NEARNESS
Nearness by Camille Desimpel
Didactic exercise Fall Semester 2010
Interior worlds: “NEARNESS” Main Editor Gennaro Postiglione Course of Interior Architecture Faculty of Architettura e Società Politecnico di Milano www.lablog.org.uk Editor Camille Desimpel
Only for pedagogic purpose Not for commercial use
INDEX 00_Abstract_Paper 01_Huis de Zeemeeuw 02_Hill house 03_Writing cabinet 04_Warm corner 05_Zwembad Sint Gillis 06_Much needed rest 07_Gesamtkunstwerk 08_Build in benches 09_Back to basics 10_Robie House 11_Several equals one 12_Outside-in 13_The Omega workshops 14_Partly transparancy 15_Pure action 16_Open walls 17_2D distance 18_Circle feeling
19_Life on the balcony
41_Minimal space, maximal use
20_A house as a car
42_More than the eye meets
21_Rood geel blauw
43_Coming home from work
22_Room expansion
44_Finally home
23_Natural irregularity
45_3 in 1
24_Rietveld-Schrรถder huis
46_Transparently
25_Several points of activity
47_Object for activity
26_Villa E1027
48_Light & sight
27_Heterogeneity
49_Glass House
28_Interior out of activity
50_Chairs or stairs
29_Mixed spaces
51_Screen
30_Out is in
52_Winter garden
31_Bridged love
53_Student room
32_Theatre curtains
54_USAFA Cadet Chapel
33_Spare time
55_Multifunctional sofa
34_Reading corner
56_Grass in the kitchen
35_Soil of water
57_Reflection
36_Curtain wall
58_The womb of a mother
37_A lot of chairs
59_Undifined distance
38_Non-predefinition
60_360 view
39_Natural unity
61_Stairs with a view
40_Outside living space
62_Personal value
63_Natural light for the wellbeing of the action
84_Canopy and blinds 85_Walking on water
64_Grandness 86_Crooked walls 65_Window composition 87_Outside-transparant-private 66_Mini kitchen 88_Narrow 67_Continuity of spaces 89_Narrow entrance 68_Think out of the box 90_Alternative staircase 69_Crossing levels 91_Planes ad spaces 70_Multifunctional soft space 92_Plane placing 71_Fluffy feelings 93_Puzzle wall 72_Open structure 94_Action in the back 73_Alternative border 95_Curtain wall house 74_Magic mushroom house 96_Additional room 75_Open plan 97_Fooling 76_Atrium walk trough 98_Material unity 77_Alternately placed plateau’s 99_See trough walls 78_Unknown but seen 00_Nearness 79_Capsule hotel 80_Invisible glass 81_Planes 82_Primal emotion 83_Short sight
Nearness by Karen Embrechts, Coby Manders & Inge Somers
Abstract “The idea of things that have nothing to do with me as an architect taking their place in a building, their rightful place – it’s a thought that gives me an insight into the future of my buildings: a future that happens without me” (Zumthor 2006). Proposing the idea of nearnessin-interior-architecture, this paper will explore the theoretical potential of a subject-centred, de-objectified, unfrozen, fluid and ethereal design attitude, by which the “narratives of living” are not closed, but opened up, not unified, but multiplied. We will explore to which extent the concept of architecture as infrastructure – interrogating Toyo Ito’s metaphor of (Japanese) architecture as “theatre”, “an empty space” once its spectators have left (Roulet & Solie 1991) – can be reconciled with the notion of (human) nearness, where time,
change, ageing, death, birth and recycling are emphasised. Or should we turn to Lacaton & Vassal’s “Economy of Giving”, endowing the subject with additional space for less money? Or can we find the pre-emption of the idea of nearness in Peter Zumthor’s rejection of pure “form and construction”, celebrating the “power in the ordinary things of everyday life?” (Zumthor 2006) Yet, this proposed critique of the omnipresent, authorial architect and the absent, silenced, user of his/ her designed spaces, seeks to move beyond the textual limits of a Barthesianlike burial of the architect (Barthes 1968 & 1975). We will argue instead, that within the context of nearness, “the birth of the audience” (the inhabitant/s) can never be limited to the field of interpretation. It cannot but be extended to the creative process of building/designing. Or in
other words: any architecture of nearness implies the dynamic involvement of its inhabitant(s) not after, but before space(s) are produced. Finally, the key question will be whether “interiorists” (Tony Fretton) can become the stage directors of these “narratives of living”.
