Architecture as Furniture - Unlocking the Tectonic Potential of the Furniture Scale in Architectural Technology and Making

  • Hvejsel, Marie Frier (Project Participant)

Project Details

Description

When considering the state of the built environment that of developing methods to describe and develop the vital spatial quality of architecture as a tectonic function of the advancement and application of technology in the making of architectural form is pressing. In the hasty development of the current architectural practice the spatial ability of architecture to gesture the human scale in details such as an inviting window seat, is increasingly oppressed leaving the built environment as a technical assembly of structural parts rather than as inviting places for residing: There is an urgent need to improve the experienced quality of the built environment by increasing its level of detailing both in the development and making of building components and in the design and experience of a building whole. The proposed research resolves this need through a groundbreaking linking of traditional historical theoretical research and novel technology driven research by design methods in architecture using the furniture scale as a critical developer. As an effect of its immediate relation to the human body, the furniture scale holds a hitherto undiscovered potential to tectonically describe and develop the spatial quality of architecture as a direct function of the application of technology in the making of architectural form. The proposed research unlocks this tectonic potential by theoretically describing, analyzing, and incorporating the unique clarity of spatial ‘gestures’ and technical ‘principles’ that is explicit of the furniture scale into new tectonic architectural methods applicable in the development of future architectural technology and making. In continuation hereof the research exemplifies, evaluates, and documents the applicability and impact of these methods in two real life examples. The first example concerns the design of a motorbike- and bicycle shed and that of improving the spatial quality of a building whole by means of experimenting digitally produced adaptive formwork. The second example concerns the development of a facade system for energy renovation and that of imbedding spatial quality related to the human scale in the making of building components by means of advanced prefab technology. In the conduct of the research the applicant draws upon 8 years of initial studies that have confirmed the theory of using the furniture scale as a critical developer in architecture and provided the necessary network and cooperative partners in the building industry to assure the feasibility of the project. With the proposed research a pivotal step is taken in methodologically developing and implementing this work in the practical development of architectural technology and making, hereby improving the experienced quality of architectural space through furnishing tectonic detailing.
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date01/01/201531/12/2017

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