Representation II - Structures Of Light, a Journey by Jamie Doherty

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STRUCTURES J O U OF LIGHT R

N E Y Representation II / Jamie Doherty / A1755327

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CONTENTS I. PLACE

.04

LUMINOSITY

.10

II. IDEA

.12

.18

REFLECTION

III. FORM

.20

.26

OPACITY

IV. MATERIAL

.28

FILTRATION

.34

c. maths sciences

b. barr smith

a. maths lawn

SITE

SC AL E

b. maths lawn

a. barr smith

b. aerial barr smith / maths lawn

WIN T E R

SU M M E R

PLAC E the maths lawn is a busy section of the adelaide university campus. most popularly used during open day and orientation week. the lawns are green all year round and are used by students as a place to eat, study and meet. the surrounding buildings such as the barr smith library and the braggs building are large and beautiful. as a whole site it is no question why it is a primary location for students and events.

MOVEMENT to frome rd

to the torrens

to the braggs

to the uni

Dongdaemun Design Plaza, 2013, Seoul / South Korea. Image © Virgile Simon Bertrand

Meaning in Architecture Light and luminosity have always been a significance in humanity, we revolve our day to day life around the rise of the sun and the setting of the sun, the grandfather of all light. Luminosity is and always will be one of, if not the most beautiful part of design. You cannot see a design if it is not visible. Through architecture, light was originally used as a tool in religious designs as a symbol of divinity and holiness. This use, still utilised today, has since been outshined by its use in commercial and private designs. Most notably, Zaha Hadid’s projects exceptional methods of imagination regarding the medium of light are innovative and beautiful. Hadid’s theories of fragmentation and fluidity are very well known techniques of design which have allowed her amazing form finding. The use of light to render Hadid’s architecture have often been ignored but have become an important part in showing and explaining her architecture.

Vitra Fire Station, 1993, Weil am Rhein / Germany. Image © Christian Richters

A perfect example of Hadid’s use of light is in the Heydar Aliyev Center (Baku, 2012). During the day the spaces reflect light and allow patterns to develop in shadows from the sun. Flat glass are used to mirror surrounding environments. At night, inside the light makes its way onto the exterior, with outside lights emphasising the geometry of the building. The flowing lines in the auditorium gradually illuminate softly creating depth. 10

luminosity /luːmɪˈnɒsəti/ noun

luminous quality. ASTRONOMY the intrinsic brightness of a celestial object (as distinct from its apparent brightness diminished by distance).

L U M I N O S IT Y

PHYSICS the rate of emission of radiation, visible or otherwise.

Philisophical Meaning The meaning of luminosity reflects enlightenment and inspiration. Light is what makes things visible, it is also what enlightens us as humans; leading us on a journey of identity. Luminosity provides the ability to guide us in more than just direction, but in knowledge. Luminosity enlightens us as indiviuals in a spiritual way, without light, we would lose our minds. Heydar Aliyev Center, 2013, Baku / Azerbaijan. Image © Hélène Binet

This light is subtly built into the ceiling and walls, to be out of view from the audience. The lengths that each aspect of light was used has purpose and is important in shaping the inside and outside of the entire building. Light perfectly closes the gap between architecture and our perception. The forms and materials that we sense with our eyes are not direct, but through the reflected light

Guangzhou Opera House, 2010, Guangzhou / China. Image © Hufton + Crow

M E TAP H O R light is a journey through the attraction of light, you find yourself on a journey to find the source. this metaphor in place is that the subject seeks the source of beauty, in this case; light. the application of this metaphor is to use narrow pathways that expand into rooms where sources of light are. each source of light is going to be for different people but light is for everyone.

JO U RN E Y primary structures were to be underground, as depicted in all of the sketches. a journey is typically to an unknown space, and through a path way down with no explanation, a journey is going to be had if you enter.