Paper The idea of things that have nothing to do with me as an architect taking their place in a building, their rightful place – it’s a thought that gives me an insight into the future of my buildings: a future that happens without me. (1) Introducing the concept of nearness-ininterior-architecture, the following paper sets out to explore the conceptual possibilities of a subject-centred, de-objectified, fluid, ethereal design language, by which the narratives of living or more generally, subjectivities, will not be generalised, but personalised, not unified, but multiplied. To this purpose, we will suggest the idea of architecture as infrastructure, scrutinising Toyo Ito’s underlying “desire not to create joints”, “not to create beams”, “not to create rooms”, “not to create architecture.” (2) We will question to which extent Ito’s metaphor of (Japanese) architecture as “theatre,”
“an empty space”, “when the spectators have gone”, (3) can be reconciled with the notion of (human) nearness-in-architecture, where time, change, birth, death, recycling are being emphasised. Or perhaps the concept of nearness is pre-empted by Peter Zumthor’s firm rejection of architecture as pure form and construction, celebrating everyday life, instead: “The magic of the real: that to me is the ‘alchemy’ of transforming real substances into human sensation.” (4) Finally, the question will arise whether Vassal&Lacaton’s economy of giving, geared towards investing the subject with more space for less money, can be successful in pushing the peripheralized user(s) of buildings into the centre of architecture? Nearness-in-architecture: what exactly do we mean when voicing this idea of a subject-driven architecture into theory, into language? Nearness opposes distance, alienation and detachment. Transferred to architecture, to the
interior, to space, nearness opposes the explicit objectified quality of vast chunks of contemporary architecture; its grand, if not overpowering gestures, its overflowing (postmodernist) language, its bottomless hat of tricks (of disappearance); seemingly implausible; nearly always self-advertising. The master builderarchitect is, hence, everywhere; the users, on the other hand, are almost always nowhere. Or in other words: the user’s factual position within current design practice is too little before and too much after. He/she has largely become objectified too. As early as 1991, Amos Rapoport infamously fuelled his “anti- architect” reflections, calling contemporary architecture “a completely decadent profession”, on the brink of professional extinction: “The sooner they disappear, the better, and unless they change completely they will disappear.” (5) The reason for this premature death, Rapoport continues, lies in the architect’s destructive allergy for theory: “(...) We cannot just look at what architects do”, “we have to look at the whole environment, not just buildings”, “not only at the whole environment but at all environments.” (6) Not altogether ascribing to Rapoport’s pamphleteer-like style, nor his plea for one overarching, explanatory theory, driven by environment-behaviour research, we definitely value his call for cross-cultural research in (interior) architecture. Twenty years on, Rapoport’s critique on architects as “very formalist, very esoteric”, “not concerned with users at all”, has hardly lost any of its urgency: architects “just make their projects for themselves.” (7) More recently (2007), Shashi Caan has echoed Rapoport’s concern for the lack of theory in design. Unlike Rapoport, Caan’s call departs from an interiors perspective, turning away from the traditional “territorial games with architecture”, identifying interior design with psychology instead: “I wonder why we continue to play turf games with architecture when our parallel is not physics or structure but psychology and the behavioural sciences (...)
The psychological, physiological, sensory and the emotional must not be ignored.” (8) Introducing Toyo Ito’s work as a provocative subject-oriented statement may well seem provocative in itself. Yet, we largely agree with Dana Buntrock’s reading of Ito’s infrastructural “architecture”, when she argues that Ito’s “mind-bending rejection of architectural aristocracy’s anti-social inclinations will in the end be more important than the fact that, for the moment, only the amazing Mr Ito and his extraordinary engineers appear able to bend spoons of steel.” (9) Ito’s “desire not to create architecture”, but infrastructure, undeniably demonstrates a resistance to the critical community’s conventional cry for little else than formalist acrobatics. Ito’s desire to create large, “empty” spaces, as embodied by the Sendai Mediatheque (Miyagi, 2000), does not just implicitly engage with social behaviour. His idea of infrastructure is explicitly theatrical; always open to (social) alteration: “If we compare the architecture of Western civilization to a museum, Japanese architecture is like a theatre. It provides various architectural elements, which are put together to form a stage where an event is to take place, rather than being there permanently.” (10) The greatest theoretical feat of Ito’s infrastructure – not in the least for the interior designer – is its consciousness of subjectivity as performative, multiple, and changeable. (11) Read in this way, infrastructure leaves the interior designer with an “empty space”, readymade for social alterations, open to plural subject-made design solutions. In a similar fashion, SANAA Architects (the acronym for Sejima and Nishizawa and Associates) deploy infrastructure as a generator of human movement, celebrating transparency, social interaction and spatial continuity. Their idea of free human movement reaches a new high in the Rolex Learning Centre (Lausanne, 2010), a large curly, horizontal one-room academic space, referring to, yet not imitating, the surrounding slopes of the Alps. In a vid-
