Q: What is organic architecture?

I named Organon Architecture after two of my heroes.

"Organon" itself comes from Aristotle's Organon -- his collection of books on logic and induction that, when rediscovered, led to the led to a rebirth of knowledge and science."Organon" being defined as a tool or instrument, in this case an instrument of knowledge ...

And "organon" also refers to the principles of Organic Architecture -- sometimes called The Other Modernism -- that I try to practice and that Frank Loyd Wright was the first (and the best) to espouse.

Over the decades, Wright and others gave many explanations of what this Organic Architecture consists:

• architecture perfectly integrated with its site; a free architecture ... architecture that belongs where you see it standing, and is a grace to the landscape instead of a disgrace
• recognising that nature and materials, machinery, and technologies are allies, not antagonists
• understanding the higher truth that form should not simply follow function -- that outward appearances should reflect inner purposes -- but that form and function are one
• an interpretation of nature’s principles manifested in buildings that are in harmony with the world around them
• architecture used to make human life more natural, and nature more humane
• an architecture from within outwards ... where the whole is to the part and the part is to the whole.
• a building that functions like a cohesive organism, where each part of the design relates to the whole.
• an architecture in which a building is allowed to develop in relation to the forces and context that generated it in a manner analogous to the way a tree (for example) develops according to its generating forces and site context -- a reinterpretation of nature's principles as they had been filtered through the intelligent minds of designers
• an architecture recognising the human need for order, pattern, nature, prospect and refuge
• an architecture in which space and time become place and occasion, and reason and self-esteem are embodied in the expression of motion and purpose
• a building that complements its environment so as to create a single, unified space that appears to “grow naturally” out of the ground
• choosing one dominant form for a building and integrating that form throughout (often in a fractal manner)
• using natural colours: “Go into the woods and field for colour schemes”
• don't simply imitate nature, but understand and emulate nature's abstractions of geometry, form, colour, pattern, texture, proportion, and rhythm
• respect and reveal the nature of materials
• open up spaces, using nested, overlapping and interlinked spaces
• integrate natural foliage in the inner spaces and wider views of the outer spaces -- "capturing those views alive"

Integration is the key word: of site and landscape and colour and material with the life within.

Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer worked with Frank Lloyd Wright for many years. This conversation brings the ideas home ....

Bruce Brooks Pfeiffer clip talking about Organic Architecture from Quasimotor Productions on Vimeo.

Quote of the Day: "Architecture is a building conceived from an idea or vision of good living."

"So to a definition: ... [architecture] is a building based on a concept of good living conditions... building conceived from an idea or vision of good living...
   "This vision, then is translated into reality by qualities of surface, space, structure and psyche. I could be more fashionable and even more alliterative by calling the last item 'soul.' Perhaps it is best to average it out and settle on 'spirit'..."
       ~ Australian architect Robin Boyd, writing in his manifesto Living in Australia

[Pics of Robin Boyd House by Darren Bradley, from Robin Boyd Foundation and Australia Post Collectables]

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Recent Project: Malvern Hills: 'Wind Screen'

I've been dreadful at posting new projects here, mainly because I've been busy designing them rather than posting about them, but I'd like to catch up a bit. There are quite a few to show you!

This project here began being discussed two years ago. It's for a very exposed very steeply sloping site in Wellington. That's just Wellington, right -- but this one is a little different: with the very steeply sloping site comes striking views right across the harbour: which makes it extremely exposed -- both to the public eye and to the weather.

And as they say, Wellington doesn't have a climate. It has weather.

The strategy, a simple one, is to hang the house between the retaining walls that are needed to hold up the street, and the cantilever beams sprouting in pinwheel fashion from a single large concrete pile. This takes account of the sloping-site problem. One enters and sleeps at the top level, lives on the middle level, and offers children and guests sleeping and play space at the bottom.

Did I say "simple"?

Once out of the ground, the house needs to deal with the weather problem. Because this house doesn't just have slope: with that slope comes both the spectacular views over the harbour that make it worth building there, and all the winds of Aeolus sent to batter anyone daring to step outside to see it.

Trouble. But as they say, problems are an architect's friend!

View from the proposed roof terrace: spectacular view; spectacular wind!

So how to solve this problem? The answer is a "wind screen" built around the drum containing our lower floor and protected terraces.

Add these windscreens around the outer drum, intersect this with the main circular drum, add trees and vines, mix all ingredients sagaciously on this sloping site and you have this house -- or nearly so. From there it almost designs itself!

Concept

Concept Plan

The house that designs itself:
add retaining walls and one three-storey drum to a sloping site; to that add
an intersecting drum with wind-screen,
an open terrace extending the view back to the city,
and trees and vines
and voila!

Can you see this rising from the hills above the Wellington Harbour? A strong form making it easily seen even at great distance.

And while the screen looks a little 'heavy' in the pictures, our windscreen is an almost diaphanous perforated metal screen, lightweight, decorated and visually permeable. A light steel veil draped over the drum and cinched down tight; a "breathable" screen, with sections easily slid away on Wellington's intermittent but glorious good days.

This Cultural Centre in Corsica gives you an idea of just how visually permeable a fine-grained steel 'veil' can be:

Cultural Centre in Bastia, by Paris Studio DDA

And this house in Israel shows how permeable (yet still sheltered) a coarse-grained perforated screen can be.

Pitsou Kedem's 'MA' House' in Israel

And this here is our screen, suggesting how decorated our screens can be; perforated metal being an ideal material to take integral decoration, we have added ornament based upon the interlocking circles of our two "drums." The effect in the sun is dramatic!:

Visually permeable perforated decorated metal screen, rejoicing in the sunlight (above) -- and rendered in red below:

Drums in the sun

The perforated metal is used to create a see-through screen that offers protection from the wind on the main terrace overlooking the harbour, with other open decks (that can be used on better days) that take the visitor further out to enjoy views over the central city.

View out to open terrace

 The perforated metal drum continues from base to top floor, piercing floors all the way up to form the balustrade at our entry level. Each of our levels, of course, enjoy spectacular views!

View from day bed on upper level

View from built-in seating at 'back' of lounge

These axonometric cutaway plans of each level should give you some idea of how it all comes together ...

[Hat tips, of course, to Sullivan, Botta, Melnikov..]

Quote of the Day: “A house is not a machine to live-in..."

Pic: Portrait of Eileen Gray by Berenice Abbott

“A house is not a machine to live-in. It is the shell of man, his extension, his release, his spiritual emanation. Not only its visual harmony but its organisation as a whole, the whole work combined together make it human in the most profound sense... The poverty of modern architecture stems from the atrophy of sensuality.”
      ~ Eileen Gray, architect and designer
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