Report on the Workshop, Week 1, period 1, Module A2

 

The assignment: An analysis of two building projects: houses by J.W. Neutelings on Borneo/Sporenburg and a building block by Diener&Diener on the KNSM island. Both are in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

The houses of J.W. Neutelings are already finished, so we could have a look inside. The building block of Diener&Diener only exists in plans and drawings yet, but will be built in the near future.

 For a quick overview of both projects, see this page.

The keywords that were mentioned to us in relation to the analysis were, sequence, space, and "do your own thing". With that in mind we started our investigation of the two projects.

This, of course, began with a fieldtrip to Amsterdam, of which you can see a short picture report on the next page.

 

After seeing the projects, the analysis could begin. A very long discussion took place over both buildings: What were the architects intentions, what were the conditions created within these plans, how did the plans affect the people living there etc. etc.

We did lot's of talking, and couldn't really agree on anything, but finally we had to come to some sort of conclusion……. So we started to look for things both projects had in common. In doing this we disregarded the big differences in scale, we looked at the internal organisation of the Neutelings houses, and compared that to the organisation on the scale of the city plan at the Diener&Diener building.

There we found some interesting similarities! We found that routing, and specifically the way in which routing is used is very similar in both projects. According to us the route is in both projects used to give the place (the living room with Neutelings, the square with Diener&Diener) it's own identity. So what we are saying here is that the route towards the place gives identity to the place (or space).

One example of this can be seen in de series of pictures of the Neutelings houses at the fieldtrip-page, where the route towards the light an open living room leads through a very small dark staircase. This gives the living room, while being very open, a secluded atmosphere.

The same thing happens with the KNSM/Java Island in relation to the Diener&Diener block. But since the block is not built yet, I'll have to try to show that with a computer model. The results can be found here. As you can see, the building gives the square on the island a completely different atmosphere. And sure, the change in route is not the only factor in this, but we think it really is a factor.

To prove that the routing can have a big effect on the identity of the space it leads to I've made three other computer models and studied them. The models are: a direct route, an indirect route and a labyrinth-like route. This study can be found on another page again!

The study shows (I hope) that the different routes give different identity's to the spaces they lead to. When I conclude that this is so, I think I've found an interesting design tool in architecture. A design tool that doesn't just work with the manipulating of spaces, but one that also deals with time. Time in the sense of the timespan needed to go from one place to another. Because time is needed to experience a route. Just as much as differences are needed to make the route an architectural experience.

This idea gets rid of the old architectural idea that a space is an isolated entity that is only formed by what you can see while being in that space. What I'm saying is that a mental image of the route is formed in the spectators head, which also affects the impression the space gives on someone. This, for instance, means that an entrance not only forms a representational image to the outside of a building, but that it also leaves it's mental marks on the experience of the inside of a building. Even when this entrance is left far behind and is out of sight.

These conclusions give interesting stuff for further investigation, like how much does the route affect the experience of the space, in which way, and how can this be used in the design of buildings. And this should not only affect architecture, but it could also prove important for urbanism, as shows the picture series of the Diener&Diener building. Wich means the described effect is probably not limited to a certain scale of the enviroment.

 

Jarjan Fisher.