eoed interview, for the official Rolex Learning Centre website, Sejima and Nishizawa disclosed their philosophical intentions as follows: “Human movements are not linear like the way a train travels, but curve in a more organic way. With straight lines we can only create crossroads, but with curves we can create more diverse interactions. Architectural forms can be created from human movements and, in turn, architecture influences humans.” (12) SANAA Architects’ infrastructure without walls links the possibility of free human movement, not only to new social interactions, but also to the proliferation of new ideas. The borderless design of their not-done- before, one-room library annex study space provocatively resists traditional academic niches, inducing new, crossdisciplinary sets of knowledge instead. For Swiss architect, Peter Zumthor, too, “architecture involves movement.” Disrupting the classic Lessingian divide between literature (time) and art (space), Zumthor’s book, Atmospheres (2006), conceives architecture not just as a spatial art, but like music, also as a “temporal art” and “that means thinking about the way people move in a building.” (13) Unlike Ito or SANAA Architects, Zumthor’s desire “to induce a sense of freedom of movement, a milieu for strolling”, is sensuous in nature. The name of Zumthor’s particular brand of direction is seduction. His “stage setting”, the thermal baths at Vals (1996). (14) His sensorial bag of directorial tricks: texture, sound, smell, temperature and light. For Zumthor, “architecture is not abstract, but concrete”, “it’s a body coming into being; always physical; always sensuous.” (15) More, significantly yet, is Zumthor’s explicit focus on “human surroundings”, “buildings becoming part of people’s lives”, “a place where children grow up”: “It increases the pleasure of my work when I imagine a certain building being remembered by someone in 25 years time (...) That quality is far more important to me than the idea that the building will still be
mentioned in architectural reference works in 35 years”. (16) Zumthor designs from a language of memories; a language deeply rooted in auto-biography. “We all experience architecture”, he writes, “long before we have even heard the word.” (17) Rather than making history, Zumthor firmly insists on building from personal history as well as from the “future of rooms.” (18) Zumthor’s “dissatisfaction” with “recent architecture”, buildings designed with “a will to find a special form”, his irritation, too, with the contemporary architect, talking “unceasingly from every detail”, certainly resonates a sense of nearness-in-architecture. (19) Yet, despite, Zumthor’s imagination of his subjects’ futures, despite his awareness of an architectural life-beyond-him, Zumthor’s own biography remains triumphant over the biographies of the users he is building for. In Vassal and Lacaton’s work, nearness-inarchitecture takes on yet a different, if not, primarily economically based meaning. Here, aesthetic man turns into economic man. Hence, for Vassal and Lacaton, the de-objectification of the architectural object, is its dematerialisation: they defy architecture’s obsessive preoccupation with outside aesthetics. Or to put it differently, what they defy most is the exterior imperative. Inspired by Le Corbusier’s machine à habiter, they pioneered The Greenhouse as a conceptual reference. “If one adapts this architecture to human needs then one can live very well in it.” (20) Besides Le Corbusier, The Green House cites Einstein’s motto, “as simple as possible but no simpler than that.” (21) Simultaneously, they are geared towards adding additional space. That is, they are committed to create the potential for additional space. In contrast to the majority of their colleagues, Vassal and Lacaton want to build “cheap”, delivering more space for less money, stripping their buildings to the bare essentials of living, reducing architecture to what they call the “necessary programme” or “an economy of giving.” (22)
For Vassal and Lacaton, the concept of added space is intrinsically linked to “added life and experience.” (23) Whereas the necessary programme caters to basic human needs and is firmly set in the now, added space allows for human change instead, anticipating future needs and future desires. In the vision of Vassal and Lacaton, added space cannot be planned. Added space delivers spatial potential for the unforeseen, life’s twists and turns. While the necessary programme is embodied by the central living unit, the added space is the green house. A transparent structure extending the basic house: a blank canvas open to future needs. Vassal and Lacaton’s economic reading of nearness is certainly useful, but not free of flaws. The spatial distinction they make between basic needs and added needs cannot be but hierarchical, not only prioritising the basic, but also freezing the very meaning of what basic living needs are. Therefore, Vassal and Lacaton’s necessary programme seems burdened with a universalising sense of necessity and permanence. Instead of being critically questioned, the programme is simply extended (added space). In conclusion, our critique of the omnipresent, (interior) architect versus the absent, silenced, user of designed spaces, seeks to move far beyond the textual limits of a Barthesian-like burial of the architect. (24) Instead, we argue, that within the context of nearness, “the birth of the audience”, (25) (the users) can never be limited to the field of interpretation (appropriation). It cannot but be extended to the creative process of building: any architecture of nearness implies the dynamic involvement of its future inhabitant(s) not after, but before space(s) are designed. The interior designer could well be ideally positioned to guide the everyman’s narratives right into infrastructure, as a close intermediary, equipped with cross- disciplinary sets of knowledge.
References Barthes, Roland. 1977. The Death of the Author. In Image-Music-Text, 142-148. London: Fontana. Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. London: Routledge. ------. 1993. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex.” New York and London: Routledge.
Eds. John Gigli, Frazer Hay, Ed Hollis, Andy Milligan, Alex Milton, and Drew Plunkett, 49-55. London: Middlesex University Press, 2007. Zumthor, Peter. 2006a. Atmospheres. Basel, Boston and Berlin: Birkhäuser Verlag AG. ------. 2006b. Thinking Architecture. Basel, Boston and Berlin: Birkhäuser Verlag AG.
Cecilia, Fernando Marquez, and Richard Levene. 2004. SANAA Sejima+Nishizawa 19992004, El Croquis, no. 121-122, 2004, iii-iv. Gigli, John, Frazer Hay, Ed Hollis, Andy Milligan, Alex Milton, and Drew Plunkett, eds. 2007. Thinking inside the Box: A Reader in Interiors for the 21st Century. London: Middlesex University Press. Ito, Toyo, Riken Yamamoto, and Dana Buntrock. 2009. Toyo Ito. London: Phaidon Press Limited. Noschis, Taj. 1992. Interview with Amos Rapoport. Architecture et Comportement, Architecture and Behaviour 8, no.1: 93-102. Rolex Learning Center. The Building.
Karen Embrechts She holds a PhD in English Literature (Nottingham Trent University). She lectures and publishes across the fields of Literature, Aesthetics, Gender Studies, Cultural Theory and (Interior) Architecture.` Coby Manders
Film. Interview with SANAA Architects. http:// www. rolexlearningcenter.ch/the_building/ film.html. Roulet, Sophie, and Sophie Soulie. 1991. Toyo Ito. Paris: Editions Moniteur.
