this question is ALMOST as open-ended as 'how would you make an architecture...?'
personally i'd be less interested in an architecture that was ergonomically perfect for the average person and more in an architecture that's universally accommodating of every person.
Archigram had a project for an interior space that was moldable to the use: want to sit down? Part of the floor and wall push forward to make a bench. Need a dining area? The bench fades away and a table folds from the wall while "chairs" rise up from the floor. it was all very blobby and intestine-interior-like. I can't recall now which project it was, maybe the Living Pod, maybe the Cushicle?
With today's technologies there is no reason this couldn't work nt only to make generic chair shapes but chairs that are specifically suited to the bodies of the people in the space at the time. You'd just have to walk through a full-body scanner as you enter.
If looking for the target of Ergonomics, it is not aimed at the "hypothetical average person", but at fulfilling the needs of the 5th to 95th percentile (of human variation, be that physical shape or mental capacity, or visual acuity etc....) in some base design, and appreciating the adaptation required for those who occupy the extremes.
From my point of view, Architecture is on a different scale from Ergonomics. The transition in scale from individual, human and Ergonomic (supporting someone in their work), to mass occupancy, social organisation and Architecture (supporting groups in their shared goals), is clear.
Perhaps you are interested in applying Ergonomic techniques within the spaces pre-defined by an Architecture to support particular (ranges of) activities, or perhaps you are looking at the programme of the prospective users of your space, and mapping out a programmatic Architecture which informs the built product.
There is design of the "work", and there is planning the work space (physical and cognitive and social), and there is space planning, and there is...
Architecture?
Perhaps you mean an architecture that is, at these component levels, and at the Gestalt, oriented to the human, and the meta-human.
Do you mean putting Ergonomics at the top of your design priorities, such that branding, or bling, or cost, are subjugated to the human requirements?
Are you trying to invent a typology where the Ergonomic imperative is expressed in the built form, as Rogers would express the building services?
Non-slip flooring, non-glare screens, distinct lack of trip hazards, rest and exercise areas, ubiquitous personalisation?
"this question is ALMOST as open-ended as 'how would you make an architecture...?'
personally i'd be less interested in an architecture that was ergonomically perfect for the average person and more in an architecture that's universally accommodating of every person."
-STEVEN WARD
I am interested in that too, but that's what I am asking myself, how would design a program that accommodates for every person? Like Sou Fujimoto's wooden house approach?
A blob seems like a good way to do it but that's not realistic to do such a thing.
and Yes, I am still doing "extreme ergonomics" as my sensibility, psyarch. I realize I've fallen into my own trap, and it's too late to change it since I have four weeks left to finalize a project. I am still trying to find a universal design that will accommodate any person, more in a way that Sou Fujimoto did the wooden house. It's completely versatile without any limitations to one person. I will respond more when the rest of your comment, I have to go to class.
I appreciate and want to say thanks in advance to those who comment with suggestions and ideas; I just want to see how other people imagine an ergonomic house.
"Perhaps you are interested in applying Ergonomic techniques within the spaces pre-defined by an Architecture to support particular (ranges of) activities, or perhaps you are looking at the programme of the prospective users of your space, and mapping out a programmatic Architecture which informs the built product."
-PSYARCH
The first sentence would be more of my approach to this ergonomic project.
I am imagining the project to be from....HOTEL PUERTA by ZAHA HADID AND(!) KATHRYN FINDLAY to Sou Fujimoto Wooden House.
What you seem to be missing, is that Ergonomics is about designing to the strengths and the limitations of the human.
Form/system/structure is derived from the desired operational output and physical/cognitive support that the human-in-the-loop requires to enact that output.
Ergonomics does not look like Zaha. Your aesthetic requirements might look like Zaha. Ergonomics does not have an aesthetic.
This is why I liken it to a programmatic architecture.
hey psyarch, would you please explain a little more with this
"This is why I liken it to a programmatic architecture."
So far in my approach in designing, I have separated the house by it's programs
Living room
kitchen
bath
bedrooms
and within each room, I design a specific section that coherently works with that specific room; such as a wall that sticks out in which it can be a chair in one size, but as you move further along, this "wall that sticks out" becomes larger and larger and one can perceive it as a bed.
so in Rhino 4.0 language, i design two template sections, each has a different design, and I loft them through one room, each template with a different size and etc.
The link is on that page - follow the OMA/Koolhaas link to the Lemoine house, follow further links to the trailer for the video, see a house designed with a disabled man in mind.
