Human-centered design Archives

March 31, 2021

Searching for Slowness – A Future Paced Ethos

In the fall semester of 2020, Caroline Amstutz and David Pankhurst, a couple of MIT Architecture grad students, researched the theme of Slow Architecture and interviewed several firms around the world, including Todd Williams Billie Tsien Architects, RMA Architects, Studio Mumbai, Aamodt / Plumb, and MASS Design Group. They did a fantastic final project and we wanted to share their work with our audience. Below you’ll find an essay by Amstutz and Pankhurst and images of the beautiful final booklet they made. Here is a link to the Aamodt / Plumb interview.

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PROJECT DESCRIPTION BY AMSTUTZ AND PANKHURST

“Searching for Slowness” is a new architectural manifesto, taking form in a kit, which asks participants to contribute to a common understanding of Slow Architecture. The kit invites readers to fold and assemble a series of conversations into booklet format. Then, readers interact with the recounted conversations by categorizing portions of the text into the “tenets” which we uncovered in our search for slowness. Finally, readers deconstruct, refold, and reassemble the booklet into the second reading of the manifesto – the tenets, a thematic synthesis of principles and values of Slow Architecture.

Linked below are the two different “readings” of the booklet, and above is the time-lapse video of this assembly, disassembly, and reassembly process.

Searching for Slowness Tenet Booklet [Click to download]

Searching for Slowness Conversations Booklet [Click to download]

Booklet Folding Instructions

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ESSAY: Searching for Slowness – A Future-Paced Ethos

By Caroline Amstutz + David Pankhurst, MIT Architecture Department, December 17, 2020

Speed is a hallmark trait of the 21st. century; from fast food to fast fashion, our digital and global moment demands a pace previously unimaginable. But with speed comes compromise at the cost of our environment, health, and culture. An antidote to our fast-paced, technologically driven lives resides in carving out space for deliberateness; for slowness – and nowhere is this more relevant than in the design of the spaces which encircle our lives. If our behavior, well-being, and sense of belonging are tied to how we dwell, how can the practice of architecture allow us to slow down and re-pace our future?

Fleeting a single definition, slowness shifts meanings as it impacts individuals, communities, and environments. Searching for Slowness attempts to quantify and qualify the ephemeral idea of slowness, asking the question: what does it mean to create Slow Architecture? While our understanding of slowness meandered as our research gained more perspectives and nuance, Slow Architecture, like Slow Food[1], can ultimately be defined by three principles: Clean – sustainable for the environment; Fair – equitable for individuals and communities; and Good, which is harder to evaluate, but could be defined as high quality – both materially and experientially.

Initially, our perception of Slow Architecture was characterized as a highly material practice centered on human experience; a literal slowness embraced in the temporal drag inherent to physical mediums as part of the design process. Paradoxically, the deliberate slowness imbued in this process could translate into an ethos which posits a solution to the most pressing issues troubling architecture: sustainability and equity. Slow Architects, we believed, could be identified by several key traits. Firstly, a slowness induced by method through electing to design using haptically transferrable mediums and resisting quick impulse technologies. And secondly, an unconventional practice structure, such as craft and artisan informed ateliers, design-builds, and non-profit firms which encourage higher levels of engagement with constructive processes and communities. Equipped with criteria to identify Slow Architecture, we sought to understand how these models resist the industry trends which distance architecture from material and labor and dissociate the architect from the long-term implications of their design decisions.

Acknowledging these foundational assumptions, we interviewed firms (from here onward called conversations) which fit our definition of Slow Architecture, hoping through conversation to uncover how they understand their work within the context of slowness, how their practice reinforces slowness, and where their definitions of slowness diverge from our own. As we probed our understanding, we compiled these recounted conversations in Searching for Slowness – a new architectural manifesto inviting readers to dwell, reflect upon, and contribute their own ideas about Slow Architecture. Our conception of Slow Architecture evolved as we gained new perspectives from our conversations; our manifesto acknowledges that there is no single or “correct” definition of slowness, but rather Slow Architecture is defined by a series of principles, presented as malleable tenets, which were found resting under the surface of our discussions.

As we molded our understanding of Slow Architecture through conversations, we crystalized our conviction of the need for a Slow Architecture through reading and revisiting texts addressing issues of environment and equity. Research beyond our conversations helped to contextualize Slow Architecture within a larger disciplinary discourse. Parallel “Slow Movements”, such as Slow Food [2], or Citta Slow [3] (Slow City) , grounded our critique of Fast Architecture’s unqualified embrace of globalization and homogenization. Borrowing the Slow Food movement’s “Good, Clean, and Fair,” provided productive friction as we expanded their verbiage to fit an architectural scale and positioned the concepts relative to current disciplinary conversations.

