Photo by Jason Zhang on Unsplash

The embodiment of architectural space

Towards a new consciousness of our surroundings

A spring evening in a European town. You are sitting on a window-seat overlooking the street — one foot on the cill, the other on the floor. You rest your back against the thickness of the wall and look out.

It is at that time in the evening when the delicate hues of the sky slowly give way to the lights of houses, shop windows and street lamps. There are trees bordering the pavement and the scent of blossom drifts in through the open window. The murmured voices of strolling couples and families, mingle with the twitter of roosting birds.

A little way along the street, on the opposite side, is an open-fronted ice-cream shop. An elderly customer is chatting to the ice-cream seller while, at the same time, encouraging two small children to decide which flavour of ice-cream they want. They hop up and down excitedly, straining on tiptoe to peer through the glass-fronted refrigerator.

From a bar on the corner a man and a woman emerge. They stand awkwardly by the entrance. The man appears to be pleading with the woman who turns away from him and looks out into the street.

The whine of an approaching moped grows slowly louder until it comes into view, weaving noisily through the strolling people. The acrid tang of exhaust smoke briefly mingles with the scent of blossom.

You turn your eyes from the street and look into the room where two friends sit talking by the fire. In truth, you have been listening to their conversation for some time. Now you turn to look at them. As the light fades from the twilit window, the corners of the room are lost to darkness.

You speak. Your friends briefly turn their faces at the sound of your voice. You watch them as they continue their conversation, entranced by the play of firelight on their faces.

At the sound of raised voices, you turn once again to the street. The couple are still outside the bar but now the man is shouting at the woman, who is clearly trying to stand up to him and crying all the while.

Suddenly, unexpectedly, he puts a consoling arm around her and, after a little while, they walk off together.

What is this about ?

Is it the introduction to a novel, a film script or a short story?

In truth it is none of these things; the street could be anywhere in the world; the couple by the bar might just as well be embracing, as arguing. Maybe there is only one other person in the room and they are sitting at the table reading.

No, in this particular story, the characters are incidental; it is the setting itself that is important: the room, the street below and the window-seat that allows you to be in a place halfway between them. The fact that the cill is wide enough for you to sit on means that you can switch your attention from the street to the room with a simple turn of your head.

Alternatively, you might picture a similar window seat in an English country house; most likely it is furnished with tapestry cushions, the windows made up of leaded panes. Instead of a street, it looks out onto a garden where children are playing.

A feeling for architectural space

Just as a musician might find it difficult to understand why a tone-deaf person cannot hold a tune, so I find myself intrigued by the difficulty many people have in understanding and shaping the everyday spaces they inhabit. It might simply be a case of how the furniture is set out in a room or deciding on the layout of a garden. These limitations are most apparent when it comes to the plans people draw to explain the alterations they are thinking of making to their own homes. In a few cases it is clear that the person has a feel for the kind of space they wish to create; more often than not this spatial sensibility is lacking.

In case you are inclined to view this as a rather mean-minded attempt to highlight my own spatial sensibilities whilst mocking the difficulties of others, I can only point out that I have my own fair share of incompetencies, ineptitudes and blind-spots. When I hear music being played by people who are good at it, I imagine they must be tapping into some special sense — something I don’t quite get. It is much the same with people who are brilliant at languages or mathematics.

There is a mysterious substance — let us call it architectural space — that is unavoidably present in every form of enclosure. It is arguably the single most important determinant of our enjoyment of a building. But what is it? How can we talk about it and — most important — what are the principles governing how it can be shaped and manipulated? That is what I want to explore in this piece.

The history of architectural space

If you want to understand the theory behind the classical, western architectural tradition there are a number of authoritative texts: Vitruvius (Ten Books on Architecture)¹, Alberti (On the Art of Building in Ten Books)², Palladio (The Four Books of Architecture)³ all the way through to more recent Georgian and Victorian pattern books. All of these texts share an underlying common assumption: that there are a number of fundamental rules that apply to geometry, proportion and the grouping of parts and that architects who take the time to understand how the rules work and build accordingly might hope to produce great buildings.