She followed post graduate studies at the AA, London. She runs her own architectural office. In January 2010 she started research focusing on a human approach of architecture. Inge Somers
Ruby, Ilka and Andreas Ruby. 2001. Naïve Architecture: Notes on the Work of Lacaton&Vassal. 2G 21: 4-19. Caan, Shashi. Consensus or Confusion. In Thinking inside the Box: A Reader in Interiors for the 21st Century.
Interior architect, she lectures interior theory and engages in the implementation of research in educational interior program. She recently started PhD studies on the body of theory of the interior discipline.
ATLAS
‘01/Nearness/Huis de Zeemeeuw
This Gesamtkunstwerk is a true example of the Arts and Crafts movement that assures a cohesion of design as well for interior, exterior and in plan therefor it has matching colors in exterior with the wood and on the outside of the building with the surrounding nature were painted. This implements the idea of nearness by unity between nature, design and inhabitant.
‘02/Nearness/Hill house
This interior suggest that people with certain dignity take place in her seat. The chair has as purpose more to be an ornament than to be used for comfort. Further we see as a contradiction a glimpse of nearness by the matching of furniture, woodwork and carpet reusing the same square print. Here the architects forgot that the initial idea of unification of the surrounding is to serve the inhabitant and instead it is becoming a focus on visual unity. The lack of nearness between interior and inhabitant is very present.
‘03/Nearness/Writing cabinet
The chair and the closet are to be one as well possible to be used when the user has a preferred action to perform with both objects separately. Once he doesn’t need the chair is can be hidden so it offers free space. This freedom of use is possible by the humanity trough nearness this design has created.
‘04/Nearness/Warm corner
“Those who look for the Laws of Nature as a support for their new works collaborate with the creator”: thereby Gaudi explains his organic vision of interior. What I would like to implement is the little build-in bench with he stove stuffed away in a cosy and protected place in the wall. This little sitting place creates an own comfortable space in the interior that is very human and bring the user near to it’s space. It is almost a childish feeling earning the coziness in the interior.
‘05/Nearness/Zwembad Sint GIlis
This pool is one of the oldest to find in Belgium. Here there is nearness to find in the composition of the dressings cabins that are on 3 floors and overlooking the pool. It is a very peculiar way of a swimming pool compared to nowadays where cabins are strictly separated to the public area. Here the private and public area are very near to each other.
‘06/Nearness/Much needed rest
This cartoon shows a lord with his family taking some time of but not needing to find it in a home. They took object from the inside into the open space of the exterior and so becoming experiencing the nearness of humans to their surrounding.
‘07/Nearness/Gesamstkunstwerk
In Art Nouveau prints from ceramics and therefor the use of wallpaper became very popular. The build-in bench is supposed to be matched with the wallpaper in colors . The bench is part of the wall and on his turn it is part of a sitting space combined with the movable chair. Also notice the chandelier and the pole matching in design as the prints on the front door with the wall and seats. Nearness is to be found in the matching interior as well the human freedom of space planning.
‘08/Nearness/Build in benches
The build in benches on a level encourage the cocoon-feeling of home. Their is nearness experienced in the emotion that is awakened by this cozy corner. The movable furniture in a free space were carpets divide visually a ‘space’ are adjustable and therefor borderless for users preferences. The user can adjust the home so he will feel near to it.
‘09/Nearness/Back to basics
This space is giving the user the bare necessity a human needs for survive. Their is no running water of electricity but this make that human emotions are at it’s most. The nearness to the nature and the person of his own is very particular.
‘10/Nearness/Robie house
However the heavy beams with ornamental purpose and dividing use, the floor plan is made by divisions of how carpets and furniture are placed. The freedom of creating spaces is possible which brings in the nearness of human needs onto his interior.
‘11/Nearness/Several equals one
This interior is introducing the end of an area in were exterior, architecture, interior and every single piece of furniture is matched to the same style. Nearness is declared by how close the objects are together by how they form a coherent scene.
‘12/Nearness/Outside-in
The interior of this hut which is to be found on Antartica as one of the first man-build huising there, is an example of how exterior and interior come near in space. You see a bureau with desk that is an airlock between inside and outside. Snow is almost touching your feet when you are working on the writing desk.
‘13/Nearness/The Omega workshops
This showroom is an example of a groups of artists that want their expressions to be a visible factor in their living area. Nearness is to be found in the personal creativity that flourishes the personal living space.
‘14/Nearness/Partly-transparancy
All elements are made by glass stones that gives transparency of light but not quit for visibility. Nearness is to be found in the chose of materials that makes that outside is partly brought inside and so makes his awareness for the in-habitant.
‘15/Nearness/Pure action
This is the only furniture in a larger room that may be visible. The furniture provides actually a certain action that the user only wants in this room. The nearness of the user with his action in a space is here on his purest.
‘16/Nearness/Open walls
A single house with a lot of glass used as well with an opening in the roof. Light and sight as well the whole idea of exterior is wanted to be entered in the homely space of the user. The user is brought near to it’s surrounding. The glass is manufactured with as less beams as possibly to provide an absence of walls or borders.
‘17/Nearness/2D distance
This art piece is a good representation of nearness. By use of different dark lines an different thicknesses it the eyes impressions of different distances as well nearness. If you would translate it into architecture is would become a big house full of chamber and hallways create by the placement of geometrical forms.
‘18/Nearness/Circle feeling
This public space is made in a circle form. This shows how architecture is not pure square but also curved and more human so it will bring the building more easily near to the people. The claustrophobic idea of library full of racks in all directions is avoided by placing books at the side and keeping space open in the middle.
