Simplicity and Emptiness in Architecture
Current trends in architecture is to fill the building plan and section with detailed furniture, people, and hatches to fulfill an imaginary scene, bringing to life a 2D drawing. Furniture, people and hatches for materiality depict a liveliness and inhabitation that leaves nothing unquestioned as to what activities are occurring and how the architecture is used. In filling the scene with ancillary entourage, architects are successful in portraying a sense of liveliness but at the consequence of rigidity. In defining how the space should be used architects are also creating a very rigid situation where the representation leaves no space for the viewer to engage their imagination and the idea of flexible program. Often we speak about how a space could be used or the multipurposeness of a space but it is represented very rigidly. The struggle in architecture is therefore about representation and finding the balance between adding entourage as a means of creating liveliness and leaving empty space for the imagination fill as the viewer desires.
On the first day of my second graduate studio our professor asked as an ice breaker question, “what was the last TV show you watched?” This got a lot of students excited and as we went around the room people called out well known shows both new and old. When It came to my turn, I struggled to remember what I had watched last because it can be months between watching TV shows. Despite the prevalence of mainstream streaming services including Netflix, Disney, Hulu, Amazon, and Apple I don’t subscribe to any of them. The problem with TV is that, while fantastic works of arts and an enjoyable experience, it leaves little for the imagination. Every scene contains all of the information the audience needs to advance the story which makes for a very passive experience. The consumer culture is one accustomed to being fed. We expect to being shown everything and take everything at face value. Digital media has created a condition where everything is presented in a state of being and leaves little to the imagination. It is important that architecture does not forget the importance of imagination in design.
In architecture, there is an expectation that drawings are produced to a quality that includes inhabitation through people and furniture. This helps explain the design concept and fulfills the need to understand the space but can make it difficult to see anything other than what is presented. As an image, it is complete but as a means of provoking conversation through higher level thinking it sometimes falls short. People, furniture, and hatches generate a conversation about program choice rather than ephemeral, atmospheric or lighting qualities.
It is important that architects design spaces that are flexible and who’s program can change over time due to different occupations or for different needs. It is important that architecture is represented with an openness to interpretation. An architect who details drawings should be warry of implying a single function and which dictates how the space ought to be used. This makes it impossible for the user to inhabit the space in any other way or as what might be most comfort.
Kazuhiro Kojima, a Japanese architect of the 1950s generation classified spaces as “black” and “white”¹ to explain the concept of spaces that are given program (black) and spaces where a variety of activities can happen (white). The white spaces were where people could come up with the function themselves. “If the meaning of all parts of a building is already decided and people cannot decide anything, it makes for a very rigid situation.”¹ The intention was to design an architecture which supported certain programed activities while also allowing for a flexibility to change over time or to be multifunctional. In a house, this could be having a kitchen and bathroom but no other defined rooms. The rest of the house for sleeping and living are only separated by moveable partitions or curtains so that the boundary of each function is ambiguous and multiple activities can occur in the same space.
Flexibility and the concept of “white” is also found in other aspects of Japanese design. Kenya Hara is a Japanese graphic designer and art director of Muji, the well known retail company which sells a wide variety of household and consumer goods designed under a philosophy of minimalism and a no-logo or “no-brand” policy. In describing Muji products, Hara spoke of the importance of emptiness, “to be simple is to be empty. Through this emptiness, an ideal image can emerge — meaning that there is no image already existing, and you may insert your own image.”¹ In 2015 Hara wrote a book titled White² in which he investigated the source of Japanese aesthetics that produce simplicity and subtlety. Although emptiness in the modern context generally denotes nothingness, null, and lacking, it can convey a condition in which something is likely to be filled with content in the future. “A creative mind, in short, does not see an empty bowl as valueless, but perceives it as existing in a transitional state, waiting for the content that will eventually fill it.”² Thus it becomes easy to imagine emptiness being filled and can be understood as a condition of anticipation.
