Tanya Haldipur
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ARC2024
The urban environment has seen radical changes across the 20th and 21st centuries (the automobile, war, mass housing, computation and digitalization, greater access to the city and the workplace for women, etc. etc.). Focusing on just one of these developments, explore its effects on buildings or space, with reference to at least 3 specific examples in a particular location.
How has the ‘Minimalism’ movement of the 20th century affected housing design in the Unites States today and can it be a successful solution to the housing crisis worldwide?
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Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1 - The global Minimalist movement of the20th century
Chapter 2 - The case for Minimalism in the United States
Chapter 3 - Is minimalism the key to solving the global housing crisis?
Conclusion
Image references
Bibliography
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Tanya Haldipur
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“Architecture is an expression of values” ~ Sir Norman Foster
Introduction During a period when homelessness and global warming are at record high, an awareness of the long-term detrimental effects is increasing, particularly in the field of architecture, and people are scrambling to find the best solutions to tackle them. The answer could in fact lie with one of the most significant and influential movements of the 20th century, Minimalism. This trend, which started in the mid-1900s, expanded globally and formed new, personalised styles in different countries around the world. Famous architects, from Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe to Le Corbusier served as catalysts but it was the long-standing Japanese culture that introduced the first minimalist-inspired trend known as ‘Kyosho Jutaku’, into the 21st century. It has had a surprising influence on the latest movement seen in the United States, which is essentially a revised form of Minimalism, now focussing on simplicity in all aspects of life. Although the original movement only lasted a decade, with a current global housing deficit and a failing ‘American dream’, designers are looking to minimalism as a way forward, one that can change how Americans live in their homes, completely. If the term ‘less is more’ has become the new ‘bigger is better’, maybe there is scope to solve the growing economic austerity worldwide.
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ARC2024
“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication” ~ Leonardo da Vinci
The global Minimalist movement of the20th century
Minimalism began in the post-World War II era, influencing all aspects of the Western creative industry. In architecture, “The goal [of minimalism] was to reduce the subject to essentials that were all functional, thus creating void spaces and a sense of freedom”1. It was about appreciating the simple things in life, from the relationship with nature, to relationships with people in the home and although it was fairly short lived at the time, “minimalism still stands as one of the most significant and influential movements of the 20th century”1.
On an urban scale, there were many designers who influenced or were influenced by the idea of a simple life, such as the celebrated Le Corbusier, a pioneer of modern architecture. His main aim was to try to provide better living conditions for the influx of workers in crowded cities, in the early 1900s, and assigned housing according to the size of the household, rather than economic standing. Although these urban strategies are no longer seen as ideal, the aim to design according to the use of space is something that has slowly been increasing in modern American architecture. However, it is the work of American developer, William Levitt, which had the biggest influence on American urbanisation in the 20th century. During World War II, Levitt became an expert in mass-producing homes for shipyard workers in Virginia. When the war ended, it had left America in a housing crisis, with thousands of war veterans in need of a home. Together with his sons, Levitt created a 75 square feet, one floor, housing prototype that could be easily put together to house the “16 million returning veterans”2 at an affordable rate. This design only catered for the basic needs of the average sized family and included “a living room, kitchen/dining area, two small bedrooms, a bathroom and an unfinished ‘expansion attic’—to fit on a 60 x 100 foot lot”2. In the mid-1950s, however, the ‘Levittown houses’ seen in Figure 1 below, were overtaken by the rise of consumerism and the introduction of ‘must-have’ elements such as second formal living rooms and larger dining rooms. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that this type of design was ideal to house a nation with a housing crisis then, and could possibly be a precedent for housing solutions now.
1 Kordic, A. (2016). The inspiring simplicity of minimalism in art, architecture and design. Available: www.widewalls.ch/minimalism-art-architecturedesign/#design-architecture. Last accessed 15th January 2017 2 Merkel, J. (2010). When less was more. Available: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/when-less-was-more/?_r=0. Last accessed 17th January.
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Figure Figure 1
On a micro scale, Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe, whose famous aphorism, “less is more”1, was one of the most influential ‘minimalist’ designers of the 20th century and was “obsessed with the idea of experience and quality of the buildings he was designing”3. It was his design for ‘Fansworth House’ in 1951, however, that serves as the most enduring example of minimalist residential architecture today. It was not the smallest of houses, but at 1500 square feet, the design shows how a lack of possessions and internal structures has led to a space that feels even greater than it actually is. “All of the paraphernalia of traditional living – rooms, walls, interior trim, loose furniture, pictures on walls, even personal possessions – have been virtually abolished in a puritanical vision of simplified, transcendental existence”4. It is about simple living, and appreciating the relationship with nature. Mies Van der Rohe deliberately chose a simple, geometric form, whose “dominance…in a pastoral setting, with a complete exclusion of extraneous elements normally associated with habitation, reinforces [his] statement about the potential of a building to express ‘dwelling’ in its simplest essence”4. In other words, the house is about embracing a simple life.
