Designing porosity and generosity
We design the indeterminate transition spaces and stimulating juxtapositions that encourage spontaneous creativity, un-programmed activities and chance encounters.
No man is an island, and no building, village or city is either. We design spaces made to meet and modulate the world outside, not to close oneself off from it.
This is about how we situate buildings, interiors and building ensembles and open them up to the surroundings. This is about the design of gradations, carefully choreographed transition spaces, openings and entrances: between inside and outside, public and private, built and unbuilt. This is about how interiors relate to exteriors, the intricate sequencing of spaces from the grand scale of the public realm down to the intimacy of a bedroom.
Porosity means providing a measure of spatial “slack” within and between buildings. Indeterminate, in-between spaces can absorb temporary functions and invite spontaneous occupation and accidental encounters. This generosity, a certain “openness” in the design, adds spatial qualities in the present while making a project more functionally flexible towards the future.
Designing porosity speaks to a certain humility: we can not plan for everything. We create room for the unpredictable creativity demonstrated by the end users in their appropriation of our designs. In the end even the best laid plans are to be transcended by the joyous praxis of everyday life.
This is about how we situate buildings, interiors and building ensembles and open them up to the surroundings. This is about the design of gradations, carefully choreographed transition spaces, openings and entrances: between inside and outside, public and private, built and unbuilt. This is about how interiors relate to exteriors, the intricate sequencing of spaces from the grand scale of the public realm down to the intimacy of a bedroom.
Porosity means providing a measure of spatial “slack” within and between buildings. Indeterminate, in-between spaces can absorb temporary functions and invite spontaneous occupation and accidental encounters. This generosity, a certain “openness” in the design, adds spatial qualities in the present while making a project more functionally flexible towards the future.
Designing porosity speaks to a certain humility: we can not plan for everything. We create room for the unpredictable creativity demonstrated by the end users in their appropriation of our designs. In the end even the best laid plans are to be transcended by the joyous praxis of everyday life.