A Study on the Relationship between Contemporary Architecture and Human Body in the Post-human Era: Rem Koolhaas’s Bordeaux House

The relationship between the built environment and the human body is rarely considered explicitly in contemporary architecture. In case architects do take the body into account, they tend to derive mathematical proportions or functional dimensions from it, without explicit attention for the bodily experience of a building. In this article, we analyse the built environment in a way less common in architecture, by attending to how a particular person experiences it. Instead of relating the human body to architecture in a mathematical way, we establish a new relationship between architecture and the body—or a body—by demonstrating that our bodies are more involved in the experience of the built environment than we presume. The article focuses on persons with a sensory or physical impairment as they are able to detect building qualities architects may not be attuned to. By accompanying them during a visit to a museum building, we examine how their experiences relate to the architect's intentions. In attending to the bodily experiences of these disabled persons, we provide evidence that architecture is not only seen, but experienced by all senses, and that aesthetics may acquire a broader meaning. Senses can be disconnected or reinforced by nature. Sensory experiences can be consciously or unconsciously eliminated or emphasized by the museum design and use. Architects can have specific intentions in mind, but users (with an impairment) may not experience them. Attending to the experiences of disabled persons, and combining these with the architect's objectives, provides an interesting view of a building. Our analysis does not intend to criticize the one using the other; rather the combination of both views, each present in the building, makes for a richer understanding of what architecture is.

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Our Third Skin

10.26686/wgtn.17134310 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Charlotte Corbett Hughes-Hallett

Keyword(s):

Urban Environment ◽

Human Body ◽

Sensory Deprivation ◽

Human Action ◽

The Body ◽

Interior Architecture ◽

Fundamental Parameters ◽

A Site ◽

Contemporary Architecture ◽

The Relationship

<p>It can be argued that there is an absence of reverence between contemporary architecture that governs our urban environment and the human body. Current architectural forms are unwittingly unresponsive to the dynamic flow of human action thus realising a denaturalisation of the human body’s transformations. The natural body deliberately expresses itself through reactive and interactive dynamic fluctuations whilst planar verticality and horizontality are qualities that commonly delineate the revered contemporary architecture of our lived realities. This thesis explored the human body as both a metaphorical and literal site. Provoking an investigation into how the body responds to the surface of architecture in an attempt to redefine how the design of architecture can better respond to the body as an active controller for defining space and generating form. This notion elicits the exploration of the relationship between; body and space, body and surface, body and form. By actively trying to understand the fundamental parameters of interior architecture that enhance our experience of being, this thesis is a commentary on how principles of interior architecture can be extracted and adapted to thrive within the ubiquitous realities of the urban environment. This is an effort to return form back to something more intimately attuned to the body’s stature. The motivation of this thesis was to create a design methodology that transitions from concept, to design and reach its realisation – where material enables the abstract intellect of form to be thought. With each phase propelled by the aspiration to better understand the relationship between the biological body and architecture. Following the framework of body space, interaction, and form, the methodology of the thesis has been developed at three scales of immediacy, maturing from the wearable to the inhabitable. The first level of immediacy considered and intuitively explores the body as a ‘site’. By using the biological body and the scale of the body to understand the body as a vessel that both contains and occupies space. The second level of immediacy and scale increased and responded to the intimate expressions of the self upon the surface of architecture. An investigation into how the anatomy of the body responds to the planar and static nature of surface. Actualising an experiential surface that departs from being a flat rigid surface and becomes suppler like an epidermis. Such an architecture that excites and transforms the body that is subject to it. As the methodology manifests the possibility of using the body as a design generative, the third and last level of immediacy is an amalgamation and development upon the previous analyses. The existential dialect between the surface of the body and the surface of architecture generates the contours of a ‘vertical somatic topography’. Site and material are introduced to shift the ephemeral form to reach physical conception through a series of scale models. The chosen site’s organisation and behaviour of material(s) directed and balanced the variations of form. The form creates a new immersive spatial condition that entices passer-byers to rediscover an omitted space in the city. The antithetical form of the installation deconstructs and disturbs the space in which it is presented imposing an affective reaction between body and surface - counteracting the sensory deprivation and suggests a space to slow, ingest, interact, and confer yourself in a moment of realisation of the surrounding architecture’s immobility and insensitivity to the ever dynamic natural body.</p>

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Our Third Skin

10.26686/wgtn.17134310.v1 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

◽

Charlotte Corbett Hughes-Hallett

Keyword(s):

