THEORY OF ARCHITECTURE 1 Far Eastern University

KINESTHETIC QUALITIES OF A BETWEEN THE

SPACE KINESTHETIC EXPERIENCE
OF SPACE AND THE VISUAL
KINESTHETIC OF EXPERIENCE.
• LACKING WIDE OPEN
• THE SENSATION OF SPACES, THE LIVING CLOSE
MOVEMENT OR STRAIN IN TOGETHER AS THEY DO,
MUSCLES, TENDONS, THE JAPANESE LEARNED
JOINTS. TO MAKE THE MOST OF
• A GOOD EXAMPLE OF A SMALL SPACES.
BUILDING WITH A
KINESTHETIC QUALITIES • THEY WERE
OF A SPACE IS THE OLD PARTICULARLY INGENIOUS
IMPERIAL HOTEL IN STRETCHING VISUAL
DESIGNED BY FRANK SPACE BY EXAGGERATING
LLOYD WRIGHT. IT KINESTHETIC
PROVIDES THE WESTERNER INVOLVEMENT. NOT ONLY
WITH A VISUAL ARE THERE GARDENS
KINESTHETIC, AND DESIGNED TO BE VIEWED
TACTILE REMINDER THAT WITH THE EYES BUT MORE
HE IS IN A DIFFERENT THAN THE USUAL NUMBER
WORLD. OF MUSCULAR SENSATIONS
ARE BUILT INTO THE
EXPERIENCE OF WALKING
INTO THE JAPANESE
GARDENS.

• THE CHANGING LEVEL, THE

CIRCULAR, WALLED-IN,
INTIMATE STAIRS TO THE
UPPER FLOORS AND THE • GIVEN THE FACT THAT
SMALL SCALE ARE ALL THERE ARE GREAT
NEW EXPERIENCES. INDIVIDUAL AND
• THE EARLY DESIGNERS OF CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
THE JAPANESE GARDEN IN SPATIAL NEEDS, THERE
APPARENTLY ARE STILL CERTAIN
UNDERSTOOD SOMETHING GENERALIZATIONS WHICH
OF THE CAN BE MADE ABOUT
INTERRELATIONSHIP WHAT IS THAT

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DIFFERENTIATES FROM
ONE SPACE TO ANOTHER. • The qualities in architecture are
EXAMPLE A ROOM THAT CAN BE needed to make the building
TRAVERSED IN ONE OR TWO more strong, looked like it is
STEPS GIVES AN ENTIRELY growing as that of a plant
DIFFERENT EXPERIENCE FROM A • Strength, one of the qualities,
ROOM REQUIRING 15-20 STEPS must show how strong a building
is constructed to survive from the
• A CEILING THAT YOU CAN problems or disasters of time.
TOUCH IS DIFFERENT IS Strength is important in a
DIFFERENT FROM ONE building. The strength of a
WITH A CEILING THAT IS building should be proportional
HIGH to the weight of the building.
You can also use the strongest
LIGHT, COLOR AND TEXTURE material to add strength in a
building to feel safer to live in it.
• Design elements and principles • Vitality is about how a building
describe fundamental ideas about should grow or developed from
the practice of good visual design the times passed.
that are assumed to be the basis • You can compare it to a plant
of all intentional visual design that from years passed, will soon
strategies. The elements form the turn into a tree. Buildings that are
'vocabulary' of the design, while developing is important in
the principles constitute the architecture, because you see a
broader structural aspects of its new building that was built more
composition. Awareness of the beautiful and more interesting. If
elements and principles in design the building is not growing or
is the first step in creating developing, it will put a lack of
successful visual compositions. interest and charm to the viewers.
• Restraint, in architecture should
• Essentials in Architecture are be simple and direct, and yet you
also important like that of the should see the beauty in it. There
elements and principles of should be a concentration of
design. This helps us to add ornament. A lack of restraint will
beauty in our work and make it put too much design on a
more realistic. It will also teach building, it may looked beautiful
us on how we can do a better but too much design will make it
design of a building that will looked like it is overloaded.
satisfy the owner and even the
viewer. You also need to build a Articulation
strong one which will survive in
every unexpected situation. • How building surfaces come
Essentials in architecture will together to define form is often
make us learn more in relation to described as "articulation." The
architectural theory and criticism. treatment of edges, corners,

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surface articulation of windows similar programmatic use, in this

(horizontal, vertical, static field), case recent museum projects, we
and the visual weight of a may see how the chosen forms
building all contribute to the were employed.
articulation of the form
The first example is the Metropolis
Texture and Color Museum in Amsterdam designed by
Renzo Piano Workshop.
• Both texture and color are
inherently linked to materials,
and can be used to alter the
perception of any given form.
Consider how the shift from a
light to dark paint color can
radically reduce the apparent size
of a room, or how a smooth
stucco or rough brick finish can
alter the size and visual weight of
a house.

