Analysis of 'Places of the Soul'...
Page 18: ‘Architects hope their buildings will last for several generations, so however much they design with occupants in mind, they will never meet all of them. But unless I can design something nourishing to my soul – nourishing, not just nice, dramatic, photogenic, novel – I can’t expect it to be nourishing to anyone else.’
Page 18/19: ‘We tend to first think of visual aesthetics … We all know that a picture is worth a thousand words, that the optic nerve is compared to that from other sense organs – but a smell can take us back to forgotten childhood memories, music can take us into another world …’
Page 19: ‘All the senses have their parts to play – in ugliness or in beauty – but all too often they are considered in isolation. When together, giving the same message, they start to speak of the underlying essence of a place. When sensory messages conflict, environmental improvements are just playing with cosmetics … Just as a Concorde may look like a beautiful bird but doesn’t sound like one, a beautiful well-landscaped architectural façade fronting a heavy main road is a nonsense.’
Stating the importance of all the outer senses. Even if a structure has the visual qualities of being calm, the remaining senses may in turn contradict what the visual aesthetic is trying ti achieve. They all need to act harmoniously to achieve the full affect.
Page 19: ‘The fashion for polyurethane lacquered wooden furniture comes from ‘visual only’ consciousness. When you touch it, the wood is hard, shiny, cold and does not breathe. It doesn’t smell of wood and it looks glossy – a surface, not a depth of colour.’ Page 19: ‘To be healing, a place must be harmonious, bringing change as an organic development so that new buildings seem not to be imposed aliens but inevitably belong where they are. They must respond to the surroundings and be responsible, seeking to minimize pollution caused by their materials. But places – and buildings – must be more than that: the must be nourishing to the human being.’
Page 20: ‘Architecture can either support or damage physical health, supporting it, for instance, by keeping the body within an appropriate tempered environment – neither too hot nor too cold, too bright nor too dark.’ Page 20/21: ‘Different kinds of heating and lighting feel healthy or unhealthy … The light from a log fire has a similar spectrum to sunlight. Its radiant heat seems particularly warm – to soul as well as body … So also does the daylight in a room lit by several windows, creating an interplay of lights, hues and shadows from different sky directions. Mono-directional light from a single light source, be it window or window wall, does not have this life. This links to the Rogers Stirk Harbour & Partners Maggie Centre, London, where they implemented the first working log fire to act as the central heart of the structure. I feel this method is physically and metaphorically uplifting for its inhabitants, giving them a recognisable draw towards the heart and essence of the space, which due to the nature of the fire, will be soothing and warm.
Image from Page 20, 'Places of the Soul - Architecture and Environmental
Design as a Healing Art' by Christopher Day.
Page 21: ‘It is no accident that these ‘feel alive’, for they are life-enhancing, in a strictly biological sense: growth and other hormones have been found to be controlled by the pituitary pineal and hypothalamus glands, and these are stimulated by light. Not any light, but gentle rhythmical living light, particularly daylight with its many moods and colours from different direction endlessly changing throughout the day. That is why light from two windows in two walls from two sky colours is always more pleasant and healthy than one.’ Page 21: ‘The science of building biology is still in its infancy and many of its assertions are challenged … ‘But even in the absence of scientific data we can to some extent feel when a place is healthy and physiologically life-supporting and when it is not.
Image from Page 21, 'Places of the Soul - Architecture and Environmental
Design as a Healing Art' by Christopher Day.
Page 21: ‘If you want to institutionalise your building, you need corridors. If you want to raise movement from A to B to become a renewing, preparatory experience, you can use a cloister. Cloisters are semi-outside spaces, around a garden; if glazed, they cease to be cloisters. Page 21/22: ‘A narrow, low, not quite straight, invitingly textured and lit corridor for unhurried uses, like that of a monastery cloister, can be a real delight’
Image from Page 22, 'Places of the Soul - Architecture and Environmental
Design as a Healing Art' by Christopher Day.
Page 22: ‘What make the human being really human, however, is the ability to distinguish what would be the right or wrong way to act. Unlike animals we must go beyond instinct, habit or behaviour-conditioned learning and use our thinking and moral and aesthetic sensitivities to consciously choose our actions.’
Refering back to previous statements of the behavioural differences between animals and humans. Throughout my research I am extensively keeping this in mind, depicting what elements could be applicable to a dog shelter and what will be irrelevant. Humans have the ability to rationalise and chose their actions despite their initial instincts, nonetheless animals such as dogs react initially on their instincts. They know when a situation is wrong, but cannot depict how to rectify.