‘19/Nearness/Life on the balcony
These balconies brings in the idea of nearness by bringing exterior and interior close. Only a small surface for few people is needed to create a new possibility for the human to be and to perform as he wishes. A plurality of spaces is also a better living space.
‘20/Nearness/A house as a car
The idea when this house was made that the functionality stands above the aesthetic value. Also prefab and predefined furniture were made assuring an onset of the human activity. These objects where manufactured in this was that a feeling of nearness should implement what the human activity should be.
‘21/Nearness/Rood geel blauw
This art piece is very pure involving the nearness feeling. It is putting lines over and parallel to each other and giving the direct impressions of distance. The colored squares are to make a space in the distances.
‘22/Nearness/Room expansion
The nearness of people an it’s home is to be found in the large amount of square meters of window that can be opened to involve the exterior and to expand the room. As well the different benches on different places that allows the user to sit where he wants whatever he thinks is the most comfortable to perform his action.
‘23/Nearness/Natural irregularity
The fact that this interior is made by natures irregular shape give an immediate impressions of humanity to the space. The tiny space is allowing for needed actions but is not luxury expanded in free open space. Nature is near to human and an interior must enhance this in stead of decline.
‘24/Nearness/Rietveld-Schröder-huis
The manner how the inhabitant has put several furniture and it’s following action along this assumed hall or trespassing is an expression of nearness. It is more focused on action than about space.
‘25/Nearness/Several points of activity
The focus of people using this space is in the first place appointed to single table. The dividing panels make that there are several points of actions. However there is the possibility to but ale furniture in the midway and allow to have human action that is centred on one point. This freedom of use implements the nearness of interior with it’s user.
‘26/Nearness/Villa E1027
The composition of the carpet that is half under the bed, the dividing panel that is on the carpet and the table that gives the user from bed a possibility to put something away very close, are expressions of how the user like his space. What may seem awkward for other people is the feeling of begin near to his living space for the other.
‘27/Nearness/Heterogeneity
The heterogeneity of this space trough the different chairs that are put in all different directions implements that they are used as it has been fitted by the owner. All several point of furniture create an own space in the room to allow the user to have a moment for himself
‘28/Nearness/Interior out of activity
The composition of this house is in this way that is designed by the activities of the user. Their is minimal space needed for the actions expressed meaning for instance that the sitting area is put against the wall and on a level to make is homely which makes that the user feels near to it’s interior.
‘29/Nearness/Mixed spaces
The way the bad is integrated with a resting place in the wet places is very peculiar. Also the curtain that divides the next dry space gives a feeling of nearness to user performing different activities as well you can mix the use of the dry and wet room. When you are in bath maybe an other person can lie down and read a book right next to it.
‘30/Nearness/ Out is in
This photo collage implements a free plan with randomly placed but predefined furniture. There are colons but they appear to have no function because they support no roof. As we see in the end it is as if you can walk endlessly further on at the end of the space because it holds no barrier of sorts. The user has a great nearness with the space because out is in.
‘31/Nearness/Bridged love
This house is made out of 2 different buildings and one connecting bridge, one for the woman, one for the man. Because they love each other but they aren’t able to life with each other they have divided there functions. They live separately but the love together trough the bridge. The bridge is them being near to each other.
‘32/Nearness/Theatre curtains
The high ceiling and windows have a purpose of entering light rather than sight. Also the use of curtains to stop the income of light and sight as well for division or privacy makes that the theatre of home brings the internal space near to the user.
‘33/Nearness/Spare time
This cartoon of an existing interior shows better than in reality the functionality of the interior. Several people are having their spare time spent in there own preferred way and the interior provides these actions. The big glass windows support this by bringing in the right daylight or atmosphere.
‘34/Nearness/Reading corner
This room offers 2 sitting places, one that seems to be part of a salon, the other standing on it’s own against the wall. The stacks of books and the elevated windows make you acknowledge that is a more individual used space for intimate personal behaviour. This corner brings user and surrounding near to each other.
‘35/Nearness/Soil of water
The stairs give the impression that it is as well an in entrance and an exit to the river, as if it where a square made out of water. It seems absurd to have water as soil but also the sculpture on the side gives you this expression of an outside room. The nearness of human and nature is very present.
‘36/Nearness/ Curtain wall
Walls are composed out of curtains which gives it a movable characteristic. This creates the freedom to create, as in a theatre, the scene that is preferred by the inhabitant and so the room is near to the human wishes.
‘37/Nearness/A lot of chairs
Walls are made out of glass blocks which gives a transparency characteristic which makes outside an inside a homogenous given. The thing that makes the human near to the interior is the fact that there are a lot of chairs that can be pulled out when you have a lot of guests over.
‘38/Nearness/Non-predefinition
The bare necessity of placing books is provided on shells with bars that keep it straight. As well it is the element that divides the room without being a fixed wall. The nearness is expressed trough the personal freedom in an non-predefined space.
‘39/Nearness/Natural unity
Nearness it represented in the unity of the interior with the furniture and the outside. The use of materials that looks natural trough its use of colours and materials make the persons who lives in it near with his surroundings.
‘40/Nearness/Outside living space
The use of a roof as stair that leads to an open outer space with one curved wall that creates a feeling of inside security when you stay on this spot makes that the outside space is very near to the inside space for the experienced.