As per your last thread, where I mentioned JJ Gibson's notion of affordances, you are talking about a wall that affords sleeping.
Psychologist James J. Gibson originally introduced the term in his 1977 article The Theory of Affordances[1] and explored it more fully in his book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception[2] in 1979. He defined affordances as all "action possibilities" latent in the environment, objectively measurable and independent of the individual's ability to recognize them, but always in relation to the actor and therefore dependent on their capabilities. For instance, a set of steps which rises four feet high does not afford the act of climbing if the actor is a crawling infant. Gibson's is the prevalent definition in cognitive psychology.
Jakob von Uexküll had already discussed the concept in the early twentieth century,[3] calling it the "functional colouring" (funktionale Tönung) of objects.
Perhaps you are talking about an "Architecture of Mixed/Merged Affordances"
"or perhaps you are looking at the programme of the prospective users of your space, and mapping out a programmatic Architecture which informs the built product."
PSYARCH
I am interested in this.....would you care to elucidate this more and perhaps a general design approach to this topic?
This sounds a bit simplistic, but you might take a look at contemporary playground design, as well as some of the more "experimental" playground designs from the 60s. There were some awesome concrete designs by Noguchi, for example.
Playgrounds are basically made to be safe and highly touchable - every element can interract with the body. Seems like a good starting point.
OK, as I've tried to detail, then what you would be expressing is the programme, and the human actions that you are supporting. Almost like the cast of the actions that you are supporting/encapsulating in your space.
Thus you must understand the programme of the occupants, and their particular whimsy, and your space is designed to meet, gently, the edges of the human presence.
Ergonomics is the study of the human in action, and bringing the contact points with the physical, cognitive and social world to the fingertips (and eyes and thoughts and feelings) of the human-in-action.
Again - there is no aesthetic. It is not a typology. Unless the aesthetic sensibility of your client is paramount to their comfort, then it does not feature in your ergonomic analysis.
Your ergonomic analysis feeds into your design process along with the other necessary concerns of any design process.
i thought architecture was "ergonomical" per se, i might be wrong (again)
"...Ergonomics is the scientific discipline concerned with designing according to the human needs, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance..."
I suppose I'm hung up on the idea that if an ergonomic piece of furniture looks like an Aeron chair then an ergonomical piece of architecture should look like a the inside of a body.
Coop Himmelblau did a project in 1969, then revisited it recently for the Biennale, called "Feedback Space". Link to it here. It's a transparent space you walk into and grab a set of handles that then read your blood pressure and heart rate. That information is then projected onto/into the environment via lights and sound (is what i gather, I haven't seen it in action).
Now take that a step further: what if you walk into a space and it senses your blood pressure then responds correctively to that information. If you're stressed, the space changes to a soothing blue (chromatherapy) and releases the scent of lavender (aromatherapy). If you're tired it gives you red and mint. Over time this space could learn what works and doesn't for you and respond appropriately - maybe the yellow that's supposed to make you cheerful actually reminds you of your third grade classroom where you used to get beat up all the time, so yellow is now used when you have a big meeting and have to get revved up for it.
I guess I'm veering out of ergonomics. Or ergonomics is too limited a term?
If and ergonomic chair or accessory or other object is molded to the shape of the body, maybe an ergonomic architecture simply increases the scale from a person to *people*.
What would a building or space that is formed to respond to a group or a crowd different? I don't think it necessarily means it is organic in form, because a people don't occupy a building by sitting in it or grabbing it... People occupy space by for one thing, standing on floor plane... Space can be compressed to respond to a small group, or opened up to respond to a larger group... Accoustic quality of the space affects how a group occupies it... Also, occupants are not static, they move through space so spaces deal with flows, maybe densities of occupation? Paths and densities of travel?
Ergonomics in architecture depends on use. How the space is occupied, what kind of performance occurs there defines what ergonomics for that space means. Just as an Aeron chair is not erganomic for somebody to do push-ups or hand-stands on it. The Aeron chair has a carefully thought out response to the structure of the body, a very specific intended use, way it is supposed to be occupied.
In the same way, maybe ergonomic architecture requires empathy. An understanding of the structure and behavior of a group of occupants. Empathy and design...
Coop himmelbau's feedback space project is too technological for this project. In my eyes, I am at the brim of starting anew because it is merely impossible to see architecture entirely designed by ergonomics. or for ergonomics. or from ergonomics.