Van der Rohe was not the first architect to explore this ‘simple life’ idea within his work. Japanese architecture has always been about a modest culture and a ‘Zen’ lifestyle. The size of houses has, for decades, being measured using tatami mats. In the 21st century, with a growing population and rising land prices, this tradition has produced a new trend, Kyosho Jutaku, which encompasses the traditional Japanese practice of simple living within a smaller footprint. For Japanese, with their “rich history of tiny 3 Lloyd Thomas, K. (2016, October 13th). All Change: Architecture as an agent of politics. Lecture presented at Newcastle University. 4 National Trust for Historic Preservation. (2017). History of the Farnsworth House. Available: fransworthhouse.org/history-farnsworth-house/. Last accessed 21st January.
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contemplative tearooms, floor area has nothing to do with quality of space”5. For many it is the “sense of belonging and pride of ownership”5 which are their main priority and they prefer to have an awareness of other family members, rather than hide behind the privacy of “fixed walls and firmly shut doors”5. The trend not only minimises space but also encourages inhabitants to minimise on possessions, as storage space is limited. In a sense, Kyosho Jutaku is primarily about design concerning fundamental function rather than convention, an idea that is slowly inspiring modern American design.
The culture has always been about a simple, ‘Zen’ lifestyle and in general their houses have consistently been much smaller than the average home in most Western countries, apart from the UK, which is slightly smaller. However, the increasing population trend during the 20th and 21st century has led to architects designing homes wherever there is space, even if that space is a lot smaller than the norm. It is not unusual for people to regard smaller houses as a lesser entity, an indication of low wealth or poverty that shows no sign of creativity, but recent Japanese designs have shown that this is not necessarily the case. Kyosho Jutaku has been widely recognised as an example of small but stylish house designs, with many architects, from Kengu Kuma to Tadoa Ando taking on the challenge by showing that “the most restricted projects are often the most innovative, requiring [them] to rethink conventional structural systems, construction materials, and spatial organisation”6.
A famous example of one of Japans most successfully intriguing small house designs is Yasuhiro Yamashita’s ‘Lucky Drops’ in Tokyo (figure 2), whose 3 by 30 metre plot challenged the architect to design a house that felt open and well ventilated, without imposing on the street. “Asymmetrical pieces of land can often be obtained cheaper than others. And it is an architects job to work with the land and fulfil the client’s request”7, says Yamashita. He used steel sheets with insulation boards and paint for the external walls, to keep them as thin as possible. The idea was to use ‘skin-like’ flexible walls, made from fibrereinforced plastic panels that allow an abundant amount of sunlight to flood into the entirety of the house, illuminating it in a soft glow from the outside. Yamashita has deliberately made the interior design exposed, with even the floors between levels constructed out of perforated, expanded metal, to allow the light to flow all the way to the bottom floor. Due to the size restrictions, it was necessary to put some living spaces on this floor and according to the Bauhaus school motto, light, air and sunshine are the three essential prerequisites needed to make a space liveable; therefore, it was vital for this space to be naturally lit. After Lucky Drops, Yasuhiro Yamashita has designed over 300 micro homes, but this design specifically is an ideal example of creative, tiny living.
5 Pollock, N (2005). Modern Japanese House. London: Phaidon Press Limited. Page 15. 6 Pollock, N (2005). Modern Japanese House. Page 11 7 Springer, K. (2016). The secrets behind Japan's coolest micro homes. Available: https://its-interesting.com/tag/kyosho-jutaku/. Last accessed 21st January 2017.
