Dynamic architecture: solution to every day architectural problems

Nature is the most dynamic and ever changing thing I have come across. Even if people say the trees don’t change and they are static, I would say they are dynamic too in their own ways. Trees shed leaves, bear tender ones, and bear fruits and so on. Their colour changes, looks and foliage changes. In short anything that stays the same for ever or fails to change for real will fail to keep the interest on. To keep it interesting and positive, everything needs to update and change. This is true with architecture too; re painting a building once in a while doesn’t alone do the magic any longer. Buildings should not be considered as a show piece in some one’s curious rack.

And sometimes it’s just not the case of interest or uniqueness alone; a dynamic building can make a structure effective and climatically more viable and meaning full. Houses are often made as strong and rigid as possible to defend and withstand the worst possible conditions and situations it may came across, but what about the best and most desirable situations? How can you prepare your building to embrace the good things that nature throws at it, how to yield the best out of all the worst and good situations around you? Through some demonstrations here I’m trying to solve some of these problems. And when you go into modular or dynamic structures, these issues should also be addressed, because from what I have seen most of the modular approaches in architecture ends up in making refugee shelter or shacks that looks like a portable toilets. Your building also needs a soul, it should breathe and feel. Dynamism can also be achieved by understanding the climatology of a place. Following are my illustrations.

1.1. Never get bored with a building layout, if you can alter or vary the layout as per will. What if your living space patio can also be used as your bedroom’s balcony when required, there by not changing or increasing the total area or other parameters? Also in a typical building there are spaces that are rudimentary, a space that is not required after a certain point of time or not required until a certain point of time or situation. In case of a bedroom that is being used only after late evening hours, you don’t have to leave dedicated spaces which might be used only for a certain short period after a particular point of time. For example a bedroom need not have balcony all the time along, but it can borrow one from a living space which might not be used after a certain hour. This way the whole design is made efficient and kept dynamic and the illustration shown above is demonstrating this phenomenon.

1.2. The idea explained previously can also be enhanced to meet the mood and emotional requirements of an entire residential unit as in case of a flat or condominium. You wake up one morning and decide to take your entire house up a couple of storeys, an act that would change your house for once without changing it for real. The same can also be done if you wish to bring it down a couple of storeys. It’s an increasing phenomena these days, were all the city dwellers prefer to keep their flat units as higher up as possible, to avoid pollution and also for a better view and emotional state. Also the top storeys are in turn more expensive than the lower units. The illustration shown here is an attempt to demonstrate the dynamism and variation that you can achieve by relocating you residential units at will. 

 

1.3. Normally with pitched roof and with properly designed gable opening it has the advantage of expelling the hot air and letting in cooler air from outside. This happens when the comparatively lighter hot air rises up and is sucked out owing to the wind flowing through oppositely placed gable openings combined with pressure variation, void thus created will be occupied by comparatively cooler air. This however is not desirable when the temperature go really low. Under low temperature the process needs to reversed and hotter air is preferred in the occupant spaces. This can be mechanically achieved by lowering the ceiling height and thus pushing the air back in the occupant space. This is demonstrated in the above illustration.

 

1.4. Gables are very effective ways to ensure proper air circulation. But the proper placement of gable requires some calculation and orientation adjustments. But it is normally not possible when or dealing with row housing, closely packed housing communities and similar situations. In such cases it will be more effective if the roof can transform itself to ensure air circulation as shown above. This is in effect a temporary air scoop. 

1.5. Flat roofs and pitched ones have their own set of advantages under different situations. If there is way to combine both or by introducing some mechanical adjustments or levers to facilitate the transition between both, an efficient and one of a kind roofing system can very well be made possible. The demonstration showed here is an illustration of the above mentioned idea. In case of summer and in arid situations high roofs or pitched ones are preferred. The same can have an adverse effect in winter. Situations were hotter or comparatively warmer air is preferred in the occupant areas, flat roofs are found more effective.

