Analysis of 'Places of the Soul'...
'Page 8: 'We are rapidly building in a world where deceptive appearance inadequately screens the primacy of profit over care'.
Statement that architecture's purpose is manipulative - built for a purpose of which they in fact sometimes evoke the opposite intended affect, much like hospitals are purposefully built to care and bring health, nonetheless on some occassions the dismal architecture pschologically drains users and visitors. Page 8: 'magazines appear to have greater influence on architectural students than do their teachers ... It is likely that they also influence at least some practising architects. Yet the consciousness that they tend to support ... Has nothing to do with creating spaces for people.
Page 8: 'Small wonder that architecture is sick! It can make people feel ill and be ill, and we can - in theory - measure the biological consequences (although in fact our knowledge is inadequate at this stage.'
Page 9: 'in good health, i have taken my son to hospital clinics and felt only half alive after sitting for hours in rectangular grid-patterned, vinyl- smelling, fluorescently-lit, over-heated corridors. The brutal vandalism of buildings unfeelingly imposed upon the landscape can have the same effect. Architecture can be life-suppressing or even crushing, not only to our finer sensitivities but to our feelings of freedom.'
A personal account of the author, stating a negative experience within a hospital setting. The architecture itself drained his psychological health just by being within the space. He also expands into stating it is the physical presence of an intrusive building can impose a negative effect on the environment, and consequently become 'life-suppressing'. Page 9: 'in some places one feels a trapped statistic, not a valued member of society.'
Linking to my project, this notion is similar to that of the current situation of animal shelters. With a set number of identical kennels to house high-intake of dogs, it evokes a 'one in, one out' feel. These environments do not take time to care for a dogs psychological state effectively. This notion also relates back to Edwin Heathcotes statements regarding Maggies Centres, creating a series of different spaces to allow users to rehabilitate in a space that has a positive effect of them - whether it be the social or quiet, autonomous spaces. Page 9: 'often, however, what architecture does to people is much more subtle, and recently the social and psychological effects of barren, harsh, unwelcoming architecture have become more and more the subject of popular concern.' Page 9: 'Animals invaryingly respond to environmental stimuli whereas humans have the ability to transcend the situation.'
This is a very interesting statement raised, and very relevant to my investigation. Through my own analysis, I translate this to state that animals lack variation in behaviour when succomb to different environments. Obviously, dogs may not have the intellectual mindset to appreciate / perceive all its architectural qualities e.g. colours of the wall, but I feel it is incorrect to say they do not respond to different environments. It will be interesting to obtain first-hand observation with this notion in mind. Page 9: ' in this century, the world has seen rapid urbanisation, frequently associated with the disruption of habitual social supports to accepted moral codes.' Page 9: 'in the absence of aesthetic nourishment, the emotional part of a human being is left to seek fulfilment by indulgence in desires ... Surrounded, as most of us are most of the time, by life-less man made matter' Page 10:'yet architecture, although built of matter, need not be dead: it can be life-filled. Its constituent elements and relationships can sing - and the human heart can resonate with them'. Page 10: 'Most people... Don't normally look at our surroundings. We breathe them in ... However, the experience only touches our hearts when it becomes an ambience we can breathe; most of the time we don't notice our surroundings and then they can work upon us without any conscious resistance on our part'. States that during our current era, our lifelihood has become so fast-paced we fail to notice the effect architecture has on us, or the surrounding environment. Page 10: 'architecture is potentially a dangerous tool. Environment can be used to manipulate people: because we so readily take our surroundings for granted and rarely bring them to full consciousness, they can be used to influence our actions.' Is this notion of manipulation through architecture design appropriate to the case of animals? Further investigation is needed into this theory to dis(prove). Page 10/11: 'Nazi stadiums with their theatrical mood- distortion devices ... Mood enhancement becomes manipulation when pressure is brought to bear.' E.g. Supermarkets: 'with lighting, sign and display colours and background music, they can subtly enhance the excitement of buying.' [ARCHITECTURE WITH HEALTH-GIVING INTENT] Page 13: 'Architecture is but a part of the built environment ... Wherever I go, I see buildings imposed. Imposed because they are inappropriate, insensitive. They are crystallised monologues which do not meet the needs of people nor place.'
