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 reflect radiant
heat or cold
when closed,
light when open.

T-shaped concrete
floor planks
expose more
warmth
exchanging
surface than do

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 disabled-accessible 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 air-conditioning
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 sun-shades, 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 connecting to society and coming up with a common aim.
o Trying to involve the people and coming up with a model.
o Adding life and meaning to places by recognizing their
effect on us.
o Enhancing the quality of space by further development.
o The later development and healing of places.
o 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
EMF-avoidance 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, life-energy, 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