Light • The simple building shape is

reinforced by the large literal
• Form is perceived differently size, gigantic scale, and
depending on the light conditions homogenous, light-absorptive
within which the building is copper cladding of the building
viewed. The prominent modern exterior. Complex form and
architect Le Corbusier surface articulation is
emphasized the important intentionally avoided in order to
relationship between light and heighten the singular form.
form in his famous statement, Because the museum is built
"Architecture is the masterly, above a highway harbor tunnel
correct, and magnificent play of portal within an industrial harbor
masses brought together in light. landscape, this form is quite
Our eyes are made to see forms appropriate to the scale and
in light; light and shade reveal materiality of the surrounding
these forms." architectural context.

APPLICATION Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain

designed by Frank Gehry Architects.
• The following case study
examines why a particular built
form was used and how it
enhances the aesthetics of that
particular building. By
comparing two buildings of

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• Experiencing Architecture by
Steen Eiler Rasmussen.
Cambridge: MIT Press, 1962.
• "Form" by Adrian Forty in
Words and Buildings: A
Vocabulary of Modern
Architecture. New York: Thames
and Hudson, 2000: 149-172.
• "Form and Formalism" by David
Smith Capon in Architectural
• Although also large in literal Theory: Le Corbusier's Legacy.
size, this design employs a Chichester: John Wiley & Sons,
complex, non-rectilinear shape 1999: 41-70.
that uses form and surface • The Measure of Man: Human
articulation to reduce the Factors in Design by Henry
building scale. The choice of Dreyfuss. New York: Whitney
light reflective titanium exterior Library of Design, 1967.
cladding further dematerializes • Towards a New Architecture by
the building form and uses light Le Corbusier. New York: Payson
and shadow to continuously and Clarke, 1927.
modulate the exterior surface.

• In both cases, a careful

combination of a number of
architectural qualities—shape,
size, scale, articulation, texture,
and color—work together to
produce the desired form.

REFERENCES

• Architecture: Form, Space, &

Order, 3rd Edition by Francis
D.K. Ching. New York: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2007.
• Dimensions: Space, Shape &
Scale in Architecture by Charles
Moore and Gerald Allen. New
York: Architectural Record
Books, 1976.
• Elements of Architecture: From
Form to Place by Pierre Von
Meiss. New York: Van Nostrand
Reinhold, 1990.

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DIMENSION, SCALE AND

PROPORTION

SCALE

• Scale is not the same as size, but

refers to relative size as
perceived by the viewer.
"Whenever the word scale is
being used, something is being
compared with something else."
(Moore: 17) This relation is
typically established between
either familiar building elements
(doors, stairs, handrails) or the
human figure. Scale may be
manipulated by the architect to
make a building appear smaller
or larger than its actual size.
Multiple scales may exist within
a single building façade, in order
to achieve a higher level of visual
complexity.

• The term "human scale" is

Proportioning Systems
frequently used to describe
building dimensions based on the
1. Arithmetic: The Ancient Greeks used
size of the human body. Human
clear mathematical ratios for both visible
scale is sometimes referred to as
and auditory phenomena, such as
"anthropomorphic scale." Human
architecture and music. For instance,
scale may vary by culture and
Pythagoras emphasized the importance
occupant age.
of numbers. Originating in Antiquity, the
"Golden Section" has been used by
PROPORTION
Renaissance theorists, modern and
contemporary architects. The Golden
• In general, proportion in
Section or Golden Mean is both
architecture refers to the
arithmetic and geometrical, and is
relationship of one part to the
prevalent in both the natural world and
other parts, and to the whole
classical architectural design. It may be
building. Numerous architectural
expressed as a:b = b (a+b). This
proportioning systems have
relationship can be verbally described
developed over time and in
as: a is to b, as b is to the whole. The
diverse cultures
Golden Section is also apparent in the
Fibonacci series of integers:
1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55, etc. Each

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succeeding number is the sum of two

previous numbers. This series forms the
basis for a spiral, as found in the snail's
shell or the spiral volutes of ionic
column capitals.