1.6.  Images shown here explain the most familiar facts about climate oriented designs. The first image shows how a normal window with normal overhang is susceptible to glares and reflected heat rays. The second image shows how a raised window eliminates reflected rays and lower level louvers ensure circulation of cooler air through occupant areas as cooler air is heavier. The reflected rays and excess heat can also be defended by using an extra half wall which is placed at a distance from the support wall thus leaving a space in between, this would act like trees placed closed to the building with adequate space to channel air in to the building and not limiting them.

1.7. Flat roofs are not effective solution when the requirement id to invite more air in to the building, and this case is more severe when it comes to closely packed neighbourhoods. The solution will be to add a lifted up air scoop as shown in the figure which will in turn develop enough suction to guide out the comparatively hotter air trapped in the room and thus cooling the room.

1.8. Metal cladded buildings in the world are considered bad for the environment. These building are known to have altered the micro-climatic conditions of cities and thus raising its temperature and so on. Naturalists and environmentalist movements have become a regular sight in such metal cladded neighbourhoods. But when you think about it a little bit more, this problem itself carries the solution for the situation. Applying the general laws of physics, what I have learned here is metal clads can in turn work in reverse pattern to lower the temperature of a building’s inside. The above shown image explains how this work. The heat from the sun when falls on the metal surface, raises the temperature of the air close to it steeply thus causing it to rise up because the air has become lighter now, eventually as the temperature raises further this process becomes more spontaneous and the speed of the upward air movement increases. Under this situation if there are perforations provided on the room’s wall, just like air holes, the comparatively hotter air inside the room will be sucked out with the hotter air trapped between the clad and the wall. To accelerate this process an air exhauster can also be added in the gap. Thus the process can be successfully reversed to cool the air inside.

Modularity in spaces: learning from nature

                Normally when we design a space, say a dining room, with a height of 3 m or above, there’s always a whole lot of things that we ignore, or we are unaware of. In a typical room, have you ever thought of the space which is left unutilised, yet always in front of us? In a typical room of 3m height, the 1.2 m that is left vacant above us, what is the role of that space? How can such spaces be made more efficient? I always had this though in mind. And if this problem can be solved, or if this model can be made efficient then the same can also be applied to a whole city or on a much bigger scale.

                Nature teaches us a lot of things. Trees can be considered similar to buildings. They don’t move, but they provide for us. The trees are also really dynamic in a certain sense. In nature all the flora follows a special hierarchy.

In the image shown here, a typical plant hierarchy in terms of space occupancy is represented. Here some plants fill the spaces between the other plants. The floor between couple of trees is always filled in by grass or some other kind of plant life. The space above a grass or a small bush or plant is never left un-occupied. Bigger trees always cover up these vacancies and thus the voids are always filled by one plant or the other.

That means plants will never grow in the way shown here:

The space above a particular plant is not left dedicated to that plant and I always filled in by bigger plants or vice versa. This represents efficiency and to an extent it tells us how to make even architecture spaces follow modularity. Unlike this our mane made world I full of inefficiency.

Like in the image shown here, the area above a particular building is always left vacant, no matter how small or big the building is. If the buildings are to follow the nature’s model, the same would have looked completely different.. May the inspiration for a better world, or a more efficient world could come from nature herself. I always looked in to nature for answers and the nature did always provide. A simple cob web or hummingbirds nest is the answer to this situation according to me. Let me show you an example:

This is demonstration of a spider web in the wild and here what I’m trying to show is way nature spins her fabric. The simple dwelling (in this case a spider web) uses the existing trees as pier or support columns and hangs or suspends the structure from there. This thus ensures that the area or the space in between is also rightly utilised.

If this is applied our architecture model then the above thing can be transformed to something like this:

               This might seem like a total blue sky ideation at this point, but I really feel this is the future and it’s not going to be long for this to become a reality. Of course feasibility issues and other technical and legal issues might strike you at first but, just for the time being let’s think beyond that. I believe this ain’t going to take much time now. Design should always break boundaries; design should think the unthinkable and take the path of glorious and sublime dreams without the constraints of human fear and prejudice.

