Design Report

I have a set of well used teak spice drawers which I use whenever I cook at home. They’re special to me both as a beautiful object but also because they’re so deeply ingrained in my experience of cooking. I’ve owned these drawers for probably 20 years so there is no need for labels, I know the contents of each drawer.

Even if I did forget, I could navigate these drawers by smell.

The drawers could be seen as a device for making architecture invisible; when people open these drawers, they always close their eyes in the presence of the aromas. With our eyes closed, we inhale and experience both the smell and the associated memories more deeply. “The nose makes the eyes remember.” [1]

Some of the most important ingredients of architecture are invisible – the aural architecture, what we feel with our skin, and inhale as scents. These all tell us as much about the architecture, if not more, than what we see.

The Tezuka Architect’s studio required a (charming) story of invisible architecture and ‘my own sky’. The walk along the path to my studio outside our house at night became my combined Story of Sky & Invisible Architecture by retaining the scent component of the spice drawers:

“After dinner I leave the house and walk the path to my studio outside, to work. The sounds and smells of domestic life disappear as I wander into the fresh night air.

The house no longer exists in my vision, but I can still catch the faint fragrant smells of perhaps ginger, sesame, lemon, garlic - conjuring up a memory of creating this meal using ingredients from my spice drawers.

As I walk the path I am in limbo between my domestic life and my student life.  With each step closer to my studio, the aromas of dinner drift away to be replaced with scents of the path and the plants along the way.

I could navigate this path by smell.

There is a point between the house and studio, when the trees clear, when I'm not a mother, a wife, but not yet a student or worker, I am just me. I sense the clearing above me and I look up and drink in my own sky.

As the path winds closer to the studio, I can smell the trees and the firewood stacked up here - macrocarpa, pine, tea tree.

Climbing the steps to my studio, I turn the door handle with an aroma of old brass and my journey ends.”

Figure 1: Presentation Model (mid semester critique)

The model I used to tell my story (figure 1) demonstrated the smells along my path - each block of wood was infused with different scents: vanilla and sesame oil near the house; kaffir lime along the path; pine and macrocarpa near the studio. A path which takes you on a journey to experience the outside environment, and smell, were the important elements in the design of ‘invisible architecture with my own sky’. The form of this model also became an influence on the layout of my final design (see cover image & figure 4). A walkthrough of the final model demonstrating the path which goes from the entry to the studio can be seen here.

Smell is the forgotten sense of architecture. Helen Keller aptly describes it as the fallen angel.[2]

Figure 2: Pigpen from Charles Schulz' Peanuts cartoons

A heightened awareness of the importance of non-visual ingredients in architectural space has meant that aural and tactile experiences have been given more credibility, but smell still remains the poor cousin. There is even no accepted way of representing smell in architectural drawings. Traditional representations of odours are weaving lines suggesting a movement from the source to the nose. However, if these methods are used in architecture, it's seen as illustration rather than an architectural drawing (figure 2).

Traditional architecture embraced smell as a contributor to its atmosphere and depth. Buildings were a sanctuary of scent - stone, incense, flowers - a reprieve from cities thick with odours centuries ago. However, the reverse is true now where cities try to be odour- and smoke-free while new buildings contain ingredients for noxious fumes from synthetic materials in the furnishings and construction materials. These are monitored and reduced with the goal of ‘safe’ odour-free architecture. If there is a smell, it must be bad which leads to architecture that is sterile and 'clean'. Modern materials generally result in such odour-free architecture.

If the essence of architecture is intimately linked with materiality, then it's necessary to re-discover the power of architectural scents - the aura of buildings.[3]

Buildings which do have an aroma reveal their materiality, for example:

• Cedar is used to line cupboards and wardrobes as the sweet resinous scent is also a natural insect repellent. In the Imperial summer palace of the Manchu emperors, cedar beams and panelling were left unpainted so the fragrance of the wood could be experienced.[4]
• Floors of Medieval castles were strewn with rushes, lavender and thyme.[5]
• During the Han Dynasty, Chinese imperial concubines were housed in buildings with mud walls infused with Sichuan pepper - the pepper is highly fragrant and also a symbol of fertility still used during wedding ceremonies.[6]
• Builders of Islamic mosques mixed rose water and musk into the mortar - the sun would warm the stone and bring out the perfume, and adding an extra dimension to the flat walls [7].

Smell can be experienced as a design element in the work of Juhani Pallasmaa, Peter Zumthor, and also Charles Moore who designed an interesting house for a blind client.