Nowadays such texts are considered absolutist, in the sense that they propose the existence of a set of principles that are valid for all time and across all cultures. We might imagine we have left this kind of thinking behind but we have not shaken off the historical legacy altogether. Though architectural practice is no longer guided by simple sets of rules, the schemes and disciplines adopted by present-day architects retain a deeply-embedded assumption, inherited from those earlier times — namely that the creation and critical appreciation of a work of architecture is an entirely cerebral process.

In case this appears somewhat abstract, just think about how we are normally accustomed to discuss architecture. When looking at classical or renaissance buildings, we might find ourselves looking at line drawings or diagrams, in which architectural elevations are overlaid with geometrical constructions, arcs or circles, golden rectangles and so on. When it comes to more recent work, we either see drawings in a variety of projections (orthogonal, isometric, axonometric, perspective), or photographs taken with special lenses designed to minimise ‘distortion’. Even when perspectives renderings are employed they are typically viewed from a privileged viewpoint from where it is possible to take in the totality of the architectural intent. What all these representations have in common is that they promote a viewpoint that is lifted outside familiar physical reality into an abstract intellectual realm of geometry and ideas — a God’s eye view in effect.

It is not that there is anything so terribly wrong about this — after all, buildings old and new, designed in adherence to such abstract principles are frequently considered elegant, graceful and aesthetically satisfying. Nevertheless, there is the suspicion that, behind the rules — whether they are concerned with geometric proportions or more fluid notions of space — there must be something more: a sensibility operating on a less conscious level and deriving from our common, human experience.

The concept of architectural space — though somewhat hazy — is a promising starting point. After all, when using a building it is arguably the subjective interaction with three-dimensional space that dominates our experience. But it is not as if architectural spaces are the only ones we are capable of enjoying. The physical world we inhabit is hugely varied, comprising elements of landscape (hills, valleys and such like), artificial environments including open spaces (streets, squares, parks and sports grounds) as well as enclosures of every conceivable type (sheds, dwellings, workshops, warehouses, shopping malls, churches, temples and galleries). Some of these spaces are ugly, mundane and depressing; in others we feel relaxed and at ease. Is there a language capable of capturing our interaction with these kinds of spaces and — crucially — one which we can bring to bear on problems of design ?

The identification of architectural space, as a design intent in its own right, is a relatively recent development — despite the fact that historians show no reticence in reaching for the concept when discussing buildings dating from the earliest times. Whilst you only have to walk through some of these buildings for it to be apparent that the architects of the past had a highly developed sense of what we now think of as architectural space, it is far from clear that they conceived of it consciously or explicitly — rather its creation was incidental to the elements that shaped and contained it — walls, roofs, arches, doorways and windows, their proportions and the relations between them.

It would be interesting to research when the notion of architectural space first emerged as a concept in its own right. Sigfried Giedion’s book, Space time and Architecture, published in 1941 and inspired by Einstein’s theories of Relativity, was a notable example but there are undoubtedly others. In the latter half of the century, the popularity of eastern philosophies — Taoism in particular — led to the idea of architectural space as a sort shaped emptiness, existing in duality with the material elements that enclose it. More recently, in this century, the familiar, three (or four) dimensional concept of space has been extended to include both networked and virtual environments in which locality is freed from the traditional constraints. Environments such as these are highly compelling and it is difficult to argue they have no relevance.

And yet how quickly — having proposed architectural space as a basis for understanding the uplifting feeling we experience on entering a beautiful room — do we risk letting it lapse back again into abstraction.

Instead, in this piece, I propose we keep our feet firmly on the ground.

Space and the body

We are animals — more specifically we are animals with backbones. Though we are roughly symmetrical left and right, the same isn’t true when it comes to back and front, or head and tail for that matter. In common with other vertebrates we have a front (ventral) side and a back (dorsal) side. Furthermore, as humans, we are bipedal — we walk upright on two legs; our eyes are oriented forward and, as we don’t have eyes in the backs of our heads, we have to rely on others to watch our backs.

