastic emotion. “It should use elements capable of striking our senses, of satisfying our visual desires…arranging them in a way that the sight of them clearly affects
The author explains architecture as an identification of place. Architecture starts with establishing a place. We define ‘place’ as a layout of architectural elements that seem to accommodate, or offer the possibility of accommodation to, a person, an activity, a mood, etc. We identify a sofa as a place to sit and relax, and a kitchen as a place to cook food. Architecture is about identifying and organizing ‘places’ for human use.
“What do we mean when we speak of architectural quality? Quality in architecture […] is to me when a building manages to move me. What on earth is it that moves me? How can I get it into my own work? […] How do people design things with such a beautiful, natural presence, things that move me every single time. On word for it is Atmosphere”
Vidler, Anthony. The writing of the walls: Architectural theory in the late enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1987.
Jencks believes “the glass-and-steel box has become the single most used form in Modern Architecture and it signifies throughout the world ‘office building’” (27). Thus, modern architecture is univalent in terms of form, in other words it is designed around one out of a few basic values using a limited number of materials and right angles. In...
However, architecture is not just the future, after all, buildings are intended to be viewed, traversed and lived by us, people. Despite this, many architects today rarely think deeply about human nature, disregarding their main subject matter in favour for efficiency and an architecture of spectacle. In this there seems to be a misconception that underlies much of architecture, that is, human’s relationship with the city, the building and nature. In much of today’s architecture, people are treated with as much concern much as we treat cars, purely mechanically. The post-modern search for the ‘new’ and ‘novel’ has come to disregard the profound affect design has on our lives, impacting our senses, shaping our psyche and disposition.
Over the last four years of studying architecture, I have seen the power that it has to shape communities, shape lives, and to create new ways that people interact with each other. The way architecture can help enhance living and allow for creation of new interactions of people is one of the reasons I find the subject so interesting. The way architecture can shape a whole culture and the way that the culture then in turn shapes the architecture is fascinating to me. Architecture is also not a static subject, it is constantly evolving and adapting with time to take on new forms, create new spaces, and to provide commentary on the history of our time on Earth. The depth that architecture has, and the evolution of the subject is something I have fallen in love with through my study of it. However, when I first started out studying architecture, I had no idea of the depth that the subject had, and it was an incredibly daunting realization; however, it was as equally exciting. I have always had a love for learning and architecture has just fueled that fire. Even after completing my bachelors degree, the learning has not stopped. I get to learn something new about architecture daily, and getting to say that is an opportunity I am thankful to have. It is not just about the learning however, its
In Laugier’s book, “An Essay on Architecture,” he addresses early architects’ ignorance. Laugier explains how architects did not study nature and the set rules nature has already created for us. In his Essay, he reveals the flaws that many early buildings throughout Europe posses. Some of the more general flaws he exposes are disproportioning in architectural design, unnecessary placement, and ignoring the primitive and original purpose of a building all together. Therefore, Laugier believes appropriate and appealing architecture can only be designed and crafted when the architect behind the building has followed the rules of nature.