The Development of Aesthetics II

Now the question needs to be asked, why did we desire better aesthetics while the rugged functionality of these stone age housing was still sufficient to live in? What changed? How did we move from this

to this?

1. Architecture as an arbiter of human civilization:

I think architecture has much to do with the development of civilization, of order and knowledge. The earliest house dwellers created houses in random patterns, so as to merely survive. These early families were often concentrated in small family groups which take part in a tribe, or a community. Like most modern communities, the architecture is often very similar and are based on the same architectural elements but in different combinations. However, these small family groups are more autonomous in the personal sense, sharing only in the communal food such as kills and plants. This is very reminiscent of the lifestyles of Native Americans, though there is a distinct lack of a leader in the earliest human settlements. Of course, with the cacophony of different people living together in the village, there bounds to be chaos.

Symbol of Civilization? Not Quite.

2. The establishment of law and order

Law and human inhibition is what we claim to be some of the strongest advantages of humanity. Certainly, with these early humans, they still exhibit many primate behavior - notably violence and lack of a control factor which leads to disorder and necessary violence. Shortage of food can be one of the reasons why this happened. Of course, this violence leads to a lot of deaths, which could prompt a wary soul to issue a peace between two opposing parties, thus creating the concept of a de facto leader. This is different from the primitive concept of the alpha male. The alpha male is only concerned with having multiple wives and plenty of access to food and materialistic comfort, while at the expense of other males, does not actually dictate actions and behavior. Therefore, my argument is that differing forms of architecture rose because of the strong human nature to feel superior to others - a desire to have high levels of self esteem. Pride becomes a growing trait amongst humans during this period. For example, the modern Homo Sapiens Sapiens competed with Neanderthals for living space, and won, eliminating the last of the pure Neanderthals from the earth, but with some of their genes still persisting in our blood. So, the man who seized power by leading by example often tends to be pretty strong himself decides he wants to feel important. Assuming he has the family and food he needs, the logical extension of his power would be the dwelling. the house. This inspires innovation from these people, who decide to build him a bigger, better house. Now, of course just simply scaling existing houses isn't going to work because if these are made of stones and wood, they would need to find more stones or longer sticks. This is where these people decided to innovate and produce greater and great structures to honor the men in power. And thus, the main impetus for Architectural change began during this phase.

Buildings of different shapes

Getting there more consistent

More consistent buildings with standard roofs made of different materials. Rectangular buildings are a sign of progress

3. Different Government and Religions create the special need for different types of buildings:

Not only do tribe chieftains were able to have some of the best houses, but the rest of the people do get upgrades too; features such as sanitary systems are put into place because of the need to have a more pleasing environment. This is in direct correlation to the Chieftain's new building and status. If he has the best house and resources, but if his surroundings are filthy and unpleasant, he would not want to live their either. That wasn't the only justification that allowed the ordinary people to gain access to new buildings - these people themselves wanted to incorporate these new styles into the general village. This would soon evolve into the first towns, where buildings are built along a logical grid or layout and then standardized to allow better city planning as people begin to develop complex linguistics and a writing system. This was because there was no concrete form of despotism in early human society - the chieftain has power, but not absolute power, therefore allowing his people to have some leverage in the communities affairs.

Because humans are the fastest growing primates, human tribes eventually come into contact with one another. Not knowing any better, these humans with strong primate instincts would clash with each other - formalizing human warfare because two alpha males can't agree on who's more dominant. So with violence, the most successful alpha males come to establish a kingdom of tribes, united by one man. With the absence of a code of laws, to be able to rule over tribes of people, these kings would employ groups of men as armies, thus stabilizing the population. Of course, with the rise in status and importance these men create grander architecture and then passed down some of these elements to the masses as tribute to his kingdom. Therefore, we have the first Palaces. With the help of his allies was this king able to conquer the territory. To reward his allies, the establishment of a wealthy gentry class create the demand for medium sized extravagant houses. Thus the same styles afforded by the Chieftain, the King expanded into the ranks of the powerful "nobles". The growth of cities accelerated with the presence of a King, which in turn created job classes which was performed by commoners to help run the city. Again, these created new structural styles, because their functions are different. Still, the architecture of this still favored function over artistic design.

