“Always design a thing by considering it in its next larger context: a chair in a room, a room in a house, a house in an environment, and an environment in a city plan.”
-Eliel Saarinen
A building always sits in a specific environment characterised by unique elements, which form the foundational context for the architecture with which it co-exists and interacts. The understanding of context further expands when one starts to consider the intangible elements of the surroundings: the culture, social values, beliefs, traditions, socio-economics, history, and much more. When the architecture accounts for the contextual factors, the design develops out of the accumulated knowledge of the local practices in the built environment. This allows the building to extend its roots in the urban fabric of the city and its contextual approach acts as a bridge to connect with the city and its people and their practices. This makes the architecture of the building more relevant and more responsive to its surroundings.
The Homogenization Challenge
Today, when we glance around the street, what we mostly encounter are examples of buildings built without contextual responses to their surrounding environments. A dig deeper will likely reveal the global trends that have shaped the design decisions for such architectural creations, making them yet another homogenised product of the globalisation era. Contextual responses emerge from practical considerations of the specific location and community needs, requiring a close understanding of the surroundings that cannot be merely fulfilled by repetitive and replicative practices of design. The argument here certainly cannot be against the inevitable global village phenomenon, but rather to re-think our approach to the future of architecture, where the process of influence from worldwide design trends needs to be balanced by the needs of a particular context within this global village.
Embracing Contextualization
The challenge for the future certainly lies in balancing this swing of homogenization and contextualization, and as the visionaries of the coming decades, the baton lies in the hands of architects and planners to adopt innovative approaches where the understanding of the accumulated knowledge is translated and further enhanced with modern day tools and technologies. An important step in this direction is to nurture the idea of learning about the site’s context, from its culture and history to its regional architecture, which can help understand what has worked and what has not worked in the specific conditions, therefore allowing for an improved understanding of building orientation, climatic responses, and unique design elements, amongst other factors.
Contextual Approach to Climatic Resilience
The contextual approach can be a great tool to combat the challenges that are being faced by the architectural fraternity. For instance, the act of understanding the local architecture of a region facing excessive hot summers can in turn allow for an understanding of how communities have built previously to keep their abodes resilient, hence allowing for creative methods of implementation of this know-how for a modern structure which sits in the same geographic conditions. An able representation of this would be ‘The Eastgate’ – an office and shopping centre by Mick Pearce in Harare, Zimbabwe. The design takes learnings from the local context which is reflected in its decision to move away from traditional glass-cladded facades and instead go with the choice of local stone (Mick Pearce, 2016). The architect has also put up an impressive ventilation solution that takes inspiration from termite mounds, based on the stack effect for ventilation. This underscores the opportunities for creative solutions that lie around us, only if we try to venture on the path of understanding the context and nature that exists around us.
Coolant, led by Monish Siripurapu, is one more example of how modern-day innovations can build on the collective knowledge that forms our architectural heritage. As a building cooling system, Coolant leverages the age-old principles of earthen pots and a system of running water, which accentuates the evaporative cooling technique to reduce the temperatures of the surrounding spaces. This innovative approach demonstrates a sustainable solution to conventional cooling systems and is, furthermore, a testament to the solution to today’s global problems by re-interpreting regional practices.
Contextual Approach to Architectural Language
While the Eastgate Center and Coolant serve as examples of a contextual approach to climatic challenges, the James Simon Galleria by David Chipperfield Architects serves as an example of a contextual approach to architectural language. The structure sits in the complex context of a UNESCO World Heritage Site and still manages to maintain a conversation with the surrounding Neues and the Pergamon Museum. David Chipperfield uses the colonnade as a tool to continue the architectural language and to seamlessly place the new receiving area for the Museum Islands in a historically rich context. Furthermore, the architect had explored multiple options for the materiality, from borrowing the classical stone to an early proposal of satin glass and steel, but eventually resorted to the use of sleek white concrete columns that impart a distinctive character to the structure (Heathcote, 2019). The colonnade’s architecture is a tale of borrowing, reinterpreting, and bridging connections with its surroundings.
“It is not the gesture of wanting to build in another place – but the lack of any understanding of the soil on which the bridge must be built.”
The fundamental insight that can be highlighted from multiple such examples is that the potential future can be a host to architecture that finds a balance between the idea of a global language and local context. This approach ensures that the architectural outputs will be a more sustainable, culturally resonant, and relevant addition to the urban fabric of the city. The onus is on the hands of architects, educators, and communities to collectively work towards a built environment that is both innovative and deeply connected to its roots.
References:
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Brazier, D. (2008) The pink-hued Eastgate Centre, with its distinctive chimneys, Wikipedia Commons. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastgate_Centre,_Harare#/media/File:Eastgate_Centre,_Harare,_Zimbabwe.jpg (Accessed: 28 June 2024).
Correa, C. (2012) ‘Roots and Bridges’, in A Place in the Shade : The New Landscape and Other Essays. Ostfildern, Germany: Hatje Cantz, pp. 160–160.
Damonte, B. (2016) 93 Reade Street, Bruce Damonte. Available at: https://www.brucedamonte.com/projects/93-reade-street/ (Accessed: 28 June 2024).
Heathcote, E. (2019) ‘Can David Chipperfield’s new gallery in Berlin reconcile past and present?’, Financial Times, 25 July, p. 14.
Jilden, A. (2014) Aerial Photography of City Buildings with Lights, Unsplash. Available at: https://unsplash.com/photos/aerial-photography-of-city-buildings-with-lights-nxCtO8W9JLo (Accessed: 27 June 2024).
Pearce, M. (2016) Eastgate Building Harare, Mick Pearce. Available at: https://www.mickpearce.com/Eastgate.html (Accessed: 27 June 2024).
Zscharnt, U. (2019) Connection with Pergamon Museum, ArchDaily. Available at: https://www.archdaily.com/926033/james-simon-galerie-david-chipperfield-architects/5d9b24c5284dd1fb47000023-james-simon-galerie-david-chipperfield-architects-photo?next_project=no (Accessed: 29 June 2024).
