Aalto Iterations

I took the ideas that I developed with Aalto's Sanatorium and made some collage/iterations.

01-patient bedroom/balcony - relationship to sun, view, separation from medical staff

02-reading room - social, relaxing, regularity of life


03-kitchen - senses, timeless, recollection

While collaging these spaces, I also realized that the different rooms all would have doors to physically separate from the rest of the building. As important as the connection becomes, it is also just as important for the choice to diassociate. In the case of Aalto's Sanatorium, long term patients need non-medical spaces in order to have moments of normalcy.
The complicated part is to understand how to connect disassociated spaces with the rest of the building.
Connecting the unconnected? I'm back into heterotopia mode. oops.

(images also updated to voicethread in case the advisors would rather comment on there)

Aalto's Sanatorium - timeline/parallels

I will upload this image onto VT so that you guys can mark on it if you'd like.

Connections in Aalto's Sanatorium

I am looking farther into Aalto's Paimio Sanatorium, and why this building has become a piece to study for my Thesis. Architecturally speaking, authors have spoken at length about the important furniture, finishes, and details that were designed by Aalto for this project, and it should be learned from and studied. However, my draw to the Sanatorium is the fact that even though the building serves as a long-term health care facility, it holds many connections to the real world (it's hard to avoid speaking about heterotopia as I'm explaining these connections).

Before I began thinking about a typical tuberculosis patient's day in the Sanatorium, the term "connection" only had one definition for me. I felt connections would happen in between rooms, mostly in the corridor, and they all were physical connections. As I studied the daily routine, I noticed that these connections were not the important ones. It is important to design a space where a person, however disconnected with the world, can have emotional connections with their surroundings.

On my sketch below, I show a timeline/section of a Patient A (noted with red) going through his day, and the emotional connections he has in each space that is created at the Sanatorium.
I ALMOST posted the floorplan of the building so that these locations could be seen in plan, but felt that these ideas of emotional connections would be too grounded and specific if I went that route. The important piece of information for my thesis involves how people are emotionally connected to spaces, and how spaces can create emotion.

How does this space make you feel? Precedent 1 - Healing/Paimio Sanitorium by Alvar Aalto

I am drawn to the idea that Architects have the power to adjust the mood, and in turn health, of a person who experiences a controlled space. It is already known that certain colors can make people hungry (example : yellow, McDonald's). Smells can bring forth memories from the past (baked cookies, home). This can also work in Hospital environments.
In 1929, Alvar Aalto designed Paimio Sanatorium for the Tuberculosis Outbreak in Finland. Each detail of the building is created with the intention of healing the patients, and creating a sense of community. Since doctors prescribed sunshine as a treatment for the illness, Aalto made sure to situate the patient rooms to face southward. The many common rooms (group settings) were placed near the treatment rooms so that patients had ample time to create connections with each other. Aalto did not use technology as the basis of his design, but as a piece of a dialogue that the human has with his surroundings. Emphasis is made on the connections between the different wings, both by color and spatial changes. He designed each piece of furniture and detailing with great care, including a splashless, quiet sink which was placed on each side of the patient rooms. This building is successful in many ways, which is apparent in the fact that it is still used today.

WHY IS THIS INTERESTING? A buzzword in Healthcare design these days is "healing", but I believe it is overused. Building according to code doesn't create a "healing" environment. The Paimio Sanitorium could be written on a Doctor's prescription because the building itself becomes a part of the patient's treatment. It becomes more than a space where the doctor can do their work, but the building becomes a doctor in itself.

Destination : Unknown

In taking a few steps back, I am trying to really understand what makes emotive spaces, and why I think some sticks and bricks can actually become emotional catalysts for a social group.

I began by doing a massing study with some different spaces/shapes, and began to picture myself in these spaces. Each space is interesting in itself, but how do you know if it is an interesting space without moving through un-interesting spaces along the way?
In an urban landscape (Dallas, for example), often times, buildings are placed in a block, without much consideration of the surroundings. Once the boundary lines of a site are drawn, the landscape outside of these lines disappears.

What if you had a multi-block site, where there were multiple paths that could be experienced, in between buildings? The goal would be to have different architects design their own buildings, but to always bear in mind how these buildings would be affecting/connecting to the others?
I considered middle eastern bazaars, but these are still separated, even though they are connected under one roof. This would need to be an more of an experience:
You go to the coffee shop building,
grab a coffee, (decide if you want to get a sandwich or a pastry)
follow a pathway into the pastry shop,
grab a puff pastry, (decide if you want to sit or keep walking)
walk to the outdoor seating space and meet your friend, (decide if you want to hit the bank or check out a book)
walk down the stairs into a library,
etc

Almost like the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books that we used to read as kids.

What type of spaces could use this type of experiential organization?
This happens all the time in a Facilities Business Plan at the scale of a building. Does this happen at a urban scale?


These are a couple things I am contemplating. I hope to do an "Exquisite Corpse" study, where I provide a realistic block, create a space, and pass the site to different architect friends and see what they can add with the one rule that each building must connect in some way.

Defining Thesis Words

Here's my first pass at the thesis words. It's not what I want, but I am moving.

Thesis as a Music Video

I am having trouble trying to visualize heterotopia without thinking of a cemetary (life & death). I don't think I want to be limited to the idea of cemetaries, but I am hoping I can make correlations between all of my ideas (through film, video, photography, paintings), and eventually, maybe in a few months, revisit the idea of if I can successfully show this through a specific architecture, or if I should keep moving in generalities and hope this idea will work through several types of buildings.
I came across this music video, and it seems to describe heterotopia in a 3 minute box. It is a mental reach, but this song/video works in layers in my head.
There is the light/dark, life/death, materials, feelings. Towards the buildup of the video, there is the idea of illusion vs. reality with the bucket of paint/person standing.

Musically, this song feels like circulation through a space -
it begins with a methodical quick stroll
then slowly anxiety is introduced with the high pitched strings
the walk is slowed down to a gut wrenching pause into a space full of tight spaces and dark corners
and the end climaxes with natural light slowly entering the space, and finding the exit door.
I'm wondering if maybe I should find a space that makes me feel like this and video tape it, and then study the "moments" where my emotions change.




Radiohead - Street Spirit (Fade Out)