Although ergonomics will be in mind, it will not be the main FOCUS.
as above, before, through and after: Ergonomics is a design process. It is not the entire design process.
The feedback space as described by LB maps onto your pursuance of an "Extreme Ergonomics" in your previous thread.
BRink, empathy is a start, but it is not analysis. When empathising, the understanding is necessarily gravitating towards personal experience, and thus biased.
Yes, as above, looking at the movement of people as opposed to the actions of a person is totally valid, and generally thought of at the level of the programme. However, it is still on the level of the individual that people derive information from and physically interact with the designed space; A group can form and unform. My body remains intact: Body is the unit for Ergonomic analysis.
psyarch, sure maybe an ergonomic design should be based on observations and analysis, but personal experience is certainly relevant. all things contain some bias, including a poll or some manufactured model of human behavior... data can only take you so far... ultimately, users are human beings not robots so the largest and most reliable test sample is that of human experience, inductive and also deductive logic... common sense. Although it's valuable to be systematic in using that information as a a design tool, better not to overdo it or get too obsessed in the method over the result.
The body may be a unit for egonomic analysis, but understanding how a room or a building relates to the body cannot be separated from an understanding of the kind of activity that body is engaging in. The body in motion, or the body at rest, the social and cultural aspects to the activity, how the space performs... program defining the volumes or relationships of the spaces.
a blobby building that thinks it is ergonomic may or may not be just silly...
so i should design a building that looks like a blob and the inside, each spaces, such as the living room, or the kitchen have a specific profile for an ergonomic purpose?
well take a bedroom for example. To keep the fluidity and the continuity of the walls, and to make it a little more ergonomic, the walls help profile the bed and a desk. is that ergonomic enough?
A kitchen- some walls extrude out to become shelves, the floors underneath rise up, or involute to create a counter or a kitchen top.
A living room......couches? how can one make space that isn't redundant throughout the house? 3/4 of the spaces need a "chair" or some sort of "bench to bed" profile. You see, how I imagined before was that a profile of a chair can be stretched out to become a bed, but knowing that most programs need this kind of profile, it's a little boring. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, how can this shape the form of the exterior other than a box?
the ergonomic input should be observation/measurement/precedent based.
bRink, you say "the largest and most reliable test sample is that of human experience". Yes, but not your individual experience. The measurement is of the masses: the tall, the short, the clever and the stupid, the friendly and the autistic, the experiences recorded in Ergonomic analyses are theirs, not those of the person doing the measurement/design.
bRink, note also, I'm not obsessing. As above, I'm saying Ergonomics is one set of methods among many, and among those many are methods that use your personal "everyman" experience.
bRink, read my posts above. When I'm saying body is the unit, I'm including in that body a mind, and watching it in motion, in purposeful action, in cultural evolution...
i already put up the white flag a couple days back on this sensibility.
It does not produce enough form that I can accept. what a total waste of two weeks
It shouldn't be a waste, and I think I said some time ago that Ergonomics is not aesthetically- or form-driven. If you can incorporate the methods into your future work, your work will be richer for it.
in the beginning, i used a shell with the operation involute to help achieve ergonomics because the involution helped shaped the walls into an ergonomic design, but the project was too space focused and not externally formed, which I wanted to be more about. Of course, the given operations are just a few examples that could be done on the particular material, but you may find new ones as well.
some sensibility have came up in mind,
-extreme continuity
-indoor/outdoor ( <--trying to find a better phrase for it)
-from line to mass
still thinking of a better sensibility to have that I can use with some of these operations and materials
^ yes, I thank for that suggestion. It is why I kind of given up on that because I want something that is aesthetically form driven, but of course, ill keep ergonomic in mind.
continuity despite structural discontinuity
soft lining, rigid shell
contained aeration
modularity breeds diversity
extreme seriality
from line to mass
lightweight mass
psyarch, well i think it's funny because in school my design thesis engaged specifically the question some people are raising: People are different and diverse... So within in a heterogeneous context, how do you make an architecture that is multiple rather than singular in it's reading, that is designed for diverse users?
bRink, you say "the largest and most reliable test sample is that of human experience". Yes, but not your individual experience. The measurement is of the masses: the tall, the short, the clever and the stupid, the friendly and the autistic, the experiences recorded in Ergonomic analyses are theirs, not those of the person doing the measurement/design."My point isn't that everyone is the same or that people are *like me*... The point I was trying to make is that, alot of the time, trusting intuition and common sense, even if it is not documented is *more accurate* than extremely oversimplified conclusions drawn from limited test data. I do mean personal experience-- My own individual experience, just as your individual experience-- has been one giant test sample of sensory observations of surroundings, and people, and things.