‘41/Nearness/Minimal space, maximal use
This small house is an isolated living area which is maximal used. Instead of walls around a room, the walls are presumed to be put in a cross providing four times more different spaces in theory. Also the nearness of the user with the space is to find in the outside space that is defined by stones that are placed for the comfort of sitting of the user and becoming a living area.
‘42/Nearness/More than the eye meets
This collage tells us that interior is not only inside but also outside as well the spaces that are in between these two clear defined phenomena. The nearness it to find in the fact that people can have the experience of interior as well in the exterior.
‘43/Nearness/Coming home from work
This photo collages shows that the traditional predefinition of an object is not the only possibility. As wished by the person and it’s mood, he can use it in any way or direction he prefers. Object and human are near to each other by emotional mood.
‘44/Nearness/Finally home
This space expresses nearness of humanity and interior because the emotion of the user is brought to rest in this place. A minimal interior decoration but a carpet and fire place that divide inner spaces give away the main spots of human actions.
‘45/Nearness/ 3 in 1
This is a 3 in 1 room what means that the three boys can reform their rooms according to their feelings to each other or their own personal time need. The nearness of their emotions are represented in the space.
‘46/Nearness/Transparently
Here you see three space following each other and so being near to each other. First you see the inside space, than a sas which has a roof but no walls to enclose the space and finally the outside space with no walls at all. The living space exists out of the nearness of these several spaces and borders are made unclear trough the transparency of the glass walls
‘47/Nearness/Object for acitivity
This sitting option would not have been as clear if there were no pillows present. The interior is made the way the user prefers and here this is the use of the tablet as reading space as the step before the window. Also a coffee table is presented by a wooden box. The nearness is to be found in how interior is made out of objects that represents the actions of the user.
‘48/Nearness/Light & sight
The big scale, elegantly proportioned mullions and great depth of the frame to create a marvellous contradiction: it feels like part of the room is both outside and inside at the same time. This feeling of nearness is also strengthened in the fact that the upper part is totally open for light but the under part can be covered for sight.
‘49/Nearness/Glass House
The floor plan is kept as freely as possible and only kitchen and bathroom are fixed objects. Walls are visibly torn down that is why every wall is replaced by glass in order to let the exterior melt with the interior. Also paintings are not hung on the wall, because it is supposed to be inexistent but placed in the space as pleased by the owners which contributes to the nearness of the user with the interior.
‘50/Nearness/Chairs or stairs
By pushing the floor down and putting pillows on the steps you create the mix of object and use. The people who use the place are near the it’s architecture and are not necessarily needing a chair for sitting. Also the fire place on the floor implements the use of an interior for more than one purpose per object.
‘51/Nearness/Screen
This children’s room is designed with two entrances and a dividing screen that can be pulled up whenever needed. The nearness or distance can be achieved whenever th boys want or feel to.
‘52/Nearness/Winter garden
This internal winter garden is a nice example of nearness to nature even when it is not as easily to succeed. The winter garden mixes the summer activity with the winter outdoor conditions. The user prefers to be close to nature all year around an is able to do this by his winter garden concept.
‘53/Nearness/Student room
This is a one-room student apartment where all facilities are inserted. There is living room, bedroom and study room all in one place. The nearness of activities is also a very handy opportunity because of the lack of boundaries and the short distances. A small visually division is made possible by the blinds.
‘54/Nearness/USAFA Cadet Chapel
This church psychologically gives you the impression the wall are coming down. This emphasizes the verticality and is actually a metaphorically images because this church is for a spaceship base. The classical idea of a church is interpretable to the wishes or needs of the users what bring the project near to the people.
‘55/Nearness/Multifunctional sofa
In this interior the nearness is to be found in the plural use and functionality of the furniture. The sofa exists out of different pillow that can be placed in any preferred way. Also there is no real wall so there is no obstacle for an open space.
‘56/Nearness/Grass in the kitchen
This kitchen is a project in the 50th’s that wanted to create the ideal future home. You can experience that it is if is the grass is coming onto the working tablet. This meaning that outside and inside are very near by a supposed invisible boundaries that shuts the kitchen from the wind and outdoor weather.
‘57/Nearness/Reflection
Here the nearness is represented in the water that reflects the enlightened building. For it’s sacred use and transfer of this idea its need to impress and this happens by doubling the size of the building by night view.
‘58/Nearness/The womb of a mother
Here the nearness in to be found in the humanity of this architectural project. It is supposed to be the inside of a human. It is a stomach that let the visitor feel an intimacy as if you were back in the womb of your mother.
‘59-65/Nearness/Undefined distance
Here the act of nearness it to find in the impression that this hall way is infinite. It is plane in material, form and repetition. It is a fascinating image because in the corridor you see light falling in and that brings in the exterior into the interior.
‘60/Nearness/360 view
This interior is the renovated inside of a house that is standing freely on a mountain flank on just one pole. The makes that the view out of the window is wide and is foreseen of no obstacles. Exterior is present in the interior 360 degrees. Furthermore nearness present because the furniture is set in the sides of the house so that the middle plan is kept movable and adjustable to the wishes of the owners.
‘61/Nearness/Stairs with a view
Here a sitting area is created not by furniture but by the architectural operation. But this fixe element is not a blockade for the freedom of the user because of the suggestive and clean form you can use the ‘stairs’ for more than only sitting and this brings the user near to the architecture.
