NATURALISATION

Jake Taylor -359292

Without Nature We Cannot Survive...

Contents PaGE:

Chapter 1: The Evolution Of The Seperation From Nature

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Chapter 2: Nature + Its Importance To Me

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Chapter 3: What Is Nature?

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Chapter 4: Biophilic Interventions

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Chapter 5: Finale

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NATURE...

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Our ancestors lived within it.

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Our ancestors relied on it to survive.

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It is inherently a part of who we are.

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Why deprive ourselves of it?

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You wouldnt live without oxygen or water.

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Why are we trying to live without nature?

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Our body craves it.

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Our mind longs for it.

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Deprivation impacts us both mentally and physically.

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Why are we developing a culture that separates itself from it?

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Nature is vital.

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Nature is primordial.

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Nature needs to be integrated into contemporary design.

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Nature is both the past and the future of design.

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Harmony between nature and built forms can be achieved once again.

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Without nature we cannot survive.

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The Naturalisation of built forms can be achieved once again.

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Chapter 1: The Evolution of the Separation from Nature

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From our ancestral times man has lived in and around nature and relied on it as a primary source for food, shelter and livelihoods and consequently it is inherently 1 ingrained in our most basic desires.

However as humans and their built forms have evolved there has been a progressive shift away from human kinds connection with nature.

This move is causing vast degradation to the human regime and impacting people more then they realise.

It is crucial that we reverse this trend towards the separation of humans and their natural environment!

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This disconnection can be most explicitly seen in urban sprawl suburbs of Melbourne.

Point Cook Urban Sprawl In Melbourne

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These developer driven suburbs reiterate the problem with the importance that they place on maximizing the floorspace of their houses at the expense of a backyard or any connection to nature.

These suburbs need to be addressed and fixed quickly to alter this negative evolutionary progression!

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Developed grassland after developed grassland, with street after street, of house after house that is joined directly wall after wall, suffocating person after person of their natural desire to connect with nature.

These new culture creations have no room for nature, no room for external space, no room for permeable materials and most importantly no room for a sustainable lifestyle.

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Sick Suburbs.

Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the Cancer cell
Edward Abbey
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These ideals are also evident through the evolution of cost efficient designs stripped of natural aspects.5

The focus on profit margins and achieving the maximum lettable floor area at the expense of the needs of the occupants has been a key undertone of 20th century design.

This has been seen most clearly in the evolution in the development of high rise density and their sparcely artificial environments.

An artificial office cubical environment.

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Rem koolhaas proposed the ideal of the city within a city - where all required programs can be housed 6 within the one skyscraper form. Modern skyscrapers are pushing towards these ideals developed by koolhaas. However if you are trying to develop a city within a city then why is there a tendancy for nature to be omitted - at vast deprivation to its occupants?

As Without nature we cannot survive. It is crucial that it is included to ensure a positive future for all.

The D.A.C.: A City Within a City 6

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Case Study:

Brunswick Street Commission Housing.

Does this Simple Biophilic Intervention create:

- a more positive culture?

- A better opportunity for a higher quality of life?

- More Hope + optimism?

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7%

More Efficient

Improvement in Child Learning

20-26%

Studies show that those who are connected with nature are enhanced in the following ways: 7

Improvement in School Test Scores

18%

Reduced Need on MedicaTIONS

10%

56%
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More Relaxed
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Increase in Depression Rates

15%

more employee sick day absences

Also those who are not connected with nature are impacted in the follwing manners: 7

10%

annual loss in New York City due to poor Productivity

$470million

Increase in Crime Rates

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7%

Shorter Hospital Stay

These positives have been most evidently shown in the crucial environment of Hospitals.

8.5%

Quicker Healing Rates

It has been shown that Hospital patients who have a connection with nature are advantaged through: 7

A Gross Potential Annual Saving of

$93,324,031.00
in America.

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Chapter 2: Nature + its importance to me

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For the first 18 years of my life I knew nothing but the joys of being immersed within the splendor of our natural environment.

The beauty of waking up to the chirp of an array of birds on dusk ready for another busy day, or the rush of fresh country air on my face as I used to ride through sparse farmland to the bus stop, or the smell of the blossoming canola as spring finally breaks after a crisp smog free winter, or the glorious sunsets that seemed to engulf the entire horizon in a blaze of crimson and gold similar to the bushfires that ravage the skylines during summer.

This natural beauty was inherent in my daily ethos and I admit that I perhaps took the country beauty of the area for granted until a major moment in my life. This moment prompted me to realize and analyse the aspects which are most important to allowing myself to live a happy and fulfilling life.
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This moment was my move to Melbourne.

This move involved a 4 hour car drive, covering 365kms, through 11 shires and 13 different towns to what felt like a different world.

A world that had a different focus, a world that I felt placed greater importance on the unnatural then the natural, a world that concentrated on the ability to make money not the ability to have a high quality way of life.

Can the disconnection be any further away?

