CONTEXT AND BUILDING
What is the role of context in architecture today? Is context predominantly a physical, social, economic, or political issue; some combination of these; or something else?
In architecture, context is the important keys to look into when design a building and these important keys are being used through the architecture in the past and architecture today. Context in architecture is always a factor or a key point to start designing. Building itself form and function can be change but the context cannot be change. As we said, design a master plan will start with an assessment of the site ecology and it context and we need to know what is there so we only can know what to design into that area.
Context is external elements that influence an object which the elements are physical and non-physical. For physical it will be roads, buildings and land countour while for non-physical it will be weather condition , climate, local cultural, political and economical. Is a architectural way of respond to its surrounding by respecting what is already exist.
The context determines the architectural style, building material selection and site layout, which is very important in creating an effective design. All these promote continuity between building and local circumstances, it must consider many thing by knowing the site factor because it being the basic consideration when designing a building which relation with site context.
In architecture today, not every context play the same role as each site have different condition and different kind of factors to take care of. An architect’s consideration should actually come into play within the thesis, and it aims to tackle the importance of approach in context within a space. A successful architecture should have certain attitude towards its surroundings. Each design should be different when it design mainly
focus on context.
Riverside Clubhouse, China / Trace Architecture Office :
From the architecture. The clubhouse is located on one side of a river which is surrounded by a park and sports field. The extended horizon, sky, water, island in river, and reed, these elements of the site define a tranquil, pure and poetic atmosphere. By not ruining the original place, it create a close contact with environment and nature. In such environment, architecture’s consideration of designing a building should based on site context thus a glass building on riverside and in trees naturally comes to his mind as idea which connect building itself with those context.
The transparency architecture is concern to physical form of building is replaced by desire to create flowing and see-through space to maximize interrelated that interior link to exterior and exterior link into interior which a way to play with site context. It design is based on context , but from there it also exterior design is based on interior space. “ A building is like a soap bubble. This bubble is perfect and harmonius if the breath has been evenly distributed from inside” by Le Cobusier.
Responding to the horizontal feature of surrounding landscape and trees in site, the building is made into a linear and folded form. It zigzags and flows, sometimes approaching the ground and sometimes floating in the air which provides different level and angle, it also gives an impression that architecture is touching the site in a very “light” form. The soft soil geo-condition of the site also makes this floating form structurally reasonable since slim columns on pile foundations support the building.
The floor thickness and column size are made to their minimum dimensions is to let the building feeling of floating with related to context(water). In the context of lacking local materials and craftsmanship, an abstract form becomes a natural choice aesthetically.
In conclusion, context plays an important role in architecture and also a key factor on design. A good building should have good relationship between itself and the site surrounding which we call as context, different place and location can have different kind of building form and function that relate to context. From this perspective, it would be important to take site context as important design consideration as in now or in future building design.
