! "# $ % & % ' % !' ! "#$ %""&" ' "# ' '% $$(' '() *+,$ -+,$ Ecological Mediation: Dialectics of Inside and Outside Master of Architecture Thesis Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati School of Architecture and Interior Design College Design Art Architecture and Planning Brian Barker Bachelor of Science Management Brigham Young University December 2005 Rebecca Williamson, PhD, AIA Aarati Kanekar, PhD June 2010 ABSTRACT This thesis examines the relationship of humans to their surrounding environment by investigating architecture’s ability to mediate between the extremes of outside and inside. Poetic and functional responsibilities of architecture are emphasized in a brief chronology of how the role of the tectonic building elements, which evolved from a need to protect the hearth, changed to being used to contain a manufactured environment. A design process that emphasizes a reliance on natural processes is used to test the assertion that architectural richness and environmental diversity in the human experience can be captured through the implementation of transitional spaces that exist in an expanded border between the extremes of inside and outside. iii CONTENTS abstract THESIS 1 function & poetry inside & outside the manufactured environment illustrations 14 PROJECT 29 site observations programmatic needs design process sequence of spaces bibliography iv THESIS Mediation can be seen as a process of reconciling mutually interdependent, opposed forces—or finding a mean between extremes. Seeking to understand and define the extremes helps to reveal the spectrum of possibilities that exists between them. Buildings play a key role in delineating and mediating between outside and inside and their poetic and functional characteristics. Raw observations may even conclude that there is no inside without the use of building elements; however, the metaphysical subtext of inside and outside tends to extend the definition of inside beyond being simply contained from the outside. In his book The Poetics of Space, French philosopher Gaston Bachelard explored the ontological derivatives of outside and inside. He emphasized that “outside and inside form a dialectic of division.”1 They are opposing forces that have the ability to represent both physical and metaphysical concepts. “Philosophers, when confronted with outside and inside, think in terms of being and non-being.”2 In examining excerpts from Les Cahiers by Rainer Maria Rilke, Gaston Bachelard emphasizes the existential nature of these two forces. Often it is from the very fact of concentration in the most restricted intimate space that the dialectics of inside and outside draws its strength. One feels this elasticity in the following passage by Rilke: “And there is no space here; and you feel almost calm at the thought that it is impossible for anything very large to hold in this narrowness.” There is consolation in knowing that one is in an atmosphere of calm, in a narrow space where everything is commensurate with inner being. Then in the next sentence, the text continues dialectically: “But outside, everything is immeasurable. And when the level rises outside, it also rises in you, not in the vessels that are partially controlled by you, or in the phlegm of your most unimpressionable organs: but it grows in the capillary veins, drawn upward into the furthermost branches of your infinitely ramified existence.”… Inside and outside are not abandoned to their geometrical opposition. 3 1 Juhani Pallasmaa explains the metaphysical need that human existence has for shelter from the outside condition. "Architecture is our primary instrument in relating us with space and time, and giving these dimensions a human measure. It domesticates limitless space and endless time to be tolerated, inhabited and understood by humankind."4 FUNCTION & POETRY Accepting that a discussion of inside and outside includes both physical and metaphysical realms, places a larger responsibility on architectural works than merely providing protection from the elements. This responsibility can be referred to in terms of the opposing forces of function and poetry in architecture. Fulfilling both functional and poetic needs has always been an indispensable charge of architecture—the art and science of designing buildings and other physical structures. Achieving a balance between the two is not an easy task. Juhani Pallasmaa explains this responsibility as follows: “The task of architecture lies as much in the need for metaphysical grounding for human thought and experience as the provision of shelter from a raging storm.”5 When the architecture fails to mediate between function and poetry, discontent and criticism abound. For example, multiple authors and architects have lamented an overemphasis on functional issues in modern architecture. The architectural design process took on positivist or scientific approach—pursuing the process itself as if it could lead to answers and new truth in a similar way that hard sciences were improving their understanding of the world around them. This denial of poetic authorship in favor of positivist process pretends that a resulting design ‘solution’ is somehow a foregone conclusion because of the use of precedent, program, and site studies as ‘evidence.’ Feeling that architectural theory and practice has taken an overly functional role, Alberto Perez-Gomez states in his book Architecture and the Crisis of Modern Science, that architecture often fails to provide all of the metaphysical demands that are placed upon it. "Once it adopted the ideals of a positivistic science, architecture was forced to reject its traditional role as one of the fine arts. Deprived of a legitimate poetic content, architecture was reduced to either a prosaic technological process or mere decoration"6 2 This desire for poetic content in architecture, however, must always be checked by the functional needs. The demands placed on architectural projects never allow architecture to be fully immersed as a poetic or purely representational art form. Louis Kahn expressed why it is that architecture must always be somewhat apart from other fine arts. “A painter can paint square wheels on a cannon to express the futility of war. A sculptor can carve the same square wheels. But an architect must use round wheels.”7 The needs for function can never really be ignored in a thorough architectural design process. Juhani Pallasmaa echoed this sentiment; “the architect works with form and mass just as the sculptor does, and like the painter he works with color. But alone of the three, his is a functional art. It solves practical problems. It creates tools or implements for human being and utility plays a decisive role.”8 This balance between function and poetry in architecture was adequately achieved for centuries due to the requisite relationship between building form and function. Poetic expressions in architecture were coupled with real functional needs. For example, ornamentation often served functional roles in structure or weathering while simultaneously providing cultural and aesthetic references. Architecture was seen as the art and science of building making. The building provided the mediation between the environment and the occupant—a relationship that never allowed architecture to stray too far from its functional responsibilities. The orientation, proportions, and materials were all selected to ameliorate the extreme forces of the outside environment. Function and poetry in architecture were balanced as a natural result of the way people used to build. This equilibrium has caused traditional building practices to be a subject of study among architects who wish to achieve a better balance between environmental necessity and existential desire. Hassan Fathay related the following tale to illustrate this idea: When man is handling raw material, natural material like stone, what is he doing? When he is dressing stone he is removing what is superficial and preserving what is essential. So he is spiritualizing himself and spiritualizing the stone. There is a story of a man passing three men who are dressing stone. He asked them, “What are you doing?” the first said, “I am making a living.” The second said, “I am dressing stone.” And the third 3 said, “I am building a cathedral.” Only the last had a sense of his task in the context of man’s desires and the material’s capabilities together, and saw beyond merely his own purposes or the technical problem of working with the stone.9 The physical building and its environmental mediation became a representation of function while the purpose of the building and the existential connection with it became the link to the metaphysical poetry in architecture. INSIDE & OUTSIDE Tracing a history of how building elements have mediated between inside and outside helps to reveal some of the physical and metaphysical characteristics of inside and outside. It also exhibits existential aspects of how the human relationship with its environment has dramatically changed in recent times. German architect Gottfried Semper suggests the origins of architecture through the lens of anthropology in his book The Four Elements of Architecture: The first sign of human settlement and rest after the hunt, the battle, and wandering in the desert is today, as when the first men lost paradise, the setting up of the fireplace the lighting of the reviving, warming, and food-preparing flame. Around the hearth the first groups assembled; around