ARCHITECTURE & US. We grip it.
All mankind creations which surround us is good or bad architecture.
Our existence, our living is around, with and within architecture of all kind, from the smallest item,
which is designed for its essential purpose of use to the biggest monument of commemoration, for our soul and thoughts.
All minor or large details are and have been influenced through a human approach of taste built up during a history of accumulated experience about materials & colour, resistance and endurance, shaped into forms and function by education, language, tradition and mutual understanding.
Architecture is continuously present in our daily life and not only.
We sleep well or bad in a designed bed, (its wideness dimension and length , height, matrass smoothness count – also the distance from the window, from the bathroom, from the heater), the flooring counts (warmer, cooler, attractive in colour, soft or hard, safe or slippery) the lighting (are the switches in the right position for my bed-reading, disturbing when I get up) and are enough plugs for my accessories in the “right” place for me? are the blinds letting too much light in when I sleep? Do I have all the space for my cloth and shoes and nicely accessible? Is the colour on my wall happy or sad ? warm or cold / is the ceiling oppressing, giving the impression of putting the height down?
Is the door handle nice to touch, to feel and open silently?
All these apparent little details shape the night, when we are “away” to have a good sleep and to have a good next day, recharged for a successful day.
These details are making our nearest environment, our bedroom, good or bad.
Details count. All details count. And they are connected to the whole space.
And this is only one of your spaces which you use to sleep and more. But just one of the areas where architecture is part of your living.
We physically interact with a building. We experience architecture primarily through our eyes.
One single sense – the sight – has become predominant in architectural culture and design.
With the ascendancy of the digital and the all-pervasive use of the image electronically the finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa argues that the suppression of the other four sensory realms has led to the overall impoverishment of our built environment, often diminishing the emphasis on the spatial experience of a building and architecture’s ability to inspire, engage and be wholly life enhancing.
Our introduction/contact/perceiving of architecture often depends on the quality of a small detail.
The first contact – a door handle. As Pallassmaa rightly so called “the door handle as the handshake of a building”.
When we “grasp” an idea we understand the concept, make it tangible, we hold to it. That’s how we understand buildings, maybe as much through our hands as through our eyes.
The German philosopher Emmanuel Kant said: “The hand is the window on to the mind”.
And our experience of the world is mediated through grip.
The so-called modern architecture as a sanatorium with white walls (if any) and big windows, unworthy of considering shadows has the touch of anonymous, (good for anyone and anything) It controls, frames and strips away internally definition, bringing a avoid of personality, of differentiation, of unicity..
But architecture is a living creature, it ages, evolves, it is anchored in the reality, it breathes with nature were it is planted. It receives and it transmits.
Us, as bodies, have ben always inscribed in the dimensions of architecture, see Leonardo’s Vitruvian men.
The concept of the ideal human body proportions as described in Vitruvius' (80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) treaty of architecture: De architectura 3.1.2–3
Vitruvius is referred to as the first architect, more accurately the first Roman architect to have written surviving records of his field. He himself cites older but less complete works. He was especially a codifier of existing architectural practice.
Vitruvius had a much wider scope than modern architects.
Roman architects practised a wide variety of disciplines; in modern terms, they could be described as being engineers, architects, landscape architects, surveyors, artists, and craftsmen combined. Etymologically the word architect derives from Greek words meaning 'master' and 'builder'
Challenging nature and materials.
He goes on to say that the architect should be versed in drawing, geometry, optics (lighting), history, philosophy, music, theatre, medicine, and law.
The height of a door, or a window sill, the proportions of a room , the height of a ceiling everything is measured (made) on US, on our body, (in the past we had the foot measure – and still have it in many countries).
If there were any measurement that has proven to be the most useful to humanity, it would be the length. Examples of length include the inch, the foot, the yard, and the mile. Knowing how to measure length was quite useful for surveying land for property right purposes. Knowing the length of the land gave the precise units needed to price accordingly. To maintain a single idea of how long the measurement should be, bars or rods were kept in central public places. This measuring tool would be considered the standard and thus distributed to the community. One such example of this happening was in Mesopotamia and Egypt where rods were kept in temples. The dimensions, called the cubit, were typically taken from the king’s physical dimensions.
The earliest known uniform systems of weights and measures seem all to have been created at some time in the 4th and 3rd millennia BC among the ancient peoples of Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley, and perhaps also Elam (in Iran) as well.
Early Babylonian and Egyptian records and the Hebrew Bible indicate that length was first measured with the forearm, hand, or finger and that time was measured by the periods of the sun, moon, and other heavenly bodies. When it was necessary to compare the capacities of containers such as gourds or clay or metal vessels, they were filled with plant seeds which were then counted to measure the volumes. When means for weighing were invented, seeds and stones served as standards. For instance, the carat, still used as a unit for gems, was derived from the carob seed.
The Roman foot (~296 mm) was divided into both 12 unciae (inches) (~24.7 mm) and 16 digits (~18.5 mm). The Romans also introduced the mille passus (1000 paces) or double steps, the pace being equal to five Roman feet (~1480 mm). The Roman mile of 5000 feet (1480 m) was introduced into England during the occupation.
Architecture is made on purpose for our kind, the human kind, it touches our lives and shelters our bodies and - in turn - we touch it back and leave our traces. It is not neutral.
Even if an entire century of modernist architecture tried to sterilise this approach it still leaves traces everywhere and this exchange becomes part of architecture.
There are no shortcuts.
QUALITY IS EVERYTHING.
DO IT ONCE AND DO IT WELL.
At “Art & Architecture Ltd” we treat every project small or big, equally important in all details, from the beginning from the “A & A” to the accomplished executed project.
We try to “grip” the best solution, which means the best for our customer requirements.
