Teaching in Architecture Studios: Poetic Simplicity

LetiÅ£ia Bä‚rbuicä‚ ()
Additional contact information
LetiÅ£ia Bä‚rbuicä‚: †Ion Mincu†University of Architecture, Bucharest, Romania

Chapter 8 in Rethinking Social Action. Core Values in Practice, 2017, vol. 1, pp 75-91 from Editura Lumen

Abstract: John Pawson and SANAA (Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nizhizawa) share the same interest in simplicity. For SANAA, the concern for simplicity forms part of their cultural background while for Pawson it was acquired through a trip to Japan in his youth. Investigating their work, and how they approach architectural design, enables us to understand how simplicity can create a form of poetry within real world architecture. Pawson works with a Japanese notion – shibui – meaning to know when to stop, and with “pure geometry...another quality that seems to make simplicity more likely.†[1] SANAA, on the other hand, base their approach on Japanese culture and the concept of wabi – subdue austere beauty [2] - and on the beauty of imperfection which they find in the geometry of nature. The chaotic nature of the outside world needs to draw on abstract expressions such as these to achieve balance, an equilibrium both Pawson and SANAA are (re)searching for. What is the result of applying shibui and wabi-sabi to the architectural process? What can we learn by applying these concepts in this way? How can these concepts be used to teach architecture? Drawing on these two Japanese concepts a number of teaching suggestions will be proposed; these will be aimed at enabling students to investigate and explore differing approaches within the confines of the architectural studio.

Keywords: John Pawson; SANAA; simplicity; geometry; wabi-sabi; architecture studio workshop (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A3 I2 I3 M0 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
ISBN: 978-1-910129-14-2
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://proceedings.lumenpublishing.com/ojs/index. ... article/view/413/415 (application/pdf)
https://proceedings.lumenpublishing.com/ojs/index. ... ngs/article/view/413 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lum:prchap:01-08

DOI: 10.18662/lumproc.rsacvp2017.8

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Book chapters-LUMEN Proceedings from Editura Lumen
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Antonio Sandu ().