Architecture and the Phenomenon of Place

A U D R E Y

E L Y S E

H E S S O N

Photography. Essays. Sketches.

History and Theory of Architecture III, Spring 2019 A focus on: “ARCHITECTURE AND THE PHENOMENON OF PLACE.” Including works by: John Ruskin, Martin Heidegger, Christian Norberg-Schulz, Kenneth Frampton, and Christopher Alexander

Axis Mundi

Genius Loci

Morphology - Figure

Topology - Enclosure

Typology - Varied Unity

“Inn” Nature

30,000 Azaleas Later

Gateway to Connectedness

Bridging Modes of Dwelling

Wabi-Sabi

A Field of Centers

Bell’s Theorem Nature and Architecture

Venice The people of Venice maintained a fight against the sea, working to reclaim the earth from the water. Ackroyd said, “the settler fenced the soil with planks and poles; they drained the water; they laid down building rubble, or sediment, or sand from the dunes; they erected wooden palisades to resist the sea. It [was] the beginning of the city.” This act required cooperation from person to person and community to community, a common interest in creating an identity. Communal life becoming essential for Venice and planning their city. This island effect proving to be potentially negative or positive. The mist in the air, salty traces on the walls, and a motion to the ground giving a potentially unsettling feeling for those who live there. The seclusion leading to indifference to the greater community and potential melancholy.

But what would Venice be without the sea?

The waters provided safety from threats, the “salt fields” providing sources of prosperity, carrying material from surrounding lands, and streets becoming extensions of the canals. Ruskin described the imposing of houses along the Grand Canal as “sea palaces”. Their tops fade into the mist, their facades ornamented like a reef, and their bases are lapped with water. The waves carry gondolas and people about the watery streets of the city and seem to change the nature of the stone buildings. It was considered enchanting to many. The reflective properties providing a mirror of the sea palaces above like the symmetry of the buildings themselves, as well as a shimmering. The motion the water provides is translated into the repetition of the architecture. Column after column, wave after wave. The sea is a breath of fresh air, breathing a new, unique, and beautiful life into Venice.

The greater scene of Venice proves to be a city from the sea, but up-close what elements take over? Like the shimmering and reflectance of the water, light plays an important role. Ackroyd also noted that in the beginning the Venetians, “saw a womb of light off the lagoon, a voice like the sound of the water telling them to build a church on the island before them” Water and light leading and showing them their future place of prosperity and life. The ornament of the windows and materials allowing for a filtering or lightly illuminating light, the shadows cast being another reflection. There may be a misty haze encompassing but within Venice there are veils of light.

This veil playfully works with another key, and maybe even greater element, repetition to cast shadows, create patterns, and further create an enchanting feeling within the smaller scale of the city. As

you are floating down the streets, you see the symmetry of the structures around, the rows of columns, the ornate repeated openings, and detailed intricate patterns replicated within. This continuous visual giving power to the buildings as the eye is drawn across and up and down, following the repetition. This element has become key in recognizing Venice. Repetition and the sea gives Venice motion and life.

Venice 2 Originally designed and constructed with intentions for the image of the "Virgin Mary with Child and Two Saints" was the church Santa Maria dei Miracoli within the city of Venice. Commissioned by Angelo Amadi for architect Pietro Lombardo, construction lasted between 1481 and 1485 for the miraculous housing of the image. Lombardo was a leading sculptor and architect of Venice in the late 15th century with his contributions to the Renaissance, the church being such a contribution. The building is striking in its blurred creamy grey marbleized pattern. It gives the appearance of texture upon its smooth surface. The marble slabs have intricately carved cornices surrounding them, with several reliefs of saints and prophets. Contrary to the other churches in the city, which have been overlapped by different styles, Santa Maria is seemingly untouched, being founded later than the others it was designed, built, and decorated by only one artist.

Corinthian and Ionic orders, are positioned without regard to classical rules that expected the Corinthian order to occupy the upper story. While the carvings allow for griffins and sea turtles to coincide with saints and angels. Environment and people blending not only here but along the side of the church where the canal brushes up against it and brings people to its steps. The sea continuing to be key in bringing life into the city and exposing its internal beauty. A balance of rectangles, arches, and circles reflect elements of the church of St. Marks. Regarding St. Marks, it is more lavish and dramatic, but I believe there is a striking comment by Ruskin that could be applied to Santa Maria at some scale and should be applied in similar situations. “There is something especially touching in our finding the sunshine thus freely admitted into a church built by men in sorrow. They did not need the darkness; they could not perhaps bear it� (Ruskin, 136). The feelings of the people did not need to translate over into materiality. Instead they desired hopes and promises. St. Marks exploits this and I believe some of this translates between the two.

