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.

View House by Gustavo Frittegotto.

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

Text: The architecture of atmosphere, by Mark Wigley

Built in a suburb surrounded by vegetation in Rosario, Argentina, the View House form is the result of a conflict imposed by the clients two main requirements: integration with landscape and privacy from neighbors. This sculptural house have 300 square meters and was designed by the architects Diego Arraigada and Johnston Marklee in 2004 and concluded in 2009.

With no primary façade, the house is composed by a rough concrete curved form that contrasts with the smooth, calm and delicate interior. The basic mass is shaped by four geometric and distinct subtractions, and through positional logics system, the architects designed generous windows that connect interior and exterior, flaming the landscape and leading the owners to contemplate the nature. The spiral circulation leads to the roof terrace, where the users can enjoy the sun and the lull.

The architects concern about the environment and the technique of atmospherical system can be notice by the house minimal footprint and the care about void the artificial light use. Carefully guided, the big windows provide indirect sun light and cross ventilation, creating thermal zones and more than that, incredible light effects on the peaceful and white interior.

The Architecture of Atmosphere is an article publish by Mark Wigley in the book Daidalos (1998) where the architect points that atmosphere is everything that surround the building, and independent of the intent of the architect can’t be controlled. As an abstract environment created by the users’ behavior, nature and architecture, the atmosphere can’t be measure or delimited.

A proof of how architects always tried to control this atmosphere can be founded on Frank Lloyd Wright sketches, where he used to draw the sky and the environment with straight lines, as if the building would interfere on this atmosphere. Nowadays it can be seen on the renders full of ornament and special effects.

Comparing both texts is possible to notice how architectures, using different systems (logical or structural) attempt to create buildings that are able to change the atmosphere and the relation between users and environment, but that is something that (even with a big help of the design) depends of the users, society and nature, that can accept the proposed project, denied it or mold it.

As a personal research topic, I am really interested about integrate man, building and nature in a directly way, transforming the construction in a living building that breathers, perspires and transforms, not just reducing the impact on the environment but also improving life quality to the users and citizens.

Area : 3200 sq ft

Location : near Rosario Argentine [vast landscape of argentine plains]

As I analysed the view house, I understood the various considerations and the process an architects goes through while designing a building.In this case study, the process involved positional and atmospherical conditions / relations with respect to the site and  the human interaction/requirement.Elaborating on the same, the positional and atmospherical relation refers to the the site location and site condition. this site is situated in the argentine plains with brilliant views surrounding the site in all the 360 degrees. the architect intended the views to be preserved for the client without compromising on the privacy.  Based on this positional relation from the site, the form was evolved .This form was further developed to relate to atmospherical relations visually.the form acquired from the positional relation of the site was further improvised by subtracting volumes to visually connect to the atmosphere on the site.

After studying the view house, I understand that the architecture gets more depth when the creation is in relation to the many elements that it affects and is affected by. Although this is true, I feel that the view house could do more than relating to the site.The architecture can be a system in itself which grows and responds, but in this case study, it seems to be mostly adhering to the visual relations .

MARK WIGLEY – The  Architecture of Atmosphere

This literature talks about the atmosphere created by any built form. The surrounding it interacts with, creates an atmosphere as a default, therefore, it says that architecture of atmosphere begins where the construction ends.Here, the writer speaks about how an architect , with the use of drawings, assumes that the design interacts with its atmosphere and therefore has a sense of control with the atmosphere surrounding the building.Examples of drawings of starachitects like Frank Lloyd wright and Le Corbusier is given and in F.L.Wright’s Falling water house design, The lines of the drawing indicates a sense of cohesiveness between the building and the atmosphere/surrounding .

Further Le corbusier draws a series of lines parallel to the lines of the building indicating the sky , and therefore the atmosphere around the building. the writer explains to the reader about how this interaction is bound by these lines on paper and in actuality the interaction with the atmosphere is just a fragile illusion.

There are various atmospheres that is created by any built environment –  atmosphere like for climatic atmosphere, social atmosphere, etc. The writer urges the reader to think beyond the lines of a drawing when it comes to the atmosphere of architecture and questions if the atmosphere of architecture can actually be controlled .

As an analysis, i feel that currently, although it is unlikely to have any control over the atmosphere of architecture, as technology grows, there might be an era where there will be designs which are more sensitive to the architecture of the atmosphere. Although this might still not control the atmosphere but instead respond to it better than lines indicating the interaction on a drawing.

Research interests

As a research line, i am highly enthusiastic about creating systems of designs which are non static.  The design of which is not limited by its requirements but explores possibilities of being an organism in itself. Am not  bound by the idea of the design being a building , as  every scale of design is a beautiful process .And through this design, if there could be a possibility of  a positive contribution to the psychological and physical health & well being of the society , that would be like an icing on the cake!

Thank you.

References :  google.com

Arcosanti post card, 1978, Arizona

Architecture is one of the disciplines that most requires to focus attention towards the relationships that exist between objects and contexts. While in art the actors analyze the context (if it exists) as basis of a process finalized to the creation of an object, often conceived as a representation, science, in the opposite way, puts too much emphasis on the relationships between objects and it is almost completely unaware of consequences in human lives.

