The term of context in architecture as what I know is an external elements that influence an object. These elements are physical and non-physical. Roads, buildings, and land contour are examples for physical elements while non-physical elements are weather condition, local culture, as well as political and economic constraints. Thus, the contexts are influencing the traditional and contemporary architecture design. Understanding the local contexts are significant for architect to produce an effective design. Lastly, context also resolve the architecture style, building material selection and site layout, which also one of a very considerable in creating an effective design. All these promote continuity between the building and local circumstances.
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In the modernism era, in today architecture, as what mentioned above in architecture context plays a very important part of the design process. Context is external elements that influence an object. For me, I think that contexts in architecture also one of the tool to speak to the root of functional, efficient and sustainable designs that takes into account the local conditions, climate, sociol-economic, political and cultural aspects. Just imagine if a building design without any of site context elements, the building might become disrespectful to our surrounding environment and might be irresistible to the surrounding. That is why I think context is still important in today architecture, human interaction with both environment and built environment, creating the bond between the “built environments” and the environment.
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Other than that, my personal point of view, context is predominately combination of social and economic issues. For example, security is one of the social issues. It will affect the site planning. Designer should consider the user safety and also the building itself. Besides that, I think non-physical elements as the contexts like environment and human activities that can be appear in architecture today.
Moreover, below will be the contemporary building case study which I feel that the building is good example to use for show what is site context in this case. For example, it had thermal comfort and energy efficiency, using raw material around the site, security consideration and also economical.
Barbaros House (2015)
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Barbaros House is located in Barbaros Village of Urla, Ä°zmir. On the upper east side of the building site, the techno park area of Izmir Institute of Technology is located. While designing the house, the main idea was to achieve a silent living space in a natural environment. Local stone and reinforced concrete were used for the walls and structural system of this project. Both materials have high surface densities and thus provide good acoustic insulation.
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The room with the exposed concrete façade has two windows and two doors, because it is designed especially for resting and sleeping without any noise. Special acoustic precautions have been taken to prevent any unwanted sound from outside. Outer walls of the whole house consist of two layers with insulation material between them, in order to have thermal and acoustic insulation and it also provided a security purpose for the building. Stone walls were built by local stonemasons, and this provides a similar façade image with other buildings in the village.
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Local materials are sustainable as they have environmental and economic advantages. Sizes and shapes of window openings were designed by taking natural events in consideration. There are blank walls on the north and thin horizontal / vertical ribbon windows on the east façade, as cold winds from northeast are expected. A willow tree in front of the large opening on the west façade provides shade in summers and lets sunlight in by dropping its leaves in winter, which affects the inner thermal comfort positively.
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In a nutshells, based on my personal thought, I think contemporary architecture is influenced by many factors. All these factor are the main context for the architects in designing a building. For me, react to the surrounding contexts is very important because it determines the success of a building’ design and also will create communication channels between buildings and people around. "A building is like a soap bubble. This bubble is perfect and harmonious if the breath has been evenly distributed from the inside the exterior is the result of an interior" quoted by Le Corbusier. Thus, building context cannot be deny is still very important in determining the contemporary architecture design today.
