Material Matters II

It’s amazing how smells evoke memories from the past – moments we totally have forgotten about until a similar smell triggers our recollection. The other day I came across a scent that reminded me vividly of the apartment of my great aunt in which I spent much of my childhood - It was a mind boggling sensation. Another fragrance I am attached to is the smell of a particular cleaning detergent which I encountered when I first arrived to the US at the YMCA hostel in New York City. I was so excited about the new impressions that I must have forever recorded this smell with the particular moment.

Smells are thus one of these contingencies that matter enormously in our common spatial experience. There are many such contingencies - health, mood, agenda, company, light etc. but fragrances’ and also sounds have this exceptional power of immediate access to our memory. As far as sounds go, Pavlov’s experiment to conditioning dogs to sounds is a good example for even scientific proof.

At architecture schools it is often talked about how we experience the world with all our senses and yet it is exactly the academic realm that can hardly fulfill its ambitions because it is bound to mere visual judgment. It’s a dilemma that our common design tools, drawings, card board models and renderings, won’t allow us to simulate actual experience or contingencies of our quotidian doing.

So how is it at all possible to work with scents in design? Well, using air fresheners is not a solution because these are artificial. They would be what ornaments are to the visual world – mere decorative embellishments. The same way I prefer to exposed natural materials as opposed to hiding them behind veneered finishes the same way I favor the real smell of materials over artificial flavors – the same so in foods.

Unfortunately the smells are strongest when the materials are fresh - in the making – on the construction site, for instant cutting wood, pouring and drying concrete, welding steel etc. As construction advances and the finishes go up usually the smell of paint dominates everything else – and considering the VOC level – this kind of smell is not even desirable for our health. Then, after completion when air conditioning and ventilation start running these flavors disappear in no time at all. However, if air exchange is mismanaged, underperformed or aged, the smell of occupancy takes over and produces this funny flavor that again will be registered by many people and maybe recorded forever in their memories.

One way to start a discussion may be collecting associations of spatial flavors similar to discussing perfumes or wines.

Technical Architects vs. Design Architects

The concept of splitting our profession in a design department and a technical department - how it’s done in my office - is still alien too me. The way I was taught design is that everything depends on each other, the structure, the spaces, the form, the materials, etc. Everything ought to ‘makes sense’ to support the overall design idea – sort of like the Aristotle approach in which something is right when you can’t add or take away from it unless for the worth.

I agreed however to join the technical department in my office and have since then worked solely in construction documents and construction administration. I was determined to learn all about construction, materials and ‘real’ spaces. The design department tent to work crazy hours on mostly image production, learning more about graphics than anything else. I was determined to break the common architect’s curse; I wanted to be paid for knowledge not for labor.

The price is though at times. I crave to design and for soul mates among my colleagues. Yet the folks in the technical department don’t talk much about design – let alone read about it. So, while I make my experience I suffer from lack of inspiration. But I am still convinced that working on the technical side makes me become a stronger designer at the end.

What cheers me up is taking one of my favorite books off the shelf, browsing and picking a project I really like and studying it, the plans, sections, details and photos. (By the way the El Croquis series are still my favorite magazines because their documentation is very complete sometimes including even model images and detail drawings) Other than that I may browse to an office website whose work I like, pick a project and study it. The best treat however, is to visit one of my favorite buildings which is of course is not always possible.

What’s left? Right - blogging about it!

Material Matters I

It has always fascinated me how we perceive things differently from a distance. Figurative paintings for instance appear seemingly realistic from some 3 feet away but when stepping closer, we notice that the subjects aren’t actually painted realistically. Painters who work close to their canvases mastered abstract stroke and color techniques that create an illusion in order to meet our familiar perception of reality. Similarly familiar to this phenomenon are makeup artists who learn to apply makeup to performers with exaggerated facial features in order to increase the visibility for the audience. Or another example that left great impression on me is from a children’s book ‘Jim Knopf’ by Michael Ende in which appears a quasi giant, a character that occurs extremely tall from far away yet shrinks with decreasing distance and eventually reaches regular height when being close by.

Architects may as well take advantage of this far sight effect and explore similar techniques in designs, particularly when it comes to the exterior skin of buildings, the materials, modular, scale, textures, colors, joints and connections.

Eero Saarinen’s terminal at Dulles International Airport for instance appears white from the distance, like exposed white concrete. Well, the concrete is actually grey. The surface however is bush hammered and exposes white aggregates - a last minute fix to remedy the poorly executed architectural concrete. From the distance the sprinkled aggregates become increasingly dominant over the grey background and make the building appear white. What a wonderful effect.

Or the other day I came across a close up photograph of the shell from the Sydney Opera by Danish architect Jørn Utzon. I always pictured white tiles and a grey hairline pattern. Well, the photograph revealed how wide the joints actually are in order to appear as grey hair lines in the greater picture - they are inches wide and black.

Musing about this topic I tried to remember the color of the Eiffel Tower? I have been up there many times and yet I couldn’t quite remember the actual paint color. I thought it was red but it might be as well brown or grey? And yet no matter what color it may be, in context with the Parisian skyline, the tower actually appears colorless.