Possible Volumes

It is important for architecture to define volume. While volume exists in all architecture, it is often an overlooked starting point. Volume, unlike space, is measurable. Space is elusive. Theorists, historians and architects vary on how to define its vast scope. A collection of these accounts uncovers that space can be infinite, contained, occupied, objectified, atmospheric, tactile— contradictions abound. Rather than tangle with these definitions of space, a renewed interest in volume is an attempt to offer a productive alternative to a familiar problem: the problem of connectivity. How does one enter? What is the relationship between inside and outside, object and void, and room and room? It connects. Space is phenomenological. Volume is authored. The interest in volume attempts to move beyond the categorization of space as a passive thing to control or to spend wisely. It asks volume to perform. Philip Johnson has notably remarked, “Architecture is the art of how to waste space,"1 Philip Johnson, New York Times, Dec. 27, 1964 Can we waste volume? And if so, should we? The renewed look at volume defines its role between the modernist conception of space and contemporary forms of complex surface geometry.

Today, interests in internal complexity expose a multitude of relationships of architectural parts—relationships capable of developing and expanding the potential of volume. Relationships require space; it is everywhere. Volume on the other hand is the contiguous whole of these relationships. Thought of another way, spaces are acquaintances and cousins twice removed, but volumes are intimately connected—a committed whole. Contemporary volumes move, involute and contort as they invent typologies and engage multiple readings. Volume defines objects and space defines voids. To illustrate, this article looks at two volumetric cases: one past and one future. The first project is a new look at Frank Lloyd Wright’s 1904 Larkin Administration Building while the second is a projective catalog of possible volumes—figured volumes that provoke new typologies. [Figure 01, 02]

01 Larkin Administrative Building Atrium Worms Eye View Drawing By Author
02 Possible Volumes Worms Eye View Drawing By Author

The claim, volume is more important than the mass provides a basis for analyzing the Larkin Administration Building in Buffalo, New York. The Larkin building, even with its brief existence of 46 years (1904-1950) is ingrained in architecture’s volumetric history. [Figure 03] The clearest and most published image of the building depicts the interior volume instead of the exterior massing. The building’s location, adjacent to the Larkin Soap Factory complex warranted an internal approach that aimed to protect against the pollutants of dirt, noise and smoke. Wright developed the project to “…depend upon the pleasantness within, shutting out the environment completely so far as requirements of light and air would permit.”2 Frank Lloyd Wright, "The New Larkin Administrative Building’, in the Larkin Idea, November 1906 The site circumstance combined with technical innovations and the introduction of a new program expanded the commercial building type of the time. It inverted the ornamented massive exteriors that were following a Beaux Arts Revival model for a complex volumetric interior.3 Jack Quinan, ‘Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Building, Myth and Fact’, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987. Pg. 41 [Figure04] A few American structures built within the previous decade illustrate this flip—consider Louis Sullivan’s Guaranty Building also built in Buffalo or Burnham and Root’s Chicago Rookery and Rand McNally Building. The development of an American office building style focused on structural and material innovations expressed on the exterior. In the Larkin building, the volume contained within drove innovation.

03 Larkin Building Interior Photograph Need Credit
04 Larkin Administration Building Exterior Photograph Need Credit

In a major break from atriums of that time, the Larkin building’s interior not only maintained the massive depth and recesses present on the stark crenelated perimeter massing, but also exceeded them. In the Larkin Building, the interior volume—not the mass—presents a grander performance. The volume tests its role in relation to the overall building. It was the first to extend the central court completely through a building and the first to assign it program. The Larkin volume predated the now commonplace definition of the architectural atrium. The current definition, which dates back to the mid-1960s, is a large, often multi-story, open space inside a building.4 Atrium. Dictionary.com. Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. HarperCollins Publishers. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atrium (accessed: August 19, 2015). The Larkin volume exists somewhere between the ancient Roman definition of the atrium and the broader definition as a central court that is contained within a building. Sigfried Gideon’s concise description of the Larkin interior included the terms “inner core,” “great nave,” “vast room,”5 “Its inner core is a large space five stories high surrounded by galleries, forming a great nave open to the skylight. Square, sand-colored brick piers, rising with gothic strength, divide the nave from the galleries.” (Gideon, Space, Time, and Architecture, 422.) suggesting that the radical volume exceeded contemporary description. Gideon also stated, “Each of us carries in his mind the results of five thousand years of tradition: a room is a space bounded by four rectangular planes.”6 Gideon, “Architecture, You and Me,” (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958, p.150) The volume of the Larkin building challenges this tradition. The building is a single room. The building is a volume.

