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.