Whilst the activities and functions within buildings form an areas characteristic, culture and ambiance it is arguably the facades of buildings that contribute the most to an areas visual appearance. Architects concern themselves immensely over the appearance of their buildings which can reduce the design of building to two dimensional design creating stage set towns and projection screens. In ‘The Eyes of the Skin” Juhanni Pallasmaa bemoans the hegemony of the eye and architecture that is built for the image.
“The ocular bias has never been more apparent in the art of architecture than in the past 30 years, as a type of architecture, aimed at a striking and memorable visual image, has predominated …architecture has adopted the psychological strategy of advertising and instant persuasion.”
But facades can be more generous and give something back to the street and the passerby, or they can communicate with the street to change the ambience.
Jan Gehl talks extensively about how architecture, urban form and the relationships between the street and the buildings edge (ie. facade) affect how people feel within spaces. Recently I have come across several surface treatments for façades which have the potential to turn the face into a ‘re-active, inter-active’ surface that can be tuned by the buildings users and the streets users.
The first examples of this are the growing number of pixel buildings that use LED technologies to turn their façade into night time light shows. Most of these examples are fairly weak, and if anything they just further fetishisize the surface appearance of architecture but undeniably they do create an ambience for the street. If this is linked up to some sort of interactive technology where passersby can affect the display it begins to transform the building from an inanimate block for those who don’t have reason to use it into a plaything for the public.
A couple of better versions I’ve seen of this react directly by leaving a trace where people have just walked past them using aperture to open up creating a silhouette of the passerby. Admittedly even these more advanced examples smack of being a bit gimmicky and whilst they are cool on their own a whole city of buildings using these systems would be pretty bland and the street-building interaction through the façade would be little improved. Once the initial novelty has worn off the system offers little to the street and the people occupying the building receive no benefit except perhaps increased attention if that is desirable.
As Jan Gehl says
“If life between buildings is given favorable conditions through sensible planning…many costly and often stilted and strained attempts to make buildings “interesting” and rich by using dramatic architectural effects can be spared.”
There are other ways of creating a dynamic street façade though that both improve the building for their users and visually enhance their appearance to the street. Various solar shading systems are being developed that can automatically react to the intensity of light and change the size of their coverage accordingly to keep constant levels of light within. Solar shading systems have traditionally been ways for buildings facades to adapt and give an indication to the street of the activities going on within. For example if someone sees shutters rolled down or closed on a building early in the morning chances are that the building occupants are either asleep or not on the premises, in the same way that the flag at Buckingham Palace indicates whether the Queen is home or not. Famously Mies was so concerned that blinds could be so easily adapted by the buildings occupants that the building would appear messy…he was scared that he would loose control of the buildings appearance. Accordingly he designed the blinds so that they could only be fully open, half closed or fully closed to keep the appearance uniform.
Olson Kundig does quite a lot with shuttering that can open a building right up or close it down very easily changing the visual appearance and occasionally the surrounding spaces as planes slide out forming enclosures etc.
The ‘Dynamic Façade” of the Kiefer Technic Showroom is a good example of a simple shuttering system that can be used in quite an extravagant way. The sheer amount of variability means that the building can appear totally differently day to day, potentially changing the dynamic of the surrounding street.
Justin Goodyre’s project ‘Adaptive Bloom’ is a really exciting way that buildings could potentially change their façade to maintain constant light levels in the future. If there is some way to utilize the blooms to have a use in their own right apart from shading the building then this could be awesome. Maybe the open petals could collect sun and create energy for the building like chloroplasts in leaves or they could open when it is raining to collect water to flush the toilets or maybe there could be organic elements as well so passersby in the street could pick and eat the fruits of the building. Mental.
Another way that a façade can traditionally relate to the street is through transparency and/or permeability. Buildings with large areas of glass frontages might allow people passing by to see what is going on inside but they add very little to the street dynamic and in many cases the plate glass just reflects back the world outside. Juhani Pallasmaa talks about this phenomenon in ‘The Eyes of the Skin.’
“The increasing use of reflective glass in architecture reinforces the dreamlike sense of unreality and alienation. The contradictory opaque transparency of these buildings reflects the gaze back unaffected and unmoved; we are unable to see or imagine behind these walls. The architectural mirror, that returns our gaze and doubles the world, is an enigmatic and frightening device.”
