Christine Kenline Thinking about dwelling in building. Heidegger and design resaerch

Like Alexander, who wrote his “Notes on the Synthesis of Form” about a decade later, Heidegger believed that the ordinary experience rather than (or at least as well as) abstract theory should be the foundation of design.  His ideas were influential in the 1970s and 1980s, and now again there is a movement towards community involvement in design.  One designer who has described his influence is Christine Kenline in her essay:   “Thinking about dwelling in building”  For more please see my post on 3.4.2013

In this interesting paper Christine Kenline analyses Heidegger’s essay “Building Thinking Dwelling” as part of an exploration into the architectural design process.

Building and dwelling are separate concepts.  Dwelling presupposes the process of building, which is basically a way of separating and sheltering the individual from the external environment.   But not all building is carried out with an understanding of dwelling, that is, with the mental, emotional and physical effect of the building on the inhabitants, with a balance between beings and buildings.

Kenline references Heidegger in his use of etymology to understand the real nature of building which incorporates a fuller sense of dwelling.  Once we listen to language, then we access an authentic existence embodied in the root meanings of words.  For example, Heidegger believes in the “thingness” of objects and in their role in “gathering” and focussing experience.  “Andenken” (memory) is a kind of thought which discloses this gathering.  

Kenline suggests however that there is a language of communication between beings and buildings but this is her interpretation and is not mentioned by Heidegger in his text.  But, she claims, architects can  build in a way that enhances and encourages dwelling in a fuller sense, which respects the nature of materials, the context of the building and the emotional, mental and physical needs of the inhabitants.  She does not elaborate on what exactly this means. She also discusses whether dwelling in the deeper sense is in fact realistic in our modern culture, “where beings have forgotten how to be”.

Architects need to be aware of this kind of thinking, according to Kenline, so that the true nature of buildings can be revealed.  They should approach building with “thingness” in mind rather than thinking of building as an opportunity for self expression.  Buildings are “non-representational” creations rather than “artworks with aesthetic value”.  The loss of such an attitude to building reflects and results in a subjective and over-individualised way of life. 

Nowadays humans have little awareness or respect for the fourfold – the coexistence of earth, sky, spirituality and mortals – and of the fact that we are defined by how we dwell with things.  This in turn defines how we dwell within the balance of the fourfold and preserve its balance.  Buildings should not disturb the four-fold or nature, but act as sites or gathering points for it.  Location is very important in considering an architectural design.  “Man’s relation to location, and through locations to spaces, inheres in his dwelling”.  Heidegger argues that the main focus of architecture should be the human experience in the widest sense. He also sees the work of art in a wider sense as an artefact which preserves the truth, that is, which cultivates the life of beings. 

Kenline is a proponent of design research as an essential part of the design process.  “The architect’s role is to understand the cultural, social, physical and emotional needs of beings in order to develop an understanding of beings and buildings… the architect needs to make the nature of a building visible so that it can be dwelt in.  If a specific type of building does not show its true nature… then beings will stay in a state of anxiety, unable to rest as a ”mode of being-in-the-world”.

Alexander and many other architects acknowledge the importance of Heidegger’s ideas, and “question the authority of professional expertise and sought instead to validate non-expert building”. 

Kenline surveys various architectural movements.  Functionalism, she considers, does not consider the true nature of dwelling.  Structuralism is too rigid, without the necessary flexibility and freedom.  Postmodernism and phenomenology are too representational.  For her, design research incorporates the lived experience of beings into the process, in conjunction with the specialist knowledge of architects.  

In this article, Kenline loosely interprets Heidegger’s ideas to support her belief in design research.  In the process, she sometimes goes beyond his actual statements.  For example, he does not mention the “language of buildings”as a form of interaction between building and inhabitant.  I do not find her analysis very helpful in clarifying some of his ideas, for example, the relation between “site” and “location”.  In fact Heidegger’s writing in this article is deceptively simple.  His belief about “thingness” and “beings” is derived from a much deeper philosophical analysis, explored at length in his other writings, including “Being and Time”.  It is easy to cherry-pick from Heidegger’s text but less easy to clarify what he actually meant.  Kenline's writing was a welcome find as part of my exploration into the ideas of Alexander, but she gives few clues about how to create the perfect dwelling and how to collaborate between design research and formal architecture.

