Space, perception, pedestrianisation, lighting of interiors.
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I only just noticed this, but aren’t the interior lighting schemes of many restaurants and bars in Temple Bar, extremely dark? Is this usual to restaurant interior design? Does anyone have any opinions on this, based upon experience etc. I once heard, that medieval churches in europe have lost much of their original spatial impact, due to lighting of those interiors with artificial lighting now. That the original churches were very dark places, that the stained glass windows were therefore much more impressive to people experiencing the space.
I think in Temple bar, the idea probably is to allow people eating inside in the restaurants to ‘see out into the street’ – since the restaurant interiors are so dark. I.e. Common sense tells you, that when interior spaces are ‘overly-well-lighted’, all you see, when you would try to look out, is the blackness of the glass – while people outside, can see perfectly into, strongly lighted interiors at nightime, the occupants inside would not be able to see out.
Click this sentence to link to CG Architect thread in question.
Anyone else have any opinions? I think this image of a lighting solution is similar to the kinds of ones used in Temple Bar.
http://www.cgarchitect.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=next_topic;f=4;t=000476;go=older
I seem to notice as many pockets of ‘darkness’ as there are dimly lighted ones in the space. Perhaps we as architects, aren’t too sensitive to the interior designers trade – as we tend to grab onto things, which are really solid, things like walls and columns and roofs – none of which make ‘a design’ for a restaurant interior any better usually, or really make improvements to the ‘space’ at that scale.
I think, that as architects, we need to be more perceptive of factors affecting our mental perceptions of space too. I.e. Things like the time it takes to walk through a building and the experience of space/time. Things like views, natural daylight in space, things like ‘open spaces’ in urban situations and how people use them.
Only when we as architects, manage to observe reality in its many layers of perception, does the ‘inversion of this process’ actually become the process of design. I mean, that drawings no longer become just lines, arcs, rectangles etc – but something a bit more than that.
The trouble with many design courses in architecture, is the ‘quick-fix’ teaching you how to ‘design’ per se, which is impossible I think now. It is learning to see, and the inversion of that process, which becomes ‘design’. The better you can see, the more you learn to notice and observer, the more sucessful your ‘forays’ into designing real architecture are likely to become.
More than that, as you begin to improve these skills of observation, your design ‘talent’ might ultimately scale very high over the given period of time, required to complete an architectural design third level course. I mean, the process should start day one in first year, with tentative attempts to look at Ching etc. I do see this ‘absense’ of perceptual training about interior space, circulation and open exterior public space, in architectural design education as a real problem today.
Comments?
I mean, I just thought I would point it out, because quite literally, the biggest element of a good interior design, is often insubstantial things like the treatment of the lighting. That is indeed, what makes the restaurant you are in different from the one across the street – you are probably not going to make much money charging by metres squared area, for design services – you make your design fees based on ideas – you know how susceptible the customers are to things like image, trend, fashion, identity, branding etc, etc. Every restaurant and bar in Temple Bar goes head over hells to establish a differnt ‘look, ambiance or feel’ to it – in order to distinguish itself and set itself out from the others.
A bit like Peacocks have huge feathers etc. The problem is that, computer software rendering algorithms, by their very nature would tend to reduce everything to a sameness quality or something. The opposite to what your client paying for that new interior fit out actually wants. The client whats a cool new idea, that is different from anything else and will put money in the register. Ching, ching!
Click here: Yeah you have probably guessed it, computer technology bothers me in architectural design. Frustratingly, it offers opportunities and disasterous pitfalls all at once.
A designer these days, increasingly has to ‘wrench’ him/her self away from the realilty of the computer software each day, because that has become a kind of comfort zone for so many, to get back to the original brief or customer/market. Especially as you do make the visuals look so good Nisus! God damn it! Poor old designers have to struggle really hard to limp back to their grey, monotone lifes on the drawing board so to speak, back to the real concepts, and what they might have started out to do in the first place.
http://www.cgarchitect.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000481#000014
Hence why I believe that a prospective young person looking for a job in an architect’s practice, would do very well, to keep a closed mouth about their skills on a computer system. Architect employers generally don’t like you coming in and distracting their best, and most highly paid designers, with fancy computer whiz-bang images.
I think, that competitions like Dun Laoire competition give a very false sense of how designers really design in practice. Those computer generated images probably were not even seen in the respective architectural practices, by the original designers of the buildings – so as not to distract them from the real goals of doing a good design.
successful interpretation of the spatiality of darkness.
http://www.cgarchitect.com/gallery/image_spotlight.asp?galleryID=18431
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