GREEK ORDERS

3. Harmonic: The ancient discovery of

harmonic proportion in music was
GOLDEN MEAN translated to architectural proportion.
For instance, this system posits that
when the ratio of 1:2, 2:3, or 3:4 is
applied to buildings or rooms,
harmonious proportion results. The early
Renaissance architect Alberti credited
the harmony of Roman architecture and
the universe to this system. The
Renaissance architect Palladio, along
with Venetian musical theorists,
Fibonacci Blocks developed a more complex system of
harmonic proportion based on the major
2. Geometric: In Classical architecture, and minor third—resulting in the ratio of
the diameter of a classical column 5:6 or 4:5.
provided a unit of measurement that
established all the dimensions of the
building, from overall dimensions to fine
detail. This system works for any size of
building, since the column unit
fluctuates while the internal relationships
remain constant. Drawings of the
"classical orders" explain this set of
relationships geometrically.

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Proportion (architecture)

• Proportion is the relation

between elements and a whole
• Proportion is a correspondence
among the measures of the
members of an entire work, and
of the whole to a certain part
selected as standard. From this
result the principles of symmetry.
Without symmetry and
proportion there can be no
principles in the design of any
temple; that is, if there is no
precise relation between its
members as in the case of those
of a well shaped man. — • One example of symmetry might
Vitruvius be found in the inscription grids
of the Egyptians which were
Architectural proportions based on parts of the body and
their symmetrical relation to each
• In architecture the whole is not other, fingers, palms, hands, feet,
just a building but the set and cubits, etc; Multiples of body
setting of the site. The things that proportions would be found in
make a building and its site "well the arrangements of fields and in
shaped" include the orientation the buildings people lived in.
of the site and the buildings on it
to the features of the grounds on • These proportional elements
which it is situated. Light, shade, were used by the Persians,
wind, elevation, choice of Greeks, Phoenicians and
materials, all should relate to a Romans, in laying out cities,
standard and say what is it that stadiums, roads, processional
makes it what it is, and what is it ways, public buildings, ports,
that makes it not something else. various areas for crops and
grazing beasts of burden, so as to
Vitruvius thought of proportion in terms arrange the city as well as the
of unit fractions such as those used in the building to be well proportioned
Greek Orders of Architecture
Generally the goal of a proportional
system is to produce a sense of
coherence and harmony among the
elements of a building.

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• One aspect of proportional

systems is to make them as
universally applicable as
possible, not just to one
application but as a universal
ideal statement of the proper
proportions. There is a
relationship between length and
width and height; between length
and area and between area and
volume. Doors and Windows are
fenestrated.

Sacred proportions • Fenestration is important so that

the negative area of openings has
Among the Cistercians, Gothic, a relation to the area of walls.
Renaissance, Egyptian, Semitic, Plans are reflected in sections
Babylonian, Arab, Greek and Roman and elevations. Themes are
traditions; the harmonic proportions, developed which spin off and
human proportions, relate to but expand upon the
cosmological/astronomical proportions themes found in other buildings.
and orientations, and various aspects of Often there is a symbolic sacred
sacred geometry (the vesica piscis), geometry which goes outside the
pentagram, golden ratio, and small proportions of the building to
whole-number ratios) were all applied as relate to the observations of the
part of the practice of architectural beauty of nature and its
design proportions in time and space
and the elements of natural
• In the design of European philosophy.
cathedrals the necessary
engineering to keep the structures • Same logic applied to the
from falling down gradually Pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging
began to take precedence over or Gardens of Babylon, the
at least to have an influence on Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut,
aesthetic proportions. Other the Temple of Solomon, the
concerns were symbolic Treasury of Athens, the
astronomical references such as Parthenon, and the Cathedrals
the towers of the Sun and Moon and Mosques and Corporate
at Chartres and references to the Towers.
various astrological and
alchemical relationships being Harmony and proportion as sacred
discovered by the natural geometry
philosophers and sages of the
renaissance. • Going back to the Pythagoreans
there is an idea that proportions