                This is where the theory of diagonal growth comes to the picture, I would name in INFECTIONISM. People have visualised or predicted much kind of development plans for the future. Some say hour cities will grow more horizontally and horizontal skyscrapers are the future, and then came the vertical growth predictions. Vertical cities and skyscraper and towers started filling the world, but it just doesn’t seem to hold much future. One of the major reasons is the huge investments and they are not feasible everywhere and where will you build once all the land is gone? The climatic and legal factors are also there. Construction and civil developments over water and thus contaminating or polluting them for ever and ever have also been part of the plans. Puncturing the globe and building inwards, space dwellings and what not. Well but I tell you for real what is going be the case with future cities. Once the cities will have more skyscrapers than they can possibly chew, then the cities will grow diagonally. Means the people will start fillings the voids in between the cities and the rules will all change for ever. For the first time instead of selling land, void space or simply plots of air will be on sale. Infectionism will be explained in detail in the coming posts. But all this is drawing inspirations from nature herself like I mentioned before.

                The next thing to learn from nature is her strategy for an open ended growth. It’s like the foundation is there by default for all the plants to grow (in this case fertile soil), except the hot and cold deserts. Now this actually means a plant can grow anywhere and everywhere if conditions are right. This also tells us about the ambiguity and predictability and the invisible grid in the nature that holds the answer to all the questions man can ever raise. We will discuss this in detail in the future, but for now let me tell you, the open ended growth can also be implemented in buildings if the proper sense of modularity is incorporated. Imagine, buildings that can grow vertically, and diagonally and in any other direction it may wish to, depending upon the demand and need. To cut brief, the idea is to grow denser and efficiently with opportunities for the generations to come.

                Another major thing is to improve the life of architecture, and here I’m not talking about prolonging the life of all the buildings unnecessarily. The character of the building and its efficiency and all other factors should evolve and improve according to the requirements of the time. Now what generally happens is an architect or more aptly a sculptor sculpt his so called building and users and all the other things just adapt to it. Should it be left like that? Is this how architecture is supposed to work? The arrogance and selfishness of a sculptor should be given so much attention and care? I don’t think so. When we look at trees, if you have noticed while you cut a tree trunk in to sections, there you will come across annual rings. With every growing year the tree itself will have a lot of changes not often noted by people and then there is an internal and more specific change, which is the addition of annual rings. This is a very interesting feature and that can be adapted in to architecture. Wonder how? Let me tell you something, the place I’m from used to be a good old fashioned village until very recent, and something I have seen or noticed around here is the way poor people around here built there houses. These houses start with a single or a couple of rooms at the centre, mostly a kitchen and a common room that could be transformed to a bedroom or any other room at will. Then in course of time whenever they find the money and chance to expand, they expand this nano house to become a full fledge house with all the room required but yet, the powder room won’t find a place inside and will be housed in a separate room somewhere outside. My own parental house was built this way, at least that’s what my dad told me. Now, the thing I’m referring to here is the annual ring model of the trees is unknowingly inherited in our architecture from the time in history and is something which we completely failed to notice. Well this to me looks like the most efficient way of open ended planning. This will ensure efficiency like never before.

                It’s a general tendency in Kerala, India people built there houses so big for no obvious reason and would answer if asked that it’s for the future convenience of theirs kids and their kid’s kids. Well what such idiots fail to notice is that their overly worked upon houses will be some 35 years old by the time the younger generation will be at age to know anything about this out-dated building. And honestly speaking, with the kind of cheap and substandard construction in this place, no building will stand for more than 25years even with extensive renovations and maintenance. It just seems people are so stupid to do such things. A modular approach like I mentioned in earlier posts is the answer. A building that can add on new layers or rooms as per requirements; something that will never hesitate to update or grow. The future generations or the future users just got to change the components (wall panels, floor and roof panels, wire harness or utility grid etc.) which will all be modular thus easy to replace. This house or the building then will be as good as new. This is also how you can prevent a building from aging, by following an idea that will never wither.  A house is a machine to live in, said Le Corbusier more than 80 years ago, apart from endurance, was he looking at the efficiency of the spaces and design itself, not sure. But when I look at machines, what I find is efficiency of the model and purpose associated with each and everything inside. I haven’t seen a machine with things in it that doesn’t do anything and the space is efficiently planned inside with no voids. But architecture as we know is just so loosely planned and executed. Almost everything we see around is pure shit. The space wastage is sometimes intentional and mostly not noticed or not understood. Evolution of architecture is long due and I’m sure of the path it is going to take.

