When an engineer designs a machine, a bridge, or a
regulator, each line in his drawings is the result of a great accumulation of
laws and principles from a dozen different mechanical sciences. He designs the
machine to withstand a certain amount of strain and to do a particular job. In
both these aspects he must consider and apply all that he has been taught in
such fields as physics, dynamics, structural mechanics, and the resistance of
materials, and must put into each line a whole library of expertise.
Similarly, when an architect designs a town or a building, every line is determined
by the application of the same complex set of mechanical laws, with the addition of a whole
collection of other sciences whose provinces are less well defined: the
sciences that concern man in his environment and society. These sciences-sociology, economics,
climatology, theory of architecture, aesthetics, and the study of culture in
general-are no less important to the architect than are the mechanical
sciences, for they are directly concerned with man, and it is for man that architecture exists.
The
mechanical side of an architect's work-ensuring that his building will stand
and provide protection against the elements, or that the street pattern of a
town performs its function efficiently-is no more than a preliminary to his
real creation. Only when he has provided these mechanical prerequisites, which
should be incorporated without question or argument, can he begin to consider
the real problem of designing a building. He is rather
like the pianist who can start to interpret the music he plays only after he
has mastered the technique of piano playing.
A machine is
independent of its environment. It is little affected by climate and not at all
by society. A person, however, is a member of a living organism that constantly
reacts to its environment, changing it and being changed by it.
A plant provides a good example of the mutual interaction
between a living organism and its environment. It possesses its own heat and
water economies. Its respiratory heat is the result of metabolism which tends
to raise its temperature, just as with animals. It perspires, and the
evaporation of this perspiration leads to cooling, since every gram of water
given off requires between 570 and 601) calories from the plant, depending on
the air temperature. Consequently, plants exert a reaction on the microclimate
of their environment and to some extent adjust their own temperature to their
particular needs.
In the same way, a building is affected by its environment.
The climate of the locality and the buildings around it mold the building, so
that, even though social, cultural, and economic aspects are important, it owes
much of its shape to these factors.
Climate, in
particular, produces certain easily observed effects on architectural forms.
For example, the proportion of window area to wall area becomes less as one
moves toward the equator. In warm areas, people shun
the glare and heat of the sun, as demonstrated by the decreasing size of the
windows. In the
subtropical and tropical zones, more distinctive changes in
architectural form occur to meet the problems caused by excessive heat. In Egypt, Iraq,
India, and Pakistan, deep loggias, projecting
balconies, and overhangs casting long shadows on the walls of buildings are
found. Wooden or marble lattices fill large openings to subdue the glare
of the sun while permitting the breeze to pass through. Such arrangements
characterize the architecture of hot zones, and evoke comfort as well as
aesthetic satisfaction with the visible endeavors of man to protect himself
against the excessive heat. Today a great variety of devices such as
sun-breakers or brise-soleil have been added to the vocabulary of architectural
features in these zones.
Notice, too, how the gabled roof decreases in pitch as the rate of
precipitation decreases. In Northern Europe
and most districts subjected to heavy snow, gables are steep, while in the
sunnier lands of the south, the pitch steadily decreases. In the hot countries
of the North African coast the roofs become quite flat, in some areas providing
a comfortable place to sleep. Still further south, in the tropical rainfall
zone, the roofs are again steep to provide protection from the torrential downpours
typical of the region.
It is worth
noting that so long as the people of the humid tropical regions built their
huts with reeds and grass, which allowed air to pass through the walls, the
steeply pitched roof was a useful device. However, once they began to use more
sophisticated materials like cement block and the common gabled roof topped
with corrugated iron sheets, the houses became unbearably hot and stuffy.
This kind of roof prevents the catching of draughts at the very level where
they prevail, and the solid walls prevent the passage of air.
The
traditional flat roof and the brise-soleil of recent tropical architecture, with its modern feel, have attracted the imagination of architects in colder regions
who are continuously searching for something different and exotic. The result is that in
some northern cities thoroughly
inappropriate examples of architecture, with shapes suitable to an alien
climate, have succeeded in making the neighboring buildings look old-fashioned without
responding to the needs of the people in their climate.The temptation to create up-to-date designs which assails a modern
architect prevents him from achieving the chief aim of architecture: to be
functional. He forgets the environment into which he will implant
his buildings because he is attracted by new and modern innovations and
gadgetry. He fails to realize that form has meaning only within the context of
its environment.
Environment
The
techniques and equipment available to the architect today free him from nearly
all material constraints. He has the run of centuries
of styles and can choose his plans from every continent on earth. But he must remember that he is not
building in a vacuum and placing his houses in empty space, as mere
plans on a blank sheet of paper. He is introducing a new element into an
environment that has existed in equilibrium for a very long time. He has responsibilities to what surrounds
the site, and, if he shirks this responsibility and does violence to the
environment by building without reference to it, he is committing a crime
against architecture and civilization.