More often, people conduct pseudo-scientific studies to confirm things that they've already observed, hypotheses that they've already drawn, and they understand intuitively, the knowledge that they share with those tall and short people and would be just as convincing if you were simply to have a conversation with them and relate a common experience you've shared. Empathy by definition means understanding somebody else, being able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes... Sure we carry all of our individual cultural baggage and biases and misconceptions with us, etc. but our entire lives are exercises in observation, or our surroundings, of other people, of how things work and how things feel... We are different shapes and sizes and colors and genders, etc. but from the day we were born, we bumped our heads on the same tables and stubbed our toes on the same corners, etc. Empathy doesn't mean that we assume everybody is like us, it means that we try to engage in a capacity to relate to somebody else, their situation... Some people are better at empathy, some people are not, and some people are incapable of empathy in which case they become social outcasts... People can walk on flat surfaces... Sure, I might start rolling around on the floor and leaning up against the wall and smear my face into it as I walk down the hallway, but probably not...
I'm all for experimentation as a means of discovery and design creativity, but at some level, spaces work or they don't, in real life, because of how people engage them... The performance aspect of spaces is critical...
It's always kind of playful and interesting, blobby architecture, sculptural, but pragmatically, which is what *ergonomics is really about, blob buildings are somewhat ridiculous... The majority of people would not be able to use them... If your wall in a space bends and folds and peels away and becomes a bench and then becomes a cabana and a shelf, etc. it's kindof cool, but it is probably actually less ergonomic than a straight corridor with a flat floor, flat ceiling with a rectangular wood bench tucked in a cove to one side so that it doesn't become a trip hazard, and a shelf that complies with ADA code so that blind people won't bump into it, and located at the end of the corridor, and a north-facing room with large curtain window that the corridor opens up to and is pleasant for large gatherings, which swivels out to shaded terrace with an organic shaped hot tub with a couple cabanas sitting at the side. The blob building is interesting and fun but practically silly if nobody would use it in real life... I'm not saying that usefulness is everything, or that we should design primarily to be useful (especially in an archischool studio setting where experimentation and free thinking are key), but ergonomics deals with functionality.
If you're going to design a blob just call it a blob, don't call it ergonomic... Call it a ribbon, call it a modulating pattern, whatever, but don't say it's designed to be "ergonomic" unless it is actually made more useful by it's blobbiness.
And most of the time usefulness, that should be understandable based on common sense or empathetic projection... There *are* commonly shared practical truths, common shared understandings that can be drawn about spaces. There is always also the possiblity of discovering something *new and useful* but we'll know it when we see it... It'll be obvious, not something you need to convince people of based on some pseudo-scientific confusion...
the best literature is specific and personal and honest and, despite being very much written from a singular point of view, reflects something universal.
an architect's work can likewise support a diversity of interests and needs. both the architects' individual experience AND an understanding of empirical/observed information is necessary, but collecting and using the information must be filtered through the architects' own experiences and points of view in order to be synthesized into an architectural proposition.
How Would You Make an ERGONOMICAL ARCHITECTURE?
Like the title says, How would you make an architecture that is entirely ergonomical?
why would you want to design for a hypothetical average person?
why would you not?
is it too vauge?
what do you mean? The parts that need to be ergonomic, like a hand rail, are.
this question is ALMOST as open-ended as 'how would you make an architecture...?'
personally i'd be less interested in an architecture that was ergonomically perfect for the average person and more in an architecture that's universally accommodating of every person.
Archigram had a project for an interior space that was moldable to the use: want to sit down? Part of the floor and wall push forward to make a bench. Need a dining area? The bench fades away and a table folds from the wall while "chairs" rise up from the floor. it was all very blobby and intestine-interior-like. I can't recall now which project it was, maybe the Living Pod, maybe the Cushicle?
With today's technologies there is no reason this couldn't work nt only to make generic chair shapes but chairs that are specifically suited to the bodies of the people in the space at the time. You'd just have to walk through a full-body scanner as you enter.
a blob has to be the answer.
i am more interested in egomaniacal architecture.
[vyan, still going for Extreme Ergonomics?]
