During the reading of Alison Smithson article I went deeper in understanding what does it mean “knowledge in nature”.
In fact Saint Jerome during his live was addicted (if it possible to say like this) to knowledge,
but because of time when he lived in some moments it was difficult. Then through time different painters started to depict him in theirs paintings.
They were always depict  him in a different spaces with different details and this spaces were individual understanding of them.

I understand that details in painting were symbolize how Saint Jerome was feeling a life.
I want to transform it to how should Architect feel live in my opinion.
Architect should be as a conductor from environment around to people.
Juan Nuvel always says that  sacred duty of architect is to send positive emotions  through architecture you build to people.
If we will go deeper, we can understand from where architect can find positive emotions.
They are around. In food, drinks, music, movies, paintings, etc. But emotions, are not only  positive feelings. It is also inspiration and knowledge.
When you can study from nature around, you can find absolutely new horizons in what you design.
Thats what green architecture means. You explore enviroment around and then you use that knowledge to optimize, to integrate your ideas in live.
And to send your feelings.

How can we convey our atmospheric sensual feeling of  the matter to others through the quiet physical materials?  What is the meaning of the environment for every person? Can we give a definite  line between the spaces? Is the atmosphere is the space between the walls or can it include kinds of constructions and natural elements?

Alison Smithson in her article speaks about the way of representation of the allegory of the Saint Jerome’s two habitats through the paintings. Several of them show the pure idea of the perfect place for studying  as a Desert – burned-in-clarity, open-minded, giving the pristine knowledge. And on the other hand we see kind of a protected domestic ordered space full of books, tools, with lots of comfort abilities and civilised services. But the purpose of these two polar spaces is the same and they achieve this goal through people’s understanding of atmosphere.

This understanding can be motivated by various combinations of elements. Mark Wigley says that even the air and the mood can change the perception of the space. Everything is related and we should search for these relations.

And going back to the borders the point is what defines them, even the definition of the space can be changing.

Different atmospheres can be perceived in one same space. http://www.bloodandchampagne.com/2012/11/19/112/

Atmosphere is the space in which we inhabit. It is summarized to the intangible effects we perceive in a place. There is no architecture without an atmosphere. It goes beyond the constructed space. Atmosphere surrounds the space between the building and its surroundings.

There are architects that can disregard atmosphere and there are others that base their designs around the concept of atmosphere. Frank Lloyd Wright is the perfect example for an architect of atmosphere. He states that people are rooted to atmosphere whether they want to or not. For him atmosphere is created when every particle of the design focuses on one same idea. In his drawings the atmosphere can be clearly perceived as a set of effects, always producing an ideal atmosphere. Sometimes, the atmosphere and the building itself merge one into the other.

Architecture is compared to décor because it is the decorated structure in which atmosphere can happen.  Atmosphere does not need a building, but it is the building that gives it a location. Architecture is a mix of atmospheres. One passes from one atmosphere to the other.

Guy Debord, a situationist architect, believes architecture is pure atmosphere and we could change the way we do architecture by using the “radical potential of atmosphere”. By this, the building and the architect come out of the picture. He states that “the city is made up of an endless mix of atmospheres” and that these atmospheres should be clearly defined one from the other. By these means analyze each one and reconstruct the city and the society. He then figured out that society molds its own atmosphere and the architect’s role vanishes.

But architects will always try to take control of the atmosphere surrounding their projects even though they want to embrace it or not because it is the nature of an architect.

Stating Le Corbusier: “The daily life of an architect can create an atmosphere in which it can grow.” For him, atmosphere cannot be taught. One learns to design atmosphere from the experienced effects of a particular atmosphere.

Every project has its own atmosphere, which cannot be rejected. It is intangible and indefinable. It is the essential part of architecture. The architect’s role is to create the relationship between the building and its atmosphere and not embrace only one of the two.

An interesting research theme would be “the Situationist’s attempt to redefine architecture as pure atmospheric”; based on Guy Debord’s ‘Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography’ (1955). How are the different atmospheres in a society? What is the relationship between the people, the building and the atmosphere? At the end, figure out how significant is the role of the architect in the design of atmosphere and what control does he have over it.

What is the role of an architect and how architecture has been transformed nowadays, where human beings live between different environments? Virtual reality changed radically the perception of both space and time. According to Manuel Castells we live in the space of flows. Architecture becomes more complex and relations appear to be crucial. Mark Wigley, in his text, discusses the controversial relation between creating architecture and atmosphere. 