Our bodies then are key to our experience of the world around us. But I want to suggest something else, something a little more fanciful. I want you to imagine that, from the front of your body a sort of invisible bubble extends — a bit like a balloon — and that the degree to which you feel comfortable in your surroundings depends on how easily your imaginary bubble fits the real space around it.

In case you find this talk of bubbles too flippant you might want to explore some of the science around the topic of personal space. Michael Graziano, for example — a professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Princeton University — in his book The Spaces Between Us⁴, proposes that our brains contain specialised networks of neurons that encode the space immediately surrounding our bodies — our peripersonal space, as he terms it.

What I find exciting about this is the thought that our relationship to our surroundings might be mediated by a real mental construct that strives constantly to harmonise with the physical spaces in which we find ourselves and that the manner and degree to which such harmonisation is attained — whether easily or awkwardly — is largely determined by the character, shape and proportion of the physical space itself: architecture, in other words.

Rather than attempting to give my own ideas a solid scientific foundation — a thing I am not qualified to do and which, in any case, would be of questionable value — I propose adopting a different approach, namely to see how the bubble metaphor might apply to a variety of familiar situations and thereby, hopefully, to give it a degree of poetic momentum that might be taken up by others. Years ago, I came across a similar viewpoint when reading The Poetics of Space by Gaston Bachelard⁵. In this fascinating and unusual book he explored a number of poetic archetypes such as nests, shells, wardrobes and corners, through a process of creative daydreaming or reverie. His intention, as I understood it, was to deepen our understanding of how familiar objects condition our imagination. I hope to do something similar here but with reference to such things as rooms, corridors and courtyards.

First though we need to agree some terminology and explain how bubbles behave.

Terminology

It is important to distinguish between real physical space and this, admittedly hypothetical, spatial construct formed within the brain. As far as real, physical spaces are concerned there is virtually no limit to their geometric complexity, while, in the specific case of architecture, the opportunities are only constrained by the scale of the human body and the practicalities of construction.

The second, mentally constructed kind of space (for which I propose the term — bubble) is very different. As the name implies, it is little more than a constantly changing rounded shape: sometimes small, at other times large; sometimes spherical, at other times long and thin.

As an alternative to bubble we could talk instead about personal space or, following Michael Graziano’s terminology: peripersonal space (or some variant). To do so might lend the idea a greater degree of intellectual seriousness. But given that the idea has not yet won the right to be taken seriously, I propose continuing to use the term bubble.

In addition to objective, physical space and these neural ‘bubbles’, I propose adopting the term personal space or architectural space for the subjective experience that arises when the two interact — at least in the domain of the built environment. Some might be inclined to contest this, claiming that architectural space has an absolute existence in its own right. Far from being a mere quibble over terminology, the question goes to the heart of the matter for it is my contention that the concept of architectural space, despite its grandeur and sophistication, has no reality beyond the subjective interplay of human mind and physical reality.

Bubble rules

Suspend your disbelief for a moment while we explain how these bubbles work.

As stated earlier, a bubble extends from the front of your body and is roughly symmetrical, left and right. You might think of it as attached to your chest or belly.

Though the natural shape of your bubble is roughly spherical, it can extend forwards like one of those long, party balloons.

The natural tendency of your bubble is to fit itself to the real space directly in front of you. Given it is a bubble however, there is a limit to how well it can do this.

Your bubble can also shrink or expand in response to your own intent.

Your bubble isn’t static. At times, when you are still, it is rounder; when you are moving it might be stretched forward; in a large, outdoor space it is huge whilst in a confined space it might be tiny.

