BUILDING AND BODY IN ARCHITECTURE
Beyond the gestalt discourse of form and shape of tectonic buildings, the human body plays an imperative role throughout the whole process of production, exchange, and consumption of everyday architecture. Besides its objectival nature of enveloping skin, the human body as a dialectical subject becomes an epistemological dispositif in order to transcend the positivistic paradigm of architecture.
A building should provided the spaces that allow the human activities. The spaces would be well-designed based on the human body. As Le Corbusier said " the buildings should have to standardize to achieve the harmony between the building and people."
So he developed the "Modulor" that based on golden section and Fibanacci numbers and also using the physical dimensions of the average human to achieve harmony in his architectural compositions and other attempts to discover mathematical proportions in the human body and the use that knowledge to improve both the appearance and function of architecture.
Same concept and theory for the architecture today. People designed the building based on the modular or the standard that allow human activities happened inside. The relationship between building and body today is slightly different because of the economics and the limited spaces that we can used.
Here is the building example to show how is the relationship between building and body in architecture today. Although the old modular is not fully using in this building but there is the same concept that presented in other way due to the reason, in the new age.
This is the Ingenious Apartment that located at London. The building today is more direct to body that design based on the ergonomic and anthropometry in a smaller area. Big cities are home to exceptional residences. Due to the limitation of space to build, the creativity of architects is booming. They come up with all kind of projects and creative solutions to the lack of space and the need for modern design.
Although it is a small home but you would not feel compact but spacious because they are working on the human proportion in every inches in this house. When you walk in the rather small home, you are instantly amazed by the hanging bedroom. More of a bed than a room, the designers showed much ingenuity when they decided to suspend a king size mattress on a steel board over the living area. With the clever use of a narrow staircase to the rooftop and a glass panel in the ceiling, they gave the much needed feeling of space when you climb up in bed.
All inches of the apartment have been given a purpose. Although the area of the different spaces are considered small but it is functional based on the ergonomics and anthropometry that human activities in this apartment. They studied well to provided the maximum area that allowed for different activities in such a small area. A lounger was placed in the middle of the room to hint at the economy of space made. This concept is found throughout the house. The minimalistic look of the white painted and wood decorated kitchen is contrasted by the open bathroom area.
Sharing the same floor with the dining table, a classic white and black bathtub is just a curtain away from the salt and shaker, and one small step of distance from a simple yet big shoe rack. A bright blue half-wall separates the creativity of this area from the ingenuity of the main living room. The building today is no longer needed the very hight ceiling for the appearance but more to the functional. It is not about the abstraction of body but more to the direct response to body.
