Steam Baths Act 3 -- Principles of Intuitive Design

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Principle Two:
the body

A chair, a handle and a door all possess a profound commonality. As simple as it may seem, each object bears a relation to our body. The chair is designed for our posterior to rest upon. The handle is for our hand to grasp. The door is a puncture for our body to pass through a wall. This deep perception into our built environment is sensationally important to the design of architecture. Without it, we could not craft. We have learned through creation that intuitive design is based on the human body. The speed we walk determines a distance. The height of our head determines how tall a ceiling should be. The placement of a light switch helps us in the dark. So, the old maxim, the world does not revolve around you; may not be entirely true. For the built environment is designed with one purpose: to exist for humanity.

Perpetually, our constructed environment resides within this tactile world. It is a world of the human body. Every shape, form, space and quality affects the way we related our body to this world. For illustration: A low-hung tree makes us duck, a vast cathedral causes us to look up or a long railroad track projects us into a vast horizon. We see the world relative to our form. Look around the room. Each object, material or placement connects us to our architecture. The body bridges that gap between an unknown mystery and the familiar. Unfortunately, today many objects once designed for the body now have degraded into a detail-less form that speaks not of our bodily construction. Everything has become flat and tactileless.

--excerpt: A Need For a New Desire 
Masters Thesis by jeremiah i. johnson

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Steam Baths Act 2 -- A Need for a New Desire

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"An Abstract

Today, architecture constitutes the greatest range of the built environment; yet our buildings are causing physiological and mental stress to the public. If architecture is designed intuitively by engaging the public’s senses through innate habits, we can reduce the stress caused by ‘counter-intuitive’ design and delight the guests. This Thesis explores ‘intuitive design’ through an ancient typology—the bathhouse—built cliff-side of Lake Superior in Northern Minnesota. By utilizing the concurrent transformative mixed research method, qualitative and quantitative data will present a cohesive analysis to complete the architecture.

Key Words: Intuitive Architecture, Purposeful Design, Public Space, Ethics, Senses, Habit, Memories, Connotation"

"I

Today, we stand before a catastrophic threshold. A majority of our built environment has thrown-out meaningful design and replaced the collection with efficiency. Our priorities care neither for the individual nor quality; rather we abide in amount, money and haste. We squeeze employees into small lifeless cubicles where job focus becomes null. Efficiency has been crowned King. The trademark of our modern job atmosphere is a gloomy, isolated, dry-walled and uniformly lit space. As Juhani Pallasmaa, a critical architect of the 20th century exposes, “An efficient method of mental torture is the use of a constantly high level of illumination that leaves no space for mental withdrawal or privacy” (J. Pallasmaa, 2012, p.51). These cubes may save us a few dollars now, but will eventually wound our spirit and weaken our fortitude. Architecture today is the craft of costly warehouses and we are its storage. Therefore, we must acknowledge the

emergency and take action... "

"II

The genesis of intuitive architecture is purpose. The word intuitive refers to the perception of truth. That which is felt to be true without reasoning or logic is intuition. Purpose then, refers to a meaningful form or design—something that is practical and particular. We understand intuitive design through our senses. These built-in traits which all humanity possesses construct a repertoire of instinctual actions. When we were young, we never sensed high temperatures and in consequence we burnt ourselves. Suddenly, we intuitively know when something nearby is hot through our senses. Intuition allows habits to form which ultimately ease our over-stimulated mentality. Thus through the senses, innate habits allow for intuitiveness to blossom. Regrettably, our architecture today causes bad habits to form. Furthermore, intuition perhaps refers to the ease of some activity. While this certainly seems true, it is somewhat skewed. Because intuition is the perception of reality rather than a logical understanding, we find that ease or hardness is only a matter of the latter. On the other hand something that is intuitively understood suddenly becomes easy because little conscious thought is needed to understand the idea: it is instinctual. So like the old adage, a square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square, the same holds true here. Intuitive architecture is easy for the guest but ease is not intuitive for it is not instinctual but rather logical..."

--excerpt: A Need For a New Desire 
Masters Thesis by jeremiah i. johnson

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Steam Baths Act 1 -- Architecture and the Intuitive

The Cover

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In a vast cosmos of perpetual surroundings, our built environment triumphs as an utterly inspirational and damning phenomenon. The cold touch of concrete, the mystery of shadow or the fragrance of age penetrates our every memory. Each architectural nuance influences our human character. The sensitivity to our corporeal senses perceives rhythms in our imagination. Ethically, we must evolve our awareness to the built environment, for architecture is more complex than the mere geometrics or the visual extraordinaire that we initially presumed. It is a passive entity heralding delight or dominating mankind.

But is architecture truly static or can it be an event?

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Steam Baths of Lake Superior - A Thesis

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a future series
for a tiring work on
intuitive architectural design

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Steam Baths Daidala

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The daidala attempts to identify architecture in a non-representational way. Through sculpture and physical and sensory experience, we gain a new sight into the future design.

The Steam baths, like the traditional wedding dance ceremony, is a public choreography of social interaction and purification.

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Yamamoto Shinto Shrine

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The Shinto Shrine for Jiro Yamamoto sets a modern standard to the ancient tradition of Shinto Shrines. The delicate foundation stands like a Praying mantis on 120 legs above the fragile soil and rock below. This shrine protects the earth and waterfall used in the ritual of ablution. The ritual for Shintoism is the act of cold water ablution. Jiro’s experience was synonymous with this act or rite of passage.

1. Run
2. Spirit Shake
3. Pray
4. Deep Breathing
5. Enter Cold Waterfall
6. Cleansed
7. Tea Ceremony

Program Menu:
Public Worship hall: Haiden
Morning Prayer
Chant
Gohei Bell
Lucky Note

Private Offertory Hall: Heiden ishi-no-ma
Offering of Prayer
Offering of Music
Offering of Paper
Offering of Food

Private Tea Room: Sadau
Afternoon Tea Ceremony
Clothing Room
Wood Room
Fireplace Tea Storage

Private Sanctuary Bridge: Honden
Cold Water Ablution
Deep Breathing

The Shinto Shrine on Lake superior acts in accord with social, economic and environmental stainability.

Like a Praying Mantis, Gently standing above a flower, the Shinto Shrine delicately stands above the land as if it were on toothpicks. Only metal bolts ever enter the rock below, which supports the structure.

The roof structure furthers the protection of the land and the building.

The sun enters the clerestory only during the colder seasons. Missing tree leaves and low sun angles allow this to occur.

With the ceremony of Tea, the room is only heated during time of use. The furnace is fueled by wood found on the forest floor: a fully sustainable practice.

The summer months are cooled by the waterfall spray, wind through the open walls and shaded overhangs.

During the winter months a ‘coat’ covers the building by simple screw on walls.

Maple trees are purchased well priced and locally in Michigan and Wisconsin. Trees are a natural and fully sustaining material unlike the poly- materials.

Teak wood is used for the water soaked bridge to prolong its lifetime. Water does little to rot Teak wood. It has been used on sailboats for many decades.

The delicate nature of construction, the cheap price of wood, the high detail design, great community project, and the local beauty of the waterfall makes the Shinto Shrine a sustainable building which will last for a very long time.

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