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I was disenchanted with this somewhat foreign lands separation from nature.

The sense of incompleteness seemed to be intertwined throughout the urban area strangling the area of its intrinsic passion and vigour that nature provides to a space.

Could they be any more different?

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This growing separation from nature is creating a depressed landscape.

Deprived at every step from the fundamental desire to connect with the ancestral environment.

Do we really want to create a generation of deprived and depressed urban dwellers who are forced to live in a manner that goes against everything their body desires?

Bill Henson - Untitled 2009/10

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Robin Boyd - Walsh St House

Which workspace would you prefer?

A disconnected from nature officespace.

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The recent evolution of architecture has incited spaces that deprive people of access to daylight and natural ventilation and have been constructed in an unarticulated and unthoughtful manner as it is viewed as the most cost-effective manner.

However this isnt true.

Natural aspects and connections can be implemented quite cheaply.

Vastly improving the quality of the space that can still be viewed as quite cost effective.

Biophilic Interventions shouldnt be viewed as boutique luxury but instead as an affordable necessity.

Biophilic Design doesnt need to be extravagent - often the opposite as seen in Tadao Andos Church of Light.
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Tadao Ando - Church of Light

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Chapter 3: What Is Nature?

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A persons connection with nature goes far beyond purely the physical.

A persons bond is a full sensory engagement with tectonics.

As expressed through the ideals of Steven Holl: ...only the architecture itself offers the tactile sensations of textured stone surfaces and polished wooden pews, the experience of light changing with movement, the smell and resonant sounds of space, the bodily relations of scale and proportion. All these sensations combine within one complex experience, which becomes aniculate and specific, though wordless. The building speaks through the silence of perceptual phenomena.
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Steven Holl

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Holls ideals go beyond the simple implementation of plant life and progresses towards creating a phenomenological space that is able to activate and excite the senses.

A place of zen, a cultivator of creativity, an emotional purifier.

These designs dont require a drastic budget they just require the articulation that developers dont feel is necessary.

To truly activate nature all of its aspects need to be analysed and critiqued.

These aspects are:

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Peter Zumthor - Therme Vals

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Water.

Nature has given us the instruments to play the song of the soul.
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Louis Kahn

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Louis Kahn - Salk Institute

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Light.

What the eyes see and the senses feel in questions of artecture are formed according to conditions of light and shadow.
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Steven Holl

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Steven Holl - The Nelson Atkins Museum

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Colour.

Everything that you can see in the world around you presents itself to your eyes only as an arrangement of patches of different colors.
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John Ruskin

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Victor Horta - Tassel House

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Plant-Life.

Eco-design is designing in such a way that the human built environment or our design system integrates benignly and seamlessly with the natural environment.
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Ken Yeang

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Ken Yeang - EDITT Tower

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Materiality.

I believe that materials can assume a poetic quality in the context of an architectural object.
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Peter Zumthor

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Peter Zumthor - Brother Klaus Field Chapel

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Aromas.

every room, every person, has smell. Smell has more to do with pleasure and safety and home than we consciously acknowledge.
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Juhani Pallasmaa

Canola Crop In The Springtime.

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Wildlife.

Emotional Bonds - A mans best friend

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Chapter 4: Biophilic Interventions

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My home in Rupanyup.

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My home in Brunswick.

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The closeness of all the amenities around Brunswick compared to the isolation of Rupanyup make the need to live in the city in some cases a requirement.

Revolution is needed to save this generation from the depths of natural deprivation

Why should an urban life require everyone to sacrifice a connection with nature?

Is the implementation of the connection to nature really that hard to do?

I say no!

The bridge between rural and urban living needs to pulled down and destroyed urban design needs to evolve past its current setting and return to its intrinsic ancestral roots to once again embrace nature.

This combination of nature and urban living can be easily achieved!

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Rural Nature

Urban Functional Space

Bridging the gap between

Rural
living.

and

Urban

The need for integration

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Intervention #1:

The notion of combining the two typologies of rural and urban living is a key ideal.

This highlights the need to bring nature into the internal living spaces of homes to help improve the sick suburb phenomenon that is becoming increasingly worrying.

Nature needs to become a key part of a buildings program.

This can be done through:

No Nature

Integrated Nature

Deprived Housing + Incorporated Biophilic Space = Improved Living Environment

Integrating Nature Into Dwellings.

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Intervention #2:

These ideals can also be transposed to the idea of retrofitting existing structures with biophilic aspects as an exciting idea which could be explored as a cost effective option.

Potential Cost Effective Intervention

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Intervention #3:

Increasing density without sacrificing the natural assets

The increase in the development of sprawling suburbs is causing a rise in pockets of sick suburbs and causing the city to overuse its resources.

There is a genuine need to positively increase the density of inner city suburbs in a positive manner.

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This density can be achieved through a more efficient use of the valuable space that is inner city areas.

Instead of having a house with living spaces and backyards why not incorporate the green spaces into the living areas? Freeing up the now unused backyard space for an extra dwelling.

