A small path leads to the chapel’s entrance, located at the transitional point between woodland and open ground. The architecture is framed as the simplest of gestures. From certain perspectives its mass appears as a pile of logs stacked up to dry; from others the considered placement of the elements on a concrete plinth creates a more formal impression of a piece of sculpture emerging from the forest. The purposefully narrow entry maintains the sense of physical proximity encountered as one moves through the dense trees, adding visceral and visual theatre to the exhilarating experience of passing into an attenuated space over seven metres high and nearly nine metres long.
I find an interesting parallel here to the ideas James Scott proposes in Seeing Like a State (which we covered back in RE #4): a top-down, central planning-style of design can't effectively predict the diversity of user needs. It turns out, contra to the "expert architect", that the users know best what they need from their space. And often even... See more
EVERYTHING IS ARCHITECTURE Alles ist Architektur is the title of a manifesto published in magazine Bau by Hans Hollein in 1968. According to Hollein, the traditional definition of architecture is no longer relevant. ‘Our efforts are focused on the en -vironment as a whole and all media that deter mine it. Television as well as the artificial... See more
I've been thinking about how this idea applies to design in fields outside of architecture. Architecture is unique in its geographic, climatic, and cultural contexts, since the "localism" aspect is particularly relevant. But there are probably some parallels that could be drawn to modern software design,... See more