ORO Editions

Contrasts

Contrasts are found when opposing conditions, such as warm and cool, humid and dry, or dark and light are experienced simultaneously or in rapid succession. Contrasts place sharp or distinct steps from one condition to another adjacent condition without significant gradients between them. The body feels contrast when walking barefoot on a warm radiant floor in a room with cooler air. Contrasting conditions typically exist within a single space, such as when direct sun enters a room through windows and provides a strong pattern of sun and shade on the walls or floor. During a rainstorm, the contrast between rain in a courtyard and dryness under the porch is extreme and abrupt. Contrasts can be architecturally mediated by transitional or linking spaces that have access to both types of more extreme conditions. For example, a porch or arcade can link and provide a transition between indoor and outdoor conditions of temperature, air movement, sun, moisture and light. If contrasting conditions occur when a person moves from one space to another, we distinguish this condition as a sequence, explained below.

The room-scale schema, C4 Engage the Rain, contraposes wet exposure with dry protection at occupied building edges to engender pluvial pleasures. The Dai-ichi Yochien Preschool atrium has an operable roof. When open its court collects water; after a downpour, a grand puddle awaits eager children to play in it. On dry days, the courtyard becomes a sports court, or in winter, an ice skating rink. Students can appreciate the falling rain from under the protected adjacent open plan piloti zone; sliding walls allow the entire interior to become semi-outdoors.