People recollect odours spontaneously and involuntarily. In architecture with prominent scents, the residents become part of their building - surrounding them. Whether pleasant or not, odour functions in terms of a powerful point in time of the space that surrounds us.[8]

More than any other sensation, smell can evoke vivid recall of an entire scene from the past - both the image and the emotions associated with that image. Nostalgic memories of childhood vary significantly depending on when people were born - a study of around 1000 people investigated which smells evoked feelings of nostalgia depending on what decade they were born in[9]:

1920s, 30s, 40s:
flowers, grass, roses, pine, soap, manure, sea air, pine, baby powder, burning leaves, mother's perfume

1960s & 70s:
baby powder, mother's perfume, dad's cologne, chlorine, crayons, Play-Doh, disinfectant, detergent, glue, mothballs, plastic, hair spray, suntan oil, chlorine, scented felt-tip pens

The increasing mention of artificial smells might be a concern if nostalgia for natural odours experienced in childhood is a significant factor involved in our desire to preserve the environment. That is, it could eventually mean that people will no longer have nostalgic feelings for the natural environment, only experiencing nostalgia for smells of manufactured environments.

An additional goal of my design is to provide natural scents as part of daily family life.  Children growing up in this dwelling will, hopefully, remember these scents in the same way I do in the memory of jasmine perfume from the vines my mother planted under our bathroom window.

Taking elements from traditional building methods involving fragrant materials, the main path running from the entry out to the studio in my design will be stone or tiles and unsealed mortar made with either lavender oil (outside the bedrooms) or rosewater (the remaining path areas). The path will be edged with fragrant herbs which release their aroma when walked on or brushed past (see figures 4 & 5). The bedrooms and ‘outside’ toilet will be clad with fragrant cedar cladding, unpainted. Mapping these scents was an important design task though I’m still not satisfied with my methods of representing scents visually as a notation in drawings.

Traditional Japanese building types including the tea house were also important influences in my design. In Tanizaki Junichiro’s essay ‘In Praise of Shadows’, he describes the pleasure felt in the Japanese traditional toilet, as it stands "…apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss." [10]

Figure 3

“[T]here one can listen with such a sense of intimacy to the raindrops falling from the eaves and trees, seeping into the earth as they wash over the base of a stone lantern and freshen the moss about the stepping stones. And the toilet is the perfect place to listen to the chirping of insects or the song of the birds, to view the moon, or to enjoy any of those poignant moments that mark the change of seasons.”[11]

Tanizaki is not advocating a return to nature or to the architecture of the past, but rather to find inside ordinary life places than can satisfy both his cultural and aesthetic senses. He then points out that in a Nara or Kyoto temple, "…the tearoom many have its charms, but the Japanese toilet is truly a place of spiritual repose." This may sound like a Monty Python moment, but in essence it means that each space of the house, whatever its function, should add to the pleasure of dwelling. Not everyone can have a tearoom, but at least more ordinary spaces can be conceived with sensitivity[12]. I could relate to this with memories of the outside toilet at my grandparent’s beach house - the ‘long drop’. It had the same feeling as the walk out to my studio, so my design also includes this feature (albeit a modernised version).

Figure 4: Floor Plan of 36 Airedale Street; level 1 (right), garage level (bottom left), and level 2 studio (top left)

Meditation in Zen practice is an attempt to discover the 'essence' of things through an immediate and intuitive, rather than intellectually constructed, method. I get the impression that Yui and Takaharu were trying to get us to think this way as they challenged us to concoct our stories of invisible architecture and sky in a way that anyone (‘even the old man in the street[13]’) could immediately understand. Their method ultimately involved us all coming to our own conclusions, however frustrating this was!.