This is a little bit advanced but there are a lot of rectangles. Some design elements are represented in this artistic render

Religion was very critical in expanding the scope of primitive human creativity. Stonehenge inspired these humans to arrange huge stones to celebrate the stars and the sun. This expanded the scope of stone and didn't restrict it t to just use for human dwellings. Ancient Pagan religions all associate itself with elements of the Earth - all of them cite some deity of the Sun. This is partially responsible for inspiring these people to create taller buildings, thus introducing the concept of height as a feature of architecture. Even future monotheistic religions employ tall structures in their veneration of their gods. Fur these early religions, height and the placement of objects to mirror solar, lunar and star positions become the guidelines for architecture. These gradually evolve to inspire people to worship them, creating an art form from geometric shapes.

the ascending towards the sky is emphasized by the stairs

Basically, through the first two sections, I theorize where the origins of each element of a building originated from, namely the roof, walls, size, and height as well as consistency and purpose all originated from this era. Still very much an era of function, but the progress of art changes the development paradigm as we get closer to a higher fusion of art and design in architecture.

The Development of Aesthetics I

Why do you think humans evolved to seek "better" looking dwellings when the primitive cave could serve all the functions that a modern house could? How did humans develop the need to produce a separate dwelling away from the caves? I set to put my own theories on how and why this happened.

1. The Origins:

We all can conclude that some of the first housing was caves which gave Paleolithic men its moniker. These caves supported some of the normal functions that we associate with the modern life such as sleeping area and kitchen. To emulate the modern fireplace, Paleolithic people used fireplaces to use as means of keeping themselves warm. These three key elements would strongly define the key characteristic that modern houses are judged by - how many bedrooms, bathroom and living space (recreation) and the kitchen.

2. Migration:

It is also understood that all humans have descended from continental Africa whee the nomadic lifestyle meant depleting several areas of game animals and berry bushes. Now, there are not a lot of caves in Sub-Saharan Africa, but there are trees and plenty of foliage. Not knowing how to react o natural disasters, these humans then find shelter under these trees and then eventually incorporate leaves and stones to create a sense of space. It is also notable that these humanoid primates discovered the need to have a roof over its head. This is essentially the discovery of one of the key elements of a human dwelling; roof. However, the concept of walls is still abstract for these cavemen. It took their nomadic lifestyle to take them into Europe, Asia and North America, where winter during the cold climates taught early humans the importance of Walls; Blizzards, Wind and Snow are just some of the things that require the existence of walls in order to provide a comfortable environment. Thus, the significance of walls was introduced into the human mind. Weather wasn't the only thing encouraging the presence of walls; the dangers of prehistoric animals in Winter made living rather dangerous because these milder climates produce Blizzards and fog which obstruct human vision, therefore decreasing reaction time against animal attacks.

3. Early humans put it all together: the first primitive "artificial" house

All houses not formed by natural means are by strict definition, artificial. Migration plays a very significant role in accomplishing this. These early migrants were not motivated by lure of exploration, instead they migrated further and further because it would allow them to gain access to more animals and berry patches that would allow them to sustain themselves. When these humans reached the corners of Earth, the obvious problem struck them - how do they survive without an abundance of animals to kill? This prompted the eventual development of farming and domestication of certain animals that were easy to kill and breed. Which also meant that these people would have to pursue a more permanent form of living. This would mark the true beginning of architecture, not as an extension of artistic expression, but rather as a form of function. However, certain elements do have to be adopted to make this work. However, the evolution from natural dwellings to artificial ones did not occur instantly; instead it occurred because of the discovery of fire which lead to greatly reducing infant mortality, thus increasing the human population. Even if early nomadic people discovered fire earlier, the need to move frequently often insures that the weak gets left behind. This is also a prominent early example of natural selection and survival of the fittest. Through the curing of meats through fire and the process of natural selection, these people are able to live a bit longer. Initially, these humans settled themselves in earthen houses, with the roofs and walls formed by natural hills and other natural formations. However, these humans were able to create openings and spaces inside these formations and establish a house.

4. Our stereotypical house begins

The rising population meant one thing; it meant that food would have to be stored somewhere and these additional people would also need its own houses. This lead to the development of the first truly artificial houses, using natural materials to fashion a human dwelling. I would imagine these people learned after trial and error not to create a house with a flat roof in wet places. Out of necessity of function, the sloped roof began to take form as the most dominant roof type in human history (thus far). This, as mentioned is purely for functional reasons, not for aesthetics. The wall is where human culture have differed in this early stage - some have circular, some have rectangular and yet some merely extended the reach of the roof to create the first permanent "tent". These are the most basic forms of human architecture, with these houses vary differently by size according to hierarchy and family size. These are also made from easy to gather materials such as straw and rocks, as humans still have not acquired metallic tools. These are the first houses, and the interior does not create interior walls to separate the different functions of the house apart.

