The Presence of the Weather

Abstract

Modern architecture has dedicated much of its discourse to crystal-ball gazing - dwelling on the visionary and the speculative. Conversely, Kevin Nute, Professor of Architecture at the University of Oregon, puts the case for the present over the future and the past. To enhance experiences of the present, he describes how architects can harness the effects of changing temporal and weather conditions - sun and shadow, wind and rain. Design can heighten the sensory stimuli these conditions generate, keeping us 'in the moment' while still enjoying the comfort of being indoors.

Full text

The Presence
of the
Weather
Kevin Nute
Standrst to come: Kevin Nute
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While much attention has been given to the past and
future in building design, the one temporal domain in
which life takes place – the present – has tended to be
overlooked. As writers such as Eckhart Tolle and Jon
Kabat-Zinn have pointed out, however, most human stress
stems from thoughts of past or future events, and staying
in the here and now improves our concentration.1 Yet the
‘mindful’ approach these authors advocate for remaining
present relies on meditative techniques that are not always
practical in many everyday situations. This essay explores
a potential alternative that is much more readily available:
the animation of the weather.2
Here But Not Present
Recollection and anticipation are essential to everyday
survival, and yet for millennia thinkers from a wide range
of contexts have been pointing out the folly of spending
most of our lives contemplating the unchangeable past
or the uncertain future at the expense of the reality of
the present. Indeed, the very existence of the past and
future has been questioned since classical times. Aristotle,
for example, considered time to be nothing more than
a ‘succession of nows’, and seven centuries later St
Augustine described the past and future similarly, as ‘mere
thoughts’.3 The modern Israeli philosopher Martin Buber
came to much the same conclusion – that the passing
moment is all we really have – famously declaring that
‘every living situation … demands … a reaction that cannot
be prepared beforehand … presence’. 4
Yet much of the time we are notoriously absent, lost
in thoughts of other times or places, and seemingly
increasingly so. Mobile devices now allow us to receive
live information from almost anywhere on earth, all of the
time, but in the process they remove us ever further from
the world immediately around us.
We interact with that world – ‘the present’ – principally
through our bodies. The body is not only our primary
means of effecting change in the world, but also,
conversely, of detecting variations in that environment. In
contrast to the past and the future, which are accessible
only through thought, it is via the physical senses alone
that we are able to engage with the here and now.
Sensory stimuli from our surroundings serve to make us
aware of where we are, while variations in those stimuli
help to keep us in the moment. Perceptible change in
our immediate environment, then, is essential to our
remaining fully present. As Diane Ackerman explains: ‘Our
senses crave novelty … If there’s no change … they doze
and register little or nothing … A constant state – even
of excitement – in time becomes tedious, fades into the
background, because our senses have evolved to report
changes.’5
Unfortunately most of us now spend more than 90 per
cent of our lives in places that are essentially static –
inside buildings. As Judith Heerwagen writes: ‘Our indoor
environments are largely devoid of sensory change,
and deliberately so. Buildings are kept at constant
Aritomo Yamagata
and Jihei Ogawa,
Internal courtyard
garden,
Murin-an Villa,
Kyoto,
1894
Enclosure of weather-
generated movement in an
internal courtyard designed
to seem like part of the
surrounding interior space.
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temperatures and ventilation rates, the light
from overhead uorescent lights is the same
day in and day out, the furnishings and colors in
the environment remain constant.’6
There is, however, a freely available source of
almost perpetual change immediately outside
most buildings – the weather. The elements
are both omni- and ever-present, in the sense
of being everywhere and in a constant state of
ux. Because most of the changes they generate
are so familiar, moreover, they are also capable
of keeping us alert without being distracting – a
key requirement in most work settings.7
The only problem is that most buildings are
designed to exclude the weather. It is the
perceptible change they generate, however,
rather than the elements themselves that we
need in order to remain present. Transmitting
weather-generated change across the envelope
of a building, then, could effectively improve
the habitability of indoor environments
without compromising shelter. Analysis of
existing buildings reveals three simple ways of
achieving this: enclosure of weather-generated
movement in internal courtyards designed
to seem continuous with their surrounding
interior space; projection of weather-generated
movement directly onto interior surfaces; and
back projection of weather-generated movement
onto translucent external cladding materials.