If looking for the target of Ergonomics, it is not aimed at the "hypothetical average person", but at fulfilling the needs of the 5th to 95th percentile (of human variation, be that physical shape or mental capacity, or visual acuity etc....) in some base design, and appreciating the adaptation required for those who occupy the extremes.
From my point of view, Architecture is on a different scale from Ergonomics. The transition in scale from individual, human and Ergonomic (supporting someone in their work), to mass occupancy, social organisation and Architecture (supporting groups in their shared goals), is clear.
Perhaps you are interested in applying Ergonomic techniques within the spaces pre-defined by an Architecture to support particular (ranges of) activities, or perhaps you are looking at the programme of the prospective users of your space, and mapping out a programmatic Architecture which informs the built product.
There is design of the "work", and there is planning the work space (physical and cognitive and social), and there is space planning, and there is...
Architecture?
Perhaps you mean an architecture that is, at these component levels, and at the Gestalt, oriented to the human, and the meta-human.
Do you mean putting Ergonomics at the top of your design priorities, such that branding, or bling, or cost, are subjugated to the human requirements?
Are you trying to invent a typology where the Ergonomic imperative is expressed in the built form, as Rogers would express the building services?
Non-slip flooring, non-glare screens, distinct lack of trip hazards, rest and exercise areas, ubiquitous personalisation?
ps, there's no need for the ..al on the end of Ergonomic.
"this question is ALMOST as open-ended as 'how would you make an architecture...?'
personally i'd be less interested in an architecture that was ergonomically perfect for the average person and more in an architecture that's universally accommodating of every person."
-STEVEN WARD
I am interested in that too, but that's what I am asking myself, how would design a program that accommodates for every person? Like Sou Fujimoto's wooden house approach?
A blob seems like a good way to do it but that's not realistic to do such a thing.
and Yes, I am still doing "extreme ergonomics" as my sensibility, psyarch. I realize I've fallen into my own trap, and it's too late to change it since I have four weeks left to finalize a project. I am still trying to find a universal design that will accommodate any person, more in a way that Sou Fujimoto did the wooden house. It's completely versatile without any limitations to one person. I will respond more when the rest of your comment, I have to go to class.
I appreciate and want to say thanks in advance to those who comment with suggestions and ideas; I just want to see how other people imagine an ergonomic house.
"Perhaps you are interested in applying Ergonomic techniques within the spaces pre-defined by an Architecture to support particular (ranges of) activities, or perhaps you are looking at the programme of the prospective users of your space, and mapping out a programmatic Architecture which informs the built product."
-PSYARCH
The first sentence would be more of my approach to this ergonomic project.
I am imagining the project to be from....HOTEL PUERTA by ZAHA HADID AND(!) KATHRYN FINDLAY to Sou Fujimoto Wooden House.
What you seem to be missing, is that Ergonomics is about designing to the strengths and the limitations of the human.
Form/system/structure is derived from the desired operational output and physical/cognitive support that the human-in-the-loop requires to enact that output.
Ergonomics does not look like Zaha. Your aesthetic requirements might look like Zaha. Ergonomics does not have an aesthetic.
This is why I liken it to a programmatic architecture.
Try reading the public sections of The Ergonomics Society website.
Does Zaha design to include. No. She designs for skinny rich people who ski.
what do you get when you polish a turd
you still end up with shit.... just a little harder to hold
hear the prophet
What you are looking for is probably the Lemoine House, by Koolhaas & Balmond in Bordeaux.
LOL that's hilarious.
hey psyarch, would you please explain a little more with this
"This is why I liken it to a programmatic architecture."
So far in my approach in designing, I have separated the house by it's programs
Living room
kitchen
bath
bedrooms
and within each room, I design a specific section that coherently works with that specific room; such as a wall that sticks out in which it can be a chair in one size, but as you move further along, this "wall that sticks out" becomes larger and larger and one can perceive it as a bed.
so in Rhino 4.0 language, i design two template sections, each has a different design, and I loft them through one room, each template with a different size and etc.
was that suppose to be a link of the Lemoine House? if so, i dont think it leads to the correct place
The link is on that page - follow the OMA/Koolhaas link to the Lemoine house, follow further links to the trailer for the video, see a house designed with a disabled man in mind.
As per your last thread, where I mentioned JJ Gibson's notion of affordances, you are talking about a wall that affords sleeping.
