Spatial Diagnosis and Media Treatments By
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Spatial Diagnosis and Media Treatments by Marianthi Liapi Submitted to the Department of Architecture on May 19, 2005 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Architecture Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ABSTRACT: Contemporary approaches toward the renovation of existing spaces are mainly driven by functional requirements and aesthetic purposes. While this design approach is valid, the purpose of this thesis is to develop a methodology for architects to analyze and evaluate the quality of existing spaces on a periodical basis and improve them with the use of digital media. The first part of this thesis project has a diagnostic purpose where the architect investigates historically and empirically the physical structure as well as the users’ perceived imagery of the examined space. The second part uses the diagnosis’ findings as a mapping device for the application of specific digital media, deemed appropriate for the task, and the orchestration of time-related events and information flows. The goal of this thesis, which focuses solely on public spaces for the extent of this research, is twofold. On a design level, it seeks to increase the quality of space and its potential to communicate with the users through a synergic, adaptive approach. On a research level, it seeks to bring together three diverse but not distant disciplines, those of architecture, cognitive psychology and information technology, suggesting a multi-disciplinary avenue for a retrospective design inquiry. Thesis Supervisor: Terry Knight Title: Professor of Computation, MIT Department of Architecture 3 Acknowledgements 4 Scripta Manent, Verba Volant… To Prof. Terry Knight, my true mentor, To my thesis readers, Prof. William J. Mitchell and Prof. John R. Stilgoe for believing in me and for inspiring my work, To the people from the MIT Archives, the MIT Facilities and the MIT Museum, especially to Nora Murphy, Maryla Walters, Ron Catella, Gary Van Zante and Jenny O’Neil, and to all those who provided me with the material necessary to continue my research, To Prof. William L. Porter for his continuous support in my life at MIT, and to Edith Ackerman for her inspirational brainstormings, To the Fulbright Program in Greece for making my stay at MIT possible through a fellowship for the academic year 2003-2004, and also to the MIT Department of Architecture for supporting financially my studies during the second year, To my friends for being there for me at all times: Lina, Thalia, Marianthi, Costis, Maria, Stefanos, Panos, Wendy, Han, Philippe, Nikki, Akira, Nick, Jimmy, Leo and Susanne, (in order of appearance in my life) To my family, my father Constantine, my mother Dimitra and my brother Leonidas for their unconditional love, I wholeheartedly THANK YOU. I want to dedicate this work to my partner in life, in love and in crime, my Kostis, for teaching me how to fly and then giving me the wings. [E G η L] 5 Table of Contents 6 1. INTRODUCTION [09] 2. THESIS PHILOSOPHY 2.1 Architect, Space and People: The Design Trinity [13] 2.2 Architecture and Representation: Ascribing Meaning to Space [17] 2.3 Architecture and Communication: Challenging the Impression of Space [21] 2.4 Hypothesis [27] 2.5 Goals [29] 2.6 Contribution [33] 3. SPATIAL DIAGNOSIS 3.1 Overview [37] 3.2 Background Research o General Guidelines [39] o Lobby 7 Case Study [43] 3.3 Empirical Observations o General Guidelines [79] o Lobby 7 Case Study [81] 3.4 Cognitive Mapping – Questionnaire o General Guidelines [93] o Lobby 7 Case Study [99] 3.5 Diagnosis’ Findings and Conclusions [129] 4. MEDIA TREATMENTS 4.1 Overview [139] 4.2 Lobby 7: Design Directions [141] 4.3 Lobby 7: Design Goals [145] 4.4 Digital Media: Tools for Treatment [147] 4.5 Digital Media: Patterns for Treatment [155] 5. EPILOGUE [161] 6. BIBLIOGRAPHY [167] 7. APPENDICES [171] o Questionnaire - MIT COUHES Letter of Approval - Letter of Informed Consent o Sketches of Lobby 7 from the study participants o Lobby 7 Plans 1938 o Lobby 7 Renovation Proposals - Plans 2001 o Media ‘Spices’ 7 Introduction 8 The impetus driving this research project is the curiosity and the eagerness of my trained architectural mind, "cursed" to continuous observation -within its capabilities- of life in the surrounding built environment, to explore the potential of space to go beyond its sheltering function and to approach an active state of communicating with people. The desired level of communication can be achieved through the synergy of the design trinity, the architect, the space and the user, pointing the way toward an architecture of participation. The vocabulary to communicate was found within the field of cognitive mapping. The notion of impression and its ability to create connections between people and space through mental images offered a fertile ground for the development of a methodology that wishes to bring the relationships formed within the trinity on a new level. The purpose of this thesis is to diagnose