“Clean” and “fair” are existential and immediate, often directly intertwined in addressing the challenges of coexistence. Godofredo Pereira’s “Towards an Environmental Architecture” illustrates the interdependence of issues of sustainability and labor. [4] Pereira communicates the imperative “to re-assess the legal, ethical and political limits of architecture’s responsibilities” in order to move “from the position of providing services to that of critically supporting ongoing processes of social transformation.” [5] The social is entangled with the environmental, and Pereira suggests that the “environment” should be reframed as “relations of coexistence.” [6]

Addressing “fair,” Mabel Wilson’s “Who Builds Your Architecture?” highlights the “risk adversity and class divisions that [characterize] the prevailing mentality of the construction and design industries.” [7] Wilson’s text prompted our interest in engaging with alternate models of practice; those with a propensity to take more ownership of the entire production of architecture, from pre-design through post-occupancy. Wilson identifies a disciplinary disconnect wherein “those most intimately knowledgeable about the design and engineering of projects […] likely never set foot on a construction site or interact with the workers for whom they produce instructions about how to build their designs.” [8] Slow Architecture has the potential to bridge this gap. Wilson attributes this disciplinary cocoon to two key factors: an imperative to avert risk and diminish liability, and an increasing focus on “algorithmically created form making […] that concentrate[s] creative energies on articulating the surface of architecture rather than its material impact.” [9] These two concerns are central to Slow Architecture as they expand the principles of “Clean” and Fair” in relationship to the more nebulous “Good.”

Our Conversations reinforced the ideas introduced by Wilson: this segregation of services does not eliminate risk, rather it is aggregated and spread, scattering the responsibility to deploy environmentally sustainable and fair labor practices. The shift of designer priorities from material impact to surface articulation further illustrates how priorities can be encapsulated in the processes and medium of production. Or, as John May articulates in his entry to Log 40, “Technics contain specific models of time, which resonate with lived life […] the structural pace with which any given technical system allows us to record our thoughts and actions is inseparable from the ways of life it makes possible or impossible.” [10] With exception, there is a tendency toward technological dependency to degenerate into solipsistic, parametric “form-making” that displaces the concern for the human experience and material realities. Our conversations engaged with firms whose design begins with a profound concern with materiality and human experience – practices who rely on tactile translations of design through models, material investigations, and true orthographic drawings. While Slow Architecture can transcend media and method, there is a speed ascribed to the techne of production.

In conversation, however, we found these concerns of particular mediums of design to be largely circumstantial; some favored orthographic iteration, others relied on material mockups, and others still conceded that the international nature of their organization necessitated a purely digital design process. This speed-of-medium to speed-of-production relationship which initially framed our understanding of slowness proves to be just one of many critical exchanges, while larger attitudes of “empathy,” “empowerment,” and “ownership” more readily reveal a practice of Slow Architecture.

Not overlooking material or method, our conversations revealed that more important is the appropriateness of its application; using the right tools to interrogate or communicate design decisions. This idea of appropriateness underscores our own process of searching for slowness as we move between definitions and perceptions of what it means to practice Slow Architecture. Without hard rules or boundaries, appropriateness encompasses our principles of “flexibility,” “locality,” and “interdisciplinarity.” Our Conversations outlined appropriateness as a means to derive design from context and root architecture in culture, environment, and time.

The recurring themes of the conversations we had, and will continue to have, shape our perspective of a future-paced ethos of architecture. We will perhaps never be able to pin down the fleeting experience of slowness, but in starting to evaluate what constitutes Slow Architecture, we stride towards a more sustainable and equitable future.

1 “Good, Clean and Fair: the Slow Food Manifesto for Quality.” (Slow Food International, 2016) 2.

2 Good, Clean and Fair: the Slow Food Manifesto for Quality.” (Slow Food International, 2016) 2.

3 Citta Slow: International Network of Cities Where Living is Easy.” (Cittaslow International, 2019)

4 Pereira, Godofredo Enes. “Towards an Environmental Architecture.” (e-flux: architecture, 2010)

5 Ibid.

6 Ibid.

7 Wilson, Mabel, Jordan Carver, and Kadambari Baxi. “Who Builds Your Architecture?—An Advocacy Project.” The Gulf: High Culture/Hard Labor . (OR Books, 2015) 100.

8 Ibid, 110.

9 Wilson, Mabel, Jordan Carver, and Kadambari Baxi. “Who Builds Your Architecture?—An Advocacy Project.” The Gulf: High Culture/Hard Labor . (OR Books, 2015) 110.