From wikipedia:
Affordance:
Psychologist James J. Gibson originally introduced the term in his 1977 article The Theory of Affordances[1] and explored it more fully in his book The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception[2] in 1979. He defined affordances as all "action possibilities" latent in the environment, objectively measurable and independent of the individual's ability to recognize them, but always in relation to the actor and therefore dependent on their capabilities. For instance, a set of steps which rises four feet high does not afford the act of climbing if the actor is a crawling infant. Gibson's is the prevalent definition in cognitive psychology.
Jakob von Uexküll had already discussed the concept in the early twentieth century,[3] calling it the "functional colouring" (funktionale Tönung) of objects.
Perhaps you are talking about an "Architecture of Mixed/Merged Affordances"
Again, I don't think this is Ergonomics.
Try this page for size
cant find that project, anxiously looking for it
delete my previous thread.
well if that's the case, then this might turn out to be a horrible project.
must think...
Well, OK, affordances are a part of Ergonomics.
that's true.
"or perhaps you are looking at the programme of the prospective users of your space, and mapping out a programmatic Architecture which informs the built product."
PSYARCH
I am interested in this.....would you care to elucidate this more and perhaps a general design approach to this topic?
This sounds a bit simplistic, but you might take a look at contemporary playground design, as well as some of the more "experimental" playground designs from the 60s. There were some awesome concrete designs by Noguchi, for example.
Playgrounds are basically made to be safe and highly touchable - every element can interract with the body. Seems like a good starting point.
Liberty Bell-
I am not sure if I can relate well to Noguchi.
the design form coming out of ergonomics is not what i expected.
it's too furniture based and not space.
"Are you trying to invent a typology where the Ergonomic imperative is expressed in the built form, as Rogers would express the building services?"
yes
OK, as I've tried to detail, then what you would be expressing is the programme, and the human actions that you are supporting. Almost like the cast of the actions that you are supporting/encapsulating in your space.
Thus you must understand the programme of the occupants, and their particular whimsy, and your space is designed to meet, gently, the edges of the human presence.
Ergonomics is the study of the human in action, and bringing the contact points with the physical, cognitive and social world to the fingertips (and eyes and thoughts and feelings) of the human-in-action.
Again - there is no aesthetic. It is not a typology. Unless the aesthetic sensibility of your client is paramount to their comfort, then it does not feature in your ergonomic analysis.
Your ergonomic analysis feeds into your design process along with the other necessary concerns of any design process.
i thought architecture was "ergonomical" per se, i might be wrong (again)
"...Ergonomics is the scientific discipline concerned with designing according to the human needs, and the profession that applies theory, principles, data and methods to design in order to optimize human well-being and overall system performance..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergonomics
*correction
Unless the aesthetic sensibility of your client is paramount to their performance, then it does not feature in your ergonomic analysis
Architecture can incorporate Ergonomic (there is no ...al on the end) concerns. Equally it often doesn't.
I suppose I'm hung up on the idea that if an ergonomic piece of furniture looks like an Aeron chair then an ergonomical piece of architecture should look like a the inside of a body.
Coop Himmelblau did a project in 1969, then revisited it recently for the Biennale, called "Feedback Space". Link to it here. It's a transparent space you walk into and grab a set of handles that then read your blood pressure and heart rate. That information is then projected onto/into the environment via lights and sound (is what i gather, I haven't seen it in action).
Now take that a step further: what if you walk into a space and it senses your blood pressure then responds correctively to that information. If you're stressed, the space changes to a soothing blue (chromatherapy) and releases the scent of lavender (aromatherapy). If you're tired it gives you red and mint. Over time this space could learn what works and doesn't for you and respond appropriately - maybe the yellow that's supposed to make you cheerful actually reminds you of your third grade classroom where you used to get beat up all the time, so yellow is now used when you have a big meeting and have to get revved up for it.
I guess I'm veering out of ergonomics. Or ergonomics is too limited a term?
If and ergonomic chair or accessory or other object is molded to the shape of the body, maybe an ergonomic architecture simply increases the scale from a person to *people*.
What would a building or space that is formed to respond to a group or a crowd different? I don't think it necessarily means it is organic in form, because a people don't occupy a building by sitting in it or grabbing it... People occupy space by for one thing, standing on floor plane... Space can be compressed to respond to a small group, or opened up to respond to a larger group... Accoustic quality of the space affects how a group occupies it... Also, occupants are not static, they move through space so spaces deal with flows, maybe densities of occupation? Paths and densities of travel?
