SPIRIT & PLACE

BY CHRISTOPHER DAY

SUBMITTED BY:
AQSA SHAFIQUE21

Beneath the surface of today:

o Spirit-of-Place, while easy to privately intuit, is
hard to anchor in the tangible.
o Reciprocity is how our environment works on
us and we on it.
o We can do what we like indoors but the
outsides of buildings have responsibilities.
They inuence places experienced by many
people.
o In order to shape life we need to know that
social patterns grow, They cant be provided.
o Forced growth can cause the natural
originality to change

The original growth of oak

tree

Woodland shape

The elements of life:

o Substance, ow, mood and spirit the principles of earth, water,
air and re.
Earth:
o Traditionally buildings were rooted in the ground by ared or
stepped bases. Molded ground form, shrubs, walls and other
landscape elements can tie buildings into place
o For buildings to be rooted in the earth, meeting between building
and ground is critical.

Building parked on Earth.

Building rooted in Earth.

Merging material to Earth

The elements of life:

Water:
o Rainwater can be recycled to be used efficiently.
o Water hurried to disposal is treated in a linear way and indeed often
conned to straight pipes and channels. Water re-used, active and
fertile throughout its journey ows continually through cyclic systems.

Linear and cyclic paths of water

Rainwater being used in toilet

The elements of life:

Air:
o Roadside houses breathe roadside fumes. Sealing the front and
drawing vegetation-cleaned fresh air from the rear can overcome
this.
o CO2 also directly attacks buildings. Dissolved into carbonic acid it
makes rain more acid which steel reinforcement in concrete to
rust.
o Trees, wall, ground and roof planting improve urban air. Heating,
materials and moisture content inuence its quality.

Fresh air from the rare.

Plants improving quality.

Plants improving air flow

The elements of life:

Fire:

o Reducing external surface area ,through which heat is exchanged,

also reduces heating or cooling-energy.
o As cool air drops, coolness is most effective above, whereas
warmth is better lower down

Radiant heat

Heat radiating from walls

Solar space heating

Internal shutters to
reect radiant heat
or cold when closed,
light when open.

T-shaped concrete oor

planks expose more
warmth exchanging
surface than do at
ones

Design in the context of life:

o Natural materials connect us with life, place and time. Proven to
perform well, they also incur minimal manufacturing or transport
pollution costs.
o Residential space can expand into storerooms, and these into
carports. Homes can also contract by dividing off disabledaccessible ground stories
o Insulation and thermal storage can keep us warm for less heating;
carefully aligned avenues of view can make dense settlements more
spacious; noise zoning, screening and masking can minimize its
nuisance

Expanding space

Urban noise reduction

Design in the context of life:

o Some aspects of adding nature are cheaper: surface channel and
pools for rainwater and natural cooling is cheaper than airconditioning
o Other things are more expensive: A solar-collector roof costs
more than an ordinary roof. Non-toxic paints generally have
cheap ingredients .The same irony that imported goods can be
cheaper than local ones.
o Energy ows through buildings from distant sources (like sun or
oileld) to dissipate into space. But material things, like food and
water, go somewhere after weve used them.

Energy flows through buildings

Design in the context of life:

o Climate control requires some management; lowering sunshades, drawing curtains, opening windows, lighting stoves
o One single principle underpins all aspects of ecological
design: working with rather than against the forces of
nature

Toilet water recycling

Adding reflectors

Place and people:

o Living relationships of form and shape, texture, color and light,
can enliven space
o In some circumstances, uplifting gestures are appropriate; in
others calming ones.
o We can experience the feeling quality of different lines by
drawing them, even more so by walking them.
o The hint of straight-line generators can give curves rmness

Living relationship

Uplifting and calming

Quality of line

Adding curves

Place and people

o There are many non-walls means of separation. Large rivers often
rive one country from another.
o Balance is not the same as perfect symmetry, from which the
irregularity of life is absent
o Loosening uniformity with movement-implying axes, circumference
breaks or interaction with other geometries can enliven them.
o Scale is about appropriateness. Some things, like transport
coordination need to be large to work.

Interaction with sky

scale

Process based design:

o
o
o
o
o
o

connecting to society and coming up with a common aim.

Trying to involve the people and coming up with a model.
Adding life and meaning to places by recognizing their effect on us.
Enhancing the quality of space by further development.
The later development and healing of places.
To establish new growth nodes to outspread the places.

Environment and health:

o
o
o
o

Rhythms, harmonies, counterpoints, sensory delight and the

whole qualitative side nourish our feeling life
Physical aspects include ergonomic design, impact absorption and
electromagnetic (EMF) avoidance.
Chemical aspects mostly include choosing materials that dont
emit them and absorbing them with plant.
Spatial gesture inuences physical and mental state: vertical
proportions and gestures draw us up, horizontals are calming.

Hot plastic ducted away

Rooms away from EMF

Environment and health:

o We experience shapes and dimensions in relation to bodily scale,
proportions and gestures. Hence they can induce feelings.
o Daylights effects on us are physiological and psychological.
o Natural cooling, lighting and materials, sensitive heating and EMFavoidance ensure buildings are physically healthy to live.
o For places to be spirit-uplifting, it helps if there arent too many
things around for too many things involve us too much with the
material

Light reaching underground

Spirit-uplifting

Healing by design:
o Surroundings, as discussed, can nourish us at all levels body, lifeenergy, emotions and spirit
o Gentle spaces that leave you free to choose are more welcoming
than abrupt, compelling ones,
o Bends are softer than straight lines and right-angles; interactive
daylight more alive than single window walls; obtuse angles more
inviting than right-angles