Beyond this, an understanding of the people and their hopes and feelings should be considered and employed in the design world.

Villa Valmarana, built in 1669 for Giovanni Maria Bertolo, takes its name "ai nani" ("of the dwarfs") from the 17 travertine figures around the garden. These slightly strange figures portray the different social classes in the form of oddly deformed dwarfs. They are also linked to a legend of a princess Layana, confined by her parents among the walls of the castle with dwarf servants at her services, she takes her own life upon discovering her deformity.

Valmarana is considered a pinnacle of 18th-century painting, with works by Gianbattista (16961770) and Giandomenico Tiepolo (1727-1804). The Villa itself extends over part of the hills ridge that borders the ‘valley of silence’. Upon entering the Villa, natures impact is evident. The visitor is surrounded by flower beds and the fragrance of Olea Fragrans trees. Two tunnels of Hornbeams, designed to embellish the park and offer shade, line the sides of the walk. A Niphaeum ends the Northern side and contains a large statue of a Triton riding a dolphin. Two large terraces at the same height as the boundary wall offer a view of the surrounding countryside off the piano nobile. Within this immersion of gardens, terracing and woods is the architectural program designed for the Valmarana family.

Between both designs we see a presence of geometry, a tracing of legend or a slight defiance of classic historic rule, and in subtle or significant ways, the influence of nature and the environment. Santa Maria contains carvings, scrolls and details of natural elements that create a distinct architecture and relate the people to the place. The canal adjacent to the structure allows the sea to bring people in but also alter the aesthetic of where the building meets the sea. Being in Venice, it is logical and important to carry these elements of the sea and nature into the designs of the land. The Triton and nymphs of Valmarana reflect the sea in the city. The terra firmas green canals are symbolic of the cities sea canals.

Identification and Orientation Identification – the result of relating meaningfully to a thing (Norberg-Schulz,16). Typically, in the language of Heidegger, “thing” refers to what has been gathered, which is why his reference to identification is a total experience of the environment being meaningful. A world is said to be gained through this gathering and understanding of things, this being a form of work that keeps what’s been identified. But what if we break down what is being gathered? What if we really see what it is humans are piecing together to create an identity – to create authenticity. This to me is the idea of considering where as well as how identification occurs.

This gathering or thingness is what seems to create the genius loci, the character or spirit of a place. What things a human keeps is their truth, it speaks on behalf of their character. This is true for buildings and I believe it is true for the buildings and places people choose to inhabit. They gather together through a related or touched character and spirit. Norberg-Schulz even says that, “[genius loci] can be gathered by architecture as humans inhabit the landscape that it pairs with.”

A door is an element of this architectural gathering act. It is one piece to the thing. But it is an important thing. In ways it is an in-between for humans, from outside to inside, what’s lively and bustling to safe and comforting, what’s not kept by you and what is. This in-between is the threshold into being at home, a faithful and loyal place. Here is where you identify yourself, as only those who keep the place can enter with a key. It is an architecturally human scale first impression to the character(s) inside. The colors, materials, details, and elements a human applies to a door has a qualitative meaning, it can be a form of existential interpretation. It is a way to intertwine your spirit with the buildings and the inhabited landscape to create a micro and macro identity that works synonymously.

If a door can be seen as an in-between for gathering and identity, a bridge can be seen as an inbetween on the broader scale. This broader scale is how we, as humans, orient ourselves, it is how we create spatial order in the inhabited landscape. All places are determined by the ground on which we stand, the sky above our heads, and the limit of the horizon. A bridge allows us to alter the ground on which we stand, by connecting us. It spans the horizon but breaks it by reaching up into the sky. A bridge acts as an axis mundi, a center that creates unity. It is a point of denotation and disclosure, it contains what is

gathered from earth to sky. As a point of verticality, it creates tension as it relates back to an in-between with the difference between arrival and departure or inside and outside.

There are two views of a bridge, one in which it represents and one in which it presents. Verticality can be seen as a sacred representation of a bridge as it is a path toward reality, as it is either higher or lower than daily life. It is a metaphorical connection. But it is also a physical connector, providing us with the opportunity to travel its lengths. We are also given the bridge as a presenter, with its potential to span and reach it in itself is a presentation. It helps makes a place legible. As a presenter, a bridge is a node, one of the five elements of legibility and for improved way-finding on the inhabited landscape. A node being similar to a landmark but is able to be entered or walked upon. It is a point of reference for direction, movement, and gathering. The language of legibility then creates unity amongst the community. A bridge makes a place come to presence through its ways of orienting.