the spatial characteristics, physical and perceived, that affect the experience of people in space and then propose the appropriate [digital] media treatment that will increase the quality of the examined space. The diagnosis is heavily based on the physical characteristics of space, which are investigated both historically and empirically, as well as on the users’ perceived imagery that is examined through cognitive mapping techniques. The treatment proposes the application of an add-on immaterial layer, produced by digital media, for the manifestation of time-related events and information flows. The proposed methodology is triggered neither by functional nor by aesthetic needs but by the potential of achieving “immaterial” renovations of space. The purpose of those renovations is to reinforce the mental links that people create with space by targeting their impression. The goals of this research, which can be evaluated through their potential to improve the relationships between the architects, the people and the built environment, are: to create architectural products that have a greater, in effect and duration, impression on the users, to provide architects with a methodology for continuous, low cost renovations and, from a wider point of view, to open up the way toward thinking and practicing a participatory, synergic design process. The validity of the diagnostic part of the proposed methodology was successfully tested within an existing public space at MIT, the lobby of the William Barton Rogers building. The part of the methodology that refers to the media treatment was based on theoretical research and upon the examples of multiple digital media projects. Testing the validity of the treatment part on actual grounds will be my next step after this thesis. 9 10 Thesis Philosophy 11 12 [Architect, Space and People: The Design Trinity] "Throughout history we have lived in different spaces and architects, using different alphabets, have given them form: informal space, gestural and primitive, pre-Miletus (or pre-alphabet); the space arterialized by the Greeks and the Romans; the sacred and mystic space before Giotto; that perspective space of the Renaissance; the industrial and mechanical, analytical and non-perspective space after Cézanne. Each new space on arriving has required new principles and new alphabets that have been created through difficult, exhausting, rough but exciting processes."1 Architecture has a discreet but powerful influence on the human mind. Geometric forms and spatial relations, regardless of their complexity, gradually unfold to become evident to the thinking eye.2 Ideally, this revelation opens up the way toward evaluating the built environment. It seems though that there is something missing from this process. Neither form nor the enveloped space are enough to justify a building as a utilitarian space. Unless space is saturated with people it is not in the position to offer the architect a clear perspective of its potential as an architectural product. The term “architectural product” per se carries a multitude of attributes. Deep into its core stands the Vitruvian3 maxim guarding the function, the structure and the beauty of the building. The attributes emerging from the core follow a hierarchy that relies solely on the architect and the way that s/he chose to utilize the tools of architectural knowledge and the technology at hand. Contemporary architectural practice reveals that the top ranks of this hierarchy are occupied by formalistic and spatial “beauty” issues rather than human-factor concerns like social 1 De Kerckhove (2001), p. 6. 2 Paul Klee, The Thinking Eye. (Documents of Modern Art). 3 De Kerckhove (2001), p. 11. Marcus Vitruvius Pollio was a Roman writer, architect and engineer, active in the 1st century B.C. He is the author of De Architectura, the first written work about the architectural discipline known today as The Ten Books of Architecture. In Vitruvius work, buildings are presented as "spectacles, not as places where comfort, communication, social interaction, health or other physiological considerations dominate." (…) "Vitruvius included many considerations about proportionality among the volumes and the geometry of structure, but the overall perception of the building is dominated by visualizing its façade. In other words, the building is quite literally a theory, something to look at, a theatrical construction." 13 interaction, communication, memorability4 and experience. Moreover the over-sophistication of the form for purely aesthetic reasons enters only into the realm of art.5 Despite the evolution of the design tools and the construction methods today and regardless of the development of a theoretical infrastructure that urges for a fluid, interactive design, architects today, as judged through their products, remain faithful to traditional spatial concepts. They use digital design tools as “smart” rapidographs to produce a variety of (r)evolutionary forms out of which they choose one variation that best fits a more-or-less standard building program.