10 May, John. “Everything Is Already an Image.” Log 40. (Anyone Corporation, 2017) 10.

Bibliography

“Citta Slow: International Network of Cities Where Living is Easy.” (Cittaslow International, 2019)
“Good, Clean and Fair: the Slow Food Manifesto for Quality.” (Slow Food International, 2016) www.slowfood.com/about-us/our-philosophy/
May, John. “Everything Is Already an Image.” Log 40. (Anyone Corporation, 2017)
Pereira, Godofredo Enes. “Towards an Environmental Architecture.” (e-flux: architecture, 2010) https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/positions/205375/towards-an environmental-architecture/
Wilson, Mabel, Jordan Carver, and Kadambari Baxi. “Who Builds Your Architecture?—An Advocacy Project.” The Gulf: High Culture/Hard Labor . (OR Books, 2015)

March 8, 2019

Are Passive Houses Also Slow?

When it comes to building methodologies “Passive” and “Slow” sound related, don’t they? In many ways, they are. Passive House (‘passivhaus’ in German) is a building approach and certification of energy efficiency that creates healthy and comfortable living environments. The Slow Space Movement encourages wellbeing by promoting buildings that are good, clean and fair. While the core principles of Passive House align with the Slow Space Movement, the energy-focused building approach could benefit from the Slow Space Movement’s holistic credo.

What is Passive House?

The Passive House approach maximizes energy efficiency to produce buildings that are not only environmentally friendly, but uniquely comfortable. Passive homes achieve such a high standard through ultra efficient insulation, orienting the building to maximize sunlight in the winter and shade in the summer, and an air-tight yet well ventilated enclosure. Passive homes often make use of solar energy to further reduce their carbon footprint. A well-insulated home takes advantage of the incidental internal heat sources such as appliances and our own body heat to add warmth in the winter. Through natural temperature regulation and fresh air circulation, passive homes improve our health and quality of life.

Why do we like it?

Passive House buildings directly improve our health. These structures make use of natural daylight which helps our circadian rhythms, productivity, emotional wellbeing and more. Passive houses also constantly circulate fresh air which is not only comfortable, but reduces the risk of mold, dust, pollen and other pollutants and allergens. When we spend 90% of our time indoors, the improved air quality in passive homes has a direct affect on our health. Furthermore, these buildings are so well insulated, there is incredibly little temperature fluctuation even in extreme weather conditions, thus regulating a health body temperature.

Passive homes also indirectly improve our wellbeing. By creating a home that reduces the need for electricity through daylighting and temperature regulation, Passive Houses are less dependent on technology and fossil fuels. Even if the heating system breaks in the winter, the house would remain comfortable for days. The level of insulation in a home also helps our quality of life. Imagine being able to sit in a cozy window nook in the middle of winter without the hint of a draft or cold air radiating from the glass. Moreover, a well insulated house reduces noise, creating a peaceful, quiet living environment.

Passive Homes also need to be very well built in order to be airtight. This means they are highly resilient to weather conditions and will last much longer than the typical house. Well-constructed homes not only benefit the homeowners, but support the work of local craftspeople and the communities around them.

What can be improved?

Passive House is a highly effective building methodology that creates efficient and healthy environments which we love; however, it is not necessarily a wholistic approach. One of the major issues we have with some high performance buildings is in material selection. For example, many Passive Houses are insulated with spray foam insulation which can be highly toxic.

The Slow Space Movement encourages the use of organic, renewable materials such as wood fiber insulation as an alternative. Wood fiber insulation can insulate a house well enough for Passive House certification and is non-toxic to people and the planet.

Toxic materials have a negative impact on the house’s inhabitants, the workers that build it and the planet. The Slow Space Movement promotes good design, clean healthy materials and fair labor practices. This includes creating a healthy environment for the workers during construction.

Of course, proponents of Passive House have no intention of using toxic materials or unfair labor. But it is all too easy in the construction industry to focus in on one goal and lose sight of the entire process. As we strive for Passive House standards, let’s maintain a holistic approach that considers energy efficiency along with good, clean and fair practices.

June 26, 2018

New Urbanism Communities Align With Slow Space

Recently, I have been reflecting on a debate that I attended as a student at the Harvard Graduate School of Design in the 1990s. It was about New Urbanism, a human-scaled urban design development approach. The debate was between Rem Koolhaas, one of the world’s most important architectural thinkers, and Andres Duany, who co-founded the New Urbanism Movement and developed a community called Seaside, Florida based on its principles. As a devout modernist who considered Koolhaas’s book, SMLXL, to be my bible, I remember siding with Koolhaas. I thought that New Urbanism was nostalgic, idealistic and not relevant. I dismissed it completely. These days however, I keep pondering the similarities between New Urbanism and The Slow Space Movement.

Seaside, Florida is a private development on the Gulf Coast and is the best-known example of New Urbanism. It is a relatively small community incorporating residential buildings, mixed use buildings and public space. It is known for its pastel-colored houses featuring porches and white picket fences. Rem Koolhaas criticized New Urbanism, and Seaside in particular, as manufactured quaintness. It lacks the grit of a place that develops organically, as well as the diversity and intrigue of a real city.