Page 22: ‘But environment – even static, mineral, architectural environment – does more than this. Our environment is part of our biography. It is part of the stream of events and surroundings that help make us what we are’ [Photo Description]: ‘The sequence of preparatory experiences we pass through to approach, enter and use a building do more than affect our experience of it. They change our inner state which can both enhance our receptiveness to health-giving qualities in our surroundings, and trigger transformative processes in our inmost being. All healing is founded on such inner transformations, albeit initiated by outer agents. [Environment counts as an outer agent]. [BUILDING FOR PHYSICAL HEALTH] Page 30: ‘Architecture, like any other art-form, can bring spiritual benefits to humanity and to the earth which outweighs the material damage that it causes. The world would be a poorer place without Chartres Cathedral, but it took a lot of stone quarrying.’ Page 30: ‘All buildings which satisfy the performance criteria we expect in the developed world cause ecological damage to some extent … Many cause pollution or use considerable energy in their manufacture. In use, buildings consume a lot of energy, the production of which has ecological consequences.’ Page 30: ‘If we are aiming to build architecture which has a health-giving influence, we need responsible foundations.’ Page 30/31: ‘There are several major aspects of building which affect the environment, including toxins entering the biosphere as the result of industrial processes – often off site …In addition to dispersed effects consequent on their industrial support base, buildings themselves – their materials, location, services and design – have local effects. They affect the health of people as well as places.’ Page 31: ‘Excessive concern for energy-saving in the last two decades has been a major cause of ‘sick’ buildings, those which cause health problems for their occupants. Draught-proofing has led to buildings being less ventilated … yet we need fresh air to live … Almost all industrially-produced thermal insulations have significantly harmful characteristics: sharp mineral fibres, dusts, gaseous emissions, even radioactivity.’ Page 31: ‘’Non-industrial’ products exists, but the supply of cork, coco-fibre insulation or, if you don’t insulate, fire wood cannot be drastically increased without damage to trees.’ Page 31: ‘It makes energy sense to take account of local climate.’ [e.g. wind-cooling where ground-hugging buildings do well].
This notion is extremely relevant when refering to when I pick a final site for my project. I need to ensure that I gain a full understanding of the local climate, plantation, etc. to achieve the maximum potential from the site to be environmentally aware and ecological as possible.
Page 31: ‘To minimise energy use as well as other effects on the surroundings like relative scale and shadow size the first step is to think small. Compact special arrangement does not necessarily means cramped environment.’ Page 32: 'Shape affects size of the shadow cast. Shadow may benefit car parks, but not gardens, parks and pavements. Fewer plants grow less well. In areas of permanent shadow very little grows at all – beneath the lank vegetation is bare mud, poor to play on. The consequent low level of soil life is slower to break down organic refuse such as bird droppings, dog mess and old leaves. Less plant growth means less air-cleansing. Shadows bring gloom and poor health to cities – they are a product of size, orientation and shape of buildings.’ Page 31/32: ‘From the energy point of view alone, different climates require different building forms. Hot climates need shaded, airy spaces, such as verandas or court-yards.’ Page 32: ‘It is now established that it is cheaper to conserve than to produce energy. Many people think first in terms of alternative energy gadgetry. I think of these last. None the less some alternative energy is simple to produce … solar water heating … I normally use a system in which aluminium fins clip to copper piping and the heat exchange fluid thermosyphons to a pre-heating cylinder. It therefore works whenever the sunlight – or summer cloud light – is warmer than cold water problem with solar heating is of architectural integration: avoiding nailed on appendages!’
Image from Page 33, 'Places of the Soul - Architecture and Environmental
Design as a Healing Art' by Christopher Day.
Image from Page 34, 'Places of the Soul - Architecture and Environmental
Design as a Healing Art' by Christopher Day.