CONTEXT

a. south section

b. lawn plan

c. barr smith view

b. view from relaxation space

a. view from entrance

EX P E RIE N C E

Meaning in Architecture As modernism introduced the transparency of glass architecture, a great amount of people within this introduction were aware of the repetition of large glass facades. Mies van der Rohe even used his trademark mullions to split his facades. In the years since, the general opinion to this has gained interest. Joined by the belief that light could help in the creation of iconic architecture and a better world, glass and metal have been creatively transformed to produce perfect images. As a result, architecture has shifted from an internal focus, to an external focus. With the expressive materiality of transparency and reflectiveness for entire buildings during the early 20th century, Paul Scheenbart and Bruno Taut envisioned a glass culture which was made of “coloured glass” “sparkling in the sun,” “crystalline shapes of white glass” which make the “jewel-like architecture shimmer.” Someone who took this vision was Mies van der Rohe, when he chose to use a free-formed glass skin in his proposal instead of a rectangular tower for the Glass Skyscraper in Berlin in 1921. When Mies was asked about this in 1968, he explained that he was skeptical of the monotony of glass mirror effects: “Because I was using glass, I was anxious to avoid dead surface reflecting too much light, so I broke the facades a little in plan so that light could fall on them at different angles: like crystal, like cut crystal.”

The strategies with shimmering veils have significantly increased the relevance of the surface as a strong meaning of its’ building. The International Style has come to a point in facade design where the uniform mirror cubes have begun to wear down a sense of scale in humans.

Philosophical Meaning Reflection is only produced by an input, which inspires it. Reflection implies the state of meditation through thought and self awareness, giving the understanding of greater things. Reflection in a literal and physical meaning are one in the same, to look in a mirror you see yourself, and you can asses the appearance of yourself or reflect on a physical image of who you have become or are to become.

Water like patterns at glass façade. Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg. Architects: Herzog & de Meuron, Basel. © Thomas Schielke

Glass façade of Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg. Architects: Herzog & de Meuron. Image © Maxim Schulz

“South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute” by Jackstarshaker is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 . Image

reflection

/ rɪˈflɛkʃ(ə)n/ noun 1.the throwing back by a body or surface of light, heat, or sound without absorbing it.

RE FL E C T IO N

Façade with curved glass elements at Prada Aoyama, 2003, Tokyo. Architects: Herzog & de Meuron. Image © Yen-Chi Chen

2.serious thought or consideration.

C O N T E X T U AL

b. west elevation

a. west section

ELE VAT E D

PE RS P E C T I VE

1.entry 2.relaxation

3.storage 4.library 5.reception 6.exhibition 7.seminar 8.toilets

8 7 2

6 4

Meaning in Architecture In Scandinavian countries, they have developed amazing buildings that resonate with scarce light in winter, and the abundant light of their long summer days. Henry Plummer, a professor at the University of Illinois has carefully studied various daylight phenomena in these countries, with photo journeys and in depth writings that try to explain this. Plummers view of daylight looks beyond the practical advantages of white spaces as a reflective surface to create bright rooms; this photographer is more interested in the effects that light play with the beauty and nature locally, and how it touches the soul. With extreme weather changes and the scarcity of light during the winter months in Scandinavia, architects have played with white surfaces to try to balance out these long dark days. The sun is positioned very low in the northern regions, which in turn creates very long shadows and this in turn also allows daylight to enter buildings as a lower angle rather than above. Contrastingly, summer emanates a disuse light in the evening. White diffusion was a concept where white paint on plaster, steel and linoleum was introduced by Alvar Aalto for the Paimio Sanatorium in the 1930’s. Shades of white cover the walls, floors and ceilings. The power of pure white spaces is not the only part of nordic architecture, the use of nature and patterns of light or the shortness of strong light and shadows are distinctive in the Nordic approach as well.

Some architects such as Aarno Ruusuvuori avoided the dramatic harsh sunlight that distracts from the internal events of his building. He has interpreted that sunlight comes from a more abstract place: “Light originates somewhere, but man does not need to know where. Lighting is not an end in itself. But its meaning is to create a feeling of the infiniteness of eternity.”