I see his point, but when compared to most typical suburban developments, especially from the 1980s, with McMansions and no place to walk, New Urbanism developments are actually appealing. For example, in Seaside, everything is walkable and within easy reach. There is more vegetation than lawn and private outdoor space is intimate in size, encouraging residents to utilize communal outdoor spaces. In addition, the community includes a variety of sizes and building types. While they seem to mostly be vernacular in style, they aren’t identical, and in fact many different architects, such as Robert A.M. Stern and Deborah Berke, have designed homes there. Now, I have never been there myself, but from everything I have read and seen through images, it seems like a nice place to live or take a vacation, and slow down. In the 1999 debate, Alex Krieger asked Koolhaas if he had ever been there. His response: “Every year”. Was he joking?

Over the past 20 years, New Urbanism has accomplished more than just create quaint communities. It promotes walkability, green transportation, public spaces, quality architecture and mixed use neighborhoods, all values in line with the Slow Space Movement. These communities have also created change by developing projects that address low income housing, neglected urban spaces and improving suburbs.

The spaces where we live, work and visit have a huge impact on our lives, health and mood. It might be time to take a second look at New Urbanism in the context of The Slow Space Movement.

See also “Slow Space, Slow Cities” by Mette Aamodt.

November 14, 2017

Designing the Experience of Space

In this installment on our series about the three tenets of good architecture, we illuminate the experience of space and architecture. By focusing on the experience of the space rather than the form or function of the building, we as architects can impact people in profound and meaningful ways. Juhani Pallasmaa writes:

“When designing physical spaces, we are also designing, or implicitly specifying distinct experiences, emotions and mental states. In fact, as architects we are operating in the human brain and nervous system as much as in the world of matter and physical construction. I dare to make this statement as science has established that environments change our brains, and those changes in turn alter our behavior.” (Pallasmaa, Juhani. “Empathic and Embodied Imagination: Intuiting Experience and Life in Architecture” in Architecture and Empathy.)

… Environments change our brains, and those changes in turn alter our behavior.

Rigid and in order: A quintessentially Swiss experience designed by Peter Zumthor. Photo by Jonathan Ducrest

Phenomenology in architecture

However, too much of architecture has focused on form-making and too little on the experience of space. In fact, form-making has been the dominant theme of modernism, postmodernism and contemporary theories. This is a very rational, static and abstract notion of architecture that dates back to the renaissance, euclidean geometry and René Descartes’ philosophy of “cogito, ergo sum,” “I think, therefore I am.” Vittorio Gallese says, based on his theory of embodied simulation, that philosophy is incorrect. “More relevant than ‘cogito’ — and here phenomenology got it exactly right — than ‘I think’ is ‘I can.’ The physical object, the outcome of symbolic expression, becomes the mediator of an intersubjective relationship between creator and beholder.” (Gallese, Vittorio. “Architectural Space from Within: The Body, Space and the Brain” in Architecture and Empathy.)

Gallese references the phenomenologists — both philosophers and architects — that have been studying human consciousness and built space through the context of experience and phenomena since the early 20th century, in direct opposition to Descartes’ philosophy that views the world as sets of objects. Architect and Professor Botond Bognar summarizes phenomenology in architecture as follows:

“As opposed to traditional Western understanding based on a sharp distinction between person and the world, phenomenology — highly critical of Cartesian dualism in any form — regards subjects and objects in their unity. Phenomenology understands a world wherein people and their environment mutually include and define each other. It focuses upon nature and reality not as an absolutum existing only outside us, but as subject to human scrutiny, interaction, and creative participation.” (Bognar, Botond. “A phenomenological approach to architecture and its teaching in the design studio” in Dwelling, Place and Environment.)

Slow Space is founded in phenomenology, as is our work at Aamodt / Plumb Architects. We ask ourselves how the spaces we create might make people feel. We ask our clients how they want to feel in their home, their school, their library or their hospital. Let us be aware of how spaces make us feel and teach our clients how to feel space as well. It’s no different than cultivating your taste for wine or fine food. One of the Slow Food Movement’s early objectives was to cultivate an appreciation for the taste of good food. I think we should do the same with great spaces. We should cultivate an appreciation for good buildings. It’s not enough just to look at a beautiful picture. Here is a picture of a beautiful dish from Bon Appetit. It looks delicious. But so does this picture of a Whopper, even though we know it is junk food.

Let us be aware of how spaces make us feel and teach our clients how to feel space as well.

How about wine? A photo doesn’t do much for it. It’s all in the taste, in the experience. And wine’s popularity is soaring. Millennials are spending more on wine and restaurants and experiences than consumer goods.

