Category Archives: Uncategorized

Moriyama House-Tokyo Japan, Office Ryue Nishazawa
Reading -Cooking, Yo-ing, Thinking – Sanford Kwinter

The architect has tried Non-conventional housing typology: organized in clusters and has tried to break away from the traditional Japanese courtyard house thereby Creating more flexibility in terms of use and organized space.The elements can be inhabited by different and changing protagonists, they can be rented easily for different kinds of use thereby making it more adaptable and user friendly. various courtyards create changing situations (in environmental meanings but as well as social ones: by interaction of the inhabitants)In terms of privacy the windows are never facing each other, they either open to the landscape, a blank wall or the sky. So the privacy of each single cluster element is maintained. Although the architect is talking about privacy the windows are big. They appear like shopping windows or theatrical stages. The inhabitant is kind of exhibited to the people passing the ‘stage’,but the cluster is opened to the street, so in that case it is more open to public than the traditional courtyard housing typology. The spaces between the elements are ‘semi-public’, they are open to the street although it is clear, that it is a private site.

Sanford Kwinter ponders the complex encounters between technology, culture, and relational logics in architecture. The readings offer an extended meditation on infrastructure, computation, mechanical and material intelligence, and other multivariate facets of modernity. Far-reaching in scope, Far from Equilibrium amounts to a performance in writing of what Kwinter describes as radical anamnesis: the imagination’s escape from the sterile logic of what is. Compiling over a decade of architectural and critical writings.It is widely known that architectrural thought has begun to incorporate a variety of concerns about the natural world under the auspices to energy thereby accommodating the demand to rethink its relationship to the atmosphere

I would like to do a further research on the topic of environmental relation integrated building systems as they relate to architectural design and construction including study of principles of integrated design and the implications of these in relation to architectural design, and construction processes and outcomes.. Physical, visual and performative integration of building performance systems will be considered in terms of their relationship to design intent.

Case study: View House, by Diego Arraigada and Johnston Marklee

Text: The architecture of atmosphere, by Mark Wigley

Pictures presenting the constant interaction of nature and inhabitants in their daily activities

References: http://www.topboxdesign.com/view-house-in-rosario-argentina/view-house-interior-1/ , http://www.archimodes.com/view-house-by-johnston-marklee-diego-arraigada-arquitecto-in-rosario-argentina/view-house-interior-glass-wall/

View House, designed by Diego Arraigada and Johnston Marklee, is a two floor, curved building located in Argentina. Its design constitutes an attempt to redefine the relationship between inhabitants and the surrounding environment, by redrawing the architectural boundary between residence and nature. This building consisting of a continuous façade, rather than multiple, has a shape that eliminates the disadvantage of favorable and unfavorable views, redefining constantly the relationship between the interior and the exterior. The main purpose of the architects is to relate the inside daily activities with the outside natural environment, while at the same time maintain the required privacy of a residential space. This is obvious, considering the inclusion of the building at the corner of the plot, associated with its shape, the direction of the desired viewports and its subtracted parts. The geometric subtractions, the position of the openings as well as the interior design create the illusion of a dynamic spiral upward movement. In this building we can identify three different types of architectural relations.

First, positional relation, indicated through the orientation of the building towards the surrounding trees, and a conspicuous attempt to take distance from the neighbouring houses. In this case, the proximity of the trees and the buildings determines the relationship between the habitat and its environment. The atmospherical relation is pointed out by the main concept of the design. The architects, acting as film directors, create a plot in which every single natural area outside the house constitutes the scenery of daily activities taking place inside the house. Residents are invited to interact with nature all around the building, in every single room. Trees are used as architectural materials, defining the shape, the volume, the orientation and position in the design process. Another kind of relation observed is that of intangible relation. The leveling of the building in relation to the height of the trees, is evident through the location of the openings either on the ground or the upper floor, according to the surrounding vegetation. The element of light has been also used as an architectural tool in order to emphasize both the circumferential view and the upward spiral movement.

“The architecture of atmosphere” written by Mark Wigley, analyses the relation between the buildings and their natural or ambient environment. Atmosphere has an abstract notion. It has no definition. It depends on emotions and differential perceptions of our surroundings. Therefore, it is almost impossible for an architect to control it. Many architects have been trying continuously to impose on architectural atmosphere according to their specific vision, most times resulting in creating unpredictable or unsuccessful effects. Atmosphere cannot be defined from the architect. Different factors such as human and nature concur the designed environment, giving new meaning and uses to the constructed space. On the other hand, constructing an atmosphere when building a structure is inevitable. Even by rejecting its existence, subconsciously, you end up creating a particular atmosphere. Good atmosphere is associated with an ideal architecture, forcing architects to attach particular attention to the way they manipulate the surrounding environment.

The atmosphere is used as an architectural element, as a tool in an architect’s pallet. In reality, constructing a building results in constructing an atmosphere. It seems as the building itself constitutes a mold for the surrounding atmosphere. What it is actually experienced is the atmosphere created, not the object itself. It is the atmosphere created by architects and determined by the ambient environment that influences our daily lives. Surfaces produce atmosphere, creating different sceneries in the interior and exterior of the buildings. The architect as another film director creates a specific scenery using special effects in his drawings, pre-visualizing a specific concept for the built and unbuilt area, an illustration of the future plan for it. Architectural designs, as every representational technique, are an attempt to create simulations of the atmospheric environment that surrounds the building, an effort to define atmosphere.

What it is indicated, in both case study and text, is that no matter how much the architects try to control the different elements consisting a building, such as atmosphere and architectural sceneries, human and natural elements turn out to rewrite the plot, creating their own relationship with space, leaving architects helpless to have complete control on the design and assert through all the different factors interacting with the building through time.

Regarding a personal research topic, I would like to investigate the possible evolution of the boundaries set between the interior and the exterior of a building, depending on the environmental and social changes, as well as the technological progress. The design of buildings that deny the traditional boundaries between human and nature, using more innovative ones, offering the ability of the inhabited shell to interact with its ambient and natural environment.

Case Study: VIEW HOUSE, Johnston Marklee Arraigada

Reading: MARK WIGLEY – The  Architecture of Atmosphere

Read More »

Picture: Dr Gary Settles / SPL / Barcroft Media

The first image that comes to my head when I see the project Moriyama House, is a frozen rupture in time, an explosion of some element that is fractionated into different elements and at that moment the picture freezes and are the different parts of the item acquired a unique character making each in a new element, which can remain in a constant fractionation.

In the case study project, you can see how several disparate elements in one place but which form a single spatial unit, and it is this uniqueness that gives the richness and unique atmosphere with regard to how it behaves on project with its environment, people and nature.

With this second point we can identify an element (object) makes a connection between habitat and nature, gives new meaning to the inside / outside, public / private, creating a new relationship between all atmospheres creating a balance for all parties.

The relationship between this logic and scope of advanced architecture is given at the point of how a foreign object can influence the natural landscape (architecture) to the immediate environment and the natural behavior of people level, and continuing the theme spatial subdivision I can relate this with the “broken windows theory” by George L. Kelling, in summary we show how an object can alter the spatial order and human behavior.