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should be related to standards earliest modules were not based

and that the more general and on body parts and their spans
formulaic the standards the (fingers, palms, hands, feet,
better. This idea that there should remen, cubits, ells, yards, paces
be beauty and elegance and fathoms, which became
evidenced by a skillful standardized for bricks and
composition of well understood boards before the time of the
elements underlies mathematics Greeks) but rather column
in general and in a sense all the diameters and the widths of
architectural modulars of design arcades and fenestrations.
as well.
Vitruvius described as the principal
• Sacred geometry has the same source of proportion among the orders
arrangement of elements found in the proportion of the human figure. .
compositions of music and nature
at its finest incorporating light • it was made as a study of the
and shadow, sound and silence, proportions of the (male) human
texture and smoothness, mass body as described in a treatise by
and airy lightness, as in a forest the Ancient Roman architect
glade where the leaves move Vitruvius, who wrote that in the
gently on the wind or a sparkle of human body:
metal catches the eye as a ripple • a palm is the width of four
of water on a pond fingers or three inches
• a foot is the width of four palms
• The frieze and architrave vary and is 36 fingers or 12 inches
from 3/4:1/2 in the Doric style to • a cubit is the width of six palms
5/8:5/8 in the Ionic and • a man's height is four cubits and
Corinthian styles. Capitals are 24 palms
1/2 in all styles except Corinthian • a pace is four cubits or five feet
which is 3/4. The shaft width is • the length of a man's outspread
always 5/6 at the top. Column arms is equal to his height
shaft heights are Tuscan 7, Doric • the distance from the hairline to
8, Ionic 9 and Corinthian 10. the bottom of the chin is one-
Column bases are always 1/2. In tenth of a man's height
the Pedestal, caps are always 1/4, • the distance from the top of the
dies are 8/6 and bases are 3/4. In head to the bottom of the chin is
the quarter of the column entasis, one-eighth of a man's height
Tuscan styles are 9/4, Doric are • the maximum width of the
10/4, Ionic are 11/4 and shoulders is a quarter of a man's
Corinthian columns are 12/4. height
• the distance from the elbow to
• The Greek classical orders are all the tip of the hand is one-fifth of
proportioned rather than a man's height
dimensioned or measured
modules and this is because the

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• the distance from the elbow to • Temperature: around 300 K

the armpit is one-eighth of a (room temperature
man's height
• the length of the hand is one- Human scale in architecture
tenth of a man's height
• the distance from the bottom of • Humans interact with their
the chin to the nose is one-third environments based on their
of the length of the head physical dimensions, capabilities
• the distance from the hairline to and limits.
the eyebrows is one-third of the • Buildings scaled to human
length of the face physical capabilities have steps,
• the length of the ear is one-third doorways, railings, work
of the length of the face surfaces, seating, shelves,
fixtures, walking distances, and
other features that fit well to the
average person.
• Humans also interact with their
environments based on their
sensory capabilities. The fields of
human perception systems, like
perceptual psychology and
cognitive psychology, are not
exact sciences, because human
information processing is not a
purely physical act, and because
perception is affected by cultural
factors, personal preferences,
experiences, and expectations. So
human scale in architecture can
also describe buildings with
sightlines, acoustic properties,
Human scale measurements however, task lighting, ambient lighting,
are more in the order of: and spatial grammar that fit well
with human senses.
• Distance: one to two metres
(human arm's reach, stride, Human scale in architecture is
height) deliberately violated:
• Attention span: seconds to hours
• Life span: approximately seventy • for monumental effect.
years Buildings, statues, and
• Mass: kilograms memorials are constructed in a
• Force: newtons scale larger than life as a
• Pressure: one standard social/cultural signal that the
atmosphere subject matter is also larger than
life. The extreme example is the

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Rodina (Motherland) statue in

Volgograd (Stalingrad).

• for aesthetic effect. Many

architects, particularly in the
Modernist movement, design
buildings that prioritize structural
purity and clarity of form over
concessions to human scale. This
became the dominant American
architectural style for decades.
Some notable examples among
many are Henry Cobb's John
Hancock Tower in Boston, much
of I. M. Pei’s work including the
Dallas City Hall, and Mies van
der Rohe's Neue Nationalgalerie
in Berlin.

• to serve automotive scale.

Commercial buildings that are
designed to be legible from
roadways assume a radically
different shape. The human eye
can distinguish about 3 objects or
features per second. A pedestrian
steadily walking along a 100-foot
(30-meter) length of department
store can perceive about 68
features; a driver passing the
same frontage at 30 mph (13 m/s
or 44 ft/s) can perceive about six
or seven features. Auto-scale
buildings tend to be smooth and
shallow, readable at a glance,
simplified, presented outward,
and with signage with bigger
letters and fewer words.
• This urban form is traceable back
to the innovations of developer
A. W. Ross along Wilshire
Boulevard in Los Angeles in
1920.

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