PHENOMENOLOGY
FOR   ARCHITECTURAL
DESIGN   EXERCISES

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︎︎︎ Workshop 2

ARTICLE SUMMARY

• Reasearch made on engineering students of the University of Leuven, Belgium (without prior design background).
  
  
• Explain a phenomenology technique applied on those student: the pentagon approach. They used it during site visits of their seminar on housing .
  
  
• Prove how this method may help people without training to understand the built environment in an architectural way.

THE PENTAGON APPROACH

A method to be able to recall information about their  and interaction with the space.




 
   
 

Introducing the students to basic archtiectural concepts (sensory properties, architectonic space, penomenology...)

Explaning that atmospheric qualities of space do interact with us as individuals.

What are some atmospheric qualities (sounds, texture, acoustics, rythm, materiality...)





   


Before the visit, explain their personnal experience of a house that they remeber well. Bring up the features, memories, feelings, and perceptions that the space generated.





   Setting the  


“A list of parameters is presented to students: light, shadow, color, material, texture, rhythm, structure, proportion, size, volume, shape, inside, outside, in-between, landscape.”

Use those parameters to describe the atmosphere in different spaces of the building/site.
It is a way to understand the architectural qualities.





      the themes


1- Extract the main atmosphere felt in that space (ex: elongated view)

2- Link the parameters with the theme 

Ex: understand the relationship between two spaces, conflicts of materiality or structure with the environment...





    the results


Keep photos of each space.
Discuss and share everyone’s subjective experience. What they deeply felt and understood about them.

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During the visit, the participants become more aware of waht kind of material and space create what kind of feelings.




Example:

When entering a new space, the student had a subjective understanding of the connection between  parameters and atmosphere.

Parameters : light + landscape + curtain wall
Generate...
Atmosphere : “indoor-outdoor connection”