Zumthor’s thermal baths as paradigm for designing the experience of space

Peter Zumthor’s thermal baths in Vals, Switzerland, serve as an example for designing the experience of space. We spoke with Swiss-born photographer Jonathan Ducrest, who explored the world-famous building with his camera. See his photography and read the story in the article, “Architecture as Experience: Peter Zumthor’s Thermal Baths“.

November 7, 2017

Architecture as Experience: Peter Zumthor’s Thermal Baths

This article is part of an installment of essays and examples illuminating the essence of good architecture, which, as Slow Space founder Mette Aamodt defines, comprises the three fundamental qualities of empathy, experience and beauty. The exploration of Peter Zumthor’s thermal baths in Vals, Switzerland, represents a paragon of architecture as experience — as an extraordinary sensory experience.

Photo by Jonathan Ducrest

Solitude of space

To share a taste of this experience, we caught up with Swiss photographer Jonathan Ducrest, who explored Peter Zumthor’s thermal baths from a distinctive angle — from behind his sly camera lens — shot without special lighting. Ducrest, who says he’s “not big on taking pictures of people,” also minimally edited the photographs to give a more authentic sense of the place’s raw simplicity. It is the solitude of space that fascinates the photographer.

Ducrest now calls Los Angeles home. He’d returned home to his native Switzerland for the holidays and decided to take his mother on a spa weekend. “This was my third or forth trip to Vals,” says Ducrest, contemplating how time moves slower in the small mountain village of fewer than one thousand souls in Switzerland’s Graubünden canton. “You just relax, without the everyday stress. You can walk and enjoy nature, and there aren’t a lot of distractions.”

View into the surrounding landscape of the valley of Vals. Photo by Jonathan Ducrest

Swiss minimalism

Zumthor, whose other significant works include the Kunsthaus in Bregenz, Austria, the all-timber Swiss Pavilion for Expo 2000 in Hannover, Germany, and the upcoming expansion of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in the United States, designed the spa building over the canton’s only thermal springs. The hydrotherapy center, commissioned by the village of Vals, was completed in 1996. Zumthor’s rectilinear design contrasts the valley’s traditional vernacular structures and pastoral setting, and was to look as if it pre-dated the luxury hotel complex.

Zumthor’s minimalist, clean-lined design contrasts the valley’s traditional vernacular structures. Photo by Jonathan Ducrest

“The spa and the hotel itself — it’s like this temple,” reflects Ducrest. “There’s nothing but the water and the stone the architect used.” The cave-like structure comprises 15 units, each five meters high, whose grass-covered concrete roofs don’t join. The slim gaps are filled in with glass. The dark quartzite slabs are quarried locally, and 60,000 one-meter-long stone sections clad the walls in a subtly ordered pattern. “He framed the landscape outside with windows,” the photographer describes. “It’s like you’re watching a painting when you’re relaxing in your chair, and you’re looking out and it’s snowing or the light is changing or there could be a storm outside. You’re becoming more attuned to your surroundings.” The fact that all the stone Zumthor used was brought in from the valley connects visitors even more to the encompassing environment. “Everything comes from there: the waters, the air, the sounds.”

Everything comes from there: the waters, the air, the sounds.

Photo by Jonathan Ducrest

Ducrest has long wanted to photograph the space. But without an official assignment, he needed to be cunning in shooting inside the thermal baths, beginning his day’s work early in the morning, when only hotel guests are allowed in. Having been in the space before, he knew beforehand what he wanted to capture. “I had my camera wrapped in my towel, and my mom was looking out if someone was coming. And I took the pictures in a natural light, there’s no flash,” reveals Ducrest, who intently refrained from retouching the photographs. He wanted to depict the architecture as purely as possible — in the way it was designed. What is more, he says, “The lighting changes throughout the day. If you start incorporating lighting that’s not supposed to be there, it’s going to change the feel of it. I like the fact that I had to deal with those constraints. And I don’t really like having people in my photography.”

I don’t really like having people in my photography.

Photo by Jonathan Ducrest

Feeling Zumthor

By design, Zumthor, who received the Pritzker Architecture Prize for his lifework in 2009, pulls the visitor from the arrival and physical transition into bath attire deeper into the spacial experience of the building. A gentle slope leads down to the locker rooms. “You go down this dark tunnel, and you get glimpses of what he wants you to go and explore,” the photographer tells. “As you walk down the hallway, you turn to your left, and there’s this small but very tall opening, and you can see the space below. You see a pool, and you want to go there and see that space. You’re going through a turnstile, and again, you walk this hallway, and there’s water coming out of little water sprouts.” At the end of the hall, the locker rooms lie behind heavy curtains. “You emerge on the other side into the main space, and as you are walking down the staircase, you’re going to see the outdoor pool. You’re going to see a part of the main pool. And you’ll again want to go further and explore.”