After almost three hundred years of distance from the classic conception of architecture as made not only of designing processes, the Advanced Architecture, in different and adaptive ways, is trying to recover an holistic vision of planning and construction. In such a situation, relationships between subject, object and context are various and contribute to generate a more complex scenario than the one you can obtain only considering all variables as independent from each others.

Specialization is an evolutive phenomenon issued with a vital importance in our universe and permits to increment efficiency and productivity, but if not controlled it will transform the human being in a programmed machine that carries its task out. What we are making out is a future made of knowledge, sharing, continuous learning, experimentation and collaboration addressed to the constitution of active intervenes that possess “functional resonance”, that is the ability of a system element to develop, at the same time, multiple functions and to reach multiple goals. The logic with which relations could be created and linked with each others feels the effects of a natural complexity.

All parts of a project react to his surroundings according to different system (illation, analogy, interaction, correlation, alteration, energy) and to their relative relational logics (positional, metamorphical, atmospherical, intangible, disturbed, environmental). It seems clear how these categories simply are a first and general subdivision and representation of how Advanced Architecture operates. It is dutiful to remember that an unambiguous subdivision is not able to describe all the possible dispositions and that some of these logics can assume more resonance than others.

Energy and environment, for examples, have been taking for the last decades a huge relevance and they have to be considered as first system and logic. For this reason Diego Arraigada’s and Johnston Marklee’s Wall House assumes a shape and a material composition not really usual for a residential purpose, made of four different energetic layers and an external tent surface. In this concept natural energy flows are not interrupted but followed and architectural solutions go along them. This kind of approach, as Sean Lally writes in The Shape of Energy, allows us to create an “architecture built of material energies” that “produces a type of shape that is micro-vernacular, as each site creates a unique feedback relationship to the energy system deployed”.

Similarly to the idea of an architecture made of energy, the interaction between parts of systems is fundamental and has the first aim to generate an atmospherical relation (natural and artificial) with the territory and within the concept of atmosphere as “the envelop of gases surrounding the Earth or another planet” and “the air in any particular place” instead of “the pervading tone or mood of a place, situation or creative work” (Oxford Dictionaries). View House and N-House are examples of this logic but, as written above, each project feels the effects of different influences and distortions according to designer, builder and user. While Sou Fujimoto tries to subvert the natural perception we have of inside and outside, Arraigada and Marklee want to underline the natural environment and his visual potential. Both houses, nevertheless, instead of focusing in the interaction with their surroundings, tend to consider them as artificial features lacking of positive influence on the built up. What seems to be relevant to mark is the necessity of analyzing the ways in which architecture and its products operates in the nature rather than over the nature.

As we discussed, relationships categories and intervention strategies are subject to variation and it is theoretically possible (and maybe it has to be hoped) to detect other relational logics according to the amount of architectural topics and visions. We could have a logic of economic in a natural disaster situation, a logic of safety in another context and maybe more new logics generated by the mix or by the mutation of some of them. Taking in account the metamorphical relation between urban and natural, the actual emergency of cities, the constant population increase and the quality of life (sound, light, pollution, food) we can presume an explosion of the urban boundaries along a completed built (not urbanized) world. The solution could be to finally mix urban and natural in a unique organism, thinking to buildings and landscapes with natural appearances and functionalities. We are speaking about an environment that permits to go from your house to your office without never loosing the awareness of a world that is firstly natural, as all its parts.

Case study:                 Views House. Johnston Marklee and Diego Arraigada

Critical reading:          Mark Wigley, “The Architecture of Atmosphere”, in Daidalos 68, July 1998, pp. 18-27

Both case study and critical text investigate the atmospherical interaction between buildings and nature.

Case study: the view house designed by Johnston Marklee and Diego Arraigada tries to establish a relation between the living experience and its surrounding landscape.

For this purpose the architects have introduced the time as dynamic variable developing an internal staircase which leads to a roof deck. This architectural element allows the users to enjoy the nearby views on all sides in a dynamic and changing spiralling path that would engage an interaction among users and nature.

Critical reading: the Wigley’s essay speculates about the concept of atmosphere, defining it as a theatrical effect, intangible and personal. According to the text, trying to capture and control the atmosphere, architects often deceive themselves drawing perfect environments and thinking that they -the environments- can be controlled.

A tangible problem of intangibility: The idea that architect and architecture can control the nature creating the exact atmosphere they conceived is an illusion, especially because atmosphere is imperceptible and really subjective. Moreover the environment evolution is frequently unpredictable and it could compromise the architects aim.

In the view house, for example, Johnston Marklee and Diego Arraigada try to create an interaction system between architecture and its surrounding. However the architects cannot control the environment and, as result,  now the windows frame the neighbourhood houses, compromising the owner privacy as well as the main project feature.

Wigley seem to believe that there is no way to learn how to create atmosphere. The intangible ambience cannot be designed or predicted. The writer finally assert that architects as special effect producers should learn that the drawing they produced and the atmosphere in architecture are distinct.

Nevertheless I believe that the introduction of new digital tools as well as the use of virtual and augmenter reality could help architects to better understand the natural environment in order to produce more controlled and accurate projects, well suited to the morphological and climatic environment conditions.

Personal research: Personally I am really interested investigating the relation between architecture and its surrounding environment. In particular I would like to analyze how the natural conditions could modify an architectural project and how the introduction of the technology are helping architects to design better buildings as well as cities, redefining the architectural process.

Image: © dezeen.com