Another writer whose ideas are deceptively simple is Christopher Alexander.  It should be noted (click here) that Alexander was a scientist and mathematician before he became an architect.  His architectural theories are based originally on an application of set theory (please see an earlier post in this blog), and as such can be quite difficult to grasp by the non-mathematician.  His ideas have an attractive naturalness but are underpinned by this initial theory.  Those attempting to critique his work need to be aware of this rigorous aspect.

Neil Ascherson's "Black Sea" - Is the sense of place really part of human identity?

A quick note to be amplified. 

 Just reading Neil Ascherson's book "Black Sea" (1995, revised 2007).  He discusses the contrast between "nomadism".. being "set up against Greek city-state patriotism which was about settledness, continuity, love of place (my italics) (p. 53). This was, he suggests,  a propaganda job to strengthen the Greek state.  

He goes to mention the "exhilarating new pseudo-science.. called nomadology".  Proponents of this idea claim that humanity is entering a new epoch of "movement and migration .. which this time involves not merely Eurasia but the entire world".  (p.55).  "The subjects of history, once the settled farmers and citizens, have now become the migrants, the refugees, the Gastarbeiter, the asylum-seekers, the urban homeless."

This idea, pseudo or not (I have still to read the rest of his book), definitely is a contrast to the Heideggerian emphasis on "place" as a sense of identity which is absolutely fundamental.

To be continued and reflected upon...

Spontaneous City in the Cedar of Lebanon

London Fieldworks was formed in 2000 by artists Bruce Gilchrist and Jo Joelson for creative research and collaboration at the art, science and technology intersection. Typically, their projects engage with the notion of ecology as a complex inter-working of social, natural, and technological worlds. 


The "Spontaneous City" is a kind of contemporary dovecote, but all creatures.


















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Spontaneous City by London Fieldworks 2011
St James, Clerkenwell, London.

Christopher Alexander in discussion with Peter Eisenman

A few links to an interesting discussion and an interesting edition of katarxis.

Eisenman is challenging Alexander's ideas about harmony and comfort being the main criterion of architecture.  "Does the whole world want to listen to Mantovani?" he asks, before claiming that we as a species need more than harmony, we need the opportunity to rebel, ask questions, be awkward and destructive.  He has a point.

This discussion took place in 1982, a long time ago now.  But I think the questions it raises are still relevant.  Alexander depends on subjective feelings to establish and validate his "patterns", and there is much value in this approach.  The problem is that feelings can be conservative and also, in the case of architecture, depend on what has become habitual and comfortable, so that we may lose sight of alternative solutions.  For example, we may not be aware that many new build houses, with their poor spatial configuration and insufficient natural light (see Tom Dyckhoff's programme, The Secret Life of Buildings)  are actually bad for us.  They just seem habitual and familar, therefore acceptable.

This is the problem with "design research" (studying the lived experience of beings in their natural environment and incorporating this into the design process).  We become used to things and cannot see they might be different.  There is a very important place for this but there is a still a place for the experts, even although Alexander might not agree.  More about this in another post.

http://www.katarxis3.com/Alexander_Eisenman_Debate.htm

http://www.katarxis3.com/Alexander.htm

Flatpack self build

Deckhouse by ExS Architects

This is self-build week in the UK!

Oliver Wainwright, Guardian columnist, asks readers with experience of self-build to send him
details of their experiences.  Here is the link

He has also written about the affordable architect-designed range of kit houses recently launched in the Netherlands.   20 architects were commissioned to produce  30 varying designs.  The building cost could be as low as £97,400, and the buildings, made from prefabricated parts, can be assembled within 6-8 weeks.

This  scheme helps architects to build their housing portfolio as well.  For buyers it offers a cheaper and less uncertain version of self build..  "If more local authority land can be opened  up, and architects retained art the centre of the process, it seems to make more sense than ever to go Dutch", says Wainwright

Here is Wainwright's architecture and design blog. 
For spirited debate on the self build issue - cost of plots in UK for one thing

Mary Modeen and phenomenologist approach to print-making

 

The Absolute Other   digital print by Mary Modeen

Mary Modeen is an artist and a thinker, who teaches at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design in Dundee.  She is interested in "perception as a cognitive and interpretive process, and place-based research, which tends to connect cultural values, history and embodied experience".  She herself makes a complex and layered digital prints (see above).