Real, physical spaces are rarely simple. For example a town square has smaller streets leading off it; an airport departure lounge is bordered by small shops and coffee bars. When you find yourself in such places, your bubble will play with the various opportunities the situation offers. This is largely conditioned by intent and only secondarily by physical spaces. If you seek privacy and reassurance, for example, you will seek a well-defined, interior space in which your bubble can settle.

As far as rules are concerned, that’s about all.

It might make more sense if we imagine you and your bubble in a number of different situations. The picture that opens this piece is one such scenario. However, it is a little complex. Let’s start with something simpler.

An Empty room

You walk into an empty room. While you stand in the doorway, you take in the space of the room itself — the space you are free to walk into. Your bubble expands to fill the space, it presses against the walls and bends toward the corners. Since a room is primarily a place in which to rest, the fit is most comfortable if the room is roughly as long as it is broad, though, given that there is a direction to your having come through the door, it might be a little longer in that direction. Rooms that are roughly square, circular or oval in plan are best. In contrast, a room that has sharp corners is likely to feel uncomfortable (picture a triangular room). Similarly, a room with hidden corners is one that can only be apprehended in a piecemeal fashion.

Adding furniture to a room changes its shape. When you furnish a room you create, in effect, a smaller room within it and all the points outlined above apply to this smaller space. A typical (modest-sized) bedroom is a good example. These rarely have space beyond what is needed for the bed itself plus some clothes storage. If the left-over space is awkward (such that your bubble can’t easily grow into it) then going to bed will be all that the room is good for.

Corridors

You are walking down a long corridor. Your bubble extends forwards, long and thin. If you have a destination in mind, you are reconciled to the long, thin shape as it matches your sense of purpose. If you are lost, on the other hand, or simply wandering, you experience some discomfort as you are subconsciously seeking a place of rest. Your anxiety is lessened if the end of the corridor is seen to open onto a larger space, as this can serve as a default destination in itself — one that promises a more settled space.

In his book, A Pattern Language, Christopher Alexander⁶ has a chapter entitled Path Shape in which he states,

“Streets should be for staying in, and not just for moving through, the way they are today.”

He goes on to propose a design principle intended to address the issue:

“Make a bulge in the middle of a public path and make the ends narrower, so that the path forms an enclosure which is a place to stay, not just a place to pass through.”

All this suggests an additional principle: The shape of your bubble is primarily determined by the space in front of you. If this matches your intent (e.g. walking purposefully down a corridor) you will tend to feel comfortable; otherwise you are likely to experience some unease.

A well designed space is one that is capable of accommodating a variety of intents.

A passage that curves away

Straight corridors (as we have seen) have their problems.

When you are walking down a zig-zagging corridor a new physical space is revealed at every corner, entailing repeated, abrupt re-evaluation of your bubble — which is stressful and tiring.

If you want to wander down a narrow street or passageway it’s best if it curves out of sight — gently, not too abruptly. That way your bubble remains confined to what can be seen (or sensed) in front of you, while at the same time constantly being refreshed.

On of my favourite spaces is at Kettle’s Yard gallery in Cambridge where, on the first floor, there is a beautiful set of inter-liked rooms. From the first room the next is set at an angle and down a pair of steps; and the next room similarly — the whole sequence forming a chain of gently-descending unfolding spaces.

Waiting rooms

While leafing through A Pattern Language I came across another fascinating chapter: A Place to Wait, which is summarised as follows:

“The process of waiting has inherent conflicts in it”.

This is arguably the inverse of the corridor, but similar in having the potential for unease. The waiting room is a place of repose but it is a place you long to leave. Your bubble fills the space, where it intersects those of others but it is in conflict with your intent.

I am not sure I have ever experienced a waiting room that satisfactorily solves this design problem other than by giving people the opportunity to escape to an imaginary space — by providing a magazine rack, for example.

Inside looking out

These days, a popular theme in house design is what people call inside-outside space — most commonly a room overlooking a courtyard or garden and separated from it by full-height, glazed doors. When the doors are closed the outside space is little more than a view but once they are open the situation is dramatically transformed. Your bubble, which up to that point is comfortably confined within the boundaries of the room is suddenly able to expand into the outside space, whether you actually move outside or not. If the opening is wide, the effect is enhanced. Matching floor levels, inside and out (level threshold) also helps.