Urban Environment ◽

Human Body ◽

Sensory Deprivation ◽

Human Action ◽

The Body ◽

Interior Architecture ◽

Fundamental Parameters ◽

A Site ◽

Contemporary Architecture ◽

The Relationship

<p>It can be argued that there is an absence of reverence between contemporary architecture that governs our urban environment and the human body. Current architectural forms are unwittingly unresponsive to the dynamic flow of human action thus realising a denaturalisation of the human body’s transformations. The natural body deliberately expresses itself through reactive and interactive dynamic fluctuations whilst planar verticality and horizontality are qualities that commonly delineate the revered contemporary architecture of our lived realities. This thesis explored the human body as both a metaphorical and literal site. Provoking an investigation into how the body responds to the surface of architecture in an attempt to redefine how the design of architecture can better respond to the body as an active controller for defining space and generating form. This notion elicits the exploration of the relationship between; body and space, body and surface, body and form. By actively trying to understand the fundamental parameters of interior architecture that enhance our experience of being, this thesis is a commentary on how principles of interior architecture can be extracted and adapted to thrive within the ubiquitous realities of the urban environment. This is an effort to return form back to something more intimately attuned to the body’s stature. The motivation of this thesis was to create a design methodology that transitions from concept, to design and reach its realisation – where material enables the abstract intellect of form to be thought. With each phase propelled by the aspiration to better understand the relationship between the biological body and architecture. Following the framework of body space, interaction, and form, the methodology of the thesis has been developed at three scales of immediacy, maturing from the wearable to the inhabitable. The first level of immediacy considered and intuitively explores the body as a ‘site’. By using the biological body and the scale of the body to understand the body as a vessel that both contains and occupies space. The second level of immediacy and scale increased and responded to the intimate expressions of the self upon the surface of architecture. An investigation into how the anatomy of the body responds to the planar and static nature of surface. Actualising an experiential surface that departs from being a flat rigid surface and becomes suppler like an epidermis. Such an architecture that excites and transforms the body that is subject to it. As the methodology manifests the possibility of using the body as a design generative, the third and last level of immediacy is an amalgamation and development upon the previous analyses. The existential dialect between the surface of the body and the surface of architecture generates the contours of a ‘vertical somatic topography’. Site and material are introduced to shift the ephemeral form to reach physical conception through a series of scale models. The chosen site’s organisation and behaviour of material(s) directed and balanced the variations of form. The form creates a new immersive spatial condition that entices passer-byers to rediscover an omitted space in the city. The antithetical form of the installation deconstructs and disturbs the space in which it is presented imposing an affective reaction between body and surface - counteracting the sensory deprivation and suggests a space to slow, ingest, interact, and confer yourself in a moment of realisation of the surrounding architecture’s immobility and insensitivity to the ever dynamic natural body.</p>

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Correction of Posture Deviations in the Sagittal Plane Using the Pilates Method

SPORT AND SOCIETY ◽

10.36836/uaic/fefs/10.50 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 3-13

Author(s):

Alexandru Cîtea ◽

George-Sebastian Iacob

Keyword(s):

Low Back Pain ◽

Back Pain ◽

Postural Control ◽

Human Body ◽

Sagittal Plane ◽

The Body ◽

Lower Limbs ◽

Low Back ◽

Pilates Method ◽

The Relationship

Posture is commonly perceived as the relationship between the segments of the human body upright. Certain parts of the body such as the cephalic extremity, neck, torso, upper and lower limbs are involved in the final posture of the body. Musculoskeletal instabilities and reduced postural control lead to the installation of nonstructural posture deviations in all 3 anatomical planes. When we talk about the sagittal plane, it was concluded that there are 4 main types of posture deviation: hyperlordotic posture, kyphotic posture, rectitude and "sway-back" posture.Pilates method has become in the last decade a much more popular formof exercise used in rehabilitation. The Pilates method is frequently prescribed to people with low back pain due to their orientation on the stabilizing muscles of the pelvis. Pilates exercise is thus theorized to help reactivate the muscles and, by doingso, increases lumbar support, reduces pain, and improves body alignment.

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La cuentística erótica de Jaramillo Levi a través de sus máquinas deseantes

LETRAS ◽

10.15359/rl.1-49.10 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 147-161

Author(s):

Fátima R. Nogueira

Keyword(s):

