Interior environments often seem numb to the dynamics of the city. When we enter a building we rarely think of the effect that materials, construction and configuration play in the detachment of the interior from the exterior; it takes extreme conditions to make us think about the role the building envelope plays.
One layer of the ice screen: 12- gauge welded wire mesh. As a preliminary test the wire mesh was left outside during the winter and misted with water.
Michael Blois
THE BUILDING ENVELOPE
architecture | phenomena by michael blois
fi lters weather seasons pattern exposure
separation | mediation
We understand space in a haptic way – our judgement of depth, distance and time as we move from one place to another is drawn from surrounding materials and visual clues. Technology and advances in construction allow a strict control of interior environments so that they feel completely independent, detaching us from daily cycles, varying conditions, moments of intensity and calm in favour of a consistent neutrality. Traditionally, the building envelope mediates between fluctuating exterior conditions and a steady and protected interior. Recently, this mediation has become a separation between two distinct conditions. Inside/outside relationships are not so romantic that we should abandon current practices and return to vernacular building systems, instead this proposal experiments with contemporary materials and spatial configurations to re-establish connections between the body and the greater environment. a strategy of intensities Consider the Parkdale Library on Queen Street West, that sits in a dynamic mix of businesses, local shops families and individuals of all socio-economic groups. In contrast to this outside activity, the interior quiet of a library makes one aware of noise – the sound of steps on different surfaces, how a voice travels through the building. As a way to extend this already heightened awareness, this project proposes that the building itself could become more transparent to other elements: outside temperature, wind, dirt and dust, sound and seasons. Consider a reading space and an open area for community events where the building envelope is a series of permeable layers that create a thermal and experiential gradient condition. Aside from the extremes of winter and summer, the building is filled with breezes and the sounds of the city.
The façade as a series of layers that take the traditional separator and expand it to operate as a gradient.This gradient condition offers the possibility for an increased sensory engagement since the interior environment is transformed from a tightly controlled and protected space, to one that resembles the fluctuating condition of the exterior.
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