What
constitutes the environment of a building? Briefly, it is all that surrounds
the site on that part of the Earth, including the landscape, be it desert,
valley, mountain, forest, seaside, or riverside, and
what is above the surface with its seven zones that envelop the Earth and
influence terrestial life. The zone most concerned here is the first, the
atmosphere. This zone rises to an average height of 10 kilometers and reaches
20 kilometers in the Tropics. It contains the humidity on which human, animal,
and plant life depend. In the six zones above the atmosphere, oxygen, ozone,
and hydrogen are present in different concentrations that affect the cosmic
radiation reaching the surface of the earth. In the natural order prevailing in
the environment, there has always existed a continuous balanced flow of cosmic
radiation within which all living organisms and even minerals have been created
and evolved.
Some
materials are transparent and some are opaque to the various components of this
radiation. Man should be careful not to disturb the natural electromagnetic
balance by improperly selecting the material he uses for his dwelling. Thus wood is a more desirable material for man's surroundings than
reinforced concrete. Aesthetically, man appears to prefer wood within his
dwelling in the form of furniture and structural elements, which he often
describes as warm, contrary to steel or other metals, which he describes as
cold. This psychological effect can be explained in part scientifically by the
physical properties of both materials, including their heat conductivities and
insulation characteristics.
These details demonstrate that the architect has a moral responsibility to consider
whatever may affect the efficiency of the building and the well-being of the
people whom he is housing. Besides the tangible and measurable features
of the environment, there exist intangible elements, but insufficient
scientific information prevents their use in town planning and architectural
design. Therefore, this discussion is limited to the tangible and measurable
elements of the environment, mainly the climate.
The importance of climate is clear. All living organisms
depend entirely on climate for their existence and adapt themselves to this
environmental influence. Plants that live in the Tropics cannot live in the Arctic, nor can arctic plants live in the Tropics, unless
of course the immediate local conditions-the microclimate-are arctic, as at the
top of a high equatorial mountain. Most organisms, in fact, are limited to a
habitat of narrow climatic range.
Yet not all species are so limited. Many animals can
regulate their own internal body temperature and can maintain it at a constant
value even during considerable fluctuations of the air temperature. Man has an elaborate and very
sensitive mechanism involving the secretion of sweat and the distribution of
blood that keeps him at about 37 °C at all times. In general,
warm-blooded animals can survive wider variations than coldblooded ones. Some
species manipulate their environment to produce a favorable microclimate: the
tortoise does so when it hibernates for the winter. Man, too, does this in a
variety of ways. He can change his microclimate by changing his clothes,
building a house, burning fuel, planting trees, digging artificial lakes, and
using machines to heat, cool, moisten, or dry the air around him.
A principal
purpose of building is to change the microclimate.
Early men built houses to keep out the elements-rain, wind, sun, and snow.
Their purpose was to produce an environment favorable to their comfort and even
to their survival. The microclimate on each building site is changed into
several different microclimates as the result of the construction of the house
itself. The microclimate adjacent to the south wall is quite different from
that at the north wall, and the climates at the east and west walls are again
different. Inside the building, each room has its own microclimate which is a
modification of one or more of the outdoor microclimates.
Before the advent of the industrial era and mechanization,
man depended on natural sources of energy and available local materials in
forming his habitat according to his physiological needs. Over many centuries, people
everywhere appear to have learned to interact with their climate.
Climate shapes the rhythm of their lives as well as their habitat and clothes.
Thus, they build houses that are more or less satisfactory in providing them
with the microclimate that they need. In the warm humid lands of East Asia, the local inhabitants live in huts with
flimsy, loosely woven walls that allow the slightest breeze to pass through. The people who live under the
blazing sun of the desert construct houses with thick walls to insulate
themselves from the heat, and with very small openings to keep out hot air and
the glare of the sun.
These
successful solutions to the problems of climate did not
result from deliberate scientific reasoning. They grew out of countless experiments and accidents and
the experience of generations of builders who continued to use what
worked and rejected what did not. They were passed on in the form of
traditional, rigid, and apparently arbitrary rules for selecting sites, orienting the building, and
choosing the materials, building method, and design.
