UNIVERSITY OF THE WITWATERSRAND!

Judges Lounge, OMM DWS + US 2000!

Section, Space and Materiality

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13 March 2014

Space constantly encompasses our being.

Through the volume of space we move, we see
form, hear sounds, feel breezes and
smells.As space begins to be captured,
enclosed, moulded, and organized by the
elements of mass, architecture comes into being
Oscar Niemeyer

As an architect were not sculpting building materials,

you primary medium is space itself. We constantly
have to remind ourselves that viewing architecture as
space reminds us that the experience of the built
environment is primarily the experience of spatial
boundaries and connections.

OMM DWS +US Con Court Gallery, 2001!

It is tempting in architecture to focus on what you plan

and build on the elements of architecture walls,
floors, roofs, doors and windows, but what really
counts, and what drives the experience of architecture
is space.

Architectural space also flows, and is primarily

experienced in time, and this narrative of sequencing of
connections and boundaries has been described by Hans
Scharoun as the poetry of spatial movement.
Rhythm, focus, contraction and expansion, darkness,
light, scale, material and colour are an essential
expression of how we assemble the raw building blocks of
architecture to orchestrate to spatial boundaries and
connections.

But sections and the definition of its space, represent the

primary experience of a building. In fact, some sites (such
as those with steep slopes) and building types (those
requiring tall interior spaces, careful management of
connections between floors, or unusual attention to daylighting) require that you design in section before you think
about floor plans.

World Heritage Site Competition 2003, US!

Good designers work back and forth between plans and

sections, allowing each to inform the other. Poor
designers fixate on floor plans and draw building
sections afterward as a record of decisions already made
in plan.

Chamber and Judges Lounge Link!

Chamber and Judges Lounge Link!

Light and shadow

architecture is the wise, correct and magnificent play
of volumes collected together under the light
Le Corbousier

Light, or absence of light, can transform space in each

season, each day of the year, each hour of the day,
each moment. The Constitutional Court Foyer and
Chamber face south, and the attempt to bring light into
the space is of great importance.
Chateau de Chambord, da Vince

Light belongs to architecture as it expresses the art of

touching with the effect of light (Etianne-Louis Boulle).
It is the architects most effective tool providing the
greatest opportunity to transform the spatial context,
creating agreeable or disagreeable, sublime or
mysterious sensations, the sensations of enlarging a
space or making it smaller, or simply highlighting
aspects of the space that require focus.
Above all, designing with light makes the space more
agreeable, more comfortable, more habitable, more
visible.

Jameh Mosque, Isfahan

Light and shadow

Chateau de Chambord, da Vince

Light and shadow

Light and shadow

Light and shadow

Steven Holl, MIT Simmons Hall

Light and shadow

Velux, 2007, Vol.32

Light and shadow

Velux, 2007, Vol.32

Light and shadow

Zumthor, Kolumba Museum

Space and Form

The relationship between form and the space
coexist at several different levels. The form and
enclosure of space determines, or is determined
by, the form of the space around it.
If one places two dimensional figures on a plan or
section, it influences the shape of the space
around it in many ways.
Students must come to understand the effect of
lines on drawings and how they impose on space.

Chris Wilkinson

Space
Form
Space
andand
Form

Comrie and Wilken

Riola Church, A.Aalto

Space and Form

L. Kahn, Exeter Library

Riola Church, A.Aalto

Space and Form

Coarlos Scarpa

Structure
Walls and columns are not merely structural
elements; they are tools for organizing and shaping
space. Although their primary purpose is of course
structural, columns for example are invaluable in
other ways: a row of columns can define the spaces
in mumerous ways; they can distinguish circulation
pathways from gathering spaces; act as a
wayfinding element in a building interior; or serve
as a rhythmic elements
Alexander Platz, Berlin

Vertical elements and forms have a greater

presence in our visual field than horizontal planes,
and therefore more instrumental in defining volume
of space and providing a sense of enclosure.
Whilst we have physical contact with walls and
columns, the roof or ceiling plane is usually out of
reach and purely a visual element in a space. The
ceiling plane can symbolize the sky, or be the
primary sheltering element that unifies the
different parts of a space. It can act as repository
for frescoes, be used to alter scale, define spatial
zones, and or manipulate the quality of light or
sound within space.

Structure

Structure

Structure

Lesotho House, Roof Structure

Structure

Structure

Riola Church, A.Aalto

Materiality and Texture

The choice of materiality effects the quality of space on
numerous levels. Texture significantly determines the
degree to which the surfaces of a form reflect or
absorb light, but also articulates the precise nature of
its parts and the relationship to each other.
It also expresses something of the quality of materials,
which in turn gives a particular quality to light. Although
one absorbs both qualities simultaneously by eye, the
first has tactile, the second visual associations
The texture of architecture also speaks to the sensory
aspect of architecture, as described by Juhani
Pallasmaa the quality of architecture does not lie
in the sense of reality that it expresses, but quite
the reverse, in its capacity for awakening our
imagination.
Other references would include work by Peter Zumthor

Materiality and Texture

Materiality and Texture

Materiality and Texture

Town Hall, A.Aalto

Materiality and Texture

G.Bawa

Material Guidelines

Material Guidelines

Material Guidelines

Material Guidelines

Material Guidelines

Material Guidelines

Material Guidelines

Material Guidelines

Ludwig Hansen Architects and Urban Designers

Farm House!

3D Images!