Unlike the design in the automobile industry which has developed so dramatically fast, the looks of our building design is a completely different ball game. I am not talking about the exotic 1% architectural fig leaves you see in glossy magazines, it is about our everyday and everywhere built environment.
The looks of the latter are either retro (and its ugly cousin: the pathetic-retro) or abstract-banal. None of these structures own a pleasant soul, one are hollow spectres of the past and the others have the embracing charm of frosty winter’s night, without a coat.
Repetition and bleakness are both dead ends and organic architecture develops an alternative route. The best part is, there is no need to invent the wheel again!
Organic architecture takes the same existing building components which are used for thousands of years like roofs, columns, walls and openings, but shapes them into innovative forms with the 3 Cs:
- Contemporary
- Colourful
- Creative
Now how to achieve this?
It starts with taking into account a few principles given by Dr. Rudolf Steiner during a lecture on organic building style:
- “Each part of a building should be designed that it expresses its duty in its form or shape; like it would have a consciousness about its function.”
For instance, a column shows the strength to bear the load it has to carry and how it brings the weight down and channels it into the ground.
- “While designing, the architect needs to ask her/himself the question – what is happening here? And the design shall provide the adequate answer.”
For instance, an entrance should be welcoming and inviting the inhabitants and visitors.
- “Implement the idea that all paths should lead to the light.”
Think of natural light entering through opening(s) in an otherwise dark and drab corridor/passage.
Dear clients, developers and colleagues: start designing while keeping the needs of us humans in mind because this is the time to bring back the respect for architecture and re-establish it as the Mother-of-all-Arts again.
Joachim Haider
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