Choreographing landscape in the architecture of collective housing

choreographing

landscape in the architecture of

collective

housing Research author: Manuela Uribe B. ResearchTutor: PhD. Zaida MuxĂ­ Barcelona, Catalunya 2015

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INTRODUCTION

A collective housing model that provides structure for a compact city, also introduces a fundamental challenge: maintaining a phenomenological relationship between the human and the natural landscape. This housing model relies on hyper-utility of the land, running the risk of reducing natural choreographies and processes.

This investigation proposes the reevaluation of the relationship between human and landscape, recognizing the housing model as a space for the development of daily life, and where a person’s first social and environmental values are found.

Currently, the concern for the environment is distorted with the introduction of “cleantech” technology that replaces the responsibility of humans over their resources. These are consumer based questions, and do not alter the essence of the human relationship with its natural resources.

This investigation challenges that the dominant image of sustainability is a matter of technology. It focuses, instead, on the cultural and social dimensions of sustainability, particularly, the humanlandscape relationship and how it can be enhanced through the architecture of housing projects.

addressed in this study, and analyzes the importance of its relationship with the social and psychological development of the human. The second chapter teases out the loss of this human-landscape relationship in Medellin, Colombia; a model of an emerging Latin American city in the 21st century. This study uncovers the denaturalization of the “prototype” housing model in this city by analyzing some housing projects built within this century. The third chapter contrasts these projects with examples from a global framework that favor cultivating a daily relationship between human and landscape, leading to an understanding of their codes and principles.

Complied together, these become the “Landscape Manifesto”, which serves to both evaluate existing projects, and to serve as criteria to guide architects and housing developers alike.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the housing architecture can indeed promote permanent synergy with the landscape.

And that architecture can become a generator of human consciousness towards the environment, and towards more sustainable daily habits.

This article consists of five chapters that center around the human-landscape relationship within the context of housing. To start, the first chapter outlines the concept of “landscape” 2

<< Fig 1 Glass House, Lina Bo Bardi.

The house allows the phenomenological relationship between the human and the natural landscape.

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01. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE AS A TANGIBLE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUMAN AND LANDSCAPE Development of first social and environmental values Human organic matter requires an environment that corresponds to this condition; enabling it to develop conaturally within a sustainable logic.

Therefore, the most advisable way to design the human habitat is through architecture that promotes a reciprocal relationship between human and the landscape that she inhabits. As indicated in the theory of the primitive hut, in this first architectural expression, nature dictates its norms and provides a logical balance between the natural and the artificial (Calatrava, 1991).

With this in mind, a housing design that gives people the opportunity to experience a landscape through everyday aspects, and that incorporates objects, spaces and circulations that favor and induce sustainable practices, ultimately leads to a more sensitive and responsible attitude between the human and his/ her resources.

Architecture, as a pedagogical means should teach and expose the individual the importance, necessity, and function of nature and its processes.

The goal of architecture is to enhance a space, not to conceal it behind artificial work. A building should interpret its context and function in accordance with its surrounding materials and resources. With this approach, the housing design should naturally relate to the human and landscape processes, which applies not only to the presence of plant-life, but also how it operates within physical phenomena such as light, shade, nightfall, rain and wind.

Architecture in general, and mainly that of housing, has the potential to embed values in people throughout their daily experience within a space, which when expressed outside the house, shape the values of the society.

This moral component contributes to the responsibility of an architect to design spaces that promote a more sustainable and equitable society.

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>> Fig 2 La Playa Apartamentos, its layout and architecture promotes the visual and tangible interaction with the natural landscape, as well as the urban views in different perspective

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02. DENATURALIZATION IN THE FIELD OF COLLECTIVE HOUSING

Disentangling the human-landscape relationship in the compact city housing model Case Study: Medellin, Colombia My deep interest in the humanlandscape relationship led me to question the development of the housing model in Medellin in the 21st century. After experiencing the accelerated growth of the residential tissue of the city, and analyzing various projects and how they end up shaping its landscape, a question occurred to me: Is the increasing density of the compact city in disagreement with the experience of the natural landscape?

It is troubling that collective housing projects in the centers of compact cities - especially in Latin American countries, and particularly in the case of Medellin – end up driving a deeper wedge between the human and landscape. The soil becomes impermeable, and the neighborhood becomes less natural as it loses the sensory and functional relationship between natural and human dynamics.

and sustainable and inclusive mobility. (fig 3).

This chapter presents the analysis of the human-landscape relationship in the collective housing model in Medellin, Colombia. This city in particular is analyzed for its complex socio-geographical circumstances, its rapid population growth, and its high potential for landscape production given its climatic and geomorphological conditions, as well as its biodiversity.

