Lecturer 07

BUILDING AND BODY

Building is the metaphors and abstraction of the body. Not only how the building and body behaviours, but also how the society look to them.

The roles of external and internal are equally important. Things that have higher level of aesthetic look are more favoured by the society. As what Marcus Vitruvius said, eye is always in search of beauty. Pretty things are always eye catching, but only eye catching. What will really make people stay is the inner. A person that only looks pretty but without the inner beauty, people around will leave one day. This is same as a building. No matter how aesthetic it is at the external look, but if special quality is not there, the space division is made not up to the standard; user will leave one day, because they find that it is not friendly to use.

Meanwhile, what ancient people think of beauty for architecture is that, it should be symmetrical, just like us, the god creation- human. Like what Marcus Vitruvius said, building should be proportioned symmetrically as per human body. Thus, the ancient society start to spread this idea in that era, that’s why, there are numbers of ancient grand building are built symmetrically.

Even for instant, there are still some of the architect are adhere to this “theory”, and thus build a building with symmetrical façade, floor plan. For example,

Building form by different compartment, different system, is just like body form by different systems and organ. Building hydraulic system is just like human circulatory system. For a person with higher BMI, (which mean with bigger body size, fat but not muscle) the energy that required by their heart to pump the blood to the other part of body is much more than that compare to a person with normal BMI. This is similar the building hydraulic system. A large building requires more energetic pumping.

How does human circulatory system works? When there is oxygen for respiration system to work. Respiration involves 2 processes, inhalation and exhalation. It is just like the building air system. In the building “respiratory system”, oxygen is transferred from the environment outside of the building to the air circulation system which supplies oxygen to all the internal spaces of the building, and then exchanges it for carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is then bringing back to the environment outside the building.

Conclusion, there is a close relationship between human body and buildings, be it a metaphor or an abstractions.