Inside / Outside
I want to discuss building envelopes and their purpose for the conditioned and unconditioned spaces. I still remember clearly how puzzled I was when a reviewer asked me, “Where is your building envelope?” on the final review of my second project in architecture school. I thought to myself, “Whatever you can see from the outside is my building envelope.” But because I did not have a fully enclosed boundary to separate the conditioned interior space with the unconditioned exterior space. I found the question to be really strange. Until this day, I still puzzle over why we should have a completely sealed interior space, even though I understand the driving force behind this - comfort level. Still, but WHY?
In America, we are accustomed to the idea that a building is to provide us with cold comfortable space when the weather outside is hot; and to provide us with warm comfortable space when the weather outside is cold. That led us to design and build spaces that are tightly controlled and completely separated from the outside. This led to many other problems that we then needed to solve. For example, fresh air needs to be pumped into the building. Pumping fresh air has many components associated with it. Oftentimes, depending on what type of structure it is, we have the option of popping windows open for a breeze of fresh air.
Why don’t we situation our thinking from the other way around? Can a building be closed when needed?
I find the K House designed by Rear Studio is a great example to demonstrate my thought. The building envelope serves as a barrier to separate private and public. The ground floor and its courtyard are unconditioned. Yet it houses living room, dining, kitchen and vertical circulation. The idea of the envelope here no longer separates the built environment from nature. The boundary is blurred where nature is an integral part of the built environment itself. The conditioned spaces, then, are the individual room itself. Talking about environmentally responsive design, having individual conditioned spaces allows for better performance from the perspective that we only turn on the air conditioning when needed.
Side notes: I want to state my perspective on the building envelope and interior atmosphere. There is no architecture if either of these two elements is missing.
Tuyen this is a beautifully written and well-crafted opinion on this topic. I have often argued that one potential solution to the climate crisis is that people really need to just learn to live with their environment. That means lowering our expectations of comfort. As a species, we have grown so detached from our environment that we think an appropriate way to fix the issue is to add more materials into our building envelope to create better insulation to use less energy. But the actual production of these materials costs us more money and far more energy, so it is really counterproductive. Why don't we just use less material and lower our standard of comfort? I feel as though that would solve the problem a lot faster.
ReplyDeleteTuyen,
ReplyDeleteI think buildings that have a blurred line between them and nature are much more impactful, interesting spaces. I like your idea of instead having outdoor space that is flexible in becoming conditioned when required. In addition to creating spatial quality through the inside and outside intertwining, this seems like an excellent solution to sustainability in many different ways.
Tuyen,
ReplyDeleteI like your interpretation of the envelopes and the K House project as a good example. I love exterior space more than closed interior space. My hometown is in a cold climate zone, so most of the balconies are closed. Even if you design an open patio, the user will change it to a closed space because we can not use it most of the time. This is one reason I want to move to somewhere in a warm or not too hot climate, and I will have more opportunities to design more outdoor spaces integrated with the whole building.