Invisible Architecture Assignment - Spice Drawers

Invisible - imperceptible, un-noticed, imagined, perceived but not seen

Louis Kahn:

"A great building must begin with the immeasurable, must go through measurable means when it is being designed, and in the end must be unmeasured."

Architecture = shelter, protection from extreme temparatures/rain/snow, a way to alter how you interact with the environment, boundaries - an inside and an outside

Architecture = a device that allows us to connect with the environment

Architecture = shitsurae.

"Through shitsurae, a person can begin to savour a place. This concept involves ways of planning human movement - the more cunning these tricks, the more skilful the architecture. That is, it should be a natural state and people should not be aware of these manipulations."

Good architecture must work with the human being...The house is like a puzzle, where the people living in that house are the missing pieces. The human being is a piece of that puzzle (architecture exists to serve people)

Spice Drawers

A meal:

1. raw ingredients, recipe (if needed)
2. herbs and spices that transform these into something special and unique, allow the food to be savoured, however, the really skilful use of spices will not result in any one being necessarily dominant or those consuming the meal being immediately aware of them, there is a subtly gained with layering of these elements
3. the people that gather to eat this meal

Architecture:

1. environment, raw idea of a building
2. methods & tools to transform these ingredients into architecture + the 'unmeasurable' element that allows us to dwell in this building; the more skilful the designer, the less aware the users of this building might be of being manipulated into moving in a certain way or experiencing a certain atmosphere
3. the people that use the building (dwell in this building)

The spices introduce the variations linking link food with different cultures in the same way that architecture expresses the differences inherent in different cultures and localities.

They represent the unmeasurable element of architecture.
They transform raw ingredients into something special and sometimes indefinable (unmeasurable).
They allow us to enjoy the raw ingredients as architecture allows us to enjoy and appreciate our environment.
The combinations of these can be infinite but they must ultimately meet the condition of providing a particular taste; architecture must ultimately provide shelter.




The spice drawers also represent the element of touch, taste, smell that should be present in architecture in order for us to fully engage with it, in order that it does not become sterile and souless.
The represent the enduring nature of architecture - the imperfections that are produced as a result of constant use, that give it beauty. They hold memories in the way that architecture does.

Do the spices remind you of a place where you shared a meal reminiscent of the aroma of these spices? bringing people together?

Or do the Spice drawers more literally represent architectural form such as Oki Sato's Drawer House?