Language of Architecture There is an architectural language regarding morphology, topology, and typology. This language helps identification and orientation through built form, spatial order, and visualization. It creates a place where choice by individualization is allowed but cohesion is achieved through gathering. These places are approached from “outside” as you grasp an outline that eludes to something hidden and as you enter “inside” it becomes more articulate. This arousal and invitation acts as a way to explain the environment and the person approaching can feel a part of a larger whole.

Morphology relates to the built form of a landscape. The silhouette is an important feature in arousing attention and gathering surroundings and identities in a landscape. This happens through a vertical element; axis mundi. This axis to the sky represents the places and makes for human identification as it brings the inhabited landscape close to man through its gathering and signals what is inside the space from looking externally. It creates a link from inside to outside. As one approaches from outside, the silhouette is what pulls you in and then the senses are satisfied upon approach to the explanation of the previously experienced external form.

Churches act as an axis mundi. When approaching Charleston from the “outside” you see them speckled across the peninsula. The eye is drawn to them as they pop up above the rest of the city. Their figure or silhouette on the skyline arousing the visitor and orienting them as they travel “inside”. They bridge and connect you to the city as well as the land they sit on to the sky, physically and metaphorically in their spiritual relation. It’s an interesting thing, a church. To physically and symbolically connect worlds. With slight variation, they all stand tall and reach to the heavens for the same reason but the people they bring within may stand for a broader diversity of reasons.

Topology is the basic organization of forms. There are three elements to spatial order. The idea of simple proximity without geometrical order or symmetry – cluster. Elements being placed along a continuous line but are allowed freedom in curvature – row. The elements forming a closed figure around a space – enclosure. These elements create a sense of “meeting”, but without them or a formatted organizational grid, this is lost as public order and the settlement becomes an expression of accomplished choice. Therefore, good topological space does not impose order.

Charleston gives a sense of organization but not in a way that has been imposed. The buildings seem to follow the free form of the waterways that once penetrated the peninsula. The way in which the figures are arranged creates a variety of spaces, like alleyways and courtyards. The variety of spaces allows individual choice in where you meet with the forms themselves or with fellow citizens to gather worlds within. The courtyards between buildings in Charleston being one of the most charming aspects to me, allowing you to experience the cities spatial order in a way that creates an intimate place.

When built form gives character to organized space a settlement becomes a place, and this is represented in typology. Here is where identity remains as people preserve the genius loci. But if identity is lost, the feeling of arrival is also lost, and this place becomes “nowhere”. Destruction of this disrupts the landscape and the opportunity for choice and the ability of free meeting. The world then is weakened in the sense of human belonging and identity. There must also be a sense of collective dwelling that is general, typical, or common so that it transcends individual situations and becomes a symbol of a world to unite the people.

Going back to the courtyards or enclosures found throughout the city, these places unite the people “inside” and “outside” of them. Each enclosure has its own identity based on the forms surrounding it and those who use it. But if you step back onto the street you get a variety of these elements. Each street containing figures that have their own identity but also correlate to the overall identity of Charleston. Their character and architecture blending together but allowing for choice in their specifics and what is enclosed within. For example, Rainbow Row is unified in its architectural figures but each one is individualized in its colorization to denote arrival to that particular place. The way this is done along the whole row makes it itself a “place” – Rainbow Row. But the moment you remove this, the sense of arrival is lost, and this “place” becomes “nowhere”.

The idea of “meeting” is the place at which men can come together to discover the world of others. If you take the language of architecture and follow morphology, topology, and typology you can see how one is aroused and drawn to a figure. As they are orienting themselves and experiencing the landscape they come into close contact with various figures and the spaces within. The identity or unity of these spaces being significant in their making of the place in which people gather or meet with one another and the world.

Middleton Place “A land that every Spring storms out in flowers, Mad with forgetting, with the inundation of the moment Saved from uncertainty.” Dr. George C. Rogers, Jr. 30,000 azaleas overtake the Middleton Place landscape. Colors of red and pink flourished amongst the ever-greening grass and still budding trees. I can only imagine the scene with a touch of white and then the trees in their full glory. It was a blur of beauty on the ground that reflected itself on the water.