Day begins to express that health-giving, calming architecture is not just regarding the internal environment. The imposion of a large building can have subtle psychological effects. The building does not match our surrounding landscape nor uphold any physical conversation with it. Linking back to reference to my project, is this true for animal shelters? Do they support or evolve within the landscape or hinder it? [REGARDING CONTOURING WITH THE LANDSCAPE] Page 13: 'in the days of hand-power it was easier to go round a tree-root or a boulder or follow a contour than go straight through. The lines that resulted ... In conversation with the landscape. Powerful machinery finds it easier to disregard the irregularities of the surroundings.' Page 15: 'When the relationship of the building and surroundings is such that the building can be seen as an object, it has a responsibility not to offend its surroundings. In an agricultural setting a balance between the two elements seems appropriate. In wilder surroundings the building needs to be more reticent.' Page 15: 'Before we even consider how architecture can be health-giving, we have to make sure that our ideas and our buildings are not imposed!' Page 15/16: 'Architecture has such profound effects on the human being, on place, on human consciousness, and ultimately on the world, that is far too important to bother with stylistic means of appealing to fashion.' Strong affirmative statement that architecture most definitely effects the human being - but does this notion stretch to animals? Is the impact the same, but interpreted different through an animals singular reactive senses? Or is the human beings perspective much more in-depth and not so immediate, that it wouldn't affect animals in this way? Page 16: 'It can have such powerful negative effects - alienation, desensitisation, physical, psychological and social health problems, landscape desecration, ecological damage - that we must also think, can it, if consciously worked with, have equally strong positive effects? Can it be health-giving?' Page 16: 'Architecture has responsibilities to minimise pollution and ecological damage, responsibilities to minimise adverse biological effects on occupants, responsibilities to be sensitive to and act harmoniously in the surroundings, responsibilities to the human individualities who will come in contact with the building, responsibilities not only in the visual aesthetic sphere and through the outer senses but also to the intangible but perceptible 'spirit of the space'.
Page 16: 'These responsibilities involve energy conservation ranging from insulation, organising buildings around a focal heat source ... Re-use of waste heat ... To alternative energy production such as solar heating ... They involve careful selection of building materials and the ways they are put together.' Page 16: 'Only people can put things into words, the place cannot. Nonetheless I find it takes time to penetrate through fixed preconceptions to what they really need in their souls'. This notion is relevant in terms of human beings, as they have the ability to interpret their surroundings and what it is they believe they need. Animals on the other hand are not so complex in their thinking. They act on natural instincts to survive, fight or flight, nonetheless they are fully aware and understand when an environment is menacing or dangerous, evoking their instinct to flee and escape. Page 16: 'This design process ... Is one of continual improvement until eventually the users breathe a spirit of life into the building. This depends on hand-construction ... Mechanical systems do not have sufficient flexibility; the growing building cannot be adapted when potential benefits or short-comings become apparent. Hand construction also gives textural scale, for instance with bricks, slates or wood instead of large mechanically erected panels. Where opportunities exist for the builders to become artistically involved in their work, such buildings have a distinct soul even before they are occupied.' Page 16: 'The spirit of a place can develop because of ... The building. The method of construction and form of contract therefore have a bearing on the spirit of a building quite apart from its appearence' Page 16: 'thinking about users means thinking of buildings as spaces, their outsides as boundaries to spaces.' Page 16/17: 'small rural buildings we may experience as objects in relationship with their surroundings. Large urban buildings are more commonly experienced only as the boundaries of space. Space is to love in. Objects are frozen thoughts. The one is life-enhancing, the other, if big enough, is threatening, dominating, stealing sunlight with its huge shadows or tricking our sense of orientation with its reflections.' [Regarding building with no reference to the past] Page 17: 'places which are inspired out of the future - the world of ideas, ideals, inspiration and imagination - but still have their feet in the reality of the present moment - for the present, however inspired by the future is built upon the past. Ignoring the stream of the past is vandalistic; concentrating too strongly on its risks meaningless preservation or revivalism.' Page 17:' the past informs, the future inspires' Page 17: 'to a large extent all of this is about stopping architecture being harmful - those places which, for instance, make one cringe or feel depressed or ill in. Sometimes we blame the noise, the air-conditioning, the fluorescent lights, the crowds, the proportions, the smell - but all of it comes down to architecture, whether the circulation of people, acoustics, out-gassing toxins, colours, spatial aesthetics or construction detailing. Page 17/18: 'The trouble is we become dulled to these things. We don't notice the noise, the bad air, the harsh conflict of hard-edges shapes and forms. We become immune to the negative forces in our environment - and that is when they do us most harm! Our sensitivities and our senses become dulled and our language and unconscious approach to daily life begin to reflect our surroundings'. Page 18: 'City people speak more sharply than country people - at the extreme, if we put their voices in pictures, one is a confusion of sharp, hard edges and the other a mush of sleep-induced round forms ... Like speech, social sensitivities are also hardened by harshness and ugliness in the surroundings.'
This statement has metaphorical reference in the case of dogs in shelter environments. It expresses the alteration in a persons personality and behaviour based on what surroundings they are surrounded by. This relates to the idea that being placed in a harsh, systematic environment of shelters could unknowingly manipulate a dogs personality and behaviour than if it was being housed in a peaceful, natural environment. Linking to the statement above, people have become so emotionally knumb to the negative effects of architecture, people may not link the two and realise that the shelter environment has such a strong influence on a dog's behaviour. Page 18: 'Mass housing is quite different from homes that are individually and lovingly made in every detail - one is provided for statistics, the other for individuals. It makes a lot of difference whether things are designed for people or together with them.' Referencing back to a shelter / kennel design. The kennel design, like mass housing, is created for systematic measures, housing a mass amount of occupants. They are created with adequate environmental protection in mind, with minimal thought into the occupants individual needs.
(Day, C., 1990. Places of the Soul - Architecture and Environmental Design as a Healing Art. The Aquarian Press.)