8 A secondary structure-enhancing process which further forms the shape of spaces and volumes
More or less the same process which creates initial layout of buildings on the land also works, at a later stage, to turn a rough schematic plan into a detailed and orderly configuration of buildings.
In all these examples what is being created is the volume pattern of the buildings and the land. Whether the pattern is urban or rural, the pattern of void and solid, the space and volumes of the built environment, is the fundamental thing which, at its own specific density, defines the texture of our environment. Always, without exception, every building task must be related to this pattern of void and solid, it must always make a contribution to it, it must always make a positive impact on the voids and on the solids so that the whole pattern, black and white, or void and solid, comes to life.
When we are done with this phase, a whole project can be seen, in its essentials, in a small paper model at a scale of 1:200.
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So the target of work, at this stage, is just such a paper model at 1:200, in which we establish the overall feeling of the buildings in the land, their impact on surrounding space, the meaning of the whole, its feeling as a volume.
The space is either brought to life, or not. If not, beyond this stage, it is too late to get it right.
In an evolving design, there is a fundamental problem. The normal evolution of a design (in an architect’s office) consists of rough sketches of various kinds. But these sketches do not approximate the actual wholeness which they represent. In other words, the sketch of an idea, does not allow you to feel, or experience, or sense, the wholeness which is implied by that sketch. Since you cannot experience the wholeness, you cannot react to it, and effective feedback is impossible.
To solve this problem, it is necessary to do the work in a situation which resembles, as nearly as possible, the real situation of the project. That means, to start with, that a great deal of the design must be done on the actual site, using sticks, stakes, string, a bush, a rock, and so on, to show where the building is to be, how it sits in the land, what the open space next to it feels like, and so on.
What you must have in hand by the end of this phase: 1. Complete staking out of the building, on the land, with all building edges and all important exterior centers. 2. Topographic model at 1:200 scale, which shows the land, surrounding buildings, trees, roads and of course the contours of the land. 3. Paper models of the building volumes on the topographic model.
It is also necessary — not merely desirable, necessary — to use models, continuously, and frequently, at every stage. We make rough models, which show, in general outline, what the wholeness is, that is developing. The models we use are intentionally rough. Not finished architect’s models, but rough working models made of paper, plasticine, chewing gum, glue, little bits and pieces — sometimes a tube of glue, or a salt shaker, or an eraser, sometimes a bit of paint, pieces of tape, details quickly cut with a pair of scissors — all find their way into the model.
The idea of the model is to give a rough sketch of the three-dimensional wholeness, as it will be — and sufficient in its range and structure so that you can examine it to see what it wrong with it, and also find out, by looking at it, what it the next step which will do the most to intensify the wholeness further.
What is at stake is just that positive volume of space and substance which appears in a 1:200 model, in light cardboard, on a topographic model.
It is more important to build a small, rough, unfinished version of the whole than it is to build a small, detailed, working part of it. The key is to create an understanding for what the whole demands of its parts. If you start building out the parts too early, before you understand the whole fully, their details will change the whole and likely lead to a lesser version of the whole in the end.
It is significant that these small informal models and the phase of development they represent, though extremely simple, are entirely different from the “deliverables” normally considered appropriate for early stages of design in current architectural practice. The normal deliverables include a site plan and rough schematic drawings, and sometimes, preliminary drawings. Such items cannot adequately represent a solved problem. They do not contain enough information, and one cannot feel certain, from them, whether the life of the site has been preserved or extended.
The three deliverables mentioned here, made in the form I have described them, different from today’s standard professional deliverables, give a reasonable guarantee that the life of the site has been preserved, that the solution is reliable, that it is intense, and that the building does intensify the city or the land.
#book/The Nature of Order/3 A Vision of a Living World/5 The positive pattern of space and volume in three dimensions on the land#