[Photo Description]: Building arranged around a heat source: this chimney from a cooking stove heats two downstairs and two upstairs rooms. Such planning is complicated by another requirement of minimum energy design – the need for compact space. Spacial economy tends to require central circulation spaces with rooms around them, whereas heat economy requires central chimneys.’ Page 35: ‘Forced air convection may create the right temperature but not comfort, for duct friction can reduce the ionised content of air by up to 95 % and adversely alter the balance between positive and negative ions … the serotonin content of blood is altered and other physiological effects are alleged’ Page 36: ‘Undue concentration on one-dimensional themes, such as warmth, light, acoustic absorbency, ease of cleaning and so on has tended to ignore what effects things have on the human body … What we know recognise as ‘sick building syndrome’ is not just a matter of inadequate ventilation. It has micro-biological, chemical, thermal and electro-biological dimensions’ Page 36: ‘Sick building syndrome is taken seriously because it causes absenteeism due to sickness and has therefore economic implications.’ Page 38: ‘Up until the last war, buildings were normally constructed of 30-40% organic, 60-70% inorganic, but natural, materials (such as bricks and lime). Many nowadays are of 90-100% artificial, synthetic materials. Synthetic materials are often the cheapest, most convenient to use or have the best material performance – but they can be harmful to health. In fires many, especially plastics, become killers.’ [LINKING BACK TO RENAISSANCE HOSPITAL – BEING AT ONE WITH THE COSMOS] Page 38/39: ‘Sunlight and the moon’s effect on tides, animal and human behaviour and plant development are all easy to observe, but what about all those other radiations what we can’t feel or see? It’s not just that after millennia of life in natural surroundings we are not adjusted to cosmically isolated environments; all life lives at the meeting of cosmos and matter … Humans, unlike birds and earthworms, live at exactly our meeting point, with our feet on earth, our waking heads in the airs. If we reduce these influences we are reducing the life-renewing, fertilising power and health-giving balance of the marriage of earth and cosmos’. Page 42: ‘Buildings can be seen as the third human skin (skin is the first, clothing the second). The skin performs many functions: it breathes, absorbs, evaporates and regulates as well as enclosing and protecting. A building which through its fabric is in a constant state of moderated exchange between inside and out feels – and is – a healthy place to be in. It has a quality of life. A sealed-fabric building is full of dead air.’ [REGARDING MATERIALITY OF HEALTH-GIVING ARCHITECTURE] Page 42: ‘Lime was once shellfish; timber once trees; bricks once clay – that mineral, with its curious colloidal properties, nearest to life. Plastic and steel are long removed from any history of life, and buildings of these materials have no moderating, breathing, living effect on the internal environment. Timber on the other hand … absorbs dust particles and airborne toxins. If not sealed … or poisoned with wood preservatives, it is one of the healthiest materials to live within.’ Page 43: ‘When a building is suffering from woodworm or rot, is it better to poison the occupants along with the infestation or use less guaranteed methods that are biologically safer?’ Page 44: ‘Once we think about ecological consequences we must consider a whole world of relationships such as the effects of even a single building on micro-climate, flora and fauna. In the old days, barns even used to be built with entrances for barn owls. This sort of symbiotic consideration has almost disappeared.’ [QUALITIES AND QUANTITIES] Page 46: ‘Environmental science is concerned, on the whole, with quantitative descriptions of what is appropriate for the physical needs of humans activities, such as the temperature we need to feel comfortable in when we sit at our work or exert ourselves physically, and how much light we need … These quantities tell us nothing of what is a nice atmosphere … but this nice atmosphere is made up of the right warmth and light and so on.’ Page 47: ‘Colour is highly personal … There are also fashion colour currents which flow through society around rocks of established convention. There are also universal aspects of colour; red speeds the metabolism, blue slows it down …Knowledge of this kind can be used to manipulate people and can also be used therapeutically.’ Page 48: ‘All colours have universal effects … whole experiences of it, coloured light, coloured environments, walls and ceilings of colour. Heavy, strong colours have a tendency to be too forceful to be comfortable with, and their use requires great skill and sensitivity. Traditionally they are applied in a variety of hues and shades utilising harmony and counterpoint. Strong colours have a tendency o be manipulative – they dominate the furniture and other oddments and also the human being. They force their mood upon a room. Page 48: ‘Where colour works as a delicate breath however, is in the light. Coloured light has a different effect from pigment – with light you can feel raised up into a mood, but with pigment pressed down into it.’ Page 48: ‘Green is a colour of balance; it has a peaceful, calming, soothing effect … Yet it requires considerable skill to paint a room in opaque green without it becoming too heavy and dead, for green is such a lifeless colour to paint with … There is the risk that reflected light will green people’s faces creating, by association, a disquieting mood. If on the other hand light shines in through foliage it can be both life-filled and peace-bringing.’ Page 48: ‘I use light reflected off natural materials a lot. For this I generally depend upon white walls ad ceilings. Where a specific colour mood is appropriate I use lazure … specific for their function.’ Page 49: ‘The senses tell us about what is important in our surroundings; mostly, we experience things through the outer senses: sight, smell, taste, sound, warmth, touch. Architecture in the sense of environmental design is the art of nourishing these senses’. Page 49: ‘It’s no good designing a place that looks nice but smells horrible, especially as that smell means something about the air we breathe.’ Page 49: ‘Warmth can have such different qualities: radiant heat from the blacksmith’s forge can be bearable even in the summer, but even in cold winter warm air heating is unpleasant. The focal radiant warmth of a stove or fireplace, reinforced by the sound, smell and sight of the fire, gives a spirit to a home. We call this part of a building the hearth – a heart. ‘ Page 49: ‘Textures which we walk on or feel with our hands … make all the difference between places which are approachable and which are not.’ Page 50: ‘How rooms sound – whether they echo, resonate or absorb – can make all the difference to their mood. A church, a living room and a restaurant should sound different, and materials and physical design can be arranged to achieve these effects. We don’t feel at home in hard echoing rooms’ Page 50: ‘These are outer senses. They are our contact with outer reality … although through them we can see beyond this into the invisible spiritual reality that lies behind it ... We can cultivate our sense of what a place says.’ *** Page 50: ‘Places really speak through their spirit of place, and the phenomena accessible to the outer senses are consistent with that spirit. Mass housing, system designed, system built, imposed on the landscape, isn’t going to feel a great deal better if it is painted attractive colours, or if the road noise is screened. It still remains environment for statistics, not for individuals. *** Page 50: On the whole, however, the outer senses can give us good guidance as to whether an environment is harmful or health-giving to the physical body and the human spirit.’ Page 50/51: ‘For proven physiological reasons, people can feel ill if they work all day in artificial light. Yet the light of spring can bring such joy to the heart … Inadequate light can cause Seasonal Affective Disorder, associated with depression, lethargy and suicides. Yet too much light in a room requires it to be too open, unprotected – and we do after all build buildings for social and environmental protection.’ Page 51: ‘Several smaller windows are better than one large one, not only because, from the energy-saving point of view, for the same heat loss there is a better distribution of light, avoiding quantitative extremes, but also for quality. The light is more full of health-giving – and aesthetically satisfying – life. Also you get views instead of one, which helps you to orientate yourself’ [REGARDING ARTIFICIAL MATERIALS TRYING TO REPLICATE THEIR NATURAL COUNTERPART] Page 51: ‘We have to cultivate the ability of our senses to tell us what is good and bad for us: when we touch polyurethane-coated wood we know there is something wrong. It feels hard, smooth, cold; it does not breathe and the finger’s sweat condenses on its unyielding surface. It looks like wood but it is a lie and it is hardly the best food for the human spirit to surround it with lies … Nor in the barrenness of its sensory experience does it nourish the soul.’ Page 51: ‘When we talk about something nourishing the soul, we are talking about finding qualities in the environment that provide the right balance to the imbalance of the moment. Of course, there are a lot of imbalances and a lot of soul needs, and a few are major ones.’ Page 51: ‘Sometimes we lack society, stimulation, sometimes we have too much and it is stressful. Sometimes we need to withdraw to a secure private domain such as a fireside, inner garden, or personal retreat.’ [Regarding importance of plants and vegetation:] Page 52: ‘The harder and more lifeless our surroundings are, the more tired, tense and sapped of life we tend to become. The softer and more alive they are the more renewed, relaxed and healed we tend to be. Soft lively air rather than rough funnelled draughts, absorbed sounds rather than hard echo, moderated enlivened light dancing perhaps off water or through leaves from different light and shadow.’ Page 52: ‘Vegetation brings softness, life and seasonal rhythm. Indoor plants not only soften architectural hardness but (ferns especially) can redress the ion balance in the air. Plants outdoors can be used to moderate microclimate. They give oxygen and life to the air we pollute and breathe.’ Page 52: ‘Vital as they are for air quality we enjoy trees and other plants for their restful appearance, life-filled shade, leaf sounds and scents. They are breath for the soul as well as the lungs. Climbing plants can not only soften hard corners, make unyielding textures approachable, enrich walls and clamber or cascade in archways, but also absorb street noises. ‘ Page 52: ‘Even vegetation can be the wrong thing in the wrong place. It’s much easier to buy cultivated than wild varieties … These may look all right in the garden centre but quite out of place when planted’.
Image from Page 53, 'Places of the Soul - Architecture and Environmental
Design as a Healing Art' by Christopher Day.
Page 53: ‘We can have too much of something or too little – after all, all life on earth lives in a very narrow band between earth and cosmos, between absolute matter and the heat of the sun. Healthy life is always a delicate balance between extremes. Architecture supporting this health is also narrow band, containing a whole world of qualities appropriate to different states of being.’ Page 54: ‘All activities have the need of particular soul moods. Our environment can have qualities appropriate to what we are doing such as views to give space and peace when our work is tense and claustrophobic. Practically, these cannot always be distant views over calm water; sometimes they must be of wind-stirred treetops or of changing clouds. Or perhaps we need warmth, enclosure and focus, as when we sit around a fireplace – not the place for windows.’ Page 54: ‘We need qualities appropriate to our mood of soul. At different times, we may need exciting, socially stimulating places or relaxing, calming spaces to be in’ Page 54: ‘When we are exposed to stressful situations, it is as great a support to experience peaceful surroundings as it is to find a place of cosiness and warmth on a bitter winter’s day.’ Page 54: [IMAGE DESC]: ‘White roofs shelter building occupants, they rarely have a beneficial effect on local outdoor climate. Vegetated roofs can however absorb airborne toxins, redress oxygen, ion and humidity balances and also reduce rainwater overload of storm drains.’
(Day, C., 1990. Places of the Soul - Architecture and Environmental Design as a Healing Art. The Aquarian Press.)