Figure 5: 36 Airedale Street, Sections

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. New York, USA: Random House, 1990.
Benoit, Jacquet & Vincent Giraud (eds). Introduction in From the Things Themselves: Architecture and Phenomenology, 1-16.  Kyoto Japan: Kyoto University, 2013.
Boyle, Sheryl & Marco Frascari. “Architectural Amnesia and Architectural Smell.” AI Architecture & Ideas 9, (2009): 36-47.
Classen, Constance. Worlds of Sense. Exploring the Senses in History and across Cultures. London UK: Routledge, 1993.
Hirsch, Alan R. “Nostalgia, the Odors of Childhood and Society.” In The Smell Culture Reader, edited by Jim Drobnick, 187-189. Oxford UK: Berg, 2006.
Keller, Helen. “Sense and Sensbility.” In The Smell Culture Reader, edited by Jim Drobnick, 181-183. Oxford UK: Berg, 2006.
Junichiro, Tanizaki. In Praise of Shadows. Translated by Thomas J Harper and Edward G Seidensticker. London UK: Vintage, 2001, 9-10.
Okakura, Kakuzo. The Book of Tea. Tokyo Japan: Kodansha International, 1989.
Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin. Chichester UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2012.
Zumthor, Peter. Atmospheres. Basel Switzerland: Birkhauser, 2012.
See also my online ‘Sketchbook’ for this design studio at http://rooflessfloorless.blogspot.co.nz/

---

[1] Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin. Chichester UK: John Wiley & Sons, 2012.

[2] Keller, Helen. “Sense and Sensbility.” In The Smell Culture Reader, edited by Jim Drobnick, (Oxford UK: Berg, 2006), 181.

[3] Boyle, Sheryl & Marco Frascari. “Architectural Amnesia and Architectural Smell.” AI Architecture & Ideas 9, (2009): 38.

[4] Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. (New York, USA: Random House, 1990), 60.

[5] Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, 60.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

^[8] Boyle & Frascari, “Architectural Amnesia and Architectural Smell.” 36-47.

^[9] Hirsch, Alan R. “Nostalgia, the Odors of Childhood and Society.” In The Smell Culture Reader, ed. Jim Drobnick, (Oxford UK: Berg, 2006), 188-189.

[10] Junichiro, Tanizaki. In Praise of Shadows. Translated by Thomas J Harper and Edward G Seidensticker. London UK: Vintage, 2001, 9-10.

[11] Junichiro. In Praise of Shadows, 9-10.

[12] Benoit, Jacquet & Vincent Giraud (eds). Introduction in From the Things Themselves: Architecture and Phenomenology, (Kyoto Japan: Kyoto University, 2013), 12-15.

[13] Takaharu Tezuka, during Design Studio sessions.

Walkthrough

 

Below is a really basic walkthrough of the final design, demonstrating the path from entry to studio.

 

Scent map..

The map of scents for my site....




























Still not entirely happy with ways of representing scents, there is no notation for 'smell' in architectural drawings! Airflow, materials etc yes, but not smell...
You want something that is easy and quick to read at a glance but not so much like an illustration (ie. as below). Perhaps something along the lines of airflow could work on a pared down drawing.

To do (handin)

Tidy up site model (if time)
Bind pages of this blog.
Bind a collection of sheets from Revit file:

• plans, sections
• site
• scent map (site)
• make sure dates are assigned to each plan so the development can be seen

Story - blow up on a large sheet for moderation (ie. a very significant part of the whole process)
Design Report tidy up
(add video link for mid semester presentation http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLxhrp3iLzEuAU_fDrtmdeeWNIZPTsxIXd&v=YAmZ9RXA0E8&feature=player_embedded)

Design Report text:

Reworked plan

Reworked the plan to be similar to the previous one (studio and front living spaces = almost as is) but with less unused space, or at least, no gaps on the southeast facing wall.

Sun

Afternoon sun will reach the far corner with outdoor toilet.
No outdoor space remains along the southeast facing wall.
Skylights in the bedrooms face north or northwest
The living room has a clerestory window facing north to catch sun during the day.

Daylight, light qualities

The master bed probably has the least direct light, but has a stack of windows/opening wall into the private garden area.
The studio has one long window reaching all the way up which overlooks the garden and will let in some morning light. It also has a skylight which will allow light to penetrate down to the ground level.

The kitchen has a large internal window into the conservatory area, plus a huge skylight which has operable louvres to close off the hot afternoon sun if wished. The kitchen will be the most light drenched area of the living spaces.

The dining area will get light from both the clerestory windows over the entrance way (afternoon sun) and also has opening doors onto the entry courtyard.

The main living space has tall windows which will draw your eye upwards to the skyscape view out in this direction, and also provide interest from the street (internal movement).

The conservatory/indoor garden area is completely covered with a glass roof which responds to the sun and light (heat activated - will turn opaque when heated with hot summer or afternoon sun).

The bath, toilets and shower areas all have their own operable skylights. The bath also has large opening doors onto the private garden, as does the outdoor toilet.

 

Scents - this plan hasn't changed at all (see previous post for this plan).