Used good market for architecture:

Something we have seen recently is the obvious and tremendous increase in interest for used the products. It will be right to say that the used good market is booming these days, at least in the case of countries like India. Sites like quikr, olx and other automobile resale sites give enough and more evidences to suggest that. Well I can see the world has picked up these clues and evolved or moved accordingly. But somehow, the common man’s biggest investment, i.e. construction and real-estate seem to have missed these points completely. Like I’ve been saying, if modular architecture is realized in its true sense, with efficiency, precision and durability of an automobile cabin, then it is very much possible to find a resale for these units too. May be the less fortunate or the people who wouldn't want to invest too much on houses might get to buy and use the used ones.

Sometimes the term sustainable and efficient is used very liberally in the architecture world, were on one side people prefer to ignore the enormous energy and space wastage that has become synonym with modern day architecture. While our architects get too busy in creating new and elaborate sculptural wonders by the name of architecture, we are losing much more than what we could have ever imagined. In the process of an extension, renovation, modification or demolition of a structure to make way for new ones, nobody seems to give a damn about the embodied energy associated with the old one. How can we achieve efficiency without accounting for the embodied energy wastage? Demolishing something, or knocking down a building is easy, finding new use for the old ones and not wasting it is the difficult part. May be all of us are getting too busy, or lazy or rather selfish. When we look at the nature’s way of knocking things down, she always make sure that whatever came down will always nurture and nourishes the existing ones. Why can’t we follow this model, and make sure that the part of an old building is reused in another building or becomes the part of a new one. This is possible only if they are designed in such a way. This is where the importance of modularity explained before comes in to application. For example: Imagine if a 20 storey building when demolished can give rise to 20 individual houses. The panel and the frame work are reused to bring about those houses.

Modularity in architecture and the relevance:

Let me share an experience with you, which I encountered recently. I had to extent my house to add a bedroom and a couple of powder rooms. That reminded me literally how out-dated and old is our construction and building design techniques. Making dwellings of all kind has always been there since the origin of mankind, but how old the first man made dwelling, no one knows for sure. And even if we know it, it doesn't make any difference now. Because although everything evolved in course of time, the human dwelling and its design and construction characteristics have not changed much except for the sheer size of the thing. The evolution in terms of material might have reached somewhere, but the technique is jeopardizing all the developments and innovation. It’s the system which has got to change, the way we look at buildings and architecture in general has to change. Knocking down walls, building new ones, enormous time and money wastage, the dust and the delay and in the end the overall stability is also at stake, just what happened with my house. Well why can’t we move on. Imagine if you could just re-arrange or re-configure a couple of panels and the building just grows without even leaving any correction or modification marks.

Also while dealing with the wiring and plumbing lines, it was all a mess and the major part is the labour spent on it. 65% of what I spent was just the labour charge. I was wondering if the buildings had the precision and standardization of an automobile, the time and money that I could save would have been immense. People do talk a lot about sustainability and efficiency, but in the case of a renovation or an extension, what about the energy, material and the time getting wasted? And what about the initial effort and energy wasted on the structure in the first place? If industrial precision and standardization can be incorporated, then it is also possible to make building units with integrated solar panel and thus making the future green and secured. It can also be enforced as a law and since the production and use will be more, amount spent on the manufacture could also be reduced.