While our needs for both nature and change
in our surroundings have been repeatedly
conrmed scientically over the last half
century, there has been little investigation of the
effects of natural change on building occupants.8
In an effort to remedy this, between 2008 and
2012 a series of controlled experiments was
conducted in collaboration with psychologists
at the University of Oregon, designed to test
the potential benets of weather-generated
indoor change. One of the key ndings was that
wind-animated sunlight is both more calming
and less distracting than similar, articially
generated movement.9 This was consistent
with the results of other studies indicating the
benecial effects of contact with nature on
human stress and attention, and suggested that
weather-generated indoor movement could help
to improve both the health and effectiveness
of building occupants.10 The following is a
brief survey of how such benets might be
practically accessed using the movements of the
three most available elements of the weather:
sunlight, wind and rain.
Sunlight
There are several ways of bringing the
natural migration of sunlight over the earth
to the attention of building occupants. One
of the simplest is to isolate a distinctively
shaped shadow or patch of light on an indoor
surface. In order for change to keep us alert,
however, it has to be perceptible in real time.
The slowest visible movement we can detect
is approximately 1 millimetre (0.04 inches)
per second, and as the Samrat Yantra – the
giant equatorial sundial built in 18th-century
Delhi – demonstrates, the projection distance
needed to achieve this for a solar shadow is in
the region of 15 metres (50 feet).11 The famous
disc of sunlight that travels across the ceiling
of the Pantheon in Rome, for example, is often
projected well beyond this distance, meaning
that from a few metres away – on the oor, for
example – its movement is clearly discernible.
The natural migration of sunlight can also be
made more noticeable through differential
refraction. As the earth rotates the various
wavelengths of light in a regular solar
spectrum move in unison, but as Janet Saad-
Cook’s ‘Sun Drawings’ demonstrate, a simple
sheet of warped dichroic glass can separate
sunlight into differently coloured caustic
patterns that move independently of one
another. Such movement is still dependent
on the slow, smooth rotation of the earth,
however, making it relatively difcult to see
in real time. Secondary motions generated
by the heating effects of sunlight, on the
other hand, tend to be both faster and less
predictable. Air convection currents generated
by the sun’s heating of metal or asphalt roof
nishes, for example, produce much more
obviously moving shadows that can be sun-
projected onto indoor surfaces through roof
lights or clerestory windows.
Sawai Jai Singh,
Samrat Yantra
Equatorial Sundial,
Delhi,
1724
At a speed of just over 1
millimetre (0.04 inches) per
second, the movement of
the gnomon shadow along
the time-measuring surface
is clearly perceptible to
those watching from nearby.
Pantheon,
Rome,
ad 126
At the approximately
26-metre (85-foot) projection
distance shown, the disc
of sunlight is travelling at
roughly 1.5 millimetres (0.06
inches) per second, meaning
its movement would be
immediately obvious to
someone watching from 2 to
3 metres (6 to 10 feet) away.
Janet Saad-Cook,
Essentia Exaltata,
Eugene,
Oregon,
2010
One of Janet-Saad Cook's
‘Sun Drawing’ instruments
and the independently
moving coloured caustic
patterns it reects on a
nearby wall.
Kevin Nute and
Jake Weber,
Interior projection
of air convection
current shadows from
a sun-heated roof
surface, 2014
Convection shadows
are only visible through
direction projection.
The natural migration of
sunlight can also be made
more noticeable through
differential refraction.
Kengo Kuma and Associates,
Temple of Baisou-in,
Tokyo,
2003
Back Projection of weather-
generated movement onto
translucent cladding.
Tadao Ando Architect & Associates,
Chapel of the Wind,
Kobe,
1986
Projection of weather-
generated movement directly
onto an interior surface.