However, tell the stories about the Hoya vine and the Jasmine vines, and nostalgic scents.

Reworking the plan...

Several designs on the bus going home last night. Not happy with any of them, then thought about what I liked about my original design. The peices of kanuka were beautiful and had hollows in them...perhaps use this as inspiration for the 'courtyard' space(s)?

 

 

 

Interim presentation to Taka + feedback

Site - showed site plan of original model (my house) versus Airedate Street with goal to try and recreate the path experience in a very urban context

Original model - showed image of this plus gave blocks of wood to smell

Path, scent, sky - could navigate the path by smell

Explained courtyard design with path and rationale behind the materials (cedar, mortar with scents etc) and planting. Story about hoya vine taken from mother's garden and jasmine planted next to the toilet (from home memory).

Sun will heat up this path and intensify smells of the architecture
Mentioned nostalgic memories of childhood smells and how I want this family's children to grow up with memories of natural smells (eg. plants, wood etc) rather than the usual artificial smells remembered from childhood of playdoh, plastic toys etc.

Feedback

Story and concept good but floor plan needs reworking to fit into an urban context - cannot have so much open space.

• Too much unused space (eg the space around the bathroom for example).
• Make the section more interesting, like the original concept model, with varying heights and different light qualities.
• Look at other classic courtyard designs

Drawings...

Revit plans and perspectives redrawn by hand....

Working on the story...

Installation will rely heavily on non-visual elements.
Really just an extension of what I presented to Yui.
 Studio model at one end, House model at the other, blocks of wood in between representing the smells along the path to the studio.

To me, some of the most important elements of architecture are those we cannot see - the things we're often not even aware of like sensing the size of a space and it's materials and temperature. Smell is our most basic sense and one that is not usually associated with architecture.
But it is the one that can conjure up the most powerful involuntary recollections of a place, and the emotions associated with that image.
We can close our eyes and put our hands over our ears but we cannot stop breathing.
Smell enters our body in a breath.

Interviews with blind people highlight the importance of these nonvisual ingredients; one of the most basic is smell.


Original concept = path to my studio, containing my own sky

At night as I leave our house, after cooking and eating dinner, to walk the path to my studio to work. Our house is nestled down in a valley with trees and birds as our neighbours. There are no street lights or city glow, no city noise.

I leave the house behind me, closing the door, leaving the clatter of dinner dishes, sounds of TV and chatter of my family.

As I walk the path I am in limbo between my domestic life and my student life.
With each step closer to my studio, the smells of cooking waft away to be replaced with the velvety night air with it's fresh smell.

Its dark so my other senses are not distracted by vision, though the night sky and stars start to glow as I move away from the lights of the house.

I could navigate this path by the scents in the air and know where I am.

The house no longer exists in my vision, but I still catch the faint fragrant smells of food that we sat around the dinning table to eat.

As I walk further though I can only smell the fresh scent of the night air. This is when the sky is clear, between the house and the studio, when I'm not a mother, a partner, a daughter, but not yet a student or worker,
I am just me.
This is the time when I always look up at and I drink in the sky, my own sky.

So, invisible architecture with 'my own sky'...

A garden path, an oasis in the city.

This path takes you from the city street, through your home and finally to a space of contemplation and thinking.

At one end is domesticity with concerns of everyday living, at the other is the studio, a place of contemplation, practice, thinking.

The path connects these 2 spaces, winding through from one to the other, presenting the scents of the architecture and nature along the way.
The path is not lit so you rely more heavily on your memory of where to move, this memory is enhanced by the smells along the path.

The scents in the air tell you where you are if you cannot see.

The smells of everyday life, the fireplace the cooking smells become less apparent as you close the living room door behind you.

You walk past the smells of basil and mint, thyme and citrus from the kitchen garden near the dining room.

Past the bedroom blocks with the strong smell of cedar cladding, the mortar in the path here is scented with lavender, a calming sleepy smell.
Past the bathroom with the slight sensation of steamy air and fragrances from showering.
The path is still warm from the sun, and a soft scent of rose water wafts up here just before the door to the outside.

By now, the noises and smells of everyday life are slipping behind you and your concentration is just on navigating the path in the dark - the darkness concentrates the light coming from above with the stars and moon and city lights.

You open this door and immediately feel the change in temperature and smells, the sky, your own sky is above you. Away from domestic life but not yet at your destination.
You are in limbo alone with your own thoughts and you feel more sharply the absence of a sheltering roof so your eye is drawn up to the sky. Your own sky.