Doubling its beauty. But before all the azaleas, were the camellias. Four planted in 1749 at particular corners of the site, shrouded amongst other plants to provide the best growth. This use of color was important in the European style of the grounds. It went beyond the symmetry that was applied and important in just the United States at the time. As the grounds began with coordination and a simple reflecting pool that was also used to irrigate the rice fields it seems it became much more as it “grew”.

The gardens stretch from the road to the river, overtaking the land in visual but not in smell.

Frampton discuss the sensory experiences of designs and how they should be considered. This extends into the gardens. The expanse is a sensory experience. Even if the flowers do not have a distinct scent, there is a freshness in the air. It makes you feel an aura of cleanliness of being free. The sounds of water rippling, birds, and branches softly travel through the air. It wasn’t a loud place, it was a calm one. Your eyes were graced with beautiful colors, forms, and textures. This is where we break beyond the visual into the tactile. It was hard not to gently touch the flowers, to see if their petals were as soft as they appeared. To let the point of a leaf poke your fingertip. To wander slightly off the path and pick up that strange looking relative of the pine cone from the ground. To me, the landscape architects itself amongst itself. Shaping per the sunshine and surrounding elements. Reflecting and absorbing light. And taking on various other roles that buildings can play.

To me, it’s what architects should pay attention to regarding not only Frampton’s words but Norberg-Schulz and Heidegger’s as well. There is an opportunity in study nature to not only blend with it. But to utilize its big moments for orientation. To find your way using the old oak or the group of cypress. To utilize it to display or project character in terms of identity. Blend into the land with a muted identity or stand out with a vibrant one. Understand all of the “things” that are in the environment. We often regret to remember or realize how important nature is. With every flower I passed I was saved from uncertainty of natures importance. 30,000 azaleas later I myself was stormed with the thought that nature is the “thing”. Nature is where we have all been gathered and we must not forget that.

The Inn at Middleton Place layers into the landscape so as not to destroy it. Architects Clark and Menefee view built form as an invasion that destroys the natural environment. They wanted to minimally change the natural setting if possible. We can see an alignment in ways between their goal and Frampton’s perspective on architecture, which is about bringing back the actual components of architecture such as topography, tactile, light, climate, and tectonic. The architect’s application of color, material, texture, and form helps the Inn be in nature. By blending the structure into the landscape, they following Frampton’s aim to build a better environment by finding a balance in remoteness and participation in modern civilization. Being a place of stay, simply being there is a step towards participation.

But the opportunities of meeting amongst the walls and grounds are the key places of participation. Under the arched concrete stair, below the sky-blue exterior ceiling, along the vine wall, out on the patio by the flowers, or under the expanse of shrouded trees. These places allow meeting, but also double as a sense of remoteness as they blend into the landscape.

Architects sometimes forget the tactile importance of form. How a human will feel heat and cool, the breeze, the light, the heaviness of the air, and the aura and touch of the materials used. Tactile is important in that it can only be decoded in terms of experience and as you experience a space it makes it more notable, more personal. You begin to understand the written language of built form through touch and you transcend into a place. This is why Frampton believes that cooperation between all the senses in architecture makes it deeper and unique, as sensory experiences are created through visuals and touch.

This idea supports the use of materials in the Inn. The most intriguing to me being the concrete walls. on the exterior they give a rough textured vibe, but as the vines climb their walls it arouses you. The soft touch of nature is blending with the rough coolness of concrete. If nature wants to touch and grab hold of the building, I feel as if I do too. It’s what pulled me close and brought me in.

Frampton also believes that the local culture and qualities of the environment should have a more direct relation when it comes to building in critical regionalism. He states that when creating an architectural structure on the natural environment, the two elements should be merged with each to achieve a relationship between its concept, rather than just a free-standing object. Every location having a distinct and decisive ecology, climate, and aspect of place. As I said, the architects seemed to blend and layer the Inn into nature. This “in-laying” of the building into the site takes advantage of fenestration and materials. Beyond tactility the building has a way of describing the land in terms of climate and light.

Its many windows open the interior to the exterior with views and light. As the shudders allow the occupant to play a part in the act by controlling it. From the exterior the trees and their leaves act as the shade and place playful shadows across its geometric form, bringing it to life. This is how “place-form� is created with the natural environment.

Mepkin Abbey Human feeling was the basis for Christopher Alexanders work. He believed that human feeling is mostly the same across the board from person to person, minus our individual idiosyncrasies. Although this is what we focus on in discussion, the differences, it only accounts for about 10% of our feelings. His studies worked to honor and respect the realities of the 90% in which all people’s feelings are alike and not forgotten. The universe only coming into existence when we acknowledge that to a very large degree, we are all the same in this regard.