Allure of tiny, compact houses II

Cabin Modeled After Fire Tower

This one isn't the smallest, lightest or mobile; instead this one is based on a fire tower base; like a tower or fortress. The inspiration of fire comes from the illuminated second floor which gives this particular house a "fire effect". Despite clad in stone on the bottom, this house is more permanent than any other mobile home (a more substantial foundation would be required), this house still provides a decent amount of sustainability through self sufficient energy through the solar panels. These solar panels provide all of the energy required for general usage. This interior shot is wonderful: the contrast provided by the brown wood invokes Asian motifs but still remains consistently light colored theme. Lighter colors conveys space much better than dark colors can, so the use of lighter colors is a staple of tiny houses.

XS House by Tumbleweed

This is one of the smallest mobile tiny houses available on the market; it is designed to be towed with a truck or a heavy SUV. Featuring a minuscule 65 feet which makes it nearly half the size of my room. This house is designed for a single residence only, as many of its accommodations had to be downsized; toilets and sinks are not comparable to standard sized versions. The bed is lofted onto the top floor, allowing easy access to the resting area. Much like most of tiny houses, the interior design of these houses incorporate very light colors to give an illusion of size and space. However, in this case and with the next one, the addition of the loft bed gives an illusion of size due to the empty gap between the edge of the bed and the opposite of the house. This way it can allow for the other appliances to mesh together on the bottom floor. Overall, this is a very well designed floor plan with all the necessary accommodations for a comfortable living.

 Nine square feet house

This house concept is what tiny houses taken to an extreme; it features a bed, kitchen and bathroom and even porch all rolled into one. While I like the small coziness of this kind of house, I felt that the form factor and lack of open space makes these particular designs. Like the XS House before it, most of these designs incorporate the lofting of the bed on the higher level to preserve the overall size of the portable house. This kind of housing is not a form of permanent housing at all; instead I believe it is merely a glorified tent where a person can just bring their tiny house to a forest so that they can be protected from more elements than a traditional tent would accomplish. Of course, the ability to cook and use bathroom are great advantages. However, while I like this concept of taking tiny houses to its most logical extreme, a car can only pull one of these things and it is a one person only house, therefore making it highly inefficient as a form of portable housing. These designs are just conceptual designs that serves to illustrate the ability of these architects to maximize space, nothing more.

Allure of tiny, compact houses I

The American culture has always tended to make you believe that bigger is better, as "McMansions" and the general trend of having bigger and bigger houses shows (the average square footage of houses in America has been increasing since the after math of WWII, when Americans started the trend of celebrating the suburban lifestyle by living in neighborhoods like Levittowns.

The Levittown

These houses represent the pinnacle of simplistic architecture; they are modular pieces that are designed for the masses and provide a standard of living which then gradually evolved into the large, diverse suburban houses that has become a staple of the middle class life in present day America. These Levittowns truly ignited the development of suburbs in the 1950s and eventually evolved into the types of houses we use today. These first houses were not designed for large families; instead they provided the accommodations for one core family and a couple of kids. However, the stimulus provided by the next few decades allowed the middle class to truly flourish is very vital in increasing the average size of houses. As these WWII-era couples becoming older, their style of housing changed too; not only do they want larger houses, but they also want more unique houses as well. Levittowns are great for the first post-WWII families, because these families shared the same background and story, but how each of these families lives changed also played a part in how shaping the design of their more permanent housing. Eventually, as more and more Americans entering the ranks of the millionaire, the popularity of McMansions began to soar in popularity with this particular demographic. However, due to the growing significance of Ecology in our Modern society, the trend towards sustainable, small houses has lead to an appreciation of tiny compact houses - some of them are even portable to an extent.

A fitting example of a McMansion

This picture illustrates what the essence of the inside of a tiny house looks like, but take note though this would be for a single person residence. Regardless, these houses combine three aspects of Architectural design; it maximizes usable space in a small area, traditional housing elements and the small ecological footprint of this guy's apartment. I like this concept because it appeals to the people with a solitary attitude and wants independence and some mobility for those who wants a change of scenery and neighbors. I will be evaluating different tiny house in my following posts where I select random tiny houses and analyse them.