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Wind
From indoors we are often made aware of
outdoor air movement through its effects
on external surfaces. Of these, foliage is
probably the most common, and since
familiarity makes perceptible change less
distracting, planting can be an especially
useful source of wind-generated indoor
animation. One of the simplest ways of
effectively bringing the movement of
outdoor air inside without the moving air
itself is to arrange for the sun to project the
shadows of wind-animated foliage onto
interior surface. If direct sunlight is not
available, placing planting in an internal
courtyard made to seem continuous with
the surrounding interiors can be equally
effective. Alternatively, two layers of a
lightweight mesh placed outside a window
will reveal even the slightest external air
movement in the form of changing moiré
patterns. The most effective wind-revealing
device of all, however, is probably a simple
surface of standing water in an internal
courtyard, which can reveal both local
and high-altitude air movement as well as
reecting wind-animated sunlight patterns
onto interior surfaces.
John Pawson,
Palmgren House,
Drevviken,
Sweden,
2013
Visual continuity between
an internal and external
room, created by
continuing surface nishes
through the glazing
between the two.
Kevin Nute,
Wind-animated moiré
patterns,
Miitaka,
Japan,
2006
Changing moiré patterns
created by wind-induced
movement of a net curtain
outside a xed insect
screen.
Kengo Kuma and
Associates,
Water Glass House,
Atami,
Japan,
1984
Ground-level and high-
altitude wind revealed
in a water-lled veranda
as ripples and reected
cloud movement.
From indoors we are often made
aware of outdoor air movement
through its effects on external
surfaces.
Nikken Sekkei,
Mitsui Sumitomo
Building,
Chiba New Town,
Japan,
1994
Wind-animated sunlight
reected from the
surface of a courtyard
pool.
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Sustaining the Earth as Well as Ourselves
The natural movements of the sun, wind
and rain are compatible with a range of
important but underused sustainable building
practices, many of which might be more
widely employed if they were recongured to
help sustain building occupants as well as the
environment. This would be consistent with
Martin Heidegger’s argument that human
wellbeing does not depend on the health
of the planet alone, but also on our actively
‘saving’ it. Signicantly, for Heidegger, the
wellbeing of both relied on a reciprocal
process of ‘making present’. As he explained:
‘Mortals dwell in that they save the earth
… Saving does not only snatch something
from a danger. To save really means to set
something free into its own presencing.’12
For him, such saving afrmed the presence
of both the perceived and the perceiver.13
And since we are predisposed to perceive
live change, such variation is also the most
direct afrmation of our existence. Heidegger
might well have agreed with Marcel Proust’s
suggestion, then – and the underlying
message of this essay – that ‘a change in the
weather is sufcient to create the world and
oneself anew’.14
Buildings embody our ambivalent
relationship with nature. Even as we seek to
escape its discomforts by retreating indoors,
we remain irresistibly drawn back to it.
The built reconciliations with the weather
illustrated here stem from the simple
realisation that in being primarily a means
of intercepting the elements, buildings are
also an ideal means of making them, and
ourselves, more present. 3
Kevin Nute,
Intersections between
sustainable practices
and weather-generated
indoor movement,
2014
Grey ticks indicate combinations in which
the indoor animation can successfully
coexist with the sustainable practice,
but does not draw attention to it. Black
ticks indicate combinations in which the
indoor animation can help to reveal the
sustainable practice.
Rain
Rain is usually considered one of the elements
that buildings have to exclude at all times.
Yet there is a long tradition of rainwater being
actively collected from roofs. The impluvium, the
shallow pool at the centre of the Roman atrium,
for example, did just this in gathering water for
a range of domestic purposes. And even the
gentlest of rainfall can be made noticeable by
funnelling it through narrow roof outlets. Making
the roof surface itself transparent, however, is
probably the most effective means of bringing
the animation of rain to the immediate attention
of those indoors.
Impluvium,
House of the Silver
Wedding,
Pompeii,
c 300 bc
The rain-collecting pool at
the centre of the domestic
Roman atrium.
Eimar Boesjes and
Anita Van Asperdt/
LandCurrent Landscape
Architecture,
Rainwater Residence,
Eugene,
Oregon,
2000
A plunge waterfall created by
funnelling rainwater run-off
from a large roof through a
single corner spout.
