Inside-out and outside-in: The envelope and the search for a heterogeneous interiority
(from The Interior Architecture Reader, edited by Gregory Marinic, 2018 Routledge)
Chapter 32
Inside-out and outside-in
The envelope and the search for a heterogeneous interiority.
Marco Vanucci
Among all the elements of architecture, the building envelope plays a key role in defining the relationship between the surrounding environment and the articulation of interior spatiality. In particular, through new understandings of material systems and performance, the articulation of the envelope in contemporary architecture aims at the production of heterogeneous spatial constructs. Beyond the dichotomy of form and program, interior architecture can be rediscovered through the articulation of performative envelopes. The progressive architectural discourse of the past fifty years has been polarized by research of complex forms, on the one hand, and by the innovative articulation of program on the other. This emphasis on the autonomy of form has been counteracted by the determination of programmatic relationships. While these two aspects have been thoroughly investigated and have produced vast amounts of literature, questions related to the articulation of interior space have not received a
corresponding level of critique. Discourse surrounding spatial design has paradoxically centered on the description of aspects that influence the shape or fruition of spatiality, without engaging into a deeper understanding of the quality of interiority.
The postmodern study of architectural typologies (Aldo Rossi’s work, for example) with its tendency to privilege form has moved on to extensive research of programmatic hybridization in late postmodernism as evidence by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture. At the turn of the twenty-first century, the advent of new computational technology and digital fabrication marked a new phase. The exploration of complex, informal geometries opened up new ways of thinking about the relationship between form and function. Seminal projects like the Yokohama Ferry Terminal by Foreign Office Architects paved the way to a new understanding of the relationship between materiality, structure, and performance in architecture. The problem of fabricating complex geometries (often related to projects whose main concern were the representation of the form of the object itself) gave way to a deep reconsideration of the material and performative quality of space in new architectures of the digital age.
Advanced computation became a tool for simulating material behavior, and the performative quality of space ceased to be merely a representational tool. The representation of architecture and its interior, in fact, has traditionally been expressed through orthographic projections in a Euclidean space. Plan and section are traditionally considered to be vehicles to communicate the organization and political dimensions of the architecture and its interior. The plan organizes a particular sequence of spaces and describes the nature of its human dimension. It manifests the intention of a specific social and political structure; a symmetrical and centralized plan aligns with a hierarchical organization, whereas a fragmented and distributed plan instigates a more open and democratic occupation of space. The introduction of the corridor, for example, marks an important moment in the organization of circulation within the dwelling unit. In “Figures, Doors, and Passages,” Robin Evans gives a compelling insight into the relationship between spatial organization and social
arrangements. He distinguishes between the medieval sequences of interconnected rooms with sixteenth-century British architecture, where the introduction of the corridor introduced the separation of different social strata within a single home. Privacy, distance, and the segregation of the aristocracy from servants were manifested in architectural forms for the first time thanks to the addition of corridors and ancillary circulatory spaces. Similarly, the section is a representational tool that can be used for organizing the hierarchy of social strata, whether through the separation of functions on different levels or through the homogenization of programs via the employment of pilotis and the open plan.
Figure 32.1 OPENSYSTEMS Architecture, Nexo is a project for a flexible kiosk in Chicago (IL). The envelope is formed by a triangulated three-dimensional fractal panel that forms a self-supporting structure. Its recursive geometry produces a fractal pattern: a series of identical, triangulated metal plates scale down in size as they grow over each other forming a visually compelling and solid structure.
The performative envelope
The building envelope is the diaphragm that articulates form and affects program. It provides a particular spatial condition on the interior while setting the scene for an event, which is fostered by the spatial construct. In its most primitive form, it protects the interior from the surrounding hostile exterior environment and provides a shelter. It also engages with its surroundings in many different forms: economically, socially, psychologically, and politically. It organizes the interior of the building and the external public realm with which it communicates; it controls the internal environment and marks the boundary of an architectural interiority. Considered to be the oldest and most fundamental architectural element, the envelope embodies the separation between inside and outside, the natural and the artificial. It demarcates the boundaries between two different spheres of control: the private and public properties. It has traditionally been relegated to expressing symbolic or representational functions. The building envelope, however, embodies a much larger ecology of meanings and synthesizes many heterogeneous inputs, including economic climate, environment, legislative norms, social organization, etc. In this sense, and most importantly, the envelope is the main agent for the articulation of its architectural interiority.
The modernist paradigm was predicated on the assumption that “form follows function” and implied the correspondence between internal articulation and external manifestation of built form. The modern “machine for living” represents not only the functionalist response to the problem of architectural form, it also embodies its material strata. Innovations in material and construction technologies paved the way for the development
of the modernist manifesto. In a mature phase of modernism in the 1960s, flexibility became a desirable architectural quality. The increasing complexity of the built environment in a rapidly changing society demanded more sophisticated responses than the form-function relationship. The need for schools, hospitals, and housing projects for the new capitalist (affluent) society offered an opportunity to test the resilience of modern ideas in their ability to adapt to increasingly complex design briefs. The programming process was introduced by means of systematically collecting project-related data. Information was analyzed and interpreted in the form of graphic representation and computational iterations. Hashim Sarkis argues that while programming sought to elucidate a scientific approach to functionalism, it paradoxically helped to uncover a higher degree of indeterminacy. In short, it helped unleash new formal possibilities beyond its suitability to function.
