Architecture is Awesome #26: Details

 

This is another in my series of posts inspired by 1000 Awesome Things, the Webby Award-winning blog written by Neil Pasricha. The series is my meditation on the awesome reasons why I was and continue to be attracted to the art of architecture. 
 
Good architecture demands the many components that comprise a building work together to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Skilled architects plan every detail with care and an eye toward its role in achieving an overall design intent. They consider both the technical and aesthetic qualities of a detail.
 
On the technical side, a building fundamentally must perform many jobs well. It must protect its inhabitants by keeping them comfortable. This means protecting them from the elements: controlling temperature, humidity, light, and such. It also means supporting often complex and diverse functional needs. A good building does so efficiently if it is not to be wasteful. Even small, outwardly simple structures are comprised of countless details, each of which is crucial to the building’s overall performance.
 
Proper construction detailing requires a comprehensive understanding of the buildings sciences: the properties of building materials (their qualities, strengths & weaknesses, etc.), the interrelatedness of various systems, and a working knowledge of best detailing practices. First-rate details—grounded in proven science and experience—are typically elegant, economical, and effective. Invariably, most architects only acquire the necessary know-how to achieve such details through extensive study and/or research and real-world experience. Today’s rapid pace of technological innovation heightens the importance of continued education and expansion of the architect’s technical knowledgebase.
 
Preparing details takes time. Architects earn their keep in no small part through their ability to efficiently convey their design intent to builders by means of many carefully crafted detail drawings. The amount of effort necessary to consider and produce these drawings consumes a substantial portion of an architect’s fee, but in the big picture this is money well-spent. Good details help ensure more precise bids, fewer change orders, and limited cost overruns.
 
The aesthetic aspect of preparing details is of equal importance to achieving a complete work of architecture. Details take many forms, but those that address transitions in material have often presented the most fertile design opportunities.
 
The 20th century Italian architect Carlo Scarpa was renowned for how he mastered the detailing of materials through his unmatched appreciation for a level of craft down to the smallest of elements. Good details marry form and function in harmony. Scarpa—whose oeuvre mostly consisted of interventions within or about existing structures in his native Veneto region—was as much an artisan in spirit as he was an architect. His idiosyncratic details combined Venetian glass, concrete, mosaics, wood, brass, and water as architectural elements. He indulged in the haptic and aural qualities of architecture as much as he did the visual. His approach to architecture was largely informed by his detailing of varied building materials and their sensory properties.
 

Wood detailing by Carlo Scarpa in the Aula Mario Baratto Room within the Ca’Foscari, University of Venice (photo by Cafoscaritour, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

 
Many other famous architects have likewise obsessed over details. Among them, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe infamously proclaimed that “God is in the details.” Peter Zumthor said of details “. . . when they are successful, [they] are not mere decoration. They do not distract or entertain. They lead to an understanding of the whole of which they are an inherent part.” Curtis Fentress averred “A bold architectural statement turns a public building into a landmark, but it is in the details where the architect becomes the real storyteller.” And Charles Eames succinctly stated “The details are not the details. They make the design.”
 
Another famous architect, Arthur Erickson, lamented that “. . . details are the very source of expression in architecture. But we are caught in a vise between art and the bottom line.” That vise is omnipresent, but it is incumbent upon architects to do their best with the resources at hand. Using an economy of means to develop details that are both expressive and efficacious is a Holy Grail of architectural design.
 
Architectural details are at their AWESOME best when they support a project’s overall design intent, considerately express the concept of craft, and excel at fulfilling their functional mandate. When architects pay details their due respect, the overall results are designs that seamlessly blend technology and aesthetics in the service of real architecture.
 
Next Architecture is Awesome:  #27 Asymmetry