azuma house

[this is not a particularly coherent collection of thoughts; there's one in here about incrementality and urbanism, and one about courtyards. the only thing that seems to tie them together is the azuma house.]

the impact of a building, can, i think, be roughly divided into the architectural and the urban (this presumes that one accepts the older, less common understanding of 'urbanism' as the study of the summed effects of human settlement). both of these categories can be subdivided (the architectural impacts, in particular, rapidly break down into beauty, meaning, and function).

within a city, scale is one of the most important urban properties of a building. while i would not say that smaller is always better, i do think that a general principle of incrementality can be extracted from the histories of beautiful cities. that is, the quality of a place within a city is improved if growth and building occurs incrementally, and decreased when rapid demolition and construction erase the traces of time, ownership, and decay.

at some point, hopefully i'll explain that a bit better; however, i wanted to say something about incrementality while looking at tadao ando's azuma house, because i think that the azuma house is a great example of an incremental addition in a style of architecture (nearly brutalist) not exactly known for its sensitive urbanism.

[azuma house from street]

the interior courtyard is an architectural pattern that anglos aren't typically likely to construct (admittedly, in part due to climate), but i think this is a great misfortune. ando employs the courtyard to great effect as a light well in the azuma house, but there is something to be said for the inconvenience of passing through the courtyard from room to room of the house, as well (i'm suspicious of the inflated value convenience is assigned in american culture).

[azuma house courtyard]

all pictures are from this website. this entry triggered by archidose's literary dose on ando and azuma. ando makes an excellent point as he explains why he considers the interior courtyard a burden worth bearing:

From a functional viewpoint, the courtyard of the Rowhouse in Sumiyoshi forces the inhabitant to endure the occasional hardships. At the same time, however, the open courtyard is capable of becoming the house's vital organ, introducing the everyday life and assimilating precious stimuli such as changes in nature.

[azuma house courtyard after rain]

this proposal (in flash) for adding lighting to the azuma house also incidentally helps in understanding the house's spatial relationships.

Posted by eatingbark at February 5, 2008 2:52 PM