Proportion and Organisation
There are two causes of beauty—natural and customary. Natural is from geometry consisting in uniformity, that is equality and proportion. Customary beauty is begotten by the use, as familiarity breeds a love for things not in themselves lovely.
-Sir Christopher Wren, Parentalia-
Quoted from “The Mathematics of the Ideal Villa’ by Colin Rowe
To simplify the quote above, natural beauty comes from the physical proportion, customary beauty comes from the space organisation.
Proportion is the relationship between parts or things. In particular, harmonious, proper or desirable relationships and the balance of symmetry. Proportion is more related to physical thing which it could be seen.
Organisation is to determine the separation or connection between similar or dissimilar uses, helps to clarify aspects of use and establishes similarity or contrast between spaces. Meaning organisation separate spaces.
A good proportion and organisation in a building takes the occupants as a whole within the spaces created, occupants having a new “sense of place” that arouses curiosity, creativity and/or comfort.
"Starting from the eighteenth century, proportion became a matter of individual sensibility and private inspiration and attempt are taken to reassert functionalism as the scientific beauty," quoted from the philosophical text by Colin Rowe.
To me, organisation is more to individual preferences, or it is much influenced by the person lifestyle. On the other hand, sense of proportion is within all of us, this sense is built within us since we are all born. A building that could sit on the site without contradicting the site or the surrounding context has a good proportion. A space that could comfortably accommodate us and give pleasure to our eyesight has a good proportion.
Taking an example of a residential project in Jiangsu, China known as Shen Zhai.
The project base is located in Jiangnan, China, where numbers of traditional Chinese gardens (中国传统园林) are found. Responding to modern construction technology and living comfort, architect Ma also wants to meet the traditional Chinese people's spirit, namely: 寄情山水、归隐田居 (Translate: abandon oneself and stay in the nature). However, the owner no longer just want to stay alone in the nature (归隐田居), but also wanted to incorporate modern factors into the project.
Blending in the site surrounding which take agriculture as their main source of income, the external building form which also takes into account the surrounding building height blends well into the site. The two-storey building blocks with gable end pitch roofs definitely hit the right proportion, as it could communicate to the site identity (surrounding buildings with two storey and gable end pitch roofs too!)
The spatial organisation at this elongated narrow site is between the vacant (garden) and the volume (building). The main focus of the site organisation started from the vacant, instead of the volume. "Vacant" does not only plays the role as a scenery, but it carries function too. The vacant is not only a garden, but a building. They are arranged according to the usage and each vacant implies a clear boundaries between the internal and external spaces. As a result of the organisation, four different sizes of building and ten gardens are formed.
Moving from the site organisation to the internal organisation, the spaces are organised according based on the function. For instance, similar to the traditional courtyard house, the public area is concentrated at the front part and the gardens, whereas the private area such as the bedroom of the owner is located at the deepest end of the site. Dividing the spaces into three level according to the depth of the site, the first level is for vehicle parking and daily passengers. Second level is a private room for friends and lastly the third level is the premise and activity areas for the owner.
Lastly, let us discuss about the proportion of this project. The sense of spaces, either internal or external are both incredible as the building proportion are magnificent. I could even feel and imagine myself in the building by just looking at the pictures, When you like a room and the reason is inexplicable, that is the trick of proportion, you feel naturally comfortable in the spaces. This project achieved this by having the transitional spaces and the location of the building ruled by the location of the gardens, where the boundaries between the gardens and buildings are blurred. In this project, organisation comes before proportion, but without the right proportion applied, no such quality spaces will be formed.
When there is a good architecture piece, there is also the bad one.
We have buildings that follow and rebel proportion rule.
A building that is out of proportion does not mean it could not function or accommodate people, it can!
Critics might be pointed to these buildings from all over the world, but these buildings usually catches more attention compared to those conventional one.
Besides, we also have buildings that looks like a "out of proportion object" in today's architecture which are functional and it is used for human habitation. Although these buildings are in the list of world ugliest building.
In these building, the building forms are out of proportion but the proportion in the internal spaces could still be achieved by a proper organisation of spaces, but of course there is extra expenditure of money on either the facade and the complicated construction method.
Discussing about out of proportion building, it reminds me about postmodernism architecture, where lots of classical elements are applied in a contradict ways.
In addition, we do have architecture which have both bad organisation and proportion. Despite, these buildings still carry its function too.
Above shows the cage home in Hong Kong. No one wants to stay in these coffin size cages, but they are forced to accommodate in such insecure and dirty environment because of the skyrocketing housing prices.
In conclusion, a good architecture piece has to incorporate both organisation and proportion. Not only the space planning from the 2D plan drawing, 3D perspective drawing is also crucial to check the spatial quality of the spaces which is always interrelated to the proportion too.