Ergonomics in architecture depends on use. How the space is occupied, what kind of performance occurs there defines what ergonomics for that space means. Just as an Aeron chair is not erganomic for somebody to do push-ups or hand-stands on it. The Aeron chair has a carefully thought out response to the structure of the body, a very specific intended use, way it is supposed to be occupied.
In the same way, maybe ergonomic architecture requires empathy. An understanding of the structure and behavior of a group of occupants. Empathy and design...
Coop himmelbau's feedback space project is too technological for this project. In my eyes, I am at the brim of starting anew because it is merely impossible to see architecture entirely designed by ergonomics. or for ergonomics. or from ergonomics.
Although ergonomics will be in mind, it will not be the main FOCUS.
vyan,
as above, before, through and after: Ergonomics is a design process. It is not the entire design process.
The feedback space as described by LB maps onto your pursuance of an "Extreme Ergonomics" in your previous thread.
BRink, empathy is a start, but it is not analysis. When empathising, the understanding is necessarily gravitating towards personal experience, and thus biased.
Yes, as above, looking at the movement of people as opposed to the actions of a person is totally valid, and generally thought of at the level of the programme. However, it is still on the level of the individual that people derive information from and physically interact with the designed space; A group can form and unform. My body remains intact: Body is the unit for Ergonomic analysis.
psyarch, sure maybe an ergonomic design should be based on observations and analysis, but personal experience is certainly relevant. all things contain some bias, including a poll or some manufactured model of human behavior... data can only take you so far... ultimately, users are human beings not robots so the largest and most reliable test sample is that of human experience, inductive and also deductive logic... common sense. Although it's valuable to be systematic in using that information as a a design tool, better not to overdo it or get too obsessed in the method over the result.
The body may be a unit for egonomic analysis, but understanding how a room or a building relates to the body cannot be separated from an understanding of the kind of activity that body is engaging in. The body in motion, or the body at rest, the social and cultural aspects to the activity, how the space performs... program defining the volumes or relationships of the spaces.
a blobby building that thinks it is ergonomic may or may not be just silly...
so i should design a building that looks like a blob and the inside, each spaces, such as the living room, or the kitchen have a specific profile for an ergonomic purpose?
well take a bedroom for example. To keep the fluidity and the continuity of the walls, and to make it a little more ergonomic, the walls help profile the bed and a desk. is that ergonomic enough?
A kitchen- some walls extrude out to become shelves, the floors underneath rise up, or involute to create a counter or a kitchen top.
A living room......couches? how can one make space that isn't redundant throughout the house? 3/4 of the spaces need a "chair" or some sort of "bench to bed" profile. You see, how I imagined before was that a profile of a chair can be stretched out to become a bed, but knowing that most programs need this kind of profile, it's a little boring. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, how can this shape the form of the exterior other than a box?
and how one might approach in organizing an ergonomic architecture?
do we list programs and the activities that go along with it?
is that a systematic enough approach for diagramming or to a design approach?
the ergonomic input should be observation/measurement/precedent based.
bRink, you say "the largest and most reliable test sample is that of human experience". Yes, but not your individual experience. The measurement is of the masses: the tall, the short, the clever and the stupid, the friendly and the autistic, the experiences recorded in Ergonomic analyses are theirs, not those of the person doing the measurement/design.
bRink, note also, I'm not obsessing. As above, I'm saying Ergonomics is one set of methods among many, and among those many are methods that use your personal "everyman" experience.
bRink, read my posts above. When I'm saying body is the unit, I'm including in that body a mind, and watching it in motion, in purposeful action, in cultural evolution...
[bRink, perhaps you are just baiting me]
[vyan, perhaps you are just baiting me]
perhaps.
i already put up the white flag a couple days back on this sensibility.
It does not produce enough form that I can accept. what a total waste of two weeks
It shouldn't be a waste, and I think I said some time ago that Ergonomics is not aesthetically- or form-driven. If you can incorporate the methods into your future work, your work will be richer for it.