But as humans we are empirical in nature of our thinking, even as we are faced again and again with the fundamental question about the nature of matter. There is a need to consider the spirit of things, the life of things. A break away from mechanics towards harmonious coherence in things that fill and touch us is needed. There is a sense of free inner spirit and functional liberation when one feels comfortable or a sense of peace. We tend to feel alive when we experience it, when we are having a good time or when we are experiencing joy or sorrow – when we are experiencing those real feelings. Alexander says that the freedom that arises when life is at its most spiritual and ordinary arises when we are “drunk in God” – when we see and feel the wholeness that exists around us and feel it directly and respond to it as we are free of our concepts and react directly to the circumstance we encounter.

Alexanders ideas of living brings me back to Heidegger and his ideas of Being. There is a certain level of organization yet freedom to both. Indeed, there are differences, but what interests me is something I continuously find trends of and wish to continue to consider or study – mindfulness. Neither particularly states it, but each brings about points of consciousness and awareness, which leads me to mindfulness, as it has great importance in life and Being. But should be more prominent in architecture.

What is then interesting is the correlation between mindfulness and Alexanders statement of “drunk in God”. This phrase embodying a freedom through spirituality and a feeling of the wholeness that surrounds you. It is the feeling that arises from the “mindfulness of God” that the monks at Mepkin Abbey live. Their lives are spent living simply. Using resources at hand, speaking only when necessary, seeking a place of peace, and praying to God. This simplicity bringing them comfort and freedom as well as unity with God and by extension unity with the world. Their mindfulness of God instills in them a feeling of living.

But there are those who do not gain a feeling of living through mindfulness of God. The means by which we obtain our feelings or sense of living are a part of the 10% that differs. In the end, as the monks said, we all have a calling to life. This calling is what individualizes us – makes us different. But the comfort we find in our life’s joys and our feelings in life are the same. That is the 90%.

I myself may not live or even believe in being “mindful of God” but I do believe in mindfulness. I do believe in being aware and finding a sense of character or wholeness in myself, my work, and my life. But my belief, my 10%, is that to be mindful you have to see beyond one focus, meaning you can be mindful of God, but not only of God. One focus can result in ignorance, which opposes consciousness or mindfulness.

If I were to live “mindful of Architecture” I would then need to be mindful of many other bodies of work to fully understand my own work and improve it – construction, planning, interiors, sustainability, sociology, politics, etc.

Even if this is my belief and even if it differs from the monks, just like many others’ views may differ in terms of religion, it is hard to deny the beauty and essence the architecture of churches tend to present.

There is truly a sense of genuine peace and comfort within a church. Whether they be extravagant or simple they maintain a particular feeling. One that begs quiet voices, a longing gaze, a sense of reflection, and a feeling of calm. Even in my lack of a relationship with God, I am overcome with this feeling when I enter such a space. Churches are a space done “well”. They are a space for living regardless of differences. As differences only account for 10%, our beliefs, and the other 90% pertains to the unified feeling upon entering.

Indian Field Campground Life is quality of space itself. Alexander presents the wonder of why it is so elusive to make buildings, benches, windows, and ordinary things that should have comfort in them comfortable. Created things should be done in a way so that everyone feels at home and supported in their daily life. This is the time when ordinariness in life and building becomes relevant and meaningful. In Japan there is a Zen term, wabi-sabi, meaning “rusty beauty”. It refers to all things beautiful but all things damaged and how nothing which is perfect can be truly alive. There is something of the ordinary, of the simplicity, and almost primitive existence of Indian Field Campground that reflects this “rusty beauty”. It is not an architectural wonder, it is hardly even architectural. It is not perfect. But it is alive.

A living essence of ordinary in our everyday worlds makes us feel alive. It is an experience to feel alive – when we are having a good time, having feelings of sorrow, experiencing joy and laughter, feelings of comfort. It has nothing to do with images and everything to do with experiencing the real and the genuine. Such a life comes from wholeness; a whole life, is wholeness.

Wholeness is seen as part of a continuum, not an isolated fragment, whose “local parts exist in relation to the whole and their behavior and character and structure are determined by the larger whole in which they exist and which they create.” Blatantly we can see a visual continuum at the campground in their ordinarily repetitious aesthetic. It exists in the wabi-sabi structures in a continuum itself in how they circle the grounds.