‘62/Nearness/Personal value
This picture shows for me a very humanly interior. Different, seemingly non fitting but personal, objects make one whole of this interior. Looking at the stairs it is very peculiar that a part of the stairs has dead end and is used just to put paintings. This tells us that a so-called use for a know object doesn’t always has to be what you are used to, but it has to be given the value the user want it to be that it is comfortable for him.
‘63/Nearness/Natural light for the well being of the action
This library is adjusted to it’s use by the lack of windows. The visitors are concentrated to there action and therefore natural light is not needed also for preservation of the books. The nearness of books, the reading and the readers is ever present.
‘64/Nearness/Grandness
The heavy ceilings of the church give an impressions of grandness and nearness of the spiritual to the visitors. There are no traditional long glass windows but a light entrance at one side which has a bigger effects than several smaller ones.
‘65/Nearness/ Window composition
This living room is interesting because windows don’t have the traditional combination of light and sight. The windows above are only for light and so the overall atmosphere. The small ones below have especially a sight value. This shows how windows and it’s placement determine the nearness of human emotions and atmosphere by light and sight
‘66/Nearness/Mini kitchen
This compact kitchen is a striking example of how an social activity needs no walls in order to take place. The Mini Kitchen was the first of his innovative products that encapsulated new ideas of flexible living and space planning and so reinforcing the idea of nearness between user and activity.
‘67/Nearness/Continuity of spaces
This interior in concrete without further decoration tells us that mere the most necessary is needed in an interior. A visual continuity into the landscape makes that the inhabitants aren’t set to boundaries but are near to their interior. Only the uses that the inhabitants want are displayed so it becomes ‘livable’. It is a free creation that is compose out of the basic need of protection into a spacial adventure. This freedom expands into the exterior.
‘68/Nearness/Think out of the box
The curiosity of this furniture piece is that it tickles our fantasy. We need t think out of the box and create furniture that make the people feel near to this object. This piece of furniture also offers a multifunctional use depending on your personal mood.
‘69/Nearness/Crossing levels
This interior gives the spectator the impression to see more than one space at the time and this pleases the user because with one look he experiences several spaces and feels his nearness to all these spaces at the same time whit a minimum of effort. This trough the placing of the levels and the transparency of the glass walls.
‘70/Nearness/Multifunctional soft space
By making the whole interior in a soft materials an putting suggestive function in it you make the creativity of the user make his own way. The nearness of the chosen activity of the visitor is eve present because of the multifunctional possibilities.
‘71/Nearness/Fluffy feelings
By the use of similar colours and the same fluffy fabric, as well the making of furniture in the same tiles as the floor, this interior tries to become one and by t’s cosiness want to bring the user near to this unity. Paintings and curtain’s are hang up creating partial boundaries as wished by the inhabitant.
‘72/Nearness/Open structure
This interior shows tat structure is not to be hidden in order to preserve the nearness of architecture and the users. It has furthermore a tricky perspective making the visitor wonder how the structure is made up.
‘73/Nearness/Alternative border
THe combination of outdoor space and the view make this space infinite. Boundaries are not set with walls but with a water border which also is a swimming pool. The nearness is provided by the infinity that has started out of the living space of the inhabitant.
‘74/Nearness/Magic mushroom house
The original owner of the house built it with the coil of the nautilus shell in mind. The focal point of the main living area is the moss rock canopy over a section of the sofa. Nature has be the inspiration and also the main point of the interior therefor the nearness of the owner and the natural inside environment is maximal.
‘75/Nearness/Open plan
This plan is made in this way that the beams and colons have a big distance providing the inside space to change whenever needed in the way needed. The nearness is to be found in the freedom of creation for the owner and his activities.
‘76/Nearness/Atrium walk trough
This is the atrium of a row house that consists of three equally sized rectangular volumes: two enclosed volumes of interior spaces separated by an open courtyard. By nature of the courtyard’s position between the two interior volumes, it becomes an integral part of the house’s circulation system which implement their nearness. Also the semi outside space provide natural life for the two inside spaces.
‘77/Nearness/Alternately placed plateau’s
This interior with plateau’s on every half level alternately at 2 sides makes that light falls in from the next level. By this woven placing plateau’s every level has contact with the 2 other levels and so people form the one level are in communication and so near to the people on other levels.
‘78/Nearness/ Unknown but seen
This picture shows a busy place with a lot of people that are moving in the space. The act of nearness is to be seen in the open atrium space from where you van overlook very person on every level. The nearness of people that are unknown to each other is nevertheless very tangible.
‘79/Nearness/Capsule hotel
This hotel offer a minimal room with a bed in a kind of capsule. The activity of sleeping is decreased to the entering of a capsule that surrounds the body. The action is very near to the user by thy radical minimalist operation.
‘80/Nearness/Invisible glass
This chapel is only made out of steel and glass. The glass however is placed that it seems to be invisible, this to provide the image of nature that becomes one with the chapel. This makes that there is a tangible feeling of nearness of the visitor and the surrounding woods.
‘81/Nearness/Planes
This interior consists out of planes: tiles on the floor and panels for the walls and this declares a strong line in the design. The stairs have several functions: it provides trespassing to the next level, you can sit on it, it also contains the fire place and it is extended into the exterior to become an outside furniture. This multiple use possibility make that it stand near to the wishes of the user.