Rigid and in order: Swiss minimalism. Photo by Jonathan Ducrest

Ducrest’s images are a pictorial reflection on the architect’s intent of creating a physical, mental and spiritual human experience — with the Swiss touch of the internationally renown architect, who was born in Basel in 1943, the son of a master carpenter. “In Switzerland, we like things in order and a little rigid, that’s how we are. That’s still how I am,” Ducrest notes. “When you’re there, it’s always straight lines. It’s hard corners. From the design, you wouldn’t think there is something soft or calming about the space. It’s very rigid and square, and there seems to be no end to this gray stone. But then you add the thermal water elements and the lighting, and it all comes together. Now, it’s a perfect space.”

The soft element of the thermal water in juxtaposition with the rough stone and the straight-line architecture perfects the experience of the space.

Also read: “Designing With Empathy” by Mette Aamodt

October 17, 2017

Designing With Empathy

The Slow Space Movement stands for buildings that are good, clean and fair, but what exactly do we mean by that? This is our inaugural piece in a series of articles exploring this thematic trifecta of what we understand slow space to be, beginning with “good.”

In our practice at Aamodt / Plumb, we define a good building as a building that holds meaning for the users, brings them joy and connects them to the world, to others or to themselves in some way. A good building does not just satisfy our basic needs but helps us to understand ourselves and our place in the world. It mediates between our being and our environment, providing a filter through which we can see ourselves and the world. It is not a benign shelter, but a lense that we create for experiencing the world and ourselves within it.

As architects, designing a good building is a hard, if not impossible, task, but one that we choose to strive for every day. One of the ways we can pursue good building is through empathy.

Feeling what they feel

Architecture and Empathy, 2015. Published by The Tapio Wirkkala-Rut Bryk Foundation.

Empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and feeling the emotions they feel. According to Juhani Pallasmaa, empathy in architecture is when “The designer places him/herself in the role of the future dweller and tests the validity of the ideas through this imaginative exchange of roles and personalities.” (Pallasmaa, Juhani. “Empathic and Embodied Imagination: Intuiting Experience and Life in Architecture” in Architecture and Empathy.)

Empathy is one of our basic human traits and one that differentiates us from other species. It evolved to nurture babies outside of the womb, as our upright position forced babies to be born before full gestation. Babies continue to develop through skin to skin contact with their mothers. Without this babies fail to thrive and suffer irreparable physical and psychological damage, and sometimes death. Architect and philosopher Sarah Robinson has argued that the skin is the most fundamental medium of contact with our world.

“Boundaries of skin: John Dewey, Didier Anzieu and Architectural Possibility” in Architecture and Empathy

“Empathy allows us to connect to the world through our own bodies and in turn, the world opens itself up to us as we feel our way into it. As the mutuality of the mother-baby relationship exemplifies, we dwell in a reciprocating circuit. We are built to be received into a world to which we must connect, into a world that fits us. Empathy is the deep reflexivity at the heart of life.” (Robinson, Sarah. “Boundaries of Skin: John Dewey, Didier Anzieu and Architectural Possibility” in Architecture and Empathy.)

The leather-clad door handles at the Villa Mairea by Alvar Aalto are an example of how sensitive the architect was in designing the physical point of connection between the user and the building. Instead of leaving the cold metal bare to draw heat away from the body, he wrapped them in leather so the contact would be skin to skin.

Embodied simulation

Recent discoveries in neuroscience have identified exactly how empathy works within our bodies. Mirror neurons in the brain create a mechanism, called embodied simulation, that maps the actions, emotions and sensations of other people onto our brains as if we were experiencing them ourselves. Embodied simulation is not just limited to empathizing with people, it extends to objects and space. MD PhD Vittorio Gallese, who along with his team discovered these mirror neurons, says that “Embodied simulation not only connects us to others, it connects us to our world — a world inhabited by natural and manmade objects … as well as other individuals.” (Gallese, Vittorio. “Architectural Space from Within: The Body, Space and the Brain” in Architecture and Empathy)

“The notion of empathy recently explored by cognitive neuroscience can reframe the problem of how works of art and architecture are experienced, revitalizing and eventually empirically validating old intuitions about the relationship between body, empathy and aesthetic experience.” (Ibid.)

Human-centered design

Empathy is a cornerstone of human-centered design, a buzzword that has been nicely packaged and branded by IDEO, the interdisciplinary design consulting firm.

“Human-centered design is a creative approach to problem solving and the backbone of our work at IDEO.org. It’s a process that starts with the people you’re designing for and ends with new solutions that are tailor made to suit their needs. Human-centered design is all about building a deep empathy with the people you’re designing for; generating tons of ideas; building a bunch of prototypes; sharing what you’ve made with the people you’re designing for; and eventually putting your innovative new solution out in the world.” (IDEO Design Kit)

This description is how I always understood architecture, but I am grateful to IDEO for spreading these ideas to the mass market. But why does human-centered design seem so out of fashion inside our industry? What is it in contrast to? It is in contrast to market-driven design, like developers who are often just concerned with maximizing square footage and reducing costs. We are all pretty familiar with these examples.