Volume is so critical to this story that when isolated as an autonomous analysis it is sufficient to understand the building as a whole. It exposes the building within a building. The analysis shows that volume is capable of producing internal complexity and multiple performances that can be comprehended at once. The internal volume explodes the traditional swallowing of a well-behaved primitive—exposing instead a building typology embodying a shifting center, animated volumes, distributed intricacy and multiple views.

The center shifts. The Larkin volume challenges the hierarchy and legible centers that were associated with monumental architecture volumes at the turn of the century. It did not align with prominent sectional profiles associated with the industrial exhibition hall, religious nave or transportation shed that preceded it. Nor does it match the ubiquitous plan extrusions of singular primitive types such as a cube or tetrahedron that would shortly follow. Here, consider John Burgee and Philip Johnson’s Pennzoil Place, a set of trapezoidal towers connected by a pyramid-like atrium at the base or Louis Kahn’s Exeter library. In Pennzoil Place, ejected volume, now on the perimeter, connects the two towers to each other and the city. Centralized within nested squares, the cubic atrium of the Exeter Library connects the spatial perimeter and highlights the center. Unlike these later atriums, the Larkin volume is not at the center of the building or on axis with and visually connected to the main entrance. The Larkin volume invites discovery. Part of a calibrated and connected sequence of volumes, it instigates a constant sense of the “just beyond” with an out-of-reach center. The center shifts depending on your location. [Figure 05] The entry sequence leads into a “narrow, compressive lobby space” where the visitor takes a sharp turn, negotiating around the integrated reception desk. The design ensured that “the discovery of the 76-foot-high light court in the main block came as a surprise, a moving revelation.”7 Jack Quinan, Frank Lloyd Wright’s Larkin Building, Myth and Fact, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1987. This level of volumetric complexity has all but disappeared within today’s institutional atrium. The modern and postmodern periods, prompted by economic shifting, swapped the design of custom headquarters with a single tenant for speculative offices that needed to accommodate “front doors” for multiple tenants, ushering volumes into large centralized lobbies and atriums. Compounding niche-rich rooms have been traded for simplified joints that service a larger distribution system of horizontal corridors and vertical shafts.

05 Larkin Administration Buildin Gif Shifting Centers Drawing By Author

Larkin Administration Building gif Shifting Centers, courtesy of Kristy Balliet

The volume animates. It can tumble. The volume qualifies as a building within a building. It occupies multiple orientations—it flips. The volume has many arms and legs. They stretch deep to each boundary. The Larkin volume is a precursor to the tumbling forms and crystals that are prevalent today.8 See Jimenez Lai’s White Elephant or Tom Wiscombe’s crystals and jacks in his proposal for Moscow’s National Center for Contemporary Arts It is a dynamic, chunky square-like rotary saw blade. [Figure 06] The modular qualities of the “egg-crated” lid and undulating ground are in dialogue. They can easily be top or bottom. Reciprocating surfaces animate the volume—in between the atrium elevation and the back wall elevation and between the gridded skylight and banded desks. Reyner Banham once observed that Wright’s work bridged between the function of volume and the effect that it could have beyond mere connection.9 Reyner Banham, Architecture of the Well-Tempered Environment, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1969. The volumetric pattern that divides, defines and distributes volume contributes significantly to the development of the architecture.

