Nature | Architecture
Architecture and nature are natural companions. It is impossible to design good buildings without understanding their relationship to natural systems. It is also impossible to understand the natural environment without knowing how human intervention affects it – both positively and negatively. As man and nature begin to recognize their interdependence, the study of environment takes on a whole new meaning. Nature is an emotional element within the surrounding environment and is an important aspect to deal with everyday affecting everything around human. Human always communicates with nature; since starting to build shelters and using them, nature has been used as an important and basic part in the plans and designs. Human being noticed the advantages of communicating with nature as; health, less stress and sickness. Plants and green spaces can help in perfection and safety in the cities and improvement of social relationship and interaction in residential environments.
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The realization that individuals exist within enclosed structures for most of their live has become increasingly important. Designers need to understand how spaces affect individuals to design spaces balancing the stress of everyday life and create environments of personal well-being . Therefore, there is a need for a theoretical and conceptual framework in obtaining guidelines for designing new natural buildings to be integrated with the surrounding environment.
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There exist different definitions for the word “metaphor” by architects and designers; it has been defined as direct comparison between two or more seemingly unrelated subjects. There are two types of metaphors; direct metaphor which is headed the metaphor form to harmony with the surrounding and with the receiver by the form stimulation to objects seen before and became familiar and a part of the memory. For example, the work of Norman Foster, Masdar Underground Headquarter. It is designed as the world’s first mixed use and positive energy building using sustainable design; it is designed to be the centrepiece of Masdar City in Abu Dhabi. The building form is sculptured and influenced by the tree structure in its exterior contributing it with the culture and is functioned to be used as ventilating and source of light element.
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Masdar Underground Headquarter / Foster + Partners
Indirect metaphor which borrows the objective principles that guide the environmental composition (topology). There exist different sources of metaphor such as: from architecture or outside architecture such as: literature, religious, environment, art and man-made. For instance, House NA by Sou Fujimoto. Described as “a unity of separation and coherence”, the house acts as both a single room and a collection of rooms. The loosely defined program and the individual floor plates create a setting for a range of activities that can take place at different scales. The house provides spaces of intimacy if two individuals choose to be close, while also accommodating for a group of guests by distributing people across the house. The intriguing point of a tree is that these places are not hermetically isolated but are connected to one another in its unique relativity. To hear one's voice from across and above, hopping over to another branch, a discussion taking place across branches by members from separate branches. These are some of the moments of richness encountered through such spatially dense living. The white steel-frame structure itself shares no resemblance to a tree. Yet the life lived and the moments experienced in this space is a contemporary adaptation of the richness once experienced by the ancient predecessors from the time when they inhabited trees. Such is an existence between city, architecture, furniture and the body, and is equally between nature and artificiality.
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House NA / Sou Fujimoto
Finally, the relationship between architecture and environment is very strong and can’t be denied as we see to have a sustainable and healthy environment we have to take good care of the buildings that are built in it and also to have sustainable buildings we have to take into consideration the environment surrounds it and its impacts. To achieve the aim of the study a short review took place, all through the history, nature has been a part of architecture from the time that human directly used it by living in the caves and using building material according to the nature of its surrounding, after industrialization designs changed by the new materials, tools and technologies and inspiration of nature took place in architecture.