Second Skin : New Design Organics

In A Home Is Not a House, Reyner Banham starts by arguing that the main function of the typic American house is to cover its mechanical structure. In fact, he states that the use of mechanical services in architectural practice varies constantly because mechanical services are considered to be new in the profession, as well as, a cultural threat to the architect’s position in the world. To show his argument, Banham states that American houses are basically large single spaces divided by partitions inside that give a relative importance to the use of internal mechanical services, causing a threat to the need of architectural design. Similarly, American cultural characteristics, like cleanliness and hygiene, also foster the use and need of mechanical

Vitruvius also stresses on order, arrangement, eurhythmy, symmetry, propriety and economy and how architecture depends on these demands. This is not the case in today’s society. With advances in physics and construction sciences which allow buildings to be of asymmetrical shape and attain an abstract form directly places it in conflict with his stated ‘Eurhythmy’. To Vitruvius, all facets of architecture were to be in a state of complete harmony, as his views were so constrained towards the perfection of the human body. He described the various proportions of limbs and other body parts to be so accurately symmetrical and coordinated to meticulous detail. This perfection of the human body inspired architectural designs. In contemporary society, mainstream architecture has little to no correlation with the human body. It has been kept completely separate. Architectural inspiration today, more or less stems from everything outside the human, and looks towards a futuristic simplicity and sleek aesthetic that demands a different approach to the art of a building altogether. This commercial mindset has been influential since the engineering breakthroughs of the second millennium.

The phrase “social construction” is difficult to define as it encompasses a multitude of elements, but despite that, conventionally, social construction shows ways society has conceptualised expectations and ideals which can be related to specific sociological interested areas, such as the body. Social action has been shown to have an effect on the transformation of a biological individual, although bodies appear to be simply natural - eye colour, body shape, size of feet etc - a deeper context reveals that many social situations and factors contribute to the construction of bodies. How are we to make sense of people’s bodies? Theoretical traditions which highlight socially constructed bodies have been put forward by theorists such as Elias, Foucault, Goffman and Bourdieu, however, an alternative strategy of viewing socially constructed bodies could be to link these apparently contrasting theories together. This essay will focus upon ways in which the body appears to be a social construction, paying particular detail on the length individuals endure to perform socially constructed ideals with reference to gender and class.

Both used the human body as a scale reference for their ideas. In the Vitruvius’s geometry, the human body was used inside a circle and a square, and was also used as the main reference factor for architecture of temples. The temples were projections of the human body in architecture. Le Corbusier also used the human body as a reference for the measuring unit the “Modular”. The human height determines the values of the ‘Modular” just like it determines and influences the design and architecture of temples in Vitruvius’s case. Both Vitruvius and Le Corbusier analyzed the human body and established a relation between its parts, which was shown in both their drawings, ‘Vitruvius’ circle’ and ‘Drawing of the proportioning system of Le Modular’’. We can clearly notice that the two are extremely similar in the way of representing the human body taking into consideration its height and its

The human body has been coupled with various beliefs for all of history. It has been the centre and representation for questions of ethics, power and sexuality. Works like “Confession” by Linh Dinh have found ways to express these questions further. By focusing on questioning how the body operates in art, Dihn portrays and inquires a whole belief system as to how the body functions and is viewed in society.

This essay will focus on how those works are informed by both regional and international course. In this context, Sydney Ancher and his strong Miesian simplicity as well as Peter Muller’s affinity with Frank Lloyd Wright’s organic architecture principle.

Leon Krier was criticised for publishing a costly monograph on Albert Speer’s architecture (1985)in which, while acknowledging the crimes of the Nazis and the man, Krier nonetheless claimed the book’s only subject and sole justification was “Classical architecture and the passion of building” (cited by Jaskot, ‘Architecture of Oppression’, 2000). Discuss this claim, the controversy and the issues (historical, philosophical and ethical and possibly others) they raise. Can architecture, Classical, Modern or otherwise, be autonomous from politics and valued independently of the circumstances of politics and history that adhere to it?