06 Larkin Administration Building Animated Volume Diagrams Drawing By Author

Larkin Administration Building Animated Volume Diagrams, courtesy of Kristy Balliet

The volume distributes detail. The Larkin Building’s interior volume is linked by vertical piers bracketed with detail. The ornamented column capitals lure the view while elaborate built-in filing cabinets huddle at the base with a definitive rhythm. Partial height walls that infill between the vertical piers partition the adjacent volume. They oscillate between a single surface that divides the volume into primary and secondary zones while at other times they are stuttered slabs that punctuate an assembly of rooms. The profiles of the partitions create ledges, creases and reveals that cast a multitude of shadows that assist in the flicker between one and many. When comprehended all together within the space the level of intricacy offers a single viewer to view multiple volumes at once. The elements visually compete as the volume weaves in and out between the surfaces. [Figure 07]

07 Larkin Administration Building Distributed Detail Diagrams Drawing By Author

Larkin Administration Building Distributed Detail Diagram, courtesy of Kristy Balliet

You can hide. While the central court is indeed a grand volume, the adjacent volumes that extend in all directions contribute to its impact on the viewer. The collection of volumes within and beyond the extents of the central court produces dense and expansive gridded interiors. They imply many rooms as they remain connected as one. As the volume stretches, the interiors produce deep corners and hidden niches. The fascination with this excessive volume is how a one-room building creates so many places to hide—hundreds of connecting hiding spaces. [Figure 08]

08 Possible Volumes Drawing By Author

Possible Volumes, courtesy of Kristy Balliet

I have recently begun an investigation into the development of possible volumes: Volume for volume’s sake. The intention is to adjust the way we approach design problems. The exercise allows volume to lead design. The evaluation at this initial stage is based on a balance of spatial complexity and understanding of primary and secondary volumes. When occupied, the preferred volumes favor the comprehension of multiple views in lieu of a singular view. [Figure 09]

The research begins with four geometric primitive volumes: cube, cuboid, sphere and tetrahedron. The geometry is modified by progressively adding volume, adjoining niches that expand along a three-dimensional coordinate system. As a means to stay objective at the start, each volume follows a system of increasing complexity, multiplying the addition of volumes with each iteration. The intention is to work with a digital-manual method that only in concept engages the parametric, incremental linked adjustments that allow alterations to be evaluated. The design introduces stages of spatial complexity beyond multiplication and subtraction by introducing shearing and scale shifts into the primitive for select series; multiplying the effects as the operations vary. The exercise uses four primitives and four forms: crown, elbow, helmet and whistle. Topological surfaces offer many possibilities that expand the capabilities of volumetric construction beyond extruded geometry. The volume slips in and out of visual containment to create a multitude of interiors.

This work investigates a discussion in how to represent volume: A lone volume without its mass. The exercise develops a figurative pneumatic volume. For now, worm’s eye views and interior perspectives highlight the internal volumetric qualities over the exterior object qualities, however in truth the volumes are thought of as objects, which differs from thinking of them as void. The research underscores volume’s potential to develop modes of threshold that expand the options for the comprehension of spatial multiplicity—a useless pursuit of the contemporary versions of side aisles, niches, coffers, apses and enfilades.

Historically, volume was created by the assembly of a series of geometric primitives (sometimes distorted) that were extruded, cut, and attached to develop volumetric variation. These swallowed primitives, while grand and often embellished, were for the most part well-behaved. They did not flail their elbows, blur edges or have deep recesses that entangled with others. Typically, there was incongruence between the exterior massing and interior volume. Negotiated by moving through a series of rooms, the actual thickness of ancient architecture was replaced by implied thickness deployed as rooms. Contemporary architecture offers the potential for optical thickness by the layering of surfaces and the blurring of thresholds. Larkin offers a relevant option at the threshold of actual and implied thickness. The renewed look illustrates that when historical volumes are abstracted from their context they can offer new modes for developing contemporary volume—possible volumes. The similarities between Larkin’s volume and the abstract generation of possible volumes are striking. Possible volumes want to misbehave in order to be larger than they are; they aim to be full in qualities rather than cubic feet. A volumetric performance considers an audience—at its best, it creates multiple views that can be comprehended at once. In the architectural debate between autonomy and engagement, volumetric performance is positioned to address both as it lurches from one to the other. It is simultaneously useless and programmable, awe-inspiring and functional.

As an approach capable of addressing contemporary issues of complex environments, Possible Volumes define volume as a medium of architecture. Possible volumes beg for authorship.