BAC Design Studio: scale

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Project II - Exercises 02-04

Project II learning goals

- Design for human inhabitation and scale

- Develop an understanding of threshold and spatial relationships

- Discover and develop intentional tectonic systems

- Cultivate spatial awareness

In-class exercise:

a. In pairs or groups of three, take turns photographing and recording measurements of the human body. These measurements will be your document of the scale of the human body. Sketch your surveys and note measurements in your sketchbook or on trace.

b. Map the flow of an action. In a sequence of stills, photograph the human body in the following movements:

moving from a compact position to an open position, e.g. getting up from a chair, crouching to standing, sitting to laying etc.
walking a distance of at least a few paces. Measure time/duration as well as distance traveled.

Attend to the scales of movement of different parts of the body, e.g. the range of movement of the head vs the arm, the impact of these movements (being able to touch something vs. being able to see something). Capture the actions from multiple angles and in series of tightly spaced photos.

Exercise 02 due Monday September 16:

• Using the photos and measurements you gathered in class, produce a series of drawings that describes the two separate activities in space over time. Treat this exercise both as an analysis of the motion, and as an analysis of the amount (and shape) of space the body occupied in each case. Experiment with a variety of ways of representing the information. For instance, you might track one part of the body as it moves across space. Or perhaps you create a boundary line capturing the outermost points of the body throughout the movement. Start to identify the similarities and differences between the two activities. What are the important aspects of each action? View? Linear movement?

Bring in a series of drawings for each activity. They should be constructed and drawn at the scale of 1” = 1’-0”

Exercise 03 due Monday September 16:

We will be casting in plaster for this project and will need to test out the material and the casting technique before we can design for it. Please produce a test mold and bring to class on Monday. It should be made with foam core, all joints should be fully taped with heavy-duty cellophane packing tape, and the top should be open to accept the pour. Also, please bring a small bucket, latex gloves, stirring stick, rockite or plaster of paris, and latex gloves. We'll do the casting in class as a group.

Exercise 04 due Sunday September 15:

• On our blog, post brief responses to the following questions (supplemental or example images encouraged):

-How does human scale and proportion influence the built environment?

-How does the built environment influence human occupation?

Remember to periodically check the blog for reference images, links etc.

A Study of Scales

"Powers of Ten" stills are used in order to illustrate the range of information that is legible at different scales. What elements are important or especially visible in each view? How do they differ?

1 m x 1 m square: size of objects, text, color and pattern, texture, body position and interpersonal relationships

10 m x 10 m square: composition within surrounding frame, larger scale patterns, angles, depth and shadow

100 m x 100 m square: modes of transportation, curves vs. straight lines, edge conditions, color, surfaces, can't see people

1000 m x 1000 m square: infrastructural elements, roads and railways, parks, urban conditions, edge conditions, organizational logic, context

Notice the different grains of information ranging from fine grain details, to coarse grain contextual information. Using the information you learned in this exercise think about why you would represent your work at one scale over another.

I Can't Fit

Human scale is one of the primary considerations of the designer. Whether it is a bottle or a building, the resulting object or space often needs to have made some concession to the end user. As we have seen and will most likely continue to see, designers have made concerted efforts to standardize human scale and proportions so that spaces or objects can be produced in accord to a predetermined set of measurements. Measurements that can be employed to create good and useful designs.

A person can sense a good design solution. If you've ever been in a confined or grand space and wished: "...if only 'they' had put such-and-such here" then you understand what I am getting at. These two confined bathroom spaces are clearly, poorly designed. They are also a bit funny because looking at the end result, the problem is so very clear. These "designers" did not consider the end user. These of course are very simplified examples of how the body should influence the built environment. People interact with their environments and therefore need to create environments that cater to their potential for use and movement.

How about the built environment's reciprocal relationship it has with its' occupants? This concept is something that is internalized I think from an early age when we begin to learn to navigate the world and various spaces. There is a reason we don't try to walk through walls to enter a room, or why we walk around a piece of furniture instead of clambering over it. To that end, there is also a reason why many choose to take the elevator or escalator instead of the stairs. Path of least resistance.

The built environment influences the way we interact with it in a number of ways. Not only the structural paths that were mentioned above but also the space as well. Try to consider the last time you looked up at an 8 foot ceiling and considered it's grandeur. Now increase that ceiling hight to 80 feet. A space can impact our sense of self and our sense of scale and therefore render an impact on our occupation within the space.

As designers we can not only prescribe the intended paths of the occupants but we can also address the physical and potentially the physiological states of the occupants as well.

Human Scale in Built Environment

Human Scale and The Built Environment

How does human scale and proportion influence the built environment?

*in a very basic sense most of what is built, is built for human use

*some of what influences design decisions are based on the human scale, and what would be most appropriate/comfortable for that scale

*the scale and design of stairs are directly influenced by the human scale and proportion, there are even guides/codes that govern the relationship between stair design and what is most suitable for the average scaled person

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~loebinfo/loebinfo/Proportions/stairsdoors.html

http://www.contemporist.com/2007/11/28/contemporary-stairs/

How does the built environment influence human occupation?

*the built environment guides and influences what it the most appropriate usage of a particular space

*in a naturally occurring, expansive landscape like a forest, people would be instinctively inclined to explore the space by walking around freely over the ground, up hills, and in all directions as shown in the Lolita Lempika Ad
*but the Gardens at Versailles are built with divisions of grassy vs. stone covered areas, though there are rules, as well as monitors making sure that no one walks on the grass, naturally people would be influenced and guided by the built environment to walk on the stone covered paths that are meant for circulation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=658dzAmOMu4

ps. I saw this the other day and thought it was a really amazing video, hope you all enjoy it!

http://www.samsays.com/Versailles%20.htm

Human Scale

Human Scale in Built Environment

This is a room that houses large hydroelectric generators. They cannot be miniaturized, and are thus not not a human scale. The solution to this mismatch is to build staircases and pathways which reflect the size of a human who has to interact with these generators.

This is a series of structures carved into a mountain in Turkey. You can see the contrast between forms addressing humans and forms that are significantly larger.

When there are no barriers, people tend to spread themselves out evenly.

Human inhabitation of spaces

Villa Savoye, Le Corbusieur

The master bath at the Villa Savoye features a built - in chaise scaled for human inhabitation.

The Metropolitan Museum, Architects: Calvert Vaux; Jacob Wrey Mould

The steps of the Met have become a sort of meeting space - this is not originally how the space was intended to be inhabited and has been shaped by human inhabitation