Coburn, Sheldon,
Lutes and Amundsen,
Erb Memorial Union
addition,
University of Oregon,
Eugene,
Oregon,
1973
The rain-shedding role of a
pitched roof directly revealed
to those below.
Notes
1. See Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now,
New World Library (Novato, CA), 1999, pp
50–51; Jon Kabat-Zinn, Coming to Our Senses:
Healing Ourselves and the World Through
Mindfulness, Hyperion (New York), 2005; and
Kirk Warren Brown and Richard M Ryan, ‘The
Benets of Being Present: Mindfulness and Its
Role in Psychological Well-Being,’ Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 2003,
pp 822–48.
2. This essay is extracted from the author’s book
Vital: Using the Weather to Bring Buildings and
Sustainability to Life, Apple iBookstore, 2014.
3. Aristotle, Physics, trans WD Ross, Clarendon
Press (Oxford), 1960, Book IV, pp 10–14; and
Augustine, Confessions, trans FJ Sheed, Hackett
Publishing (Indianapolis, IN), 1942, Book II, pp
20, 223.
4. Martin Buber, Between Man and Man, Taylor
& Francis (London), 2002, p 114.
5. Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the
Senses, Vintage Books (New York), 1990, p 305.
6. Judith Heerwagen, ‘The Psychological
Aspects of Windows and Window Design’,
Proceedings of the Twenty-First Annual
Conference of the Environmental Design
Research Association, EDRA (Oklahoma City),
1990, p 270.
7. The Kaplans argue that this is the basis of
the attention-restoring effects of nature. See
Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, The Experience of
Nature: A Psychological Perspective, Cambridge
University Press (Cambridge), 1989, pp 184–93.
8. See, for example, Edward O Wilson,
Biophilia: The Human Bond with Other Species,
Harvard University Press (Cambridge, MA),
1984, and DO Hebb, ‘Drives and the CNS
(Conceptual Nervous System)’, Psychological
Review, 62, July 1955, pp 243–54.
9. See Kevin Nute et al, ‘The Animation of the
Weather as a Means of Sustaining Building
Occupants and the Natural Environment’,
International Journal of Environmental
Sustainability, 1, December 2012, pp 27–40.
10. See, for example, RS Ulrich, ‘View Through
a Window May Inuence Recovery from
Surgery’, Science, 224, 27 April 1984, pp 420–22,
and Stephen Kaplan, ‘The Restorative Benets
of Nature: Toward an Integrative Framework’,
Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15, 1995,
pp 169–82.
11. Under controlled laboratory conditions the
slowest speed of movement we are able to
see is around 0.6 millimetres (0.02 inches) per
second, but for most practical purposes it is
closer to 1 millimetre (0.04 inches) per second.
The projection distance required to generate
a solar shadow or patch of sunlight moving at
this speed varies with the distance from the
equator, and is approximately 12 divided by the
cosine of the latitude, measured in metres.
12. Martin Heidegger, Poetry, Language,
Thought, trans Albert Hofstadter, Harper
Colophon (New York), 1975, p 150.
13. Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (1927),
trans John Macquarrie and Edward Robinson,
Basil Blackwell (London), 1962, pp 383–423.
Heidegger may well have been inuenced by
George Berkeley’s thesis that it is perception
that brings phenomena into existence. See
George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning Human
Knowledge, Jeremy Pepyat (Dublin), 1710.
14. Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time, Vol 3:
The Guermantes Way, trans CK Scott Moncrieff,
Thomas Seltzer (New York), 1925, p 49.
Text © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images:
pp 66, 68, 69(cb&b), 70(c&b), 71, 72(c&b),
73© Kevin Nute; p 69(t) © The British Library
Board X432/5(19); p 69(ct) © Photo by David
Worth; p 70(t) © Åke Eison Lindman; p 72(t)
© Jackie and Bob Dunn. Pompeiiinpictures.
com. Su concessione del Ministero dei Beni
e delle Attivta Culturali e del Turismo—
Superintendenza Speciale per i Beni
Archeologici di Pompeii, Ercolano e Stabia
A change in
the weather
is sufcient
to create
the world
and oneself
anew’.
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