THEORIES OF ARCHITECTURE DESIGN
Materiality focuses on the function rather than the feelings created by it. We are fascinated by the nature and quality of a material. Materiality in architecture today tends to use what materials that are easily obtained from the site which are strongly connected to the place of the origin. The material used considered thoroughly the relationship between the site and the surrounding environment. For example, rumah panjang located in the middle of the wood. Timber, bamboo and thatching are the local materials used in construction of rumah panjang. It prefers natural materials.
Immateriality in architecture today is focusing more on atmosphere. As science and technology advances, it started to go beyond of traditional materials. In contemporary architecture, they are taking materials from different contexts and environments and applying them inventively in architecture to achieve spatial feelings. Sensation and feelings should be occurs to architecture as the perceived absence of matter more than the actual absence of matter. It includes all fives in the experience of architecture, not only vision.
Materiality and immateriality are predominantly about the human perception and experience. It develops perception in people’s mind. We conceptualize the idea into the building design while manipulating materials to achieve spatial senses. It focuses on user’s experience rather than forms. Is not only about shape or form. A building can use atmosphere to create spaces. Architecture intimates relationship with the user’s body experience such as thermal comfort and sound.
“Mountain, stone, water – building in the stone, building with the stone, into the mountain, building out of the mountain, being inside the mountain”
- Peter Zumthor
The Therme Vals by Peter Zumthor. It was built with stone which shows connection to the site. The combinations of light and shade, hot and cold, open and enclosed spaces and materiality make for a highly sensuous and restorative experience. The building is partially submerged into the hillside and is covered by a grass roof, making it almost invisible from behind.
The Blur building,
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An example of atmospheric building. It uses a very unique material, mist, making it disappear. Its shape and form of the building is always changing making it have no distinct form. Visual and acoustical references are erased along the journey toward the fog.
In conclusion, if the fourth text were added, it would be “Fine line of materiality and immateriality”. Both immateriality and materiality are seems to be important in architecture. How they cannot be separated, the physical form and mood space it creates. The architecture today is moving from materiality to immateriality. It’s no longer only about the appearance and vision. Architecture should have souls and feelings, giving a sensation and experiences to the users. In my opinion, architecture can only consider complete when there is visual and sensation.
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“Architecture is space and thus it is everything”
-Yves Klein