Increased density without the deprivation from nature is the future of human design.

House With Nature

Houses with Nature

Garden Space + Living Space = Equals One Efficient Biophilic Space

Increase Density Without Eliminating Nature.

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These three ideas are examples of how deprived spaces can be quite easily turned into a majestic space through simple, but well thought out natural interventions.

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PTW Architects - 30 The Bond

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These ideals need to be refined and evolved and eventually adopted on a city wide scale to allow for the human alliance to nature to be successfully cultivated to allow for a better state of living.

These ideals are the key concepts that need to shape the next revolution in architecture.

The revolution that will help to revive a whole generation of deprived and unfulfilled people.

We need to use the exemplar designs seen throughout as a base point for:

The return to nature...

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E. Fay Jones - Thorncrown Chapel

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Chapter 5: Finale

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Sick Suburbs, Depressed Views, Deprived Senses and Stressed Cities.

These views are becoming commonplace globally - why arent we reacting?

There is a need for real change.

This chnage can be achieved through the integration of nature into all aspects of life.

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Into Buildings,

Jake Taylor - Biophilic Atrium Space

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Into Streetscapes.

Jake Taylor - Vegetataed Cities Streetscapes

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Into Lifestyles.

Jake Taylor - MESS3 Creswick Studio

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Into every facet of life.

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Lets eliminate the current progression towards a depressed culture.

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Nature is both the past and the future of design.

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Without nature we cannot survive.

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Naturalisation.

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Bibliography:
1. Kellert, Steven (2011), Biophilic Design: The Theory, Science and Practice of Bringing Buildings to Life, Hoboken : John Wiley & Sons, 2011 2. Moncrief, M (2012) South-east worst hit by bankruptcy, The Age, April 11th 2012 3. Perkins, Miki (2012), Sick Suburbs, The Age, March 15th 2012 4. Morris, D (2005) Its a sprawl world after all, Canada 5. Kellert & Finnegan (2011) Biophilic Design: The Architecture of Life / A Documentary. [Burlington, Vt.] : Tamarack Media [production company], 6. Koolhaas, R (1977) Delirious New York A retroactice manifesto, Monacelli Press 7. Terrapin Bright Green (2012) The economics of biophilia, 8. Henson, B (2009) Untitled, NHSH353N33D Archival inkjet pigment print 127x80cm 9. Boyd, R (1958), Walsh St House, South Yarra, Melbourne. Photo Sourced From:
www.canberrahouse.com/2007/07/04/robin-boydfoundation-to-sell-robin-boyd-house-ii/

10.Ando, T (1989) Church of Light, Ibaraki, Japan. Photo sourced from: www.greytheblog.
com/2010/05/church-of-light.html

11.Holl, S (2006) Questions of Perception in Architecture, William K Stout Pub. 12.Zumpthor, P (1996) the therme vals, Graubunden Canton. Photo sourced from:
www.archdaily.com/13358/the-therme-vals/

13.Kahn, L (1966) Salk Institute, La Jolla. Photo sourced from: www.photoextract.com/

photo/365262.html

14.Lobell, J (2008) Between Silence and Light: Spirit in the Architecture of Louis Kahn 15.Holl, s (2007) The Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City. Photo sourced from: www.archdaily.com/4369/the-nelson-at
kins-museum-of-art-steven-holl-architects/

16.Holl, S (2006) Questions of Perception in Architecture, William K Stout Pub. 17.Horta, V (1894) Tassel House, Brussels. Photo sourced from: www.tumblr.com/tagged/
victor-horta

18.Ruskin, J (1849) The Seven Lamps of Architecture

19.Yeang, K (1998) EDITT Tower, Competition entry. Photo sourced from:

ww.ifa.de/en/press/bilderservice/green-housestropical-gardens/

20.Yeang, K (2007) Q&A: Ken Yeang Interview July 20, 2007, http://edition.cnn.com/2007/
TECH/science/07/16/yeang.qa/

21.Zumthor, P (2007) Brother Klaus Field Chapel, Mechernich. Photo sourced from: www.urbanity.es/2009/brother-klaus-field-chap
el-peter-zumthor-pritzker-2009/

22.Zumthor, P (2010) Thinking Architecture, Birkhauser 23.Pallasmaa, J (2011) Rachel Hurst Talks To Juhani Pallasmaa, Architecture Australia, July 2011 24.PTW Architects (2005) 30 The Bond, Sydney. Photo sourced from: inhabitat.
com/30-the-bond-sydneys-greenest-building/

25.Jones, E (1980) Thorncrown Chapel, Eureka Springs. Photo sourced from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:09 02-06-ThorncrownChapel1.jpg

Nature needs to be integrated into all aspects of life. Into Buildings. Into Streetscapes. Into Lifestyles. Into every aspect of our Lives. Nature is both the past + future of design. The Naturalisation of built forms can be achieved once again...