Architectural Elements | Homemade Prototypes

ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS

The Wall: serves two essential functions: providing structure and dividing space.

The loadbearing wall: separating roof from ground, stability and the human need for shelter.
The partition wall: organising movement, changeable as our forms of sociability.

As per Yet Gottfried Semper, the walls archetype was the hanging fabric of the tent. Solid walls of mud, wood and bricks came later to supplement these temporary barriers.

Increasing standards of modesty and individualism demand new walls around new bedrooms; new family norms.

Defensive wall: a primal political character as a way of setting a limit between self and other.

Image Title: Wall

The Balcony: protrudes and floats into the exterior. It serves as a hybrid of public and private, inside and outside.

"With ancestry in military architecture and the theatre, the balcony evolves through two principle imperatives: political power and every leisure. While these expressions could not seem more different, they are intertwined in a global migration of the balcony across continents, and from shahs to proletariat."(Koolhaas. 2014)

Impure forms of the balcony are veranda, terrace, loggia, a street in the air.

Mashrabiya, appropriate to tropical sites. Closed off but offering access to air, providing shade and the ability to see into the street without being seen.

Image Title: Balcony

The Window: as a place

Window seats, bay windows, sills, shutters, blinds, curtains all emphatically declared of the position of the window, both from the inside and outside of architecture.

Windows offer not just a view but also a connection to the outside world.

Ventilation, Illumination, Filtration, Framing.

Image Title: Window

The Corridor:

“Corridore” in Europe was known as a person who runs to transfer messages, it then became "the space for running on or next to city walls" (Koolhaas. 2014) In the 18th century the corridor becomes a fundamental element of architecture utilized for changing spatial and social relationships, becoming a key element in the "architecture of modernity (asylums, prisons, hospitals, social housing projects, etc)"(Koolhaas. 2014)

Transit, Service, Back of house, Connecting

Image Title: Corridor

The Fireplace:

1160 was a pivotal moment; the fireplace moved from the centre of the living space and became embedded in a thickened wall.

The fireplace is a catalyst for cultural evolution.
Fireplaces became spaces of centrality, similar to the kitchen.

Cooking was taken care of by the metal stove; heating became flameless, automated.

"With the build of chimneys, rooms could be built smaller and ceiling made lower. The advantages of the chimney was the desire of private spaces. Heated rooms allowed one to leave the communal central hearth. The building could now be subdivided by the chimney wall. Men were freed from their reliance on the central hearth to provide warmth." (Koolhaas. 2014)

Image Title: Fireplace

The Door:

Our behaviour around doors is inherently political. When one closes the door softly slamming it, might seem violent.

"To meet in private is ‘to meet behind closed doors’. To be welcoming is to have ‘an open-door policy’" (Koolhaas.2014)

In former times, the door represented the entire house, it showed the social standing of the owner. It served the purpose of maintaining appearances.

Openness, entry, freedom + security, safety, privacy

Image Title: Door

DOORS : AS BODIES IN SPACE

The role that the door plays towards rituals that have certain power balances in the home. I have extended my inquiry to four different types of doors. By analysing the typologies and thresholds that one passes as they enter through a specific door.

The simple task of opening a door involves a sequence of at least 20 instantaneous sub-decisions and calculations, each with implications for ergonomics and safety. This is illustrated by a midlevel hierarchical task analysis of hinged door.

Administrative roles and responsibilities