Now i must find a new sensibility that can be derived from these
materials:
shell
frame
slab
with these operations:
shell: involute, aggregate, intersect, fold
frame: shape, stretch, compress, thicken, multiply, array, nest
slabs: slice, bend, stretch, pinch, modulate, perforate
in the beginning, i used a shell with the operation involute to help achieve ergonomics because the involution helped shaped the walls into an ergonomic design, but the project was too space focused and not externally formed, which I wanted to be more about. Of course, the given operations are just a few examples that could be done on the particular material, but you may find new ones as well.
some sensibility have came up in mind,
-extreme continuity
-indoor/outdoor ( <--trying to find a better phrase for it)
-from line to mass
still thinking of a better sensibility to have that I can use with some of these operations and materials
^ yes, I thank for that suggestion. It is why I kind of given up on that because I want something that is aesthetically form driven, but of course, ill keep ergonomic in mind.
some more sensibility
continuity despite structural discontinuity
soft lining, rigid shell
contained aeration
modularity breeds diversity
extreme seriality
from line to mass
lightweight mass
so does any of these entice anyone here?
any suggestions, thoughts, ideas you would want to do with these preliminary conditions
psyarch, well i think it's funny because in school my design thesis engaged specifically the question some people are raising: People are different and diverse... So within in a heterogeneous context, how do you make an architecture that is multiple rather than singular in it's reading, that is designed for diverse users?
bRink, you say "the largest and most reliable test sample is that of human experience". Yes, but not your individual experience. The measurement is of the masses: the tall, the short, the clever and the stupid, the friendly and the autistic, the experiences recorded in Ergonomic analyses are theirs, not those of the person doing the measurement/design."My point isn't that everyone is the same or that people are *like me*... The point I was trying to make is that, alot of the time, trusting intuition and common sense, even if it is not documented is *more accurate* than extremely oversimplified conclusions drawn from limited test data. I do mean personal experience-- My own individual experience, just as your individual experience-- has been one giant test sample of sensory observations of surroundings, and people, and things.More often, people conduct pseudo-scientific studies to confirm things that they've already observed, hypotheses that they've already drawn, and they understand intuitively, the knowledge that they share with those tall and short people and would be just as convincing if you were simply to have a conversation with them and relate a common experience you've shared. Empathy by definition means understanding somebody else, being able to put yourself in somebody else's shoes... Sure we carry all of our individual cultural baggage and biases and misconceptions with us, etc. but our entire lives are exercises in observation, or our surroundings, of other people, of how things work and how things feel... We are different shapes and sizes and colors and genders, etc. but from the day we were born, we bumped our heads on the same tables and stubbed our toes on the same corners, etc. Empathy doesn't mean that we assume everybody is like us, it means that we try to engage in a capacity to relate to somebody else, their situation... Some people are better at empathy, some people are not, and some people are incapable of empathy in which case they become social outcasts... People can walk on flat surfaces... Sure, I might start rolling around on the floor and leaning up against the wall and smear my face into it as I walk down the hallway, but probably not...
I'm all for experimentation as a means of discovery and design creativity, but at some level, spaces work or they don't, in real life, because of how people engage them... The performance aspect of spaces is critical...
It's always kind of playful and interesting, blobby architecture, sculptural, but pragmatically, which is what *ergonomics is really about, blob buildings are somewhat ridiculous... The majority of people would not be able to use them... If your wall in a space bends and folds and peels away and becomes a bench and then becomes a cabana and a shelf, etc. it's kindof cool, but it is probably actually less ergonomic than a straight corridor with a flat floor, flat ceiling with a rectangular wood bench tucked in a cove to one side so that it doesn't become a trip hazard, and a shelf that complies with ADA code so that blind people won't bump into it, and located at the end of the corridor, and a north-facing room with large curtain window that the corridor opens up to and is pleasant for large gatherings, which swivels out to shaded terrace with an organic shaped hot tub with a couple cabanas sitting at the side. The blob building is interesting and fun but practically silly if nobody would use it in real life... I'm not saying that usefulness is everything, or that we should design primarily to be useful (especially in an archischool studio setting where experimentation and free thinking are key), but ergonomics deals with functionality.
If you're going to design a blob just call it a blob, don't call it ergonomic... Call it a ribbon, call it a modulating pattern, whatever, but don't say it's designed to be "ergonomic" unless it is actually made more useful by it's blobbiness.
And most of the time usefulness, that should be understandable based on common sense or empathetic projection... There *are* commonly shared practical truths, common shared understandings that can be drawn about spaces. There is always also the possiblity of discovering something *new and useful* but we'll know it when we see it... It'll be obvious, not something you need to convince people of based on some pseudo-scientific confusion...
there is a parallel to literature here.
the best literature is specific and personal and honest and, despite being very much written from a singular point of view, reflects something universal.
an architect's work can likewise support a diversity of interests and needs. both the architects' individual experience AND an understanding of empirical/observed information is necessary, but collecting and using the information must be filtered through the architects' own experiences and points of view in order to be synthesized into an architectural proposition.
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