Small House is designed along the metaphor of life as a fluid, dynamic and ever-changing
presence; a defining characteristic within the architecture of Kazuyo Sejima. Sejima’s deep
understanding of the intimacy of the home and her affinity towards an architecture celebrating
the natural patterns of life is evident in her design of the Small House and its many relationships
and references to the human body.
According to Anthony Vidler, there are three relationships between the body and architecture:
1) representational in that the body and forms of the body are projected in the shapes and relationships of the architecture,
2) the projection of bodily states and the evocation of physiological, emotional and psychological reactions and
3) animism or the projection of bodily attributes onto the inanimate objects of architecture (Vidler 1990). In regards to Small House, the body is represented as projection within architecture according to Vidler’s criteria.
Initially, this is evident in the overall shape of the building wherein the form depicts a propensity of the architecture to move.
The mass of angled projections along the south façade or entrance of the house, countered by the lack of mass on the opposite, or north façade, predicates the illusion of a directional movement or a state of temporary instability. Analyzing the form through this lens, allows for the interpretation of a human body in motion. During a standing position, the body maintains a vertical axis; however, this axis becomes skewed according to the gait of a person walking or running. A similar axis is represented in the overall form of the Small House, wherein the axis is tilted towards the south, resembling a body in motion in line with the point of entry and exit into and out of the house.
A similar representation of the body can be interpreted in the structural staircase permeating the four slabs of the house. The staircase is designed as the main structural element in the house, but functions as the vehicle through which movement, interaction and ommunication occur. In a similar vein, the spine in the human body functions along the same parameters, in both its structural capacity as well as in its organization for the circulation of neural activities. The main staircase in the Small House, can therefore be understood as a representation of the human spine..
Additionally, Sejima acknowledges the role of experience in her minimalist design of Small House. In line with Jorge Otero-Pailos’, henomenology and the Rise of the Postmodern, Sejima acknowledges and imbues the deep historical link of Shinto ideology into the experiential quality of the open spaces of the home, which are deeply connected to place and environment in terms of materiality
and space. Sejima’s minimalist approach for Small House allows the homeowner to have the space to openly reflect on the notion of being. As an experiential quality of being confronted with a transparent exterior-to-interior boundary, blurred by
a dynamic interplay of light and shadow, reflection and reproduction of environmental affects, a culturally-ingrained sense of “spiritual reference emerges, perhaps, the essential meaning of what architecture is based on this, in providing the horizon to understand and confront the existential human condition (…)granting us an experience of ourselves as corporal and spiritual beings (Rubio 2007, p. 171).
Although a product of functionalist ideology, the design of Small House overcomes the rigidity of machine-like references, for a fluid, ephemeral and delicate connection to the human body
ช่วยทีน้าาาา
ใครเก่งอังกฤษช่วยเราแปลหน่อย พรีส
presence; a defining characteristic within the architecture of Kazuyo Sejima. Sejima’s deep
understanding of the intimacy of the home and her affinity towards an architecture celebrating
the natural patterns of life is evident in her design of the Small House and its many relationships
and references to the human body.
According to Anthony Vidler, there are three relationships between the body and architecture:
1) representational in that the body and forms of the body are projected in the shapes and relationships of the architecture,
2) the projection of bodily states and the evocation of physiological, emotional and psychological reactions and
3) animism or the projection of bodily attributes onto the inanimate objects of architecture (Vidler 1990). In regards to Small House, the body is represented as projection within architecture according to Vidler’s criteria.
Initially, this is evident in the overall shape of the building wherein the form depicts a propensity of the architecture to move.
The mass of angled projections along the south façade or entrance of the house, countered by the lack of mass on the opposite, or north façade, predicates the illusion of a directional movement or a state of temporary instability. Analyzing the form through this lens, allows for the interpretation of a human body in motion. During a standing position, the body maintains a vertical axis; however, this axis becomes skewed according to the gait of a person walking or running. A similar axis is represented in the overall form of the Small House, wherein the axis is tilted towards the south, resembling a body in motion in line with the point of entry and exit into and out of the house.
A similar representation of the body can be interpreted in the structural staircase permeating the four slabs of the house. The staircase is designed as the main structural element in the house, but functions as the vehicle through which movement, interaction and ommunication occur. In a similar vein, the spine in the human body functions along the same parameters, in both its structural capacity as well as in its organization for the circulation of neural activities. The main staircase in the Small House, can therefore be understood as a representation of the human spine..
Additionally, Sejima acknowledges the role of experience in her minimalist design of Small House. In line with Jorge Otero-Pailos’, henomenology and the Rise of the Postmodern, Sejima acknowledges and imbues the deep historical link of Shinto ideology into the experiential quality of the open spaces of the home, which are deeply connected to place and environment in terms of materiality
and space. Sejima’s minimalist approach for Small House allows the homeowner to have the space to openly reflect on the notion of being. As an experiential quality of being confronted with a transparent exterior-to-interior boundary, blurred by
a dynamic interplay of light and shadow, reflection and reproduction of environmental affects, a culturally-ingrained sense of “spiritual reference emerges, perhaps, the essential meaning of what architecture is based on this, in providing the horizon to understand and confront the existential human condition (…)granting us an experience of ourselves as corporal and spiritual beings (Rubio 2007, p. 171).
Although a product of functionalist ideology, the design of Small House overcomes the rigidity of machine-like references, for a fluid, ephemeral and delicate connection to the human body
ช่วยทีน้าาาา