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Figure Figure 2
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“Nothing is more responsible than living in the smallest space you possibly can” ~ Frank Mascia8
The case for Minimalism in the United States Statistics measured in 2011, from the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCA), show that the United States is the world’s second largest contributor to global warming, after China. As a country, they emit over 5000 million metric tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere, which is around 18 metric tonnes per person and accounts for 17% of global emissions9. This shows that America is consuming a lot more than many other countries in the world. According to research, the average home in Tokyo is 1,076 square feet, which is more than half the size of “the average single family home in the United States [that] contains about 2200 square feet”10. However, “for Japanese, a small living space does not necessarily connote deprivation”11. In fact, for many, Western homes sometimes seem too big. This suggests that one large factor contributing to the success of minimalism in Japan is the mind-set of the inhabitants. Findings show that the number of people in a family has decreased worldwide. In the United States, average household sizes have shrunk from around 3.33 in 1960 to 2.54 today12. However, many of these families have continued to live in houses built for families of 4 or more, suggesting that there may be a waste of space and resources.
Research has shown that the average 21st century American home has three times as much space as they did in the 50s. However, due to the rise of globalisation and cheap manufactured goods, mainly from China, people began accumulating more and more possessions, even those which they did not need but were made to believe they needed by the increasing power of the internet and advertising. This meant that although they had more space in their homes, it was no longer sufficient to house these possessions, leading to the rise of a “2.2 billion square feet personal storage industry”8. It was becoming an issue of “mindless consumption… causing the degradation of our habitat”8, and recently, people have started to criticise it.
The UCLA group published their findings in a book called ‘Life at Home in the 21st Century’, which “followed 32 middle class Los Angeles families around their homes, tracking their every move to see how
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D’Avella, M. (2015). Minimalism: A documentary about the important things. Filmed in America. Last watched: 15 January 2017
9 UCS USA. (2014). Each Country's Share of CO2 Emissions. Available: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/each-countrys-share-of-co2.html#.WJgVwuZihaQ. Last accessed 21st January 2017. 10
Pollock, N (2005). Modern Japanese House. Page 13
11 Pollock, N (2005). Modern Japanese House. Page 15 12 Statistica. (2015). Number of people per household in the United States from 1960 to 2015. Available: https://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-households-in-the-us/. Last accessed 19th January 2017.
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people actually live nowadays”13 and which spaces they actually inhabit. Figure 3, provided in the UCLA book, is a heat map that shows “the location of each parent and child on the first floor of the house of ‘family 11’ every 10 minutes over two weekday afternoons and evenings”13. From this, it is clear that the family, which represents the average household in the US, only uses around “400 or so square feet of those 1000…with regularity”13, so more than 50% of the space is being wasted. It is no longer about necessity but about the prestige of owning a large home. We are “living our lives depending on the space we’ve got rather than creating our space to fit our lives”14.
Figure Figure 3
13 David Friedlander. (2014). Residential Behavioral Architecture 101. Available: http://lifeedited.com/residential-behavioral-architecture-101/. Last accessed 18th January 2017. 14 D’Avella, M. (2015). Minimalism: A documentary about the important things
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The building industry is said to cause around 40% of carbon emissions in the world. Colin Beavan, author of ‘No Impact Man’, says “we can afford to have 250 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere. [However], we are closing in on 400 parts per million”15, caused by the burning of all the fuels that are used to “power our consumer economy”15, which is increasing in demand every day. Large groups of people around America have become increasingly aware of the implications of large homes, and the consequence of personal housing footprints. The film, ‘Minimalism: A documentary about important things’, questions what has gone wrong over the years with the ‘American dream’, and explains the need to “change the desire for this bigger is better philosophy”15 that has driven America for decades, focussing particularly on the housing sector. People are becoming progressively dissatisfied with the monetary and material lifestyle and are instead designing homes around “A, how people live and B, what’s truly important, creating more social homes, homes that actually bring people together”15.
This awareness has led to the ‘tiny house movement’, with the belief that “nothing is more responsible that living in the smallest space you possible can”15 and looking towards the minimalist movement and Japanese architecture shows that this may be easier to achieve than we expect. One organisation born from this movement is the American company ‘LifeEdited’, whose vision is to “do more with less”15. They wanted to prove how tiny spaces can create amazing homes, and began working on a prototype apartment of just 420 square feet (39m2), in New York City. Graham Hill, the leading designer behind the project, wanted the home to host a variety of different functions, which for the available space, seems like a lot. He wanted it to serve as a “home for [a] couple, be able to have a sit-down dinner for 10 or 12, be able to have guests over in a civil manner and be able to work at home with… a desk”15. The answer to achieving this was moveable walls and hidden compartments. At first glance, the apartment appears as one, relatively small room, with one sofa and some storage nooks. However, within that are 8 functional spaces that appear by pulling out various different sections of the room, for example, pulling the bookshelf out reveals the kitchen counters and an entire guest room, with cupboards and bunk beds is created by sliding across a separating wall. Figures 4 to 6 show how all these spaces work. The apartment is “one with a small footprint, both physically and environmentally, and [is] one that offers just as much beauty and functionality as a pad multiple times its size”16.
