BUILDING AND BODY
In today’s architecture, what do us designing for? What do us designing from? What we are considering about?
Previously, we looked into ornamentation, form, function and many more in terms of relating to building in architecture.
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Today, let’s talk about the relationship between building and human body which are relating to each other and will enrich the space design and architecture.
Why do we say body is relating to building with a blink in our mind that a natural creature relating to a man-made? As building has been said that designed with a proportion which is a correspondence among the measurement of the members of entire work(Marcus Vitruvius) and human body was also relating to a proportion which having the same meaning to building. Hence, the both are related. Some perspective have an idea that building are parts as whole which same with the function of body parts.
“Range of harmonious measurements to suit the human scale, universally applicable to architecture and mechanical things.”
Le Corbusier.
GOLDEN RATIO
MODULAR SYSTEM
Le Corbusier trying to emphasize on was combined architecture and anthropometric as a whole, with Modular System which is a measuring tool based on human body and on mathematics and the system would be a unification in all countries. (Yet the “Modular” would, one day, claim to be the means of unification for manufactured articles in all countries.-from Excerpts from Le Modulor by Le Corbusier.)With the Modular System relating to our anthropometric study now, it provides a guide for designing our layout, our interior and these are affecting the environment of building no matter in or out and also the user experience as a whole. At this level, we are talking about how proportion of building or a space interrelating to proportion of human activity, gesture and anthropometry. “The buildings should have to standardize to achieve the harmony between the building and people." Le Corbusier
THE MODULAR BY LE CORBUSIER
With some aspect and brief idea of relationship between Body and Building, then questions starting blowing up in mind. Is that building a metaphor of body; an abstraction or others or combination? Yes, another interesting fact coming into our topic. From my perspective view, I confidently said that building and body are strongly related but they might related in difference aspect due to design consideration and an architect’s intention.
PLAN
BODY PARTS
From the Hindu temple that I learned during my Architecture history course, the plan of the temple was actually a strand of mathematics and geometry developed in ancient India specifically to facilitate the exact building of Vedic altars and later temples. which gives meaning behind.
‘The design of a temple depends on symmetry, the principles of which must be most
Carefully observed by the architect. ‘ Quoted by Marcus Vitruviu.
The body parts of Deva represent the parts of spaces, with the head pointing towards west and feet towards east. Garbagraham represent the head and Gopuram represent the feet.
ABSOLUTE TOWER
The Absolute Tower by Mayan Song also present a well relationship between body and building. This project is a metaphor of the body pose of Marilyn Monroe. Standing at 170 and 150 metres, the Absolute Towers contain apartments on each of their oval-shaped floors, but every storey is incrementally rotated to give both buildings a curved and twisted outline. The curved and twisted outline metaphor the body shape of Marilyn Monroe. (Building and Body relationships)
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WOODEN HOUSE
The others study which can represent the relationship between body and building in term of their functions is Wooden House by Sou Fujimoto .Like the statement that we discuss above, anthropometric study are related to building's proportion. There are no separations of floor, wall, and ceiling here. A place that one thought was a floor becomes a chair, a ceiling, a wall from various positions. The floor levels are relative and spatiality is perceived differently according to one's position. Here, people are distributed three-dimensionally in the space. This is a place like an amorphous landscape with a new experience of various senses of distances. But with these “specials”, Sou Fujimoto still considering about the anthropometry of human. The every changes of spaces can accomplished with human anthropometry like sitting and standing. What if the space cannot fit in people motion, people cannot carry out activity there? From my view, it will be just a wooden sculpture.
TURNING TORSO
Turning Torso by Santiago Calatrava also a metaphor of human body which based on the form of a twisting body. In the original sculpture of Turning Torso, seven cubes are set around a steel support to produce a spiral structure, which resembles a twisting human spine. In the Turning Torso building, the spiralling tower is composed of nine box units, each of five floors. The equivalent in the tower of the sculpture's steel support is the nucleus of internal elevators and stairs, through which the box units communicate.
In a conclusion, body and building are connected, related. It depends on how architect going to design it with intention and the user experience from the building. Architecture is fun to explore more not only in term of its façade or the common but also the function, meaning or metaphor behind it.