OPAC IT Y opacity

/ ə(ʊ)ˈpasɪti/ noun the quality of lacking transparency or translucence.

Philisophical Meaning Opacity in materials restricts the flow of light, though if you acknowledge it in a non physical way, you could see it as a filter of knowledge or the way something is represented. The opacity of a story being told could reduce the severity of its meaning or if you are listening to someone with a predisposed opinion towards it, the opacity of what you are receiving is quite low. As an individual you can determine the opacity that you want to see, hear and feel things.

b. underground a. above ground

F LO W

M AT E RI AL S porous concrete makes up all of the walls and ceilings. concrete is cheap and maliable, therefore very easy to repair. being a busy space at the uni, this is required. grass floors the relaxation room to bring life between the concrete walls, as well as being a naturally comfortable surface to relax on.

all exterior components are made up of concrete also. the floors however are polished concrete to help diffuse lighting in a different manner to the walls. LED lighting is use throughout the underground and exterior to maintain an unnaturally lit space whilst being underground where it is naturally dark and dank.

b. paths underground

a. sunlight through opening

INT E RN AL

D E TAI L S through the day light the space is illuminated. through night artificial light illuminates the spaces as well as creating a beam of light through these openings.

within the openings the sun causes sharp but beautiful shadows, giving each space different personalities at different times, days and months.

filtration / fɪlˈtreɪʃn/ noun

the action or process of filtering something.

Meaning in Architecture Le Corbusier had three sacred buildings, which is played with their orientation, openings and textures to create a kinetic architecture with daylight. Pilgrimage chapel, the monastery of Sainte Marie de La Tourette and the parish church of Saint-Pierre all reveal individual approaches that each display thoughtful volumes with light. Light has been linked with holiness in a vast variety of religions. In Christianity, God is “the light”, and Jesus is the “light of the world”. The divine light and visible light are not the same, but are both are depicted in very similar ways in studies and the Bible. Each era has created a new communication of light: The glow of Roman apse, the shimmer of Byzantine mosaics or the walls of luminous Gothic stained glass. Le Corbusier being an artist and an architect had expressed a deep sensitivity towards the interaction of colours and lights in his holy buildings.

The techniques that Le Corbusier used for light emerged as a multiple faced way to communicate his sacred buildings. The lively layers of light go beyond the fixed building spaces, a cycle that changes with the flow of the day, weather and year. The structural pieces are a compilation of tiny

tiny openings to grand openings, but even smaller interventions are used to create light patterns that are reflective of space like power. Henry Plummer, who studied Le Corbusier’s buildings for more than four decades has developed a deep fascination regarding the power of light: “Instead of serving as a tool of religious persuasion, as it generally has in the past, light has become a quiet force to visually resist and elude, erode and outshine, the Church´s mandate. Light eats away and weakens institutional discipline, while exerting its own dazzling powers to draw attention out to the sky and its commonplace marvels – in effect using light to consecrate the natural universe”.

F ILT RAT IO N “The Poem of the Right Angle” A Poem by Le Corbusier: The sun master of our lives far off indifferent He is the visitor – an overlord he enters our house In setting he says good evening to this mossy earth (oh trees) to these puddles everywhere (oh seas) and to our lofty wrinkles (Andes, Alps and Himalayas). And the lamps are lit up. Punctual machine turning since time immemorial awakens every instant of the twenty-four hours the gradation the nuance the imperceptible almost providing a measure. Yet brutally he breaks it twice – night and day – these two phases rule our destiny: A sun rises a sun sets a sun rises anew

Philosophical Meaning A method of filtering light, by using a material to act as a barrier to restrict elements which is by desire. This a an act of natural manipulation, where we as humans try to change a natural beauty to create our own. Filtering light is a medium of expression, simply filtering less light implies a lower mood where as allowing more light would presume a better mood. Church of Saint-Pierre, Firminy, France. Image © Henry Plummer 2011

Representation II / Jamie Doherty / A1755327