Short Stories ◽

Human Body ◽

Driving Forces ◽

The Other ◽

Death Instinct ◽

Deleuze And Guattari ◽

Sexual Drive ◽

The Subject ◽

The Individual ◽

The Relationship

Se estudia la narrativa de Jaramillo Levi centrada en la relación entre el erotismo y la muerte, desde el intercambio de dos fuerzas que actúan en la producción del deseo: una, de naturaleza libidinosa e inconsciente, la otra de filiación social. Estos relatos exploran el vínculo entre las pulsiones sexuales y el instinto de la muerte revelando el exceso y la violencia ocultos en el erotismo; además, plasman la magnitud del deseo que al exceder los límites del cuerpo y del individuo deviene una experiencia de la sexualidad inhumana reafirmada sólo por un campo saturado de intensidades y vibraciones. Partiendo de la teoría lacaniana del deseo, y de conceptos de Deleuze y Guattari, en los relatos tal encuentro de fuerzas objetiviza el sujeto y cuestiona la noción antropomórfica de sexualidad. This study deals with Jaramillo Levi’s short stories centered on the relationship between eroticism and death, examining the exchange of two driving forces which create desire. The nature of one of these forces is unconscious and libidinous while the other is social. These stories explore the link between sexual drive and the death instinct, disclosing overindulgence and violence hidden behind eroticism. In addition, they depict the magnitude of desire, which upon exceeding the boundaries of the human body and the individual, becomes an experience of inhuman sexuality that can reaffirm itself only in a field permeated with intensity and vibrations. Considering Lacan’s theory of desire and other concepts from Deleuze and Guattari, the exchange of forces in these stories objectifies the subject and questions the anthropomorphic notion of sexuality.

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Microbes and the Mind: How Bacteria Shape Affect, Neurological Processes, Cognition, Social Relationships, Development, and Pathology

Perspectives on Psychological Science ◽

10.1177/1745691618809379 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 14 (3) ◽

pp. 397-418 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Leigh K. Smith ◽

Emily F. Wissel

Keyword(s):

Social Relationships ◽

Human Body ◽

Relevant Research ◽

Interdisciplinary Effort ◽

Neurological Processes ◽

The Mind ◽

The Relationship

Recent data suggest that the human body is not so exclusively human after all. Specifically, humans share their bodies with approximately 10 trillion microorganisms, collectively known as the microbiome. Chief among these microbes are bacteria, and there is a growing consensus that they are critical to virtually all facets of normative functioning. This article reviews the ways in which bacteria shape affect, neurological processes, cognition, social relationships, development, and psychological pathology. To date, the vast majority of research on interactions between microbes and humans has been conducted by scientists outside the field of psychology, despite the fact that psychological scientists are experts in many of the topics being explored. This review aims to orient psychological scientists to the most relevant research and perspectives regarding the microbiome so that we might contribute to the now widespread, interdisciplinary effort to understand the relationship between microbes and the mind.

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James Joyce and the Epiphanic Inscription: Towards an Art of Gesture as Rhythm

Humanities ◽

10.3390/h7040109 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 7 (4) ◽

pp. 109

Author(s):

Alberto Tondello

Keyword(s):

James Joyce ◽

Human Body ◽

Mutual Influence ◽

The Body ◽

The Mind ◽

The Relationship ◽

Shed Light

In Agency and Embodiment, Carrie Noland describes gesture as “a type of inscription, a parsing of the body into signifying and operational units”, considering it as a means to read and decode the human body. Through an analysis of James Joyce’s collection of Epiphanies, my paper will examine how gesture, as a mode of expression of the body, can be transcribed on the written page. Written and collected to record a “spiritual manifestation” shining through “in the vulgarity of speech or gesture, or in a memorable phase of the mind itself”, Joyce’s Epiphanies can be considered as the first step in his sustained attempt to develop an art of gesture-as-rhythm. These short pieces appear as the site in which the author seeks, through the medium of writing, to negotiate and redefine the boundaries of the physical human body. Moving towards a mapping of body and mind through the concept of rhythm, and pointing to a collaboration and mutual influence between interiority and exteriority, the Epiphanies open up a space for the reformulation of the relationship between the human body and its environment. Unpacking the ideas that sit at the heart of the concept of epiphany, the paper will shed light on how this particular mode of writing produces a rhythmic art of gesture, fixing and simultaneously liberating human and nonhuman bodies on the written page.

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Anatomy, Bloodletting and Emblems

Early Science and Medicine ◽

10.1163/15733823-0004a0004 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 18 (1-2) ◽

pp. 87-123 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Karin Ekholm

Keyword(s):

Human Body ◽

Title Page ◽

Free Verse ◽

Main Text ◽

The Relationship

The title-page of Nathaniel Highmore’s Disquisition on the Anatomy of the Human Body (1651) depicts mythological and historical characters, anatomical and medical symbols and embodiments of anatomy, contemplation and different forms of bloodletting. Seventy-five lines of free verse face the engraving and together with inscriptions help identify characters and themes in each scene. The verses begin with the charge to examine the title-page before proceeding, and this article explores what the picture teaches the reader. The emblem entices not only by what it heralds, but also by the complex enigmas it comprises, and interpreting it requires the reader to circulate between the picture, verses and the main text. This process instructs us in Highmore’s methods of investigation, his views on the relationship between anatomy and medicine, and his anatomical findings. In particular, it calls attention to his argument that the effectiveness of bloodletting can only be explained on the premise that blood circulates.  

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