He defines the atmosphere within architectural entities as the intangible effect which people perceive with their senses. From his point of view, designing/constructing architecture and creating atmosphere are inextricable. Every single decision that an architect makes, creates a different environment, either deliberately or accidentally.

Building envelops are not identified as physical limits creating enclaves or exclaves but as the in-between space among different environments. The same occurs in urban scale. Concerning the atmosphere within a building, objects (furnishing, decor) play a vital role. Alternating them we can create different ambience-function opposing to the statement “form follows function” or “function follows form”. On the contrary, the physical and thermodynamic principles do not change, so according to Philippe Rahm “form and function should follow the climate”. Consequently, interaction grows as architects’ main concern. Interaction between: a) Nature (landscape, weather conditions etc.) and artificial environment, b) Users and buildings and c) Humans.

By mentioning quotes and drawings of significant architects the author creates juxtaposition between disparate notions, either for or against the concept of atmosphere. Furthermore, the different representation techniques of Le Corbusier and F. L. Wright lead to two opposed teaching techniques of architecture. The first is based on positional, linear relations while the latter deals with atmospherical, nonlinear relations. This brings us to a fundamental question: Which is the best way to teach architecture nowadays that hand drawings have been replaced by computer aided design and programming languages?

While I was reading the aforementioned text my concern about subjectivity in architecture was aroused. If we take for granted that architecture is nothing more than creating an ambient environment how can we regulate objectively many different parameters simultaneously? Who determines which architectural design is good or bad? Is there any manual that we can read in order to answer this question or it depends on our personal values and expectations?

In Philippe Rahm’s thinking the architecture is therefore mold according to the climate conditions: heat, humidity, air flows shape the space and allow the functions and its users’ behaviours to find a place in it, while the simulation of the radiation, convection, conduction, evaporation and pressure aims to reproduce a natural environment into the architecture. Effectively, the climate assume the role of Architecture, while the Architecture, in its forms and functions, becomes the vehicle to create a climate environment. Eventually, his architectural approach doesn’t want to establish an open dialog with the Nature, investigating the blurry and unclear space between the black and the white as in Fushimoto’s research. He is not even creating a physical contoured space as for the Alison Smithson’s grotto, but rather an atmosphere of trascendence, a series of sensations, feelings and mapped motions borrowed from the Nature and enclosed in a timeless space.

Dealing only with the air and through the integration of invisible limits, Rham’s effort is an envelope of atmospheres, an invisible architecture of flows modeling the livable space. His sense of Architecture is a poetic and technological approach to the creation of  a comfortable space, made by undefined colors and different air densities.

Nevertheless, the Architecture is reduced to a filter- if not a wall- between man and Nature. It’s not the external climate that shape the Architecture in its forms and programmes, but it is rather a hi-tech and controlled reproduction of it. The need to control the climate derives from a modern society which is not anymore able to deal within an ‘unfriendly’ environment. The technology helps the human being to reach a better comfort level, but at the same time permits the growth of new and more sophisticated needs. Since the artificial environment is affecting the natural sphere, this relation is going to be an endless escape from a reunion with Nature. Perhaps, an advanced architecture should be even that one that forces the human being to have a natural- more than artificial- relationship of acceptance with the climate and its ‘caprices’.

Of Roots, Possibilities, and the Spaces in Between

Sou Fujimoto’s philosophy is defined that architecture and nature have this space in between – a space for people not to just live in but rather to explore and fulfill it by themselves; a space that creates a natural environment and a metamorphic reaction or movement created by human behavior; a space that mimics and creates a new world merging the soul of nature with the body of architecture, an opposing two that creates that melody and overall sense of the in-between space.

Architecture is about accidents leading to a metamorphic reaction that creates an environment where humans move along with nature in the most natural ways. Fujimoto explains that vibrant interplay between nature and architecture is continuously in harmony as blending the internal and external. And although its essence has manifested itself in architecture as many different forms, it is most complex precisely because it has not been realized. However wildly imaginative a project may be, it is important to believe that one day it will be built; believing that there is a nest in a cave, a space in between that merges architecture and nature as one, because such conviction can become a powerful source of energy for great architecture. Even if it is never realized, we must not fall victim to pessimism but continue to believe that our imaginative endeavors will bear fruit in one form or another someday in the future.

In Fujimoto’s “Primitive Future,” I was also able to conclude that Architecture is a constant contradiction. It requires you to look to the left, to look to the right, and not miss the important part: the in between.

First, you have to go back to where it begins: from dust, from the dark, from the roots, from when it was just an idea in somebody else’s head, from nothing that translates to everything. You have to go back, step back, to be able to appreciate and move forward.

