Foto by: CSABA DIGLICS, June 15, 2012
Case Study: “View House” by: Diego Arraigada and Johnston Marklee
Reading: “The Architecture of Atmoshpere” by: Mark Wigley
Atmosphere: Tangible or Intangible?
Is an atmosphere something that architects can construct? Is it what comes just after the physical construction and surrounds the building? Is it some sensuous emission of intangible effects? All of this doubts come to my mind when reading “The Architecture of Atmosphere” by Mark Wigley, in which he affirms that the goal of architects to control impalpable elements is a never-ending attempt. As architects we can envision projects that take into account and analyze most of the elements that are in the environment, to connect the changing climates with the material object, creating a relation between the atmosphere and the building. However Wigley expresses that trying to control the atmosphere through architecture is just a fragile illusion.
By defining atmosphere as everything that surrounds the architecture (nature), then controlling it will be a failed intent. In this case the atmosphere will be the one dictating the architect what is the correct approach of design to be able to adapt to the environment instead of imposing in it. On the other hand if atmosphere is considered as an intangible sensation that the users can feel in an unconscious way, then the shapes, colors, textures, lights, smells and temperatures can be molded to create different atmospheres. By transforming these, architects are not controlling the atmosphere, since there are external inputs, like the users behavior, that can’t be regulated.
In frank Lloyd Wright’s and in Le Corbusier’s sketches we can see how architects think that their buildings are interfering in the existing environment and pretending to create new atmospherically systems. When Wright draws the sky as a canvas for the building, Le Corbusier extends lines from the build to the sky.
On the View House, Diego Arraigado and Johnston Marklee, the architects, say that they integrated the landscape with the house but still maintained the privacy from the neighbors. This 300 square meter sculptural house has a quiet interior with smooth white walls and a contrasting concrete exterior with no primary façade. Through a positional logic system the architects subtract parts of the volume and place windows to relate the exterior with the interior. By having windows that create different light effects and having different views of the nature around, the architects try to create an ambient, but can we really dictate this atmosphere when nature is always changing and human beings are always fluctuating?
This mystic background that always exists, that we can’t see or touch, but we do feel it, is one of the topics that I would personally like to research. I don’t think that the role of an architect is to control atmospheres, although it is to provide spaces in which users can interact physically with the architecture. Through this interaction different atmospheres are created; every human being will perceive it in a different way depending on how they experience and communicate with architecture.