In any approach prescribed by tradition, it is essential
that every injunction of the tradition be strictly observed. Thus, if one
element were changed in a traditional building method, that change, though
small, could destroy the entire validity of the building as a satisfactory
solution to the local climatic problems. In this sense, both the material and
the way it is used are very important. For example, if mat screens are replaced
by corrugated iron or some other solid wall material, then even though the
building may appear more substantial, the lack of ventilation could make the
interior intolerably hot and stuffy. Modern architects have attempted to solve
this problem with modern technology, for instance, introducing the vented screen-wall, using unshaded
concrete or brick claustra-work to replace the objectionable solid wall.
Many different examples of this can be seen in entire elevations of modern
buildings in tropical zones. While such a solution is a definite improvement
over the solid wall, careful investigation reveals that it is not as efficient
as the humble mat screen. When
the sun-breaking or brisesoleil elements of the claustra-work are not shaded,
they heat up and then transmit this heat to the air flowing into the building
through the claustrawork, as well as reflecting warming solar radiation
into the interior.
Every substance that has formed part of a living organism
will retain some of its original qualities of climatic response as long as its
original structure is not destroyed or significantly modified. Wood, hair, grass, leaves,
reeds, cotton, hemp, and other organic materials are sensitive to air humidity.
When increased ventilation and humidity are required, matting responds to its
climate by absorbing moisture from the air passing through it into the
building, thereby reducing the degree of humidity in the room. In
contrast, claustra-screen walls can breathe, but they do not perspire. A mat,
being porous, is a poor heat conductor, and cools to below air temperature by
evaporating the moisture it has captured from the air. Thus it cools the air
passing through it. Furthermore, a closely woven mat with loose fibers and
bristles around the ropes will intercept dust as well.
Changing a
single item in a traditional building method will not ensure an improved
response to the environment, or even an equally satisfactory one. Yet change is inevitable, and new forms and materials will be
used, as has been the case throughout history. Often the convenience of modern forms and materials makes
their use attractive in the short term. In the eagerness to become modern, many
people in the Tropics have abandoned their traditional age-old solutions to the
problems presented by the local climate and instead have adopted what is
commonly labeled "international architecture," based on the
use of high-technology materials such as the reinforced-concrete frame and the
glass wall. But a 3 x 3-m glass wall in a building
exposed to solar radiation on a warm, clear tropical day will let in
approximately 2000 kilocalories per hour. To maintain the microclimate of a
building thus exposed within the human comfort zone, two tons of refrigeration
capacity are required. Any architect who makes a solar furnance of his building
and compensates for this by installing a huge cooling machine is approaching
the problem inappropriately and we can measure the inappropriateness of his
attempted solution by the excess number of kilocalories he uselessly introduces
into the building. Furthermore, the vast majority of the inhabitants
of the Tropics are industrially underdeveloped and cannot afford the luxury of
high-technology building materials or energy-intensive systems for cooling.
Although traditional architecture is always evolving and will continue to
absorb new materials and design concepts, the effects of any substitute
material or form should be evaluated before it is adopted.
Failure to do so can only result in the loss of the very
concepts that made the traditional techniques appropriate.
Only a scientific approach to the evaluation of such new
developments can save the architecture of the Tropics and Subtropics. The
thoughtless application of modern methods in this region is seldom successful. A thorough understanding of the
climatic environment and developments based thereon is essential for
appropriate solutions. Although traditional architecture was evolved
intuitively over long periods, it was based primarily on scientifically valid
concepts. The modern academic world of architecture does not emphasize the
value of investigating and applying concepts scientifically and, therefore, has
no respect for vernacular architecture. Now is the time to bridge the gap
between these widely different approaches.
All
traditional solutions should be evaluated scientifically before they are
discarded or substitutes proposed. The phenomena of the
microclimate must be analyzed and new building materials, methods, and designs
must be tested until the complex relationships among buildings, microclimate,
and human beings are fully understood. Fortunately, agriculture is perhaps even
more intimately affected by the microclimate than architecture, and
agricultural scientists have long made careful observations of the climate near
the ground and in small localities. Their findings are available to those
interested in tropical and subtropical architecture.
Another science to which architecture is indebted is aerodynamics. The
methods of investigating airflow around the wings and bodies of aircraft are
now being used to study airflow through, over, and around buildings. Scaled and
full-size models can be tested in wind tunnels to determine the effect of the
size, location, and arrangement of openings on the airflow through individual
buildings, as well as the nature of wind patterns and forces between groups of
buildings.
Today more
attention is being given to the relationship between climate and architecture, and several building research organizations are beginning to
examine this relationship.
Various
disciplines, including aerodynamics and meteorology, provide an impressive
stock of facts that are extremely useful to architecture.The architect is
responsible for interpreting these facts and applying them to his designs.
In this respect, he resembles the attending physician, who, though using the
expertise of the physiologist, radiologist, or bacteriologist, is the only
person who can actually undertake the treatment of a case.