Upon arrival it is easy to brush this place aside as unimportant. But as Alexander states, there is some degree of life to everything and within this some degree of meaningfulness. The life of this place is truly not in its image. It is in its structure and its feeling. Its life resides in the sense of personal. Meaning is seen through its imperfections as you begin to understand intent and purpose. What I began to realize was the impact of the shared point of view of the people. Alexander states that a shareable point of view, in which the many influencing factors can coexists coherently and work together are needed. A shareable view aids the creation of a single holistic view of the unitary goal in life. Those of this camp have a goal in which they wish to praise God. This goal, at times, results in a stripped-down pure place. An ordinary place. An imperfect place. The comfort of this place resides in the simplicity of the space which provides opportunity

for genuine reflection and mindfulness of God. Because the place provides this opportunity and comfort it gives it life.

Even though we continue to recognize wholeness as a structure which exists “out there”, we are learning that it also exists “in here”, in each person’s heart. Centers are the building blocks of this place wholeness, just like all others. Centers controlling the real behavior of the thing and the life that develops there. They control the real human events that happen, and the feelings people have about living there.

They help one another as the existence and life of one center can intensity the life of another.

Each building exists as a center. The rooms within exist as centers. Each space having its own happenings and life that exude through the structure, out into the field, to the tabernacle, and amongst the people. The shared view of these people is intensified and cherished through the place’s simple liberation. The personal for these people is truly in how the grounds touches their humanity and causes vulnerability. As the nature of the place is simplified its structure calls for connection and feeling. Again, the shared viewpoint of the place brings quality as each center circles the tabernacle, connecting all at a deeper, more intense center.

Although I do not share the same viewpoint as the people who give this space purpose, I found interest in the feelings I had for the place. I found meaning, or a sense of personal, in how the camp was quite literally a field of centers. In its most ordinary and pure form it is all the things I already mentioned. But what caught my attention was what happened when the people who give the place life are gone. The grass grows tall and wildflowers bloom across the inner field. I was drawn to them and how their lives alternate with the people. I felt at peace seeing them move in the breeze. I gained a sense of comfort in the place knowing they were there. They were lovely just as Alexander said, “a flower is one of the most perfect fields of centers that occur in nature and flowers in groups create highly complex living fields of centers, perhaps among the most beautiful in nature. If a field of centers is so deeply connected to us and stirs our feelings, then of course a field of flowers would – elaborate yet simple in its field of centers – it will touch the qualities we know as depth, tenderness, and longing.”

Mindful Architecture Functionalism, in classical definition, refers to form following function, or an architectural solution derived directly from patterns of practical or pragmatic use. Heidegger believed this to create a schematic and characterless environment that held insufficient possibilities for human dwelling. He had a deeper view of the ultimate aim for a work of art and of architecture. He believed it to assist in orienting ourselves on the inhabited landscape as what is seen is gathered and built upon, making certain aspects of the world visible and bringing about a world. As this world is brought about, spatiality is important for making it visible. It organizes what is in-between the earth and sky. Architecture being a gathering of the inbetween as it brings the inhabited landscape to man, allowing him to dwell poetically as authenticity is created through such a gathering.

Heidegger’s thinking is important in understanding meaning trumping function. But currently meaning is only seen in terms of symbols and signs, representations of something else. But if we apply and visualize the truth through the language of architecture it will be kept and have meaning, bringing humans and buildings significance.

We are constantly unifying and gathering with the environment and ideas. The moment we stop is the moment in which we die. Thinking is not typically done poetically, which is the inclination of mankind.

We are preoccupied with processing and technicalities. This separates us from a holistic sense of our environment and can lead to alienation and a sense of homelessness. To Be you must let go. You must let the environment absorb you, gather with the inhabited landscape and world. You must Be mindful. There is something to mindfulness in architecture and in Being. A person must understand the difference between rumination and dwelling, which seems to parallel functionalism verse meaning and innovation. If one is perpetually stuck in pragmatism and rumination – the past, we will never advance. Mindfulness allows one to dwell, to contemplate but be aware of purpose and meaning. It allows one to see in-between, to see the rift. If we are mindful of this point of here and now we can then surpass such a boundary. As this boundary is surpassed, through past, present, and future convergence, authenticity and innovation is created. Innovation being created at the rift through mindfulness. This understanding of the world allows us to be better participants in life and in terms of built form, better architects.

This mindfulness can be exhibited through language as it builds authenticity in life through naming things which means mans access to the world is through listening and responding. Architecture is a figural act of this. The forms created are a response to listening to the four component beings and their convergence: sky, earth, humans, and divinities.