Rather than have the room open onto a large garden, the first outside space might be a courtyard, the first of a series of spaces, growing in scale and culminating in the landscape.

More generally, a sequence of interconnected rooms, courtyards or gardens, alternately narrowing down and widening out, presents your bubble with a corresponding series of spatial encounters, with easy transitions between them.

The desk

You are sitting at a desk, writing or typing at a keyboard. Your bubble is confined to the small space in front of you. But then there comes a moment when you need to think, to reflect and you raise your eyes. If all you see is the wall in front of you, your bubble remains trapped inside the same confines. Better if, beyond your desk, there is an unimpeded view of a larger space into which your bubble can momentarily expand in step with your thoughts.

(No) curtains in Amsterdam

I have only visited Amsterdam once and on that visit one of the things that intrigued me was the general openness that people appear to have about their living spaces. Walking through the older part of the city, I find yourself looking, through uncurtained windows, into beautifully-furnished rooms, lit in delicate hues of green, violet, yellow and pink.

It is as if your bubble is being invited to engage with a part of another’s living space — a hospitable gesture, which I confess to being impressed by.

Or have I got it all wrong? Are those rooms, which I seem to recall were nearly always empty of inhabitants, primarily a form of display? And if so, then maybe the gesture is not so much one of hospitality as an invitation to admire.

Fish tank houses

I have never quite understood the appeal of those expensive, architect-designed houses with walls that are almost completely transparent. They are almost invariably built in spectacular surroundings, typically in a grove of trees, by the shore line of a lake or on a featureless rocky platform — the intention being for the house itself to become virtually invisible in deference to its surroundings.

In such a house — and this is arguably more true the more breathtaking the setting — the process of creating a subjective architectural space is taken entirely out of your hands. Regardless of your inclinations or intent, your bubble is coerced into an accommodation with a physical reality that permits no negotiation.

Sitting, like a film star, against a backdrop of silver birches is all well and good in the daytime but everything changes at night. Now you must either replace the sun with a barrage of floodlights etc. or find yourself staring out into a black, impenetrable void, such that anyone standing outside can see right in.

Not that you would expect to see anyone outside. If, while staring into the night, you were to see a faintly illuminated face at the edge of the trees you would probably jump out of your skin.

A cafe

You go into a cafe by yourself for a coffee. Though there are tables set out around the room there are very few customers. Where do you choose to sit ? Not in the middle of the room for sure. No, you select a table at the side from where — if you so choose — you can engage with the entire space.

Of course, in a crowded cafe you no longer have the luxury of choosing where to sit, but then, in any case, the situation is different as it is not generally considered a first priority to sit scanning the other customers. I was recently in a cafe in that capital of cafes — Vienna. Most of the customers were elderly and were either engaged in conversation or (and this was the majority) sitting by themselves, reading. The cafe had a good supply of newspapers — each providing an opportunity to create a small, private space that could be readily expanded by the arrival of a friend.

The mirror

How many times have you found yourself watching a horror film in which the protagonist finds themself standing, looking at their own reflection, in a bathroom mirror.

“Oh oh, here we go”, you find yourself thinking — because you know, with absolute certainty, that you are about to see the reflection of someone standing behind them, be it the psychopath, monster, evil child, whatever.

In an elaboration of the idea — one that is undoubtedly aimed at audiences in whom repeated exposure to the original trope has led to the need for a stronger shock — the mirror is mounted on a bathroom cabinet which the protagonist opens in order to get a bottle of tablets or suchlike. It is only once the cabinet door is closed again that the reflection of deranged killer swings into view.

