From The Landscape To The Atmosphere: A Research On The Contextualization

Contemporary architecture exhibits a trend, of which is loss of memories, lack of inspiration, missing of sentimental touch, annihilation of culture, and identity crisis. They are associated with the morphological assimilation due to internationalism, the design theory of extreme modernism, the one dimension of consumerism, the design orientation by fetish for technology, and urban problems, respectively. More and more architects pursue visual impact and pay excessive attention to landscape construction, while ignoring the presence of spirit.This thesis focuses on the contextualization rather than the construction. To study the architecture, especially the spirit of architecture, various methodologies were used,including, descriptive study, interdisciplinary study, literature reading, long-term study,field research, case analysis, summarizing and generalization, and case studies. First, the qualitative research on the construction of atmosphere was studied. From the perspective of architectural design and environmental psychology, its historical background, urban background, rural background, and related theoretical background were systematically analyzed, to investigate the origin of the combination of architecture and its corresponding atmosphere. Secondly, the connotation and the driving force of the architectural atmosphere were concluded through sorting out the progress of artistic experience in which,people develop a sense from enjoying static external appearance to experiencing the environment until finally indulging in the context, driven by the sense of direction, sense of identification and sense of belonging. Atmosphere is an aesthetic imagination induced by and ascended from environment. The characteristic, the environment and atmosphere, and the spirit of architecture are jointly affected by memories of people, regional culture, and environmental factors including, space, time, abstracted natural environment, and the color and texture of construction materials. At the same time, according to the different combination of architecture and atmosphere, the design was classified as adapt-environment, create-environment and anti-environment, and studied separately, to analyze their philosophy and strategy for acquiring perfect adhesion and expression.Finally, the design theory was combined with the practice of planning Xiaotanzi village.Through coordination with the atmosphere, the vernacular architecture was maximized to manifest its characteristic in the environment, reflecting the infinite tension, charm andpurport. Thus a real solution was provided to address the need of people and to approach the enjoyable beauty. The atmosphere is generated by the environment but has to go beyond the environment as the landscape is limited while the atmosphere has endless interpretation. The atmosphere of architecture demonstrates infinite charm. It enables us to get deep thoughts and inspires us to construe its meaning differently.