Let us start with the idea that architecture is first of all the space within, rather than the object we see, as Lao Tzu suggested 2,500 years ago:
Shape clay into a vessel
It is the space within that makes it useful
Cut doors and windows for a room
It is the holes which make it useful1
The fundamental questions for me are:
- How do we form spaces appropriate to their use?
- How do we connect these spaces together?
- How do we guide and concentrate view and light, so that we wake up to a connection with nature, with the world of nature outside?
- How do we bring out the potential drama of the site?
- How does this drama unfold as we move through the building, like moving through a landscape?
I will describe some buildings from the past that I particularly like, before discussing these aspects of the design within the context of the Wales Institute for Sustainable Education at the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT).
In the north transept of Wells Cathedral, a stair rises up to the Chapter House, which dates back to 1320 (Figure 1.9.1). You want to follow the footsteps worn into the stone from 700 years of use. They all go to the left, where the handrail is: you tend to swing to the outside of a spiral staircase anyway. The entrance to the Chapter House is up to the right, where the stair divides. As you emerge from the doorway out of the transept, more and more of the roof is revealed, and you can see the structure of the vaults, a preview of what you will find in the Chapter House. As you come up the winding stairs, they seem to build up, like a wave about to break. The Chapter House floor is at eye level as you approach, and you can see, in a very concentrated way, how the central column is rooted in the ground, like a tree.
About 130 years later, in the 1480s, the Ryoanji temple was built on the northern side of Kyoto in Japan, at a point where the ground gently rises. The temple contains a famous and beautiful rock garden, and Figure 1.9.2 shows its approach. The route up the gradual steps is very carefully considered. First, there are two steps, then three, and it gets steeper as you approach the entrance. The architect did not expect people to march up there on axis; it was a place to wander up, because you can see that it has been made comfortable, with flat stones, which lead on to steps, and then you end up on gravel. You are expected to stop and think a bit, and then move left and go on up, and the entrance is just at the top, where the white panels are. At that point is a glimpse into the rock garden, of pleasures to come, although you cannot actually enter. You progress further and arrive at a little network of courtyards, much more domestic in scale. That is the living accommodation. You glimpse it before you turn left to regain the courtyard view. Its gravel is raked every day, and the rocks are placed in the most mysterious relationships. You are encouraged to sit on the veranda and meditate. As you think about the rocks, they change their scale and become quite enormous in your imagination. Behind them is a fantastic wall, which is apparently a national treasure, and so nobody is allowed to touch it. It is just a rendered wall, aged in a beautiful way. If you turn through 180º, you can look right through the building, and you see something nice happening to the left, and so you are drawn around to the west-facing veranda. It is a wonderful place to sit. It tells you there is something worth seeing to the left, as you are encouraged to linger. It is well sheltered from the weather, which reveals something of the climate. The scale is beautifully judged: the rail above the sliding screens is a little over 6 ft (1.8 metres), and the extra height above gives the space a sense of generosity and nobility. It has a very human scale, but also a grandeur about it, built with complete simplicity, no decoration at all, and all of clay and plants, and so infinitely recyclable. The view to the west is a counterpoise to the gravel and rock garden, beautiful in the evening, when the sunlight comes through the leaves of the birches to throw dappled light on the moss.2
The Villa Maser, by Palladio (Figure 1.9.3), was built about 1560, part of the redevelopment of the Venetian countryside. Mercantile power was under stress, and wealthy families were turning their attention to their own resources, inspired by the Roman ideal of harmonious living and working on the land. Palladio’s villas were derived from farmhouses. This is actually a very extravagant one: most were much more stripped down, in fact more like farmhouses. Maser is ennobled by symmetrical pavilions and by the porticos used for drying and storing food. It’s on a gentle hill confronting the landscape, and it suggests that you enter in the middle, but you do not. You actually enter down the side, down the porticos. The plan shows how that works. The most important living rooms occupy the central block, and the bedrooms occupy the cross wings. When you go along the colonnades, you see the staircase going up ahead of you to the piano nobile. Once you arrive there, you have a choice: if you walk left, you are up in the air, looking out over the well-farmed valley; go right and you enter a secret shady garden, embedded in the hillside. There is a fountain and a grotto, the source of water for the villa. The bedrooms open on to this completely private space. This villa has quite a wonderful spatial movement, progression and experience.
The WISE Project
Figure 1.9.4 WISE building: cut-away perspective drawing by David Lea, showing courtyard, round lecture theatre and the intended ramped entry
Source: Drawing by David Lea