Scent 'plan'

Entrance
Welcoming fragrant plants - gardenia (Gardenia jasminoides), daphne (D. odora), frangipani (Hymenosporum Flavum), Mock orange (Philadelphus coronarius),

Inside entrance
 - cooking smells, fireplace, leather chairs, wooden table

Garage
- drying clothes, bike smells (rubber tyes, grease), car smells,

Just outside main building
- hoya vine, herb garden, thyme planted between tiles so walking on this will release the scent
- citrus plants (lemon, lime)

Path past bedrooms
- lavendar mortar
- cedar cladding

Path past bathroom
- teatree?, rose water mortar
- cedar cladding

Path outside the toilet
- jasmine, honeysuckle vines
- lemon thyme and mint growing along edges so walking on these will release their scent

Path by studio
- rose water mortar
- fruit trees (apple, lemons)
- port wine magnolia (Michelia Figo)
- tea tree (manuka Leptospernum scoparium)

Studio
- when opening the door will smell books, smells associated with musical instruments, wood and leather furniture,

Model...CNC and STL files...

I really wanted to get a piece of wood from our land to give a link to my original story, and be able to make a 1:50 site model.
So...our wood chopping block was obviously destined for greater things (it has given me a new appreciation for wattle).

Typography in Revit is usually dead easy for 3D/CNC printing but for some reason this model did not give a good STL file - so glad I have a programme (mini magics) at home to check it.
Fixed by recreating the typography as sloping floors - bit crude but then so is the CNC and I can always work on it after (sanding).

Overall effect & link with original concept:

•  site plus front part of the house will be cut in CNC as one piece (max height 200mm so just fitted in). Rationale = front sits down within the site but the other rooms do not.
• However, CNC would not do both the site and the buildings (too steep for the tools) so will just have to add those on...
• other rooms will be loose bits of different wood sitting on the separate building pads. Rationale = so you can pick them up to smell - the visual impression of the wood will make you want to do this....different smells using the same logic as the original presentation model
• path will be the space left around the rooms to some extent but will also emphasis this somehow - that is, not too different from the natural typography (sloping, winding) but also distinct somehow - different texture, still not sure how yet
• smells - similar to original model but more emphasis on actual building materials eg. cedar, pine, macrocarpa, maybe the plaster plus rose water if that works, somehow add fragrant plant smell.....?
• plant smells = thyme, rosemary, lavender, rose, mint, lime/lemon, port wine magnolia...

Post for group blog..

My presentation model (see earlier video in this blog or this link for background) suggested a path running through or past a series of rooms ending at a separate studio. So I ran with that….using a domestic dwelling in Auckland CBD (Airedale Street) with the challenge of recreating my rural sky in a very urban setting…

The path is both internal & external to mimic ‘my own sky’ experience.

Key things = path, scent, sky

The scent of the materials used will be more important than visual considerations for key areas, and the layout will favour smells to provide cues about activity within the house:

• cooking smells can circulate if desired, rather than being quickly chased out of the building
• the smells of music - metal polish and oils used for the instruments, the smell of old vinyl & old paper music sheets
• books & leather reading chairs
• fireplace using wood not gas
• fragrances used in the bathroom/bedrooms
• cedar wood linings in cupboards and wardrobes

The main design iterations so far have involved:

• general layout to ensure the experience of the path is prominent, with connections to the garden and sky
• path slope – straight up from street versus a more gentle incline
• path connections with the rooms (up/down/around), and between rooms

Research to date:

• materials & smell - mixing rose water into plaster (Islamic mosques), cedar wall linings; Juhani Pallasma and Peter Zumthor on the topic of building aromas
• fragrant plants to line the path, and to walk on
• Japanese design elements including the teahouses, and the traditional Japanese outside toilet (see Tanizaki Junichiro's 'In Praise of Shadows' and also http://rooflessfloorless.blogspot.co.nz/2013/09/the-poetics-of-japanese-space.html)
• architectural amnesia wrt smell (see http://rooflessfloorless.blogspot.co.nz/2013/09/architectural-amnesia-and-architectural.html)
• nostalgic smells (see http://rooflessfloorless.blogspot.co.nz/2013/09/nostalgia-odors-of-childhood-and-society.html)

NB. Client  - it was important to me to have someone to design for...  the "DiSouza family": mum is a writer and wants a garden; dad works in the CBD and has a passion for any kind of music; the 9-year-old daughter loves birds and plays the flute; the 11-year-old daughter plays the cello; they're all keen cyclists; and previous homes have been in suburban Auckland and urban Singapore. They wanted places to play or practice music that wouldn't disturb the rest of the family.