In the climate of socioeconomic globalization of the late twentieth century, new hybrid and mixed-use typologies emerged and became the testing ground for new programmatic organization. Rem Koolhaas sharply captured the spirit of this challenge and elaborated a new theory for postmodern architecture. In S, M, L, XL, the Dutch architect introduced the theory of “bigness”: beyond a certain scale, “old” architectural principles (composition, scale, proportion, and detail) no longer apply. A new urban style emerges, one that no longer holds a relationship with the context but imposes itself on the context. Sanctioning the final disconnection between architectural interiority and exteriority, this discourse advocates for the advent of a new type of urban architecture that privileges the content over the context.
The building envelope becomes the field of negotiation between interior spatiality and exterior appearance. In 2001, Koolhaas pointed his critique to the soulless, “mallified” spaces spreading across the planet. He lamented the generic spaces that blended shopping malls, airports, hotels, convention centers, and art galleries into seamless uniformity. The junk space, he argued, is the true product of modernization. In this context, interior spaces became increasingly generic, while the building envelope gained a new centrality in contemporary architectural discourse.
envelope becomes more and more sophisticated and actively responsive to external stimuli as well as internal needs.
Figure 32.2 OPENSYSTEMS Architecture, Laminae: The project illustrates a differentiated and performative envelope attempting to overcome the existing dichotomy between standardization and the need for diversity and change in environmental structures. The design uses parametric design protocols to develop a semi-modular construction formed by the aggregation of differentiated triangular units.
Hyperarticulation of differentiated envelopes
Interior space can be defined as the boundary that differentiates the exterior envelope of the building with the inside. Difference in temperature, humidity, light condition, and sometimes even pressure is what makes the interior controlled environment of architecture different from the surrounding environment. Gregory Bateson explained:
What is it in the territory that gets onto the map? We know the territory does not get onto the map. That is the central point about which we here are all agreed. Now, if the territory were uniform, nothing would get onto the map except its boundaries, which are the points at which it ceases to be uniform against some large matrix. What gets onto the map, in fact, is difference, be it a difference in altitude, a difference in vegetation, a difference in population structure, difference in surface, or whatever. Differences are the things that get onto a map.
The definition of a performative envelope, however, allows for the articulation of an interior spatiality that no longer statically provides a homogeneous condition as a result of a formal and programmatic search. Instead, a heterogeneous spatial condition is achieved through the hyperarticulation of the building envelope by means of differentiated material organization. Moving away from the idea of a homogeneous interior to embrace a truly differentiated heterogeneous spatiality allows for a deep reconsideration of the traditional dichotomy between form and function in architecture.
A new sensibility is emerging, one that uses computational materials to establish a new relationship between material, structure, and performance. The exploration for a truly heterogeneous space demands the articulation of performance-driven built forms. Aligning with the great legacy of pioneering architects such as Frei Otto, a new sensibility for the articulation of form, conceived as the result of a form-finding exercise, opened up extraordinary possibilities to connect performance, differentiation, and heterogeneous spaces. The possibility to collect and
manage large amounts of data allow for integration of information, through computational processing, within the fabric of the architectural envelope. Information-rich, heterogeneous environments are the result of a process of management and cross-fertilization of data within a single integrated design process. As a result, the continuous variations of building components allow for the actualization of a truly responsive, differentiated spatial condition. Whereas modern and postmodern architecture sought for homogeneous spaces, undifferentiated fields provided a homogeneous environment, a new type of heterogeneous space is emerging: one that seeks difference in kind and in degree, and that can no longer – or not only – be described for its extensive characteristics. Rather, it is experienced through its intensive qualities of visual porosity, humidity, light, ventilation, etc. It is now possible to think and design forms that, through their performative quality, are able to reinvent function. Heterogeneous interiority can be sought by means of a differentiated envelope.
Figure 32.3 OPENSYSTEMS Architecture, Diatomics: The project explores the agglomeration of cellular components within a self-supporting assembly to be employed as vertical partition as well as a structural system. The prototype is formed by two modular components: the tetrahedral component which branches in three directions and a larger cubical “cell” which branches in eight different directions.
The opportunities offered by material science, new manufacturing processes, and computational design open the doors to a more profound understanding of interior space in architecture. The challenges of contemporary interior architecture require new spatial answers. A more fluid articulation of program, as well as the pressing demand for a more
sustainable built environment, are paving the way for an interiority that is increasingly driven by performative parameters: new functional organization in the work environment (such as coworking office spaces), looser boundaries between working, living, and leisure spaces, and the demand for a more performative understanding of matter, program, and form. New performative envelopes have yet to be explored.
Notes
- Robin Evans and Pamela Johnston, “Translations From Drawing to Building and Other Essays”, AA Documents (Architectural Association, 2003).
- Alejandro Zaera Polo, “The Politics of the Envelope”, Volume Magazine, p. ii.
- Hashim Sarkis, The Paradoxical Premise of Flexibility, CASE: Le Corbusier’s Venice Hospital (Munich: Prestel Publishing, 2002).
- One of the first manifesto-projects of this kind was OMA’s CongrExpo for Lille. The project was part of a vast master plan for the French town of Lille named EuraLille. CongrExpo is a cultural center and is an example of a new kind of urban architecture. “CongrExpo is 300 metres long and has a very diagrammatic organization, with three major components: Zenith, a 5,000-seat concert hall; Congress, a conference center with three major auditoriums; and Expo, a 20,000sqm exposition hall. In the east-west direction, each of these components can be used independently, but openings between the components make it possible to use the building as a single entity on the north-south axis, to mix programs, to generate hybrids.”
- Gregory Bateson, Steps to an Ecology of Mind (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), p. 457.
- Michael Hensel, Christopher Hight, and Achim Menges, En Route: Towards a Discourse on Heterogeneous Space Beyond Modernist Space-Time and Postmodernist Social Geography (Wiley: AD Reader, 2009), p. 7.