Not only does the glass façade give little to the street but it’s own reflection but it doesn’t benefit the users of the building much either. Regardless of the environmental comfort concerns being within a large well lit glass building can be quite an isolating experience. At first glance you’d think that being inside a glass building would be quite an extroverted experience. I’m thinking again of Mies and his Farnsworth House; when I first saw images of it and considered it in plan I thought you must be a real exhibitionist to live in there as it is so open to its surrounding landscape. But then it’s surrounding landscape insulates it from the world, it is isolated in space like a temple and only relates to the site it is situated in through the terrace outside. Really it is a self-obsessed building and the ideal retreat for an introvert. Paradoxically, buildings that are darker with less glass openings can be more extrovert and better connected with their landscapes. I was lucky enough to visit a few of Frank Lloyd Wright’s early prairie style buildings when I was in Chicago. The Robie House in particular was a good example of a dark building that felt really quite extrovert. The low long windows enabled a great view of the outdoors and the various patios, terraces and balconies allowed the occupiers to move into the intermediate zone between inside and outside. Valerio Olgiati talks specifically about this in “The Significance of the Idea.”
“What do I admire about Wright’s architecture? I am intrigued by its darkness, Frank Lloyd Wright’s dark buildings…I have come to realize that dark space, rather than very lit space, presents more possibility to experience the outside from within. The inside of a building disappears and the world outside unfolds more powerfully. One can see the landscape and nature very clearly because the inside of the building becomes a dark, non recognisable frame for what you see outside. I have gained the understanding that dark building have a more public character then very brightly lit buildings.
A good example of this phenomenon is the architecture of Richard Meier. I would argue that one actually inhabits a very introverted space if one occupies one of Richard Meier’s buildings. It does not matter how much glass Meier uses in his buildings and how large the openings of his buildings are…Despite all the glass in his buildings, there are no relationships that are built with the surrounding world…these very lit spaces are very isolating.”
So to occupy a darker building maybe give the occupier a great connection with the street outside. Having said that though, the Robie House gave little to the passerby in the street except for the potential to stop and chat to someone sitting out on one of the terraces. Perhaps what a building needs to be able to relate to the street is the ‘transparency’ to allow people passing by know what is going on in the building, what mood it is in perhaps, whilst allowing the occupiers not feel over exposed.
There is some pretty exciting stuff going on in the world of fashion at the moment along this line. Studio Roosegaarde have been developing a line called ‘Intimacy’. These clothes are made from intelligent materials that can turn transparent when someone approaches, or in ‘Intimacy 2.0’ the clothes would turn transparent as the wearer became excited/aroused, betraying their emotions but also signaling their interest. The smart e-foils in the materials detect the wearer’s heartbeat or proximity to others to enable this. Perhaps this is something that sentient buildings could utilize in the future changing their transparency to the street when the collective mood in the building was relaxed or stressed and so on. Studio Roosegaarde have also been experimenting with changing transparency to façades of building in similar ways to the aperture and adaptive bloom examples above.
Permeability is in some ways similar to transparency but allows for people from the street to actually penetrate the building physically or for the buildings activities to spill out into the surrounding area. Many buildings do this is some way and many successful streets have facades that exhibit permeable attributes. Colonnades, stoas and public foyers offer traditional typologies for how this can be done. Schinkel’s Altes Museum has a series of increasing enclosure as the visitors enter first the stoa and then ascend the open staircase, allowing for views in and out for visitors and creating a series of intermediate transition zones between inside and outside. These methods remain fairly inanimate though, how can a façade be tuned to become more or less permeable to suit the needs of the buildings occupiers and/or activities on the street.
There are a few really cool examples I have come across that allow the façade to open right up to let people flow between inside and outside. OMA/REX’s ‘Wyly Theatre’ project and Olson Kundig’s ‘Chicken Point Cabin’ are immense precedence. There are also projects like Stephen Holl’s ‘Storefront’ where the façade opens up to allow light in and at the same time as doing so creates furniture for the street user. This is really exciting as suddenly the passerby can actually tune a façade to allow them to interact with the building without having to ‘use’ the building directly. Maybe the greatest thing a building can offer a street is simple, a place to sit, a table to eat on maybe and perhaps some connection with what is happening behind the façade.