15 D’Avella, M. (2015). Minimalism: A documentary about the important things 16 Hession, M. (2013). The Tiny Transforming Apartment That Packs Eight Rooms into 420 Square Feet. Available: http://gizmodo.com/5967622/the-tiny-transforming-apartment-that-packs-six-rooms-into-350-square-feet. Last accessed 16th January 2017.
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Figure Figure 5 Figure Figure 4 (edited by author)
Figure Figure 5
Figure Figure 6
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“Less is more” ~ Ludwig Mies Van der Rohe
Is minimalism the key to solving the global housing crisis? In 1950, the world’s population was approximately 2.5 billion and in 2005, this had risen to 6.5 billion. By 2050, the population is projected to reach 9.7 billion people.17 Reasons for this growth range from a higher life expectancy to an increased birth rate and low infant mortality, which are, of course, positive facts. However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to accommodate this explosive growth, especially in cities where free land is scarce. In the United States, there is a large wealth gap, “with the wealthiest 10% controlling three-quarters of all family wealth in the country”18. This essentially means that there is a small proportion of big ‘McMansions’, but not enough affordable housing for the rest of the nation. Historical precedents and Japanese architecture are proof that small can be stylish, and smaller houses would mean there is more land to build upon. Therefore, an overall change to minimalist ideologies and micro homes could, to a certain degree, alleviate the issues of the housing shortage in the America.
Contrastingly, at 76m2, the UK has some of the smallest houses in the Western World19. Nevertheless, the housing crisis here seems to be at its worst yet, with “more than 81,000 households… found to be homeless during 2013/14”20. Though this is not due to overconsumption, micro housing could still be a way to solve, or at least, reduce it. “In London alone, land values rose by over 13% last year”21 due to the increasing gap between demand for housing and land available. Architect Tristan Wigfall, a director at Alma-nac studio in London, “believes narrow houses offer a realistic solution to the growing demand of inner-city family homes”21 in the UK. He says, “With the current housing crisis, it is imperative that we create efficient homes that fully utilise all pockets of urban space”21, a goal which is relevant to all cities around the world. There is a certain “element of affordability, simplicity, and sustainability that just makes tiny houses seem like the perfect solution to a problem we haven’t yet figured out”22.
17 Population reference Bureau. (2008). Human Population: Population Growth. Available: www.prb.org/Publications/Lessonth Plans/HumanPopulation/PopulationGrowth.aspx. Last accessed 24 January 2017 18 Sahadi, J. (2016). The richest 10% hold 76% of the wealth. Available: money.cnn.com/2016/08/18/pf/wealth-inequality/. Last accessed 24 January 2017
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19 Wilson, L. (2009). Average house size by country. Available: shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house. Last accessed 24 January 2017 20 Shelter (2014). Homeless households. Available: http://england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns_/why_we_campaign/housing_facts_and_figures/subsection?section=homeless_households. Last th accessed 24 January 2017 21 Frearson, A. (2014). Skinny houses: "it's amazing how important one inch of space becomes". Available: th https://www.dezeen.com/2014/08/25/skinny-houses-japan-london-los-angeles-feature/. Last accessed 24 January 2017 22 D’Avella, M. (2015). Minimalism: A documentary about the important things
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Conclusion While increased consumer consumption led to the demise of the Minimalism movement in the 20th century, recent developments, such as an increasing lack of land to meet the demand, global resource depletion, and a rising wealth inequality gap, have led to a growing awareness of the benefits of simple living, the prerequisite of minimalism. In this current climate, “we are not going to ever be able to achieve the environmental gains that we’re seeking while still expecting our lives to be the same. We are going to have to give up a lot”23, and the only way to do this is to “re-examine what it means to be successful in life”23. Human identity can no longer be defined by what one owns but by what one does. We must look to the precedents of the past and more importantly, successful existing models, that have much to teach us about efficient and ecological design. In the United States, a growing movement is forming, led by groups of people who no longer want to live the ‘American dream’, but instead, want to practice the art that the Japanese have excelled in for centuries. It is “no longer that white picket fence [and]… that McMansion”23 that drives people, but the desire to live a sustainable, mindful life, under a roof with a smaller footprint.