The human body is the ultimate tool for discovering the environment. Human anatomy is considered to be nature’s peak of perfection and certain features serve as inspiration for many architects. To study the relationship between the human body and architecture, one must not be limited to human body parts resemblance to architectural works but to a larger extent consider human emotions, sensory nerves, the mind and general human psychology. In essence everything that makes us human. In its simplest definition Architecture can be described as an art or practice of designing buildings. It is practiced in a way that accomplishes both practical and communicative or expressive requirements. To relate it to human body then Architecture can widely define the place, the site, the energy, the systems, the building, the flora and fauna. These components that bring aesthetic property to humanity apart from the utilitarian purpose it serves. The perfect balance of a normal human body and the proportions are incorporated into architecture from a point of view of imitation, idealized allusion and the actual human use. Evidence of such human incorporation into architecture is seen from the Ancient Greek Architectures where it was common for tower columns to take shape of a human being like in the colossus of the Ancient

On his book on Modern Architecture, Curtis writes that modern architecture was faulted for it’s “supposed lack of ‘recognizable imagery’” towards the end of the 1970s. This statement supports the idea of Jencks’ double coding where architects must now make

Mies van der Rohe is one of the most prominent figures in modernist architectural history, the man who popularised some of the most influential phrases of the era, e.g. “less is more”, and strove to push his ideas and philosophies, not just on what he thought a building should be, but of what he thought architecture itself was. He changed the cityscape of America, showing the world a style that was simple and elegant, with such a controlled palette of expressions that shone through in its geometric beauty.

As suggested by the title, this piece of literature attempts to highlight the importance of sensory experience in architecture. It is indeed a response to what the author terms as ‘ocularcentrism’ of Modern Architecture. Ocularcentrism is the act of prioritizing visual stimuli to all other sensory stimuli available to a human perception. He quotes famous German poet, Goethe, in his defense, “the hands want to see, the

In Wright and An alto's houses, a powerful sense of insides is generate by opacity. Which, in Falling water is express in roughly dressed stone masonry walls and, in Villa Mairea. By white-painted, solid walls. The transparency of glass windows in both houses thereby connect the two. In both houses, the architects created a strong sense of insideness yet, at the same time, devised ways to connect inside and outside and thereby create a robust continuity between the two. This inside-outside relationship can be translate into environmental and architectural experience in four different ways: (1) in-betweeness; (2) interpenetration generated by inside; (3) interpenetration generated by outside; and (4)

Architecture is often mistaken as purely an art form, when in actually it is where art and engineering or art and practicality meet. For example, painting is an art, when preformed well it yields a beautiful picture that evokes a deep human reaction and brings pleasure to its viewer, however this painting provides no function, it cannot shield us from the rain or protect us from the wind or snow, it is purely form. An insulated aluminum shed provides shelter and protection from Mother Nature; however, it is a purely functional building, it was drawn by an engineer, not conceived by an artist to have form. The culmination of form and function is Architecture, the Greeks and Romans fathered this idea and Palladio’s study of roman architecture taught him his valuable truth.

James Stirling, who is famous for untraditional design and rejecting functionalism, designed Florey Building of Oxford University in 1966. The building presented the idea of Brutalism, focused on the form beauty of itself. Alvar Aalto, an architect sparkplugged the theory of humanism and functionalism, designed Baker House of MIT in 1947. For him, functionality is an important way to provide harmonious life for human being. These two buildings with different styles were both designed as the student dormitory for university, however, some similarities still can be found. This essay will compare the differences and similarities about relationship between form and surroundings, function and circulation, and material expressing of them.

Gropius traces the growth of the New Architecture and the work of the now well-known Bauhaus, with accuracy, calls for a new artist and architect educated to new materials and approaches as well as meeting the requirements of the age. It is also mentioned in The New Architecture and the Bauhaus that the intention of the Bauhaus was not to reproduce any “style”, system or belief, but simply to exert a revitalizing impact on design. Even though the outward forms of the New Architecture differ primarily in an organic sense from the old, it is the inevitable logical product of the intellectual, social and technical conditions of our age. A gap has been made with the past, allowing us to face a new aspect of architecture corresponding to the technical civilization of the age we live in. The analysis of the dead styles has been destroyed. Furthermore, the new building throws open the walls like curtains to allow an abundance of fresh air, daylight and sunshine. Instead of securing the building ponderously into the ground, it poises them lightly, yet firmly at the same