Man, then dwells poetically when he is able to “listen” to the saying of things, and when he is capable of setting what he apprehends into work by means of the language of architecture. If “poetry speaks in images” and “the nature of an image is to let something be seen” then architecture is the form that visually and artfully brings truth and meaning. This is enhanced through the architectural language of morphology, topology, and typology as they shape identification and orientation through built form, spatial order, and visualization. It creates a place where choice by individualization is allowed but cohesion is achieved through gathering. It makes man’s being-in-the-world as he is able to say, “I am here” not as a final accomplished fact, but as the beginning of a life of discovery and choice.

Identification pertaining to how one relates meaningfully to a thing so that they can experience a total sense of character and spirit of a place, genius loci. It is what allows a world to be gained through the understanding of things. In many ways the world is the house which is inhabited by mortals. Architecture gathering the world on the inhabited landscape.

Orientation assists with legibility on the inhabited landscape is it forms spatial order. Verticality being a critical aspect of legibility as such elements act as a landmark for way-finding. Verticality being an axis mundi. It is a point of denotation and disclosure, containing what is gathered from earth to sky and creates a point of tension between arrival and departure or inside and outside.

Points of arrival being approached like a thing, as from outside you grasp a figure or silhouette that eludes to something hidden and as you enter inside it becomes more articulate. This arousal and invitation acts as a center where the environment is explained and the person approaching can feel a part of a larger whole. It gives a sense of place where it and life belong together. As life takes place “as something” where you participate “as somebody” on the basis of choosing “something”. Life becomes visible at this place, as like many other places, as everyone is being-in-the-world somewhere as somebody.

Kenneth Frampton was another to contribute thoughts on architecture and how it should pay attention to social value and protect the meanings of the past while combining it with futuristic qualities.

Critical Regionalism contained strategies for resisting the impacts of universal civilization. Universal civilization is the occurrence of a climatic condition, culture, myth, and craft of a region being reduced to the product of a single heritage. Global modernization continuing to reduce the relevance of varying cultures and breaking connections to past ways of life as regionalist tendencies are overpowered. Yet they should be recognized as the hybrids of several cultures found in a regions past, where regional culture is not taken for granted and is cultivated and presented through the built environment. Within this, the actual components of architecture such as topography, tactile, light, climate, and tectonic should be brought back to build a better environment through balance in remoteness and participation in modern civilization.

The ultimate aim being to “mediate the impact of universal civilization with elements derived indirectly from the peculiarities of a particular place.” This is dependent upon maintaining a high level of selfconsciousness, so utility does not become established and result in meaning generating meaninglessness.

This meaninglessness being a part of the problem of art for arts sake as it drifts towards commodity or in some terms towards pure technique or pure scenography. Architects feeding the media with gratuitous images. The sense of place in the built environment also being lost as boundaries are not concrete or clearly defined. Such a boundary is “not that at which something stops but is that from which something begins its presencing.” Here we see the correlation of dwelling and being through place-form.

Through place-form Frampton also believes that the local culture and qualities of the environment should have a more direct relation when it comes to building. He states that when creating an architectural structure on the natural environment, the two elements should be merged with each to achieve a relationship. Every location having a distinct and decisive ecology, climate, and aspect of place that is revealed through architecture.

Architecture also has a way of allowing participation through the senses. Tactile being decoded in terms of experience and as you experience a space it makes it more notable, more personal. You begin to understand the written language of built form through touch and you transcend into a place. This is why Frampton believes that cooperation between all the senses in architecture makes it deeper and unique, as sensory experiences are created through visuals and touch.

Interestingly, we see a connection between the points discussed. Self-consciousness directly correlating with mindfulness, just as the three thinkers discussed here have related ideas. All believing in a

more conscious, or mindful, way of being. Whether it be in terms of life or architecture, the awareness of how a world is gathered in a holistic way in terms of a particular place or identity to build a more balanced environment is significant.

Bell’s Theorem – Nature and Architecture “The moment we want to treat the more complex system of buildings and nature together, as one living system, we run into intellectual problems because we no longer have an adequate scientific definition of what we are trying to do.”

In present-day biological terminology a city is not a living system, even though it is often referred to as a living system by social scientists. A building then takes on the same metaphor. How can we try to make a living system out of a region, city, or a building when current science does not recognize them as such?

We must first recognize that, as Christopher Alexander states, that everything has some degree of life in it.

We must then begin to extend the concept of life from the purely natural to the cooperation between natural and man-made and then also to buildings themselves. In such a world, the work of architecture has to do with the creation and preservation of life and that the task is to make a building come to life as much as possible.

