Lawrence Nield.In my design process, the diagram comes between the concept and the development of the architectural parti. The diagram is critical, setting out the operational order of the building. It defines the spatial arrangement of activities and is therefore, after the brief, the most important agent for interaction with client and users. The diagram, however, mainly deals with the spatial arrangement of activities and not with the further orchestration of space, structure, light and materiality that completes the architectural parti. It does not engage the sensuous part of architecture. Nevertheless, if the diagram is not robust, the building will not work. It is essential that diagrams are understood as the provocation for the architectural parti. Too many buildings stay as diagrams, particularly large complex buildings like hospitals. A building is not merely a diagram of use. I have used two projects to argue the importance of the diagram: the new stadium at Venice (right) and the hospital at Mount Druitt, Sydney (left). [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The new stadium is organised around a four part diagram of use--to the west are the best and VIP seats in one enclosed area; to the east are good seats; to the south are the seats for the local fans (the tifosi) and to the north (with maximum separation) the visiting tifosi. Italian laws regulate that all stadiums must be divided into these four parts. Deliberately and happily the openings at each end to the south allow views and engagement with the citta storica and the lagoon. The openings to the north allow views across the Veneto to the Dolomites Dolomites or Dolomite Alps, Alpine group, N Italy, between the Isarco and Piave rivers, named for the dolomitic limestone of which it is composed. Famous for their strikingly bold outline (a stairstep effect created by erosion of alternate layers of soft and hard rock) and for their vivid colors at sunrise and sunset, the Dolomites are ideal for mountain climbing and skiing. Hydroelectricity is produced in the Dolomites. 1 Mineral, calcium magnesium carbonate, CaMg (CO3)2. It is commonly crystalline and is white, gray, brown, or reddish in color with a vitreous to pearly luster. The magnesium is sometimes replaced in part by iron or manganese. 2 Carbonate rock composed chiefly of the mineral dolomite, similar to limestone but somewhat harder and heavier. The rock may be metamorphosed into dolomitic marble.. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Hospitals illustrate the problems of diagrams. They require diagrams of operational order but also suffer from often being too diagrammatic, without an overall architectural parti and wholistic order. Completed in 1981 at Mount Druitt in the western suburbs of Sydney, this hospital is developed from a very clear diagram resulting in a coherent building, in service for 24 years, bringing together both diagram and architecture. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] |
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