There’s a paradox here — something that doesn’t quite make sense — and this, no doubt, contributes to the creepy effect. For though the protagonist is engaged, as always, with what lies in front of them, their bubble encounters not a real space but the virtual space behind the mirror. And this space is precisely the one to which they are normally denied access — namely the space behind them. It is only in this indirect, reflected space that they see the unwelcome presence, for on turning around in horror, there is no longer anyone there.

Power bubbles

Bubbles can also be an expression of power. Picture a ‘typical’ throne room as seen in countless historical dramas. The King sits at one end and his bubble grows to take in the entire space. It would be unthinkable for him to sit at the centre as his back would be unprotected; instead he has trusted courtiers or bodyguards who occupy positions on either side and a little to the rear of the throne — the only spaces untouched by his personal bubble.

The throne is elevated, allowing the king to be seen but, more importantly, to allow him to command the space in front of him.

Courtiers are lined up on both sides, whilst petitioners, visiting emissaries and so on are forced to place themselves at the dead centre of the king’s space.

Priests, by contrast, turn their backs on the people in order to engage directly with God. The space represented by the altar is a sacred space to which only the priest has access. Though the people are encouraged to stand and face in the same direction, their experience is necessarily indirect, the painted altarpiece only dimly hinting at the glories that are the privilege of God’s intermediary.

It is interesting to see these basic form repeated, across numerous cultures and historical periods, virtually without change.

Sitting by a fire

To sit by a fire, is a pattern that has changed very little since earliest times.

The warmth of the flames; the spectacle of the slow consumption of wood; the brief flarings of collapsing embers, symbolic of the cycle of life and death; the contrast with the cold, dark and inhospitable surroundings; the play of light on the faces of friends — these are all familiar aspects of the experience.

Your bubble dwells primarily, along with those of others, on the small space in front of you. Occasionally you might raise your eyes to meet the gaze of your companions and then your bubble swells to take in the larger space.

The fire might be outside, in the woods or on a featureless tundra, or it might be set in a hearth, in a traditional sitting-room where friends, seated in deeply upholstered arm-chairs, entertain one another with ghost stories. The pattern is very similar in all cases.

It is odd that this pattern is so strong, given the fact that it entails a degree of vulnerability — a vulnerability heightened when a solitary figure sits by a fire alone. With friends at least, you share in the a mutual commitment to remain alert to dangers that might lurk in the darkness beyond the circle of firelight

Back at the Window Seat

But to return to where I began this account — to the room above the street and to the window seat where you still sit. The last flush of sunset has drained from the sky and evening has descended on the town. Moths flutter in around the street lamps and strolling families have given way to settled groups of diners. Down in the square they sit at tables canopied by boughs festooned with coloured lights. You rise from your seat by the window and turn to the room which by now is almost completely enveloped in darkness. Time to draw the curtains and light the lamp

Your companions interrupt their conversation and look up. They have been talking about everyday spaces and how people experience them. Right now, however, it is time to eat.

Conclusion

As human beings we occupy a common, shared environment⁷. As architects and interior designers, we have a particular responsibility for giving it shape and at the heart of our art is a sensitivity to the nature of the spaces that surround us. The images and metaphors I have introduced here are no more than an attempt to describe in words a sensibility that operates primarily on an instinctual level. I trust, nonetheless, that it will allow you to see and experience architectural space with greater sensitivity and insight and, better still, to produce designs that have the capacity to engage and enrich others.

Notes

1. Vitruvius: The ten books on architecture, Dover, 10 Jan 1998
2. Alberti, Leon Battista, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, MIT Press , 6 Sept 1991
3. Palladio, Andrea, The Four Books of Architecture, Dover , 2 Jan 2000
4. Graziano, Michael, The Spaces Between Us: A Story of Neuroscience, Evolution, and Human Nature, OUP USA, 5 April 2018
5. Bachelard, Gaston, The Poetics of Space, Penguin Classics, 13 Dec 2014
6. Alexander, Christopher, A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, OUP USA, 17 Aug 1978
7. Unfortunately, with the increasing privatisation of civic space this is no longer self-evident.