Things will change, but here’s version VI so far..

to do list...

1. investigations with plaster and rose water...
2. buy blocks of cedar
3. continue working on the plans and walkthroughs (latter for the design report)
4. print out some perspectives and do some 'hand drawings' over the top - perhaps one large sheet of butter paper with a flat sheet underneath.....? or use the light box...
5. site model
• site should be a contrast to the designed dwelling ie. perhaps something like polystyrene etc
• include levels and path so need to use the Revit STL file
• actual designed dwelling = wood, scented....

Scents of Home - different path versions

Version IV

Main path = straight line from street up to 'tower' . Entry to closer rooms via steps up to room level. Rooms roughly sit at topography levels.
Image below = from the entry at about 'street' level

This version seems to feel a little more 'oppressive' than the one below...perhaps if the rooms were lowered down to the level of the path it would seem less so?

 

 

Version V

Main path = straight line from ground level up to 'tower', more gentle slope. Entry into closer rooms via steps down. Rooms still roughly follow topography.
Image below = from the entry at about 'street' level

I prefer the feel of this path. Still needs lot of work of course but like the idea of walking down into the rooms here rather than stepping up to them - the walk along the path seems more pleasant...

 

Why has architecture forgotten smell?

(from "Invisible Architecture: Experiencing Places Through the Sense of Smell" - Anna Barbara and Anthony Perliss)
Richard Neutra commented in 1949 that we should devote as much attention as possible to all the non-visual aspects of our environment...surprising because this dates from a time when we would never have suspected such issues to surface, when Modernism was in full swing and the dominance of the visual had yet to be challenged.

Many reasons why there is a lack of regard for smell in architecture:

• simply that smell is invisible and can hardly be addressed or represented using the usual visual based tools of design. In order to be considered, the invisible often has to invent other media, form new expressive language, make itself visible.
• the intimate relationship between smell and emotion. Odour is a powerful vehicle for memory, evoking the emotions that a given scent had originally stimulated, bringing back to the surface pleasures or pains
• our sense of smell is extremely evanescent and intangible, caught up in the dynamic flow of time  like sound and light.

Ideas to continue with...to do list

Presentation:

• investigate corridor downstairs
• find out if there is a way of installing some 'stars' on the ceiling that slowly start to glow
• smells - blocks of wood infused with smell
• stuck onto the corridor wall
• made into a vertical model where you have to come close to the wall, close your eyes to smell

Architecture

• path - make the level as a straight(ish) line from entry up to the studio
• rooms then have to have steps up from the path (or down) as they will continue to sit on the original terrain.
• path - slightly uneven, sloping path, terracotta tiles (like a garden path)
• main path has a transparent ceiling, but any other corridors are closed in

Investigations with joins - models

 Leaving slight gaps between each 'block'; differing shapes - round, square

Transparent roof for path:

 

Covered path:

 

  Translucent roof for path:



The poetics of Japanese Space

- taken from: From the Things Themselves: Architecture and Phenomenology, Benoit Jacquet & Vincent Giraud (eds.): Kyoto University Press, Japan: 2013. 12-

"In his famous essay In Praise of Shadows, Tanizaki Junichiro starts by explicating the difficulties faced in building a traditional Japanese house which includes all the necessities of modern life: heating, electric lighting and sanitary facilities. Whilst critical of some aspects of modernization, Tanizaki explains that it should be possible to re-create some the of the synaesthetic feelings inherent in traditional architecture without sacrificing certain modern necessities. For instance, he describes the pleasure felt in the Japanese traditional toilet, as it stands "apart from the main building, at the end of a corridor, in a grove fragrant with leaves and moss."

[T]here one can listen with such a sense of intimacy to the raindrops falling from the eaves and trees, seeping into the earth as they wash over the base of a stone lantern and freshen the moss about the stepping stones. And the toilet is the perfect place to listen to the chirping of insects or the song of the birds, to view the moon, or to enjoy any of those poignant moments that mark the change of seasons. Here, I suspect, is where Haiku poets over the ages have come by a great many of their ideas.