Technology-driven design

Then there is technology-driven design that I will call “tech for tech’s sake.” Quoting a recent opinion piece in The Guardian, “If there’s one thing the technology community loves, it’s an over-engineered solution to a problem that isn’t really a problem. Double points if the root of that problem is: ‘I’m a young man with too much money who needs technology to do for me what my mother no longer will.’ ” (“The five most pointless tech solutions to non-problems,” The Guardian) At the top of their list of the most useless tech solutions is the Juicero, a $400, Wi-Fi-enabled machine that squeezes single-purpose pods filled with crushed fruit and vegetables into a glass. This company raised $120 million in venture capital. PS: It turns out, if you just squeeze the pod, the juice will come out ready to drink. No machine needed. (Juicero has suspending the sale of the Juicero Press and Produce Packs in September 2017.)

Tech as tech can: Render of Zaha Hadid’s design for the headquarters of the Central Bank of Iraq. Photo: Zaha Hadid Architects

Technology-driven design has dominated architecture for the past 20 years, where the cutting edge has been defined by what wild architectural form could be created by the latest software and material technology. The work of FOA, Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry comes to mind. The green movement has also been swept up in technology-driven design, with everyone searching for the tech equivalent of the silver bullet that will solve our environmental crisis.

“True sustainability demands more than technological solutions — it must be founded on an understanding of human nature that recognizes, affirms and supports our nascent vulnerability and interdependence.” (Robinson, Sarah. “Boundaries of Skin: John Dewey, Didier Anzieu and Architectural Possibility” in Architecture and Empathy.)

September 7, 2017

Sverre Fehn: Between Earth & Sky

I have visited Sverre Fehn’s National Museum – Architecture and Grosch Bistro in Oslo many times as a good friend is one of the curators and worked with Fehn on the renovation and addition. The place is calm, soothing, comforting and timeless. There is no wow factor for the architectural tourist other than the sheer contrast of the classical building and the modern pavilion. The cafe feels like it has always been there, and always will. A narrow door leads to the pavilion where you immediately enter the generous, bright, open and protected space. My words can’t do it justice I am afraid, nor will my pictures. Unfortunately, the day of this visit the exhibition on display in the pavilion obscured the experience of the space by putting a massive solid structure in the middle and overlaying drawings and text on the glass walls.

I wanted to write about this Slow Space because of the wonderful experiences I have had there and the esteem I hold for the late Sverre Fehn and his work. But as I researched this article I discovered that my intuition about Fehn’s work was confirmed by his philosophies and writings that touch on meaning, authenticity, human existence, sensual experience, and the search for place. These are the fundamental principles of Slow Space and Fehn’s work is our guide.

Existence and Authenticity

Throughout his career the Norwegian architect Sverre Fehn (1924-2009) sought to understand human existence and define one’s place in this world. With every project he explored different ways of creating “a place to be” (Norwegian: et sted å være) defining, architecturally, “the space between” (Norwegian: mellomrom) the earth and sky.

“A place to be” can be a philosophical or spiritual place if you are a philosopher or theologian. Fehn was influenced by the Existentialists at the time, who were primarily concerned with concrete human experience and living life authentically, in contrast to the increasing meaningless and absurd world they saw around them. But for Fehn the architect, “a place to be” was a physical space that mediates between the deep earth and the vast sky. It is a space of comfort that can be touched, felt and experienced, built with simple, true means and materials.

The Space Between

Working primarily in the open Norwegian landscape, Fehn defined mellomrom architecturally as the space between the roof and the ground planes. The dialectic between these two planes shows up in all of his projects, although the solutions are always different, and the vertical elements of wall and roof are de-emphasized, often to create a greater connection to the landscape. In some cases, the roof form is strong and imposing, providing true shelter from the elements, as in the Glacier Museum in Fjæreland (1991).

But sometimes the roof acts more like the clouds above, filtering light, as in the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1959-1962). Fehn’s Nordic Pavilion is composed of a level ground plane cut into the hillside and a roof composed of two layers of slender concrete beams set at 90 degrees to one another. The only vertical elements are a few existing trees that pierce through the roof structure, let in rain and provide the scale of nature in an urban context. Two walls retain the hill and provide the space for hanging art and the other two are completely open with only massive sliding glass doors.