The situation suggests a solution of responsible living, within the logic of a sustainable compact city, and coherent to the social and environmental values that position the city as a Latin American model of the recovery of public spaces,

From this analysis, it can be concluded that in Medellin, the majority of the projects are unaware of the territories in which they inhabit. The model of urbanization of the city has encouraged the development of residential spaces on the slopes of the Aburrá Valley.

The hydrography and topography of the area has been completely altered without any environmental logic, with housing proposals that completely neglect the natural chorography of the land. As expressed by Josep María Montaner in his Houses of Existence, “What the majority of the buildings do is destroy the environment, and then

This investigation analyzes relationships with the landscape through different local projects built in the 21st century.

These projects include projects that represent a variety of socioeconomic circumstances, and represent the general residential model of the city.

The analysis consists of an itinerary that runs through the sequence of daily spaces that the user inhabits and interprets, from the urban space until you reach his/her room unit.

The itinerary begins from an urban perspective and examines the relationship between the building and the neighborhood. This is followed by an examination of the interior aspects of the project, up to the rooftop. Lastly, the room units are analyzed.

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>> Fig 3 Medellín city panoramic view. Picture taken from the Asomadera hill. It shows the geomorphology of the Aburrá Valley and its occupation.

Author’s photo

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attempt to recreate it, they eliminate all that is, raze with the memory, the layer of soil and landscape, and superimpose a new building on top of it allâ&#x20AC;? (Montaner y Santos, 2011, p.11) (fig. 4).

incongruous to a sustainable city. The situation is critical because it obscures the existence of the landscape, and molds a society that is disconnected and insensitive to its territory (fig. 5).

At a neighborhood level, tangible landscapes and possibilities of connecting with the environmental fabric of the city are very limited. The lack of appropriation of parks and green zones is largely evident. A high percentage of the residential tissue of these spaces is closed and exclusive, in other cases, public spaces are limited to spatial operations to guarantee mobility, but do not promote pleasant spaces to stay, nor opportunities for contemplating the view.

Entering the collective circulations of the buildings, these spaces are narrow. They do not encourage collisions between neighbors, they have a limited presence of vegetation, and the visual connections to the landscapes are scarce. The lack of spatial gradation from the public to private areas generates a pragmatic and unsubstantial route from the street to the userâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s room. The roofs consist of mainly nothing more than tiles or slabs made of concrete in order to accommodate water tanks, which wastes the roofâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s potential as a space for community and ecological activities.

The majority of the living units include a balcony that encourages visual and experimental contact to the outside; however, an indifferent lifestyle towards the environment and the landscape persists. In general, housing models in Medellin reflect weak expressions of the human-landscape relationship, 8

>> Fig 4 Poblado Neighborhood perspective. It shows the high densification of the slopes in contrast to the low density of the flat area of the Aburrá Valley.

Author’s photo

<< Fig 5 This image illustrates the dominant prototype of collective housing in Medellín. These examples are from different social-economic contexts.

Author’s photos

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03. VISIBILITY OF THE LANDSCAPE IN HOUSING ARCHITECTURE

Analyzing collective housing projects that favor the link between human and landscape Subsequent to the analysis of the disconnect between the housing environment and the landscape, this study aims to make visible references of collective housing models that emphasize the human-landscape.

These models demonstrate how architecture can be used to promote sustainable practices from a sociospatial dimension.

The driving question is: How can the experience of a landscape be transmitted into the housing models within a compact city? I took a trip to several sites in Europe looking for references of collective housing projects in compact cities.

I found that certain residential models did in fact integrate natural and human dynamics, though on a limited level.

Through this investigation, some references visited and analyzed include: Building 111 in Terassa, Barcelona, The Cooperative of Housing and Services in Sargfabrik in Vienna, the OKO House in Berlin, Project Next 21 in Osaka, Japan, among others.

In the daily living experience of these projects, residents have the opportunity to experience the landscape as tangible and explicit; they can interact with it, smell it, and enjoy it. These principles of the relationship also manifest in spatial definitions that permit constant encounters between neighbors, quality ventilation and hygienic conditions, collectivization of some household

chores, encouragement of public transport use rather than private, and lastly, open areas within room units that provide a direct experience with the outdoors. This phenomenological experience between human, and both her constructed and natural environment influences the daily development of the residents. This relationship instills community values and collective support, nutriment towards plants, urban agriculture projects that take advantage of roofs for collective gardens. It also improves neighborhood security because of the increased openness within the residence and the promotion of outdoor activities (fig. 6).

It is worth mentioning that not all projects present the same principles within the relationship between human and landscape, some including OKO House and Next 21 have a more tangible plant presence, which provides more integrated natural scenery (fig 7).