Second, you have to be able to catch up with it [Architecture] and its’ continuous evolution; and not just catch up, but to master the art of innovation. You have to be able to recognize the “diversity of nature, the lucidity of artifice” and their significant role to serve and support each other. In Architecture, you have to be able to recreate nature without mere desperation and conscious effort to do so.

Third, we find that the grey areas, the undiscovered, the unexplored are equally, if not more interesting than the translucence of the more usual design; we find clarity between the logical and irrational—all of which can be explored in Fujimoto’s concepts of nest or cave, gradation, musical notation without the staves, house as city / city as house, nesting, prior to division, locale, architecture as cloud, garden, inside out / outside in, and exterior envelopes, among others.

 Possibilities:

Fujimoto, in the book’s essence, led me to the curiosity of what would it be like, if all space has this in between, a blurred space or a gradual space within a space.It led me to feed my curiosity and find ways to create a space that would be one with nature and materiality, being true to the materials and architecture led by nature, and true to nature; a space that attracts people to move naturally and freely; a space that goes through beyond in between, a space that would build harmony with the paradigm and anti-paradigm of nature and architecture… a space for the two in- between metamorphosis, A rationality of the unknown and opening up for the new possibilities.

The future of Architecture belongs to those who go back to its’ roots, and see the infinite possibilities from both the seen and unseen spaces in between; to those who simplify and convert complexities to functional design while still maintaining the artistic mystery behind them; to those who connect the dots, or create the dots when lacking, to make something beautiful out of it – regardless how simplistic or elaborate. The future of Architecture belongs to those who understand the correlation of things, the coexistence of various life forms; to those who see utter beauty in the damaged. The future of Architecture belongs not to those who think outside the box, but to those who think without the box. There is no box, no walls – just spaces and the limitless potentials they represent.

The architecture of the atmosphere

What is the atmosphere? Is it gas that surround the earth? Is it the climate? Is it the sound and smell of living creatures that fill in a certain space? The text written by Mark Wigley raises a discourse about ‘atmosphere’ in relevance to architecture. He believes that “to construct a building is to construct such an atmosphere” so what you feel when you enter  a building is the atmosphere. To enter a building is to walk from one atmosphere to another. As if the walk is infinite, no inside, no outside.

Wigley points out the concept of atmosphere associated with architects that it either chases those who try to run from it or run away from those who try to chase it. How is that?

In this text, there are examples of both case. Such as Frank Lloyd Wright’s drawing, the architect insisted that powerful architecture can not be directly perceived, it’s not in the walls, the floors or the decoration, it surrounds people who root in it. Created by integrating every single detail and by thinking as a whole, the intangible ambience automatically wraps around, in between the buildings or fill up the living space. Unlike the later generation of architects, he trusted in this power of architecture, rather than making a powerful drawing and hoping to convince the audience that their designs will deliver some kind of special feeling when entering to each part of the project.

Another example was described by the attempt of a situationist from Guy Debord’s “Introduction to a Critique of Urban Geography of 1955″, to redefine architecture as pure atmospherics. The situationists proposed the removal of any indistinct border zones between intense ambiences in order to redesign the architecture by exploiting the radical potential of atmosphere.

There were also other situationists that had been working on different approaches on experience of atmosphere in architecture.

In 1958, Debord and Constrant Nieuwenhuys’ “Amsterdam Declaration” claimed that to redesign a city, situationist architects had to start with the development of complete decors.

In 1953, Ivan Chtcheglov’s “Formularly for a New Urbanism  had introduced the idea of “constructing situations by playing with changeable decoration.

1956 Constant Nieuwenhuys proposed “New Babylon”, the project is this massive machine that produces changing atmosphere, to prove that atmosphere can be made with precise calculation. Debord later rejected this project he called “ambience-city” along with other situationist architect who started to argue that  the atmosphere can no be planed that way. It is rather defined by the users. This denotes that the architects are no longer in control of atmosphere in architecture.

Wigley seemed to agree on this situation, from the text, he believes that there was no way to learn how to create atmosphere. This intangible ambience can not be designed or predicted. Architects as special effect producers had to learn that the drawing they produced with fancy lines that create powerful effect to the audience and the atmosphere in architecture are distinct. The point where the construction stopped is where the atmosphere begin to grow and to define the architecture itself.