Gennaro Postiglione describes the light and atmosphere of the Nordic Pavilion: “Penetrating the double framework of the ceiling beams, the intense light of the lagoon undergoes a magical metamorphosis and is transformed into a gentle homogenous light void of shadows, like Nordic light.” The unique quality of light, along with the deep rectangular plan, create a contemplative space inside the gardens of the Biennale, perfect for the appreciation of art and architecture.

nordic-pavilion-sverre-fehn-ake-e:son-lindman

Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale, Photo: Åke E:son Lindman

Nordic Pavilion for the Venice Biennale, Section Drawings by Sverre Fehn

Introspection

The National Museum – Architecture in Oslo (2008) is one of Fehn’s last projects. He was commissioned for the restoration of the original bank building (Christian Heinrich Grosch, 1830) as well as the new addition. The vaulted lower level of the original structure is where he placed the lobby, bookstore, Grosch Bistro and entrance to the gallery spaces. The groin vaults in limed plaster contrasted with the red brick floor instantly recall the earth and sky. Walls and ceiling blend together into one continuous soothing ceiling-scape that envelops you in a warm glow of diffused light. The brick floor is the earth underfoot, made of the rough clay and heavily textured compared with the plaster vaults. The only other elements are the oak shelves, tables and chairs that appear to grow out of the earth and provide “a place to be,” to sit and slowly enjoy a chat, a coffee or a meal.

The pavilion at the museum is entirely new. A delicate shell-shaped concrete roof hovers over the glass wall perimeter held up by four massive pillars. Again the roof is the dominant element and the walls are barely there. But given its urban context Fehn surrounded the pavilion with a second set of concrete walls that edit out any visual noise. This results in an introverted space filled with daylight, views of the sky and momentary glimpses of the surrounding context. The concrete walls extend the space visually further dematerializing the glass walls and providing a calm backdrop for the exhibition.

Grosch Bistro, Photo: Mette Aamodt

Pavilion at The National Museum – Architecture, Photo: Mette Aamodt

Dialogue With Materials

To find one’s place in the world, according to Fehn, and to be truly present, involves all of your senses in dialogue with the materials around you. Fehn writes, “You converse with material through the pores of your skin, your ears, and your eyes. The dialogue does not stop at the surface, as its scent fills the air. Through touch, you exchange heat and the material gives you an immediate response… Speak to a mountain ledge, and [it gives] sound a mirror. Listen to a snow-covered forest, and it offers the language of silence.” For his projects he used a very limited palette of materials whose properties he knew very well: wood, glass, concrete, brick, plaster and light. His work was rooted in construction and the very practical building techniques of Norway, so all of the materials are used in a very natural form, unadorned and lacking in any detail that was not necessary for construction.

Slow Modernism

In Sverre Fehn: Works, Projects, Writing, 1949-1996, Christian Nordberg-Shulz writes about Fehn’s trip to Morocco in 1952 and how this informed Fehn’s understanding of the relationship between space and time. Fehn went to discover new things and found many things he had seen before, things he recognized in the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Nordberg-Shulz said Fehn discovered the atemporality and anonymity of vernacular architecture; “He discovered that basic architectonic phenomena are timeless.”

In Fehn’s view, this atemporality characterized the period when people thought the world was flat and ended at the horizon that they could see. When they discovered the world was round, virtually endless, they developed perspective as a means for defining space, as Fehn writes, “to distinguish scientifically between inside and outside,” with a linear and homogenous time marching along beside it.

According to Nordberg-Shulz, the modernists, inspired by the vernacular, sought to define a new meaning for the “atemporal” in architecture, but one that was more qualitative and involved the interaction of the individual’s heart and mind with the modern world. This suggests an alternate history of the modern movement, or at least part of it, a slower, humanist approach that typically gets drowned out.

Nordberg-Shulz writes, “It is a misunderstanding to think of the modern movement as one interested exclusively in change; its pioneers were strongly aware of the need for ‘constants,’ or ‘basic principles.’” Indeed, the modern movement has been characterized by its obsession with speed, change and novelty. But as with all histories there are always many versions. The history of Slow Modernism is certainly one worth researching and will be the subject of my upcoming book.

About Sverre Fehn

Sverre Fehn, Photo: Stina Glømmi

Sverre Fehn (1924 – 2009) was the leading Norwegian architect of his generation.

In 1952–1953, during travels in Morocco, he discovered some universal spatial principles which were to deeply influence his future work. Later he moved to Paris, where he worked for two years in the studio of Jean Prouvé, and where he knew Le Corbusier. On his return to Norway, in 1954, he opened a studio of his own. In the 1960s he produced two works that have remained highlights in his career: the Nordic Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1959-62) and the Hedmark Museum in Hamar, Norway (1967–79).

He taught in Oslo’s School of Architecture as well as at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. His highest international honor came in 1997, when he was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize.

Bibliography

Sverre Fehn: Works, Projects, Writing, 1949-1996 by Christian Nordberg-Shulz and Gennaro Postiglione. This book is no longer in print.
“AD Classics: Nordic Pavilion in Venice / Sverre Fehn” by James Taylor-Foster, ArchDaily
Wikipedia: Sverre Fehn

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