Recently she gave a talk at the Edinburgh Print-makers Studio, explaining her view that print-making is process-based and based on emergent techniques, which combine the thought and feelings of the artist in dialogue with the technique.  Therefore the print-maker can never predict the outcome or the process of a particular idea or print.  For me this is more true of a technique such as stone lithography because of the difficulty in controlling the etching and the quantity of medium, as well as the varying quality of the stones.  Screen printing on the contrary seems more of a predicable process, where perhaps the uncertainty occurs during the making of the original drawing.

Modeen stressed the need to be aware of "becoming" and of the impossibility of closure in art.  She quotes Barthes and the Death of the Author.  The author might make the first work, but it is interpreted infinite times by the viewers, who are in effect co-creators.  The phenomenological theory is reminiscient of the ideas of Christopher Alexander as quoted in my recent post.  In architecture, the project, whether house or city, is constantly being reinvented and given new meanings by its inhabitants.  As Heidegger also remarked, each generation has to find its own way of dwelling.

PLACE HACKING

 
Another diversion from the main purpose of this blog:   Place Hacking   An exploration of invisible and hidden places, particularly in the city, and particularly in London,.  Places like disused underground station, now forbidden by TfL..  Bradley Garrett, an urban explorer, says "what we do is very benign.. The motivation for it comes from a love of the city - we want to interact with its hidden histories and forgotten stories and places"

David Seamon "Concretizing Heidegger" - Thiis Evenson and Christopher Alexander

Wash drawing by Diana Hand

Concretizing Heidegger's Notion of Dwelling:  The Contributions of Thomas Thiis-Evensen And

Christopher Alexander 

by David Seamon, Professor, Department of Architecture, Kansas State University

In this article Seamon explains how the ideas of Thiis-Evenson and Christopher Alexander help us to understand a deeper, more grounded, understanding of dwelling, as understood in Heideggerian or phenomenological terms. .  "Both seek concrete means for identifying and describing built qualities that sustain and strengthen the  quality of dwelling”  This can lead to better designing and building".  

Thiis Evenson   Inside and outside

Thiis- Evenson and Architectural Archetypes    Evenson writes that all architecture is made of three basic components - floor, wall and roof - and together they create "insideness", “the hallmark quality transforming space into place and sustaining the deepest sense of dwelling”   (Relph).   The kind of insideness and the relation between inside and outside is influenced by the way this basic components are put together and the materials from which they are constructed.  If these principles are understood then buildings can be made in such a way that expresses their particular purpose.

This is a very existential and elemental approach to architecture which can appeal to the imagination and and to an exploration of the feeling of being-in-space

Christopher Alexander and a Pattern Language 

Christopher Alexander    constructive diagram of activities in an Indian village

Alexander is more concerned with creating a wider environment - "place making that sustains dwelling  -   if an environmental whole is made rightly it has a powerful sense of place which may help people who live in and use that place to have more satisfactory, vibrant lives”

 

 Alexander wants to restore a sense of wholeness to buildings and to places. His practical

tool is a language of   253 patterns   A pattern is both interpretive and prescriptive.  It is interpretive because it describes elements of the built environment which contribute to a sense of place.   It is prescriptive because it offers advice on how these particular elements can be effectively designed.     

3 levels of patterns

1.  larger scale communities that cannot be built all at once
2. Buildings and groups of buildings
3. Individual building details

In any new design problem, start with the larger picture.  “In this way the larger qualities of environmental wholeness are held in sight as smaller qualities are fitted around them”  Patterns are not fixed, pattern language.. an on going process of dialogue among architect, client, user, builder and site”  Pattern language is a way of thinking and looking to see how constituents contribute to a whole.

“Design must be premised on a process that has the creation of wholeness as its overriding purpose and in which every increment of construction, no matter how small, is devoted to this purpose

Aspects of an architecture of dwelling

      

Both architects believe that the built world can “help illuminate and sustain essential qualities of human understanding, life and experience”, but CA might ask TE to consider how the archetypes fit into a “larger sense of human meaning, environment and place”

I have noted in this very short summary the differences between two architects, micro and macro in approach, to put it over-simply, but both of whom are concerned with the influence of the built environment on human existence.  I do not as yet understand Alexander's Pattern Language, but I intuitively appreciate the values embodied in  it and the fact that it is a practical and adaptable approach to design which is based on the observation of people's lives (rather like the approach of muf architects in my recent post).  

The sunken stone   Diana Hand 

I like the ideas of Evenson because the edgy difference between inside and outside is so key to our sense of inhabitation, and provide a rich source of inspiration for art work as well. So my appreciation for his work is different from the admiration I have for Alexander.