The emptiness of design, allowing for the user to decide on purpose can be further refined through the Japanese concept kanso( 簡素) which is the simplicity of design and the elimination of the ornate. As Hara wrote, “if something is simple, it can inspire. The capacity of the imagination is increased.”³
Kanso is important to both architectural design and representation as it provides a method to engage our imagination. Architecture is about ideas and the future. Drawing buildings full of people, furniture, and hatches creates a rigid condition with a single organization but if we represent our architecture devoid of people, furniture, and hatches then we risk being criticized as being incomplete and lifeless. Between these two extremes there is a satisfactory compromise which allows for the inhabitation of space as well as the emptiness to imagine flexibility. Simplification of the design through removal of the frivolous and ornate is an opportunity to promote imagination.
Some of the most revered architectural representation is from the office of SANAA by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa. SANAA drawings use a minimal and simple lineweight that is both elegant in simplicity but also requires effort to read resulting in an engagement of the imagination. Walls, windows, and sliding doors are nearly identical. People are infrequent and furniture is sparse. There are no hatches to imply materiality and often the buildings are disconnected from their context. This limited contextual information forces the viewer to read labels and imagine the space to understand it. The sparse furniture, in largely empty rooms or in the circulation between rooms, further forces the viewer to imagine an inhabitation. Yet, while the audience works to understand the drawing, SANAA drawing are popular for their minimalism, organization, and complexity in simplicity.
There are many other Japanese art mediums that use emptiness and imagination to convey an idea. Traditional Japanese garden design relating to Zen ideas of art is one art form which uses intangible emptiness. Karesansui (枯山水 dry mountain and water) gardens are built in places too small to include water but where people want to introduce the idea of water. The gardens use raked gravel to represent flowing water around larger stones which represent islands. Furthermore, the stones rising from a flat garden form a volumetric presence which transforms the garden from a 2D plane into a 3D space. The volumetric nature of the scene aids in implying movement in the raked gravel which can also be seen as clouds around mountain peaks. Through emptiness of the gravel and emptiness of the volume, the scenery of the garden leaves room for the imagination and the entire interpretation of the garden revolves around each person’s individual imagination.⁵
Architecture often represents spaces filled with detailed furniture, people, and hatches as a means of depicting liveliness and creating a scene. Consequently the representation leaves no space for the viewer to engage their imagination or the idea of flexible program. Simplicity and emptiness in architecture should not be undervalued in design or representation. The struggle in architectural representation is a balance between creating a scene that is lively, exciting, and inhabited; and allowing enough room for the imagination to roam. Simplification by erasing the ornate and intentionally including an emptiness conveys far greater possibility in which we can use our imagination than the entirety of an image. Representation should not strive to fill drawings with people, furniture, and hatches to create a scene. It should be in the pursuit or presenting ideas and generating an atmosphere which elicits an emotion from the audience. The reduction of the excess is an opportunity to introduce lighting or other aspects that promote an emotional response. Architecture should convey atmosphere such as excitement, anticipation or intimacy throughout the project’s representation. Architecture that is simple to suggest multiple possibilities and empty to encourage creative imagination allows for atmosphere and the generation of an emotional response. There is no greater excitement than projecting our imagination into a space and to do so we need to provide adequate emptiness that we have a place to fill.
References
[1] Brownell, Blaine Erickson. Matter in the Floating World: Conversations with Leading Japanese Architects and Designers. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2011.
[2] Hara, Kenya. White. Translated by Jooyeon Rhee. Zurich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2015.
[3] Nuijsink, Cathelijine. How to Make a Japanese House. Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2012.
[4] Sejima, Kazuyo, and Nishizawa Ryūe. Kazuyo Sejima, 1983–2000 + Ryue Nishizawa/SANAA 1995–2000. Tokyo: TOTO Shuppan, 2003.
[5] Davidson, A. K. The Art of Zen Gardens: a Guide to Their Creation and Enjoyment. New York, NY: J.P. Tarcher/Perigee, 1993.
