Concept and Construction materials
LOS MATERIALES EN LA CONCEPCIÓN ARQUITECTÓNICA
Materials take on great importance in architecture as they can influence the conception of the project, remembering that the idea becomes matter thanks to the construction materials. It is also proven that they influence our mood and our comfort. For example, the warm touch of wood or the cool touch of metal.
From this we will see the materials in architecture from three points of view.
- As an adjective. To express a quality.
- As a structural solution. As part of a whole.
- As a conditioning factor. As part of the composition.
01 AS AN ADJECTIVE
This is the description of the Sao Paulo Art Museum by Lina Bo Bardi. With just words describing the material you can already imagine the space, the environments and the sensory experience.
Right in the space you are in right now, you can see 4 pillars and two beams; and maybe it is no more than 12 square meters, because Lina Bo Bardi used a 12 m distance of prestressed concrete beam between pillars.
Under the guidelines of the Brutalist Architecture of Brazil, at the time of the Brazilian military dictatorship where the modernist style was put into practice to express national identity.
The works, made of reinforced concrete, prioritized height, and many residential buildings shared space with businesses.
Here we can see the materials used and what they were referring to when mentioning a large suspended volume. gran volumen suspendido.
I give you this example to understand that materiality is the process where the idea becomes matter. This implies the handling of the material as a base element to make the applied concept a reality through the appropriate construction technique to be executed.
Materials are essential in the process of creating environments and manipulation of spatial volume such as surface treatment.
Everything can be an inspiration to create a detail or a differentiating element in your project. I share a "tip", which I think is the best advice. The first thing you have to do to find the ideal material for your project is to go to the street. This is why my recommendation is that from now on, we are going to touch, smell, see it and be able to discard ideas.
When doing this, think about the durability of a material and its possibilities to create.
As designers, we must study the type of materials or elements to be used for the design.
02 AS A STRUCTURAL SOLUTION
This quote could be understood as the perfect definition of the building, understood as a body that seems to float, whose expression varies throughout the day and appears oblivious to its surroundings.
The characteristic element of the building is its "hanging" arrangement of a structure located at the back, which together with a second glass façade maximize the lighting inside the block. Achieved thanks to the innovation of the structural system used.
Donde a partir de un núcleo central, marcado en amarillo, en la ilustración anterior, se levantan pilares provisionales para hacer colgar un sistema de muro cortina suspendido, logrando el efecto planteado en el concepto.
Fuente: Canal Youtube Ter
Materials play a fundamental role in the idea of a building that floats. In addition to creating an innovative structural system, in the aesthetic part, the materials emphasize the concept even more.
Generating a strong contrast between the two, the glass representing the lightness of the tower seeming to fly in the Paseo de la Castellana, the travertine representing the heavy part, the stereotomic: It is the massive, stony, heavy architecture that sits on the ground as if it were born from her.
Another trick they use to deceive our eyes is the division of the glass pieces on its façade, since it makes us lose the notion of scale, we do not distinguish the exterior from the outside and it gives the sensation that the tower is much higher than the 11 levels they contain.
The materiality makes its facades change color as the day progresses, just like the light. In Madrid, creating a glass box is complicated by the summer. To do this, a second layer of glass is placed and allows air to circulate between them, in this way the hot glass air between the two layers rises and is released naturally through the upper part, something like a very delicate glass fireplace. . Supported by glass ribs in the 70's.
The second part of the materials analysis process is to ask: How are we going to look at these materials to be innovative? For example, in blacksmithing, what things can be done with iron? How can we be innovative?
Now imagine that you are commissioned to design the roof of a multipurpose pavilion, the fact is that now you have many options, but the city council tells you not to fall. It arises they question based on which of this falls less. Entonces,
Now imagine that you are commissioned to design the roof of a multipurpose pavilion in the event that you now have many options. But the town hall tells you not to fall. What would be the correct geometry?
Simple: The natural geometry that a chain has and falls under its own weight, made either in materials cast under a mould.
03 AS A CONDITIONER OF THE FORM
Another piece of advice is that from now on, we are going to touch, smell, see the materials in order to rule out ideas.
Al hacer esto, piensa en la durabilidad de un material y en qué situaciones se pueden utilizar.
Another case study to analyze materials as conditioning factors of form is the SEED PAVILION, the UK pavilion at the 2010 Shanghai Exhibition, by the Heatherwick architecture studio.
From a daily activity arises the base of the idea for the development of this pavilion, let's see:
The concept becomes matter through 7.5 meter long “branches” that contain seeds forming a large seed.
The requested goal to meet the key expectation was for the pavilion to become one of the top five most popular attractions at the Expo. Based on two clear objectives, the first objective was to design a pavilion whose architecture was a direct demonstration of what it was exhibiting. The second objective was to secure a significant area of public open space around it so that visitors could relax and choose to enter the pavilion building or view it clearly from a quiet, no-queue vantage point. And third, it would be unique among hundreds of other competing pavilions, events and programs.
The result was a tall, six-story structure studded with 60,000 translucent rods that act as fiber optic strands channeling sunlight into the pavilion.
As a reflection, it is very important to know what can we use and what not, what can we metaphorize and that entails everything that we are putting in our design.
Sarah Tió | Professor of Architecture and Design