Sargfabrik and Building 111, while not prevailing with how they incorporate plants into their architectural composition, prove to be very permeable. Their programs produce the gradation between open spaces, semi-roofs, and roofed spaces that the individual walks through during his/her quotidian itinerary, allowing the user to experience different perspectives and viewpoints; a game of lights, shadows, rain, sun, and wind. (fig 8).

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>> Fig 6 Interiors at The Cooperative of Housing and Services in Sargfabrik in Vienna

>> Fig 7 Collective housing, OKO House in Berlin.

Vegetation itinerary

>> Fig 8 Building 111 in Terassa, Barcelona. This image illustrates the decomposition of the buildingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s volume which favors multiple options of landscape contemplating.

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Saragfabrik and Next 21 take advantage of their terraces as collective gardens, their intention being to extend the public space towards the interior of the building. Through a promenade, the user can pass through different rooms, have contact with other neighbors, appreciate the various visuals, and finally, arrive to a natural space that retains the ground vegetation of the first floor. This is a sample to giving back to the city green spaces that have grown impermeable by increased density in the city. This principle of green terraces promotes a system of sustainable urban drainage that improves the absorption capacity of rainwater on the surfaces of urban centers, contributing to the balance of the natural hydrological cycle of the water (Perales, DomĂŠnech, 2008) (fig 9).

The cases studied in this investigation explicitly show landscape as a tangible fact within the dynamics of a housing environment. In these projects, urban, technical, spatial, and aesthetic strategies are identified and synthesized into criteria for collective housing building designs that promote the relationship between architecture, the human, and the landscape.

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<< Fig 9 Collective gardens in The Cooperative of Housing and Services in Sargfabrik in Vienna

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04. THE LANDSCAPE MANIFESTO IN COLLECTIVE HOUSING

The case study analysis was used to extract set of principles that promote permanent synergy between the landscape and the inhabitants of collective housing. The principles include the following:

01 Configuration

of an urban environmental fabric: The building responds with its material, its configuration within the landscape and natural vegetation, to maintain an ecological connection with the urban fabric that surrounds it.

02 Spatial Gradation: Includes a

06 Extending living areas: Collective and private terraces that permit contact with external atmospheric conditions.

07 Enhancement of the visual interior/

exterior relationship: Positioning of facades and terraces that conduces the visual interior and exterior to interact.

succession of spaces between the public space and the housing unit; encouraging contact of different degrees of intimacy with both the neighbors and the landscape.

08 Intermediate Living Space: Spaces

03 Tri-dimensional

09 Productive Landscape:

urban route: Continuity of urban routes into the building; such as public streets at different levels.

that benefit the climatic conditions of the interior space.

Incorporation of sustainable urban gardens into the housing project that promotes community relations.

04 Vegetal image: The introduction of 10 Ecological Terrace: The terrace vegetation as an essential part of the image of the building.

consists of vegetation that restores the natural terrain of the ground floor on top of which the building was built.

05 Permeability and Decomposition:

The volume of the building is punctured or split apart in order to permit the passage of natural light and ventilation at a neighborhood level.

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>> Fig 8 Analysis and relation of the study cases with THE LANDSCAPE MANIFESTO

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05. REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSIONS

The analysis of the collective housing projects and the Landscape Manifesto provide the necessary elements to generate feedback on housing policies.

They also set the fundamental elements to improve living conditions where the experience of the landscape is intrinsic to the day-to-day development of the individual.

enhancement of the natural character of the neighborhood.

The criteria can be applied rationally in other geographical contexts, serving as a means to project housing possibilities that promote a symbiosis between the architecture, the human, and the landscape.

In the conceptualization stage, it is essential to consider not only economic aspects, but also qualitative aspects that incorporate the essence of landscape, sustainability, and community with each other.

The manifesto serves as a catalogue of applicable possibilities in different contexts, allowing the dynamics of natural processes to be visible within the architecture itself. If we consider the fact that approximately 80% of the urban tissue is residential, and this is projected according to the criteria set out in this investigation, the city would be correctly associated with the landscape.

The conceptualization and application of the criteria raised promotes a phenomenological synergy between human and landscape, favoring a conscientious attitude towards natural resources. In the same way, these principles are manifest in spatial proposals and programs that stimulate social relationships between neighbors, improvement of the quality of living, hygiene, waste management, and the 16

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06. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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CHOREOGRAPHING LANDSCAPE IN THE ARCHITECTURE OF COLLECTIVE HOUSING Research author: Manuela Uribe B. ResearchTutor: PhD. Zaida Muxí Barcelona, Catalunya 2015

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