Despite the possibility of catching a winter cold, Tanizaki suggests that; "our forebears, making poetry of everything in their lives, transformed what by rights should be the most unsanitary room into a place of unsurpassed elegance."...Creating the opportunity for the poetic interpretation of space can be considered the root of architectural creation.

...Tanizaki is not attempting to advocate a return to nature or to the architecture of the past, but rather to find inside ordinary life places than can satisfy both his cultural and aesthetic senses. He then points out that in a Nara or Kyoto temple, "the tearoom many have its charms, but the Japanese toilet is truly a place of spiritual repose." This association may seem surreal but an architect can learn from this perspective that each space of the house, whatever its function may be, should add to the pleasure of dwelling. If not everyone can have a tearoom, at least more ordinary spaces should also be conceived with sensitivity.

The tearoom is a space created for the awakening of both the senses and the mind....Based on the model of the hermitage, the tearoom built inside a town would ideally allow "living in town as if living in the country". The hermitage is described as an impermanent construction, a shelter for one night, built by the scholar himself. A tearoom can be built for a special occasion; it emphasises the ideas of immediateness, "here and now", and the intensity of an instant, an encounter than can only happen "once in one's life." This place condenses both time and space around the art of tea in order to enjoy each instant as if it were the last: it shows both an ethical obligation and an aesthetic appreciation of the impermanent values of space and time. The materiality of the tearoom, the natural essence of materials but also the naturalness of their use, also corresponds to this phenomenological approach to space. Everything is made of natural materials, and materials that express a natural essence.

...Meditation in Zen practice is an attempt to  discover the 'essence' of things through an immediate and intuitive, rather than intellectually constructed, method - also the starting point of architectural work.

AD2 Report Writing Workshop - Chris Barton

• 1000-1500 words
• PDF embeded with media as relevant:
• audio
• images
• video - include a walkthrough or fly over of building
• references including references to precedents (what have other architects done to solve these problems).

Path, Scents, Sky

Helpful tips:

• repeat your concept in different ways through the text to emphasise it
• find precendents and mention them (eg. Zumthor, Pallasma)

Main concepts & development of..

• series of individual masses linked by a common path - this path runs right through from the street to the final destination at the end (studio, 'room for thinking', music/library) - path has the same materials from street to studio
• different masses have different scents?
• could navigate this path by smell
• transparent roof for the path, or open to the air, except in the front mass (living/dining/entrance)
• entrance ceiling is lower than the rest, area with steps is semi enclosed (different from the rest of the path)
• forced disconnect with domestic areas, path becomes open in the area before the studio, the transition area
• toilet is accessed from outside as well, to take on qualities of the traditional Japanese toilet plus also the typical older kiwi 'bach' toilet, long drop etc. - with the feeling of being closer to the outdoors/the external environment.
• however, the bedrooms can also access the master bedroom toilet without going outside...(eg. the bedroom nearest the master bedroom could be for young children who do not want to 'go outside' at night)
• light versus dark - day: entrance and studio will be darker than the main pathway - sunny, bright path
• light versus dark - night: brightly lit entrance and studio with no artificial lights on the main pathway so dark, outside will the lighter, look up to sky etc

• cladding = cedar for blocks along the path, stone blocks for front and studio
• path = terracotta tiles with unsealed mortar containing fragrant elements depending on location along the path
• landscaping = fragrant bushes and vines:
• near dining room = Hoya (very fragrant indoor/tropical vine) growing up the wall outside the dining room doors, plus a herb garden for cooking (basil, mint, thyme - thyme planted in between the tiles to walk on).
• near bathroom = ?
• near studio = citrus trees, lemon thyme planted between the terracotta tiles to walk on and release the frangrance, port wine magnolia

Idea to add:

• My site (CBD) is a vast contrast to my original idea for the concept (eg. rural), the challenge is how to recreate this feeling in an urban context

Phrases:

• a main pathway with glimpses of other paths too narrow to negotiate (hints of other routes not possible from here)
• lined with scents evocative of past memories, conjuring up places previously experienced, creating an expectation of what is to come
• delicate scents converge into stronger aromas as the spaces change (become larger and more solid)
• scents of materials help to navitage  - give an indication of where you are and where you are going to/from
• indoor/outdoor/contrast of light/varying geometries
• forced disconnection from the domestic spaces, flinging you into the open night sky with its contrasting sounds and smells, providing an environment supporting the change in mindset needed to study/work/practice
• the main pathways provided contrasting experiences, a transition of scents characteristic of each destination along the path