// Totally agree on that but humbly, I would like to see the power of technology and advanced science to step into this controversial. Half a century is more than enough to drift the direction of architecture wave. Increasing in modern technology in life has been the most significant part in the last leap of mankind. May be there is a way to argue to Wright and that last part of Wigley’s text by using advanced architecture as a weapon. Is it time for a new era of simulated theatrical atmosphere in architecture? Imagine today is a nice day, sunny outside, with light breeze, we are working in front of a computer, in an enclosed space, there is noises outside, cars on the street, I asked, Can you turn on some beach music? I want to go to the beach. And there it is, the ambience of the whole living space drifted. So what happened? We, the user of the space not an architect, just designed our own atmosphere? from a list of music? composed by musician? The same thing might apply here. Architects are the musicians. How do we sell our music to the user?

Summary of T3-Wigley-Arch Atmosphere-Daidalos68-1998

The text by Mark Wigley deals with the atmosphere in the context of the buildings. The atmosphere is outside the buildings and the atmosphere occupies the space between a building and its context. The atmosphere activates your senses. The atmosphere can be physical as fx moisture and sounds, and gets psychosocial in the combination of components. There are infinite possibilities of combinations.

In the explanation of architecture, the architects uses the atmosphere to improve the understanding of their design concepts. For instance, Frank Lloyd Wright is using the nature and atmosphere active in his sketches. The skies is turned into geometrical horizontal lines in the project for the H.C. Price Company Büroturm 1952, Oklahoma, which is adding strength to the height of the building, and the horizontal slices in the building. The atmosphere becomes a part of the design.

In the history the architect has been turned into a “specialist” in special effects. The architects let the building (the architect) control the atmosphere rather than the atmosphere is controlling the atmosphere. But the fact is, that the atmosphere cannot be controlled, though many architects think that the can.

The situationist tried to control and analyze the atmosphere. They defined architecture as pure atmosphere – a redefinition of architecture.  The movement, in this topic led by Debord, was trying the make a new awareness of the atmospheric effect in the context of the city itself, by creating new varieties of emotional feelings and experiences, by using urban décors. The décors create and control the atmosphere.  The ideas is carried out in the project of the “new Babylon” a waste machine for producing atmosphere made by Constant Niewenhuys. The project placed the man before the structures, and the structures should facilitate the man to live a nomadic life. The world should be constructed by users. Constant were working for the project for 20 years, but left him with the paradocs, that the uncontrolled architecture displaces the architect.

Situationists 2013 and “one city”

Maybe Constant Niewenhuys project of New Babylon was carried out to early. Today we have  more tools to map, analyze and execute different décors, which can be used in the city. Maybe today it is the right time to execute the New Babylon with software and hardware tools as the Arduino to control new atmospheres and defining a new era of interactive architecture controlled by the user. But still, where does that put the architect and the depth of the architecture?

Toyo Ito mentioned (in learning from a tree), that the architecture in general is transforming more and more into “skin” architecture in for example Tokyo. The projects are made out of the value of the land rather than the value of the architecture. Toyo Ito says that we should learn from the nature to the nature and ask us self; what is architecture for?

The relation from the nature and the city has been a given parameters for many architects. But most architects focus on few elements of the nature, like the tree. To learn from the nature, I think that we should see the nature as a whole element as we understand and see cities. The nature is the whole world, so why not see the whole world as one city?

To see the whole world as one city can maybe help us to try to understand and control the atmosphere. To blend the city and nature as one element. Like the Sou Fujimotos N-house is like a city and make a metaphorical relation to the city, by having a structure like the city. The house erase the separation of a house and the city.  Sou Fujimoto mentioned in his reading (Primitive Future), that the best architecture arise from the gradiation (city/nature, in/out etc). Our buildings should not have strictly borders and the atmosphere should not stop at the facade. Imaging a city without borders, like the nature, where a space is another space. Where an atmosphere replaces another with a single footstep (like the situationists).

My research

My research could be on this topic; how to see the world as one city. But also with a more sustainable twist. I have noticed that each specific architecture in the different cities I have visited has an enormous impact on people’s lives. This has made me challenge myself to learn more about how buildings are constructed, and how they interact with their surroundings. In my opinion it is not the buildings in themselves that are the solutions to our problems of dealing with the changing climate. I feel more dedicated to issues around how buildings affect people, and I am particularly excited about buildings’ potential to influence people´s habits towards sustainability. Could the atmospherically relation to the nature, help to influence peoples habits? How is the relation between the senses (atmosphere) and peoples actions (habits)? And could the whole “city” be transformed into different zones as Philippe Rahm (Form and function follow climate)? These could be few of the questions to my research.

To visualize the “new city”, I have made a diagram/drawing of it.