23 D’Avella, M. (2015). Minimalism: A documentary about the important things
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Images references Title image – http://illusion.scene360.com/art/82562/minimalist-photography/
Fig.1 – profile, V. (2017). Kallis history. [online] Kallishistory.blogspot.co.uk. Available at: http://kallishistory.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/i-was-very-interested-to-learn-about.html
Fig.2 – ArchDaily. (2017). Gallery of Lucky Drops / Atelier Tekuto - 6. [online] Available at: http://www.archdaily.com/142878/lucky-drops-atelier-tekuto/5014abba28ba0d3950000c59-lucky-drops-ateliertekuto-photo
Fig.3 – Friedlander, D. (2017). Residential Behavioral Architecture 101. [online] LifeEdited. Available at: http://lifeedited.com/residential-behavioral-architecture-101/.
Fig.4 – own, edited image. Original from D’Avella, M. (2015). Minimalism: A documentary about the important things
Fig. 5 and 6 - http://lifeedited.com/see-full-set-of-official-lifeedited-apartment-photos/
Bibliography
Books Bender, D. (1996). The Homeless. United States of America: Greenhaven Press, Inc. Jencks, C. (1994). The Homeless. United States of America: Harvard University Press Maschayakh, U. (2015). The Changing Image of Affordable Housing. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Limited. Pollock, N (2005). Modern Japanese House. London: Phaidon Press Limited. Pollock, N (2015). Jutaku: Japanese houses. London: Phaidon Press Limited.
Trulove, J.G. (2004). 25 Houses under 1500 square feet. United States of America: HarperCollins Uffelen. C. (2014). Extreme minimalism: architecture. Braun: Salenstein Zeiger, M. (2009).Tiny Houses. United States of America: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. Zeiger, M. (2011).Micro green: Tiny Houses. United States of America: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc
Films/ Documentaries/ lectures D’Avella, M. (2015). Minimalism: A documentary about the important things. Filmed in America. Lloyd Thomas, K. (2016, October 13th). All Change: Architecture as an agent of politics. Newcastle University
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Websites England.shelter.org.uk. (2017). Housing facts and figures: homeless households - Shelter England. [online] Available at: http://england.shelter.org.uk/campaigns_/why_we_campaign/housing_facts_and_figures/subsection?section=homel ess_households [Accessed 24th January 2017]. Sahadi, J. (2017). The richest 10% hold 76% of wealth. [online] CNNMoney. Available at: http://money.cnn.com/2016/08/18/pf/wealth-inequality/ [Accessed 24th January 2017]. Prb.org. (2017). Human Population: Population Growth. [online] Available at: http://www.prb.org/Publications/LessonPlans/HumanPopulation/PopulationGrowth.aspx [Accessed 24th January. 2017]. shrinkthatfootprint.com. (2017). How big is a house? Average house size by country. [online] Available at: http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/how-big-is-a-house [Accessed 24th Jan. 2017] Frearson, A. (2017). Skinny houses: "it's amazing how important one inch of space becomes". [online] Dezeen. Available at: https://www.dezeen.com/2014/08/25/skinny-houses-japan-london-los-angeles-feature/ [Accessed 24th Jan 2017]. Gizmodo.com. (2017). The Tiny Transforming Apartment That Packs Eight Rooms into 420 Square Feet [online] Available at: http://gizmodo.com/5967622/the-tiny-transforming-apartment-that-packs-six-rooms-into-350-squarefeet [Accessed 25th Jan. 2017]. Friedlander, D. (2017). Residential Behavioral Architecture 101. [online] LifeEdited. Available at: http://lifeedited.com/residential-behavioral-architecture-101/. [Accessed 18th Jan. 2017]. Statista. (2017). Average size of households in the U.S. 1960-2015 | Statistic. [online] Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/183648/average-size-of-households-in-the-us/ Union of Concerned Scientists. (2017). Each Country's Share of CO2 Emissions. [online] Available at: http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/science_and_impacts/science/each-countrys-share-ofco2.html#.WJgVwuZihaQ Its-interesting.com. (2017). kyosho jutaku | It's Interesting. [online] Available at: https://itsinteresting.com/tag/kyosho-jutaku Anon, (2017). [online] Available at: http://fransworthhouse.org/history-farnsworth-house/. Merkel, J. (2017). When Less Was More. [online] Opinionator. Available at: https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/01/when-less-was-more/?_r=0 WideWalls. (2017). The Inspiring Simplicity of Minimalism in Art, Architecture and Design. [online] Available at: http://www.widewalls.ch/minimalism-art-architecture-design/#design-architecture
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