‘82/Nearness/Primal emotions
This design has peculiar passage spaces and the materials that are used need to awaken a primal emotion with the inhabitant. These primal feelings should increase the home feeling of the owner and by this implements the feeling of positive nearness .
‘83/Nearness/Short sight
This design provides different views. The upper window is only bringing in light so you can only see the sky. The one in the corner provides a little sight to the entrance and also the outside space. The last one is a big window that is stopped by the wall. These windows all offer the personal privacy but jet different visions on the outside space. The owner is kept near to his interior space.
‘84/Nearness/Canopy and blinds
This house needs cooling because it can reach high temperatures inside otherwise. The use of a canopy and blinds make that the user can adjust the transparency of his window wall as he pleases. This also ensures the nearness of the inside space with the outdoor sight.
‘85/Nearness/Walking on water
This church is very symbolical which fits with the sacred gesture of this place. The 4th wall can be pulled up which extends the inside space with the water of the pond making that the priest is almost giving communion on the water. There is a tangible feeling of nearness of the inside with the outside as well the action with the water.
‘86/Nearness/Crooked walls
The mixing of heights of levels, the use of glass and the crocked walls all are the result of the nearness that is created by designing the interior by the wishes of the user and his activities.
‘87/Nearness/Outside-transparant-private
This is a long house and it is divided in the length in 3 kind of spaces. The most intimate isn’t to be seen from the inside. The second is the living area’s that are visible trough the glass walls and on a third level there is the open space. The emotional feeling of nearness is most present in the first and the least in the last space.
‘88/Nearness/Narrow
Nearness is to be found in the fact that the designer made everything very long and for this small or just very spacious. The opening in the wall is rather small as well as the bench but the space in the walls is very open. The missing 5th wall or roof make that their is an open feeling towards the sky.
‘89/Nearness/Narrow entrance
The nearness of the wall by their placing is very peculiar and tangible. The visitors are led to the inside of the building trough the narrows hall that are led by the rotated placing of the borders.
‘90/Nearness/Alternative staircase
This staircase is made out of the bare needed materials and taking in so few space that the nearness of the human to his space is very piercing. Also the closet is adjusted to the wall leaving the floor totally independent from furniture.
‘91/Nearness/Planes and spaces
The floor planes pull one space to the next, roof planes pull space over walls and an arched wall pulls light from a skylight. The different little stairs offer the user different possibilities and ways out off a floor plan. The floors make the person near to it’s chose b offering the mutiple options.
‘92/Nearness/Plane placing
Not seeing the colons of the window or other technical elements makes this a very pure space. By the right placing of the planes there is designed a very intimate space the bring the user near to the outside yet internal space
‘93/Nearness/Puzzle wall
This wall provides by flipping over or turning a kind of puzzle that offers different possibilities to the passings people. Their curiosity makes the preferred use of the elements to the right element and by all means the user is near to this puzzle wall.
‘94/Nearness/Action in the back
The way that the furniture isn’t turned to the windows with a wide view implements that the centre of action is set at the other side and that the windows here are especially a need of bringing in light. The nearness of the interior and the user is to be found in the less enlighten part of the living room.
‘95/Nearness/Curtain wall house
The curtain around the house give the feeling that the outside space also is an inside space. It gives the impression of a living room but in the open air. The nearness between the person and the feeling of an inside space in the outside area is tangible.
‘96/Nearness/Additional room
This container box is added to an apartment to create an extra room. The box is divided in an open and closed space but still remaining the contours of the structure the let the owner be aware of the former function and so the user will be near to the idea of design.
‘97/Nearness/Fooling
This design makes you feel near to different spaces as the hall way and the outside space trough the visual transparency of glass. But at the same time the glass is the physical barrier for human to pass.
‘98/Nearness/Material unity
This apartment in Antwerp may seem simple of form but it is very human. The manner that the wood inside is put in the same direction as the terrace and the simple use of a bench with no handrail which leave the direction and how to sit or lie on the bench entirely to the user, makes this a simple but an interior with a lot of possibilities. The owner can feel near to this interior by interpreting the space as e prefers.
‘99/Nearness/See trough walls
This new museum is practically entirely made out of glass walls which makes that different rooms make a visual much larger room. People from on room can feel near and connect with visitors in two rooms further.
‘00/Nearness/Nearness
Nearness in the first place means the feeling of distance of a human to an object. If the object is thin or thick, above or around, it will stream a feeling of distance and so of nearness that only is to be truly experienced by a person and his emotions. They can feel comfortable with a certain distance, as well another person could feel claustrophobic.
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INTERIOR WOR(L)DS. This work is part of a collection of books realized by the students of the course of “Interiors Architecture”‚ of class 2010 - 2011 and edited by Professor Gennaro Postiglione. It takes its origins from the participation in the Second Interiors Forum World 4 - 5 October 2010, hosted by Politecnico di Milano. Every student selected a paper among the words presented at the IFW and chose 99 projects represented by just one image covering 99 years from 1901 to 2000. The 100th image had to be a personal interpretation of the word chosen. NEARNESS. The phenomenon of nearness in architecture/interior/space/... implements an immediate presence of distance. This distance is something that is perceived by the human feelings. That is why building is an emotional matter that asks for interference of it’s user as well it is to be a livable theatre that is adjustable for the future. Spaces need both a level of transparency as well a level of borderdlessness that provides personal freedom.
NEARNESS