Context & Building
Architects have been expressing concern for the way in which a new building relates to its surroundings. Whereas modern buildings once tended to be conceived as pure, abstract objects, independent of what was beside them, there is now much more attention paid to the notion of fitting a building into its architectural context.
In these three articles that we read, the authors are focus on the urban planning or design with different classification to build a utopia city for users. So, what is context and why is it so important to be the basic consideration of architecture whenever design a building?
Basically, Context is the term that denotes the generation of items through the combination of all events or circumstances. It is external elements that influence an object.
These elements are group as physical and non-physical such as roads, buildings, and land contour. The term context can be also defined as the background, environment, framework, setting, or situation encircling an act or a circumstance.
The importance of context emerges when its ability to express and bring to light an item’s contents, its inclusion within a combined unity.
As it is in many other fields, context has a very important role to play in the field of architecture. The relationship between architecture and context has much variety and the fact that context is found in the design of different components, that it gives direction to design and that it plays an important role in the formation of architecture is not a novel concept. There has been both conscious and subconscious awareness and experimentation of this even in architectural history and before the architectural profession became institutionalized. In this regard, architecture has been inevitably intertwined with contextual thinking.
‘Master planning starts with an assessment of the ecology of the site and its context; we need to know what is there before we can insert anything new’
Thus, we can say that contexts are influencing contemporary architecture design. For example, an architect design a house in four seasons’ countries is different compared to the design in tropical countries. So, a deep and fully understanding of local contexts are important for designer to produce a good building design.
Besides, I think that context predominantly an economic issue because a building whether it is design well or not, it apparently related to the condition or situation of a country’s economy. Every country in the world does not have the same economic viability.
This results a very different architecture in each of the country.
Nowadays, architects tend to design the buildings with a cost-effective construction method such as prefabricated components and module system. With use of this method, it helps to reduce labour costs and speed up the construction period.
A construction that is cheaper with a better quality as well as environmental friendly.
In addition, politics also play a large role in determining the direction of contemporary architecture. For examples in Malaysia, the government has made a policy that all government buildings must use the methods of industrialized building system to reduce the dependency on foreign workers. So, we can conclude that both economic and political gives a huge impact on the contemporary architecture.
Apart from that, another main point that I want to focus is the importance of cultural and current context that affect nowadays architecture.
Culture is a way of life of a place. It is the best way to accept the constraint of a place and is followed from generation to generation. Sometimes it becomes a symbol and identity of a place. We can figure out that some building/ architecture mix with the adaptation of culture context that brings out the identity of a place.
The building aren’t necessary to be expressed based on the function, but instead the form should be design accordingly to the site context as a whole. As what Schumacher said -
form no need follow function, building programs and uses need not be expressed in the configuration of building and towns.
China Academy of Arts’ Folk Art Museum
/ Kengo Kuma & Associates
The site was formerly a tea field that formed a hillside. The point was to design a museum from which the ground below can be felt, by continuing the building’s floors that follow the ups and downs of the slope. Planning is based on geometric division in the units of parallelogram to deal with the intricate topography. .
This somehow post-postmodern historical sensitivity, combined with Wang’s psychogeographic determination to leave the contours of the bucolic hillside untouched, informs his strategy to ‘respect, not erase the past’. Kuma overtly reinterprets this approach, saying,
‘an arrangement was made that no slopes would be cut or modified and that the architecture would be configured to closely relate to the mountain’.
To accommodate the steep grade, the plan is thus rhomboid, unfolding and cascading down the site in a series of sloping ramps, jagged rooflines and partially enclosed courtyards, in a way that both conceals and confuses the scale of the building.
A consideration of remaining contour that design a building according to the topography. An great example that show how Kengo Kuma design it by blending into the site context, the nature and create a balance and connection between it
In a nutshell, response to the surrounding contexts indeed very important because it determines the success of a building’s design. In response to these contexts will create communication channels between building and people around.
However, there are lack of site analysis practice were taken seriously through the process of design where often just fit in the design in a one-way trip or based on their own. Perhaps that architects to archive successful in long term career path, they should know to hold hands with the context of the building and walk through the design process together.