The task of creating or conserving the natural world can initially be understood in precise terms, as an effort to increase organic life in the world, which has reasonable scientific meaning. But when we begin to mix non-living systems in with living systems, in normal scientific terms, one could not possibly call these things alive. Yet they [buildings] clearly have a vital role in the overall life of larger systems.

This is where we begin to notice a wholeness – between living and non-living systems. Wholeness is seen as part of an extended or undivided continuum, not an isolated fragment in itself. Local parts exist solely in relation to the whole and their behavior, character, and structure are determined by the larger view in which they exist and which they create. No perfect isolation exists in nature. Not in any system, as every system is part of the larger systems in its environment and the world and is connected deeply in its behavior. This translates into architecture as each building component from mechanical to structural to user are intertwined, interact in some way to support or benefit from the other, and influence the others operation or behavior. The beauty of a building, its life, and its capacity to support life all come from the fact that it is working as a whole.

As the quote at the beginning states, there is intellectual question and issue to the following, but there is a parallel between nature and architecture and how they can both be seen as living systems and then work together as one system. Alexander brings forth Bell’s Theorem, he reiterates and asserts that there is deep connectedness in the fabric of matter and space. So much so that parts of the world are linked even without the transfer of normal mechanical or causal processes. This deep connectedness extends to

the non-living and living systems – how they link and become one living system. With an ecological view of architecture, we can try to create life in buildings and towns, not only in the wild part of nature. We can begin to not only preserve but create life in man-made things and natural things together. There is importance and vitality in understanding “the interaction of man and nature and makes harmony out of that interaction which has the beauty of nature and the zest of life.” We can then begin to see there is great potential in nature and architecture, both separately and even more so as one.

Among natural phenomena Alexanders fifteen properties appear in almost everything, exemplifying nature as good design. These properties are responsible for the robust and practical character of nature, the very fact that the world works, that things happen, that matter has behavior.

Nature adapts, with individual centers that form in response to the centers around – it contains what it needs to be “good” as it is not an analysis of context and man-made, it is a response. These responses occur from the whole, earth. Therefore, if architecture and nature could become one living structure it [they] could exemplify “good” design.

Personally, I have always been torn between my love for nature and my love for buildings, as they both don’t always exist in harmony. There is a point here where I realize I do not have to be torn and I recall a place in Middleton, Michigan where there exists a living system that exemplifies “good” design. The midtwentieth century Alden B. Dow Home and Studio.

From its conception, Dow had a firm concept of how the Home and Studio would become one system. He was passionate about nature and geometry. There was a desire to relate to the natural elements of the site and connect to the on-site stream. The structure has a low-lying presence in most areas and natural tones to blend with the surrounding trees and is juxtaposed to the pond with inviting stepping stones. Plantings and varied elevations create a strong visible geometry counterbalanced by natural surroundings. The block entryway, reception area and lower meeting space accentuate sharp angles, vertical and horizontal planes, and the geometric unit block chimney. The first drafting room sits parallel to the pond as a strong horizontal that contrasts the pitched copper roof with a second drafting room with a folded copper roof and angular windows extends to the west of the front entry. A trellis resting on unit block piers and unit block planters at forty-five-degree angles integrates this additional work space with the structure. Interior spaces show exceptional use of natural light, application of vibrant and restful colors, and

use of experimental materials. The living spaces reflect harmony with nature and a dynamic interplay of angles, colors, and textures.

Throughout this design the fifteen properties can be seen. A strong sense of interlock and notseparateness unites this center or system with its surroundings and the world. This space being experienced as a living whole as it feels one with the world and not separate from it. It blends into its surroundings and connects. In ways it is indistinguishable, yet it does not give up its character. This character is shown in its roughness as well as its contrasting elements. As roughness in nature appears in nature as the result of interplay between well-defined order and the constraints of three-dimensional space, it appears the same way here. It appears between the ordered structure of the unit blocks and their limits with the melting away of the site into the water as the blocks then begin to fade away, creating texture. Contrast brings about distinctness. Which is seen amongst the low horizontals and sharp angles and softness of the nature surrounding. This contrast in complex geometries, like in nature, can produce new kinds of forces and feelings that can then exhibit new kinds of behavior.

When visiting this place, I am no longer torn. A sense of peace arises as it seems, without knowing, Dow accomplished something Alexander proposes. He accomplishes making harmony out of the interactions of man and nature, providing a structure – a system – that exists as a whole with “the beauty of nature and the zest of life.” The Home and Studio extends the concept of life to cooperate between the natural and man-made as it creates and preserves life while also making the building come to life as much as it possibly could.