In-between Space | Indoor-Outdoor Timber Architecture + Visual Gardens

21st Century Indoor-Outdoor Living

PHOTO 1: Shisen-do ['Hall of Immortal Poets'], Kyoto, Japan [1641]. Landscape Architect: Ishikawa Jōzan [1583–1672]. Photographer: Sskmsnr.

Introduction

'In its most real meaning a garden ... must be a place of repose, of contemplation, of spiritual communion with Nature. There can a man loaf, and invite his soul; and, though that soul may be shrivelled and shrunk ... it will swell and grow and blossom in the atmosphere of the place.'1

- Mrs. Basil Taylor

Dear Reader:

In 1960, Carl G. Jung - probably the most influential psychiatrist and psychoanalyst to have ever walked the Earth – wrote: ‘… the lack of meaning in life is a soul-sickness whose full extent and import our age has not yet begun to comprehend.’2 We are now experiencing the fate that Jung prophesised. What we observe in the population today: boredom, demoralisation, low self-esteem, feelings of inferiority, defeatism, depression, anxiety, guilt, frustration, hostility, spouse or child abuse, insatiable hedonism, abnormal sexual behaviour, etc.3 - are the destructive symptoms of soul-sickness, and gaining a greater foothold, with each passing day.

We attribute the ‘general neurosis of our times,’4 to the fact that society requires us to live under conditions radically different from the world of only one hundred years ago, and that bear virtually no resemblance to the world in which our ancestors lived for thousands of years before that.5 In the context of architecture, the problem begins with the home: brick wall facades separate the inside from the outside; we have the picture window, with a view of nature, as something ‘out there’;6 and solid entrance doors that function as ‘movable barriers’.7 In what is euphemistically called a ‘garden’ today, one typically sees: flat, empty rectangles of grey ‘brutalist’ concrete and/or lawns; a tangle of bushes; one or two private cars; and the preternaturally ugly ‘wheelie bin’ with its orbit of litter - but few people, if any, because conditions for outdoor stays [the key word is staying], are more or less impossible.8 Under these ‘agoraphobic’9 conditions most of us prefer to remain inside, what are most certainly sensory-reduction environments,10 in front of the television – the greatest mind control tool ever created.11

Something is missing. Something has always been missing, and only our own cultural conditioning - the very common fallacy of ignoring altogether the possibility of alternatives other than the two alternatives presented to the mind - has prevented us from seeing it around us and within us, and kept us from developing it.12

This is what was generally referred to as a threshold in traditional Western architecture,13 or what traditional Japanese architecture terms ‘En’: a bridging or edge structure transcending the immense contrast between inside and outside, building and nature, private and public, sacred and profane.14 This religio-spatial aesthetic can be further expanded and given clarity when one looks at one of the most pronounced and distinguishing qualities of Japan’s ancient Zen Buddhist temples and ‘folk houses’, the ‘Engawa’:15 a multi-dimensional semi-open air ‘verandah’ serving simultaneously as an external corridor connecting all the rooms of the house, a sheltering structure against rain, wind, and summer heat, an area for greeting or entertaining friends and neighbours, and as a passageway to the garden, among many other miscellaneous functions.

But perhaps, the most important spatial role of the engawa is as an intervening space between the inside and the outside – a sort of third world between interior and exterior,16 where one may enjoy well-deserved days and evenings of rest: sitting back and relaxing on a comfortable outdoor lounge chair, in the midst of a secluded and beautiful garden. Here, ‘cut off’ or removed from the mundane humdrum and stresses of the secular world, one can indulge in favourite pastimes; or one can set aside a brief period of time in daily life - five minutes a day are sufficient - and rest in the act of contemplation. That is, rest in the presence of Nature. Rest in the breath. Rest in stillness and quiet.17 Out of the silence, something comes to life in us that transcends what is personal or individual. Our view is directed toward worlds higher than those our everyday life brings us. A second life begins for us. We begin to steer a safe and steady course through the ups and downs of life, rather than being tossed about by them.

We live and act within a world whose deeper aspects are hidden from our physical senses. Each of us can attain this spiritual knowledge. We have but to choose the right means.18

Note 1

Click on any image to open the lightbox gallery: a feature that allows you to view and enlarge images in full-screen mode, as well as switch between them horizontally.

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Matte Painting

Engawa Verandah

The 'engawa' is a reinterpretation of one of the most pronounced and distinguishing qualities of traditional Japanese architecture and way of life – the ‘edge’ or ‘connection’ at the side or back of a house or Zen Buddhist temple which functions as a verandah for viewing a garden - solely for the delight of the eye.

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Matte Painting

Sala Pavilion

The sala is a neo- traditional hybrid of the free-standing Thai open pavilion [sala nai suan] and humble Japanese tearoom [chashitsu]; located in the gardens or grounds of private homes as places of seclusion – where man can experience spiritual elevation and inner perfection.

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Strategy and Tactics

Semiprivate Front Yard

FIGURE 1: Dead Space

FIGURE 2: Intervention

FIGURE 3: Prospect

FIGURE 4: Refuge

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Strategy & Tactics

Private Backyard

FIGURE 5: Dead Space

FIGURE 6: Intervention

FIGURE 7: Prospect

FIGURE 8: Refuge

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'Before we break through the last bushes and out of cover to the free expanse of the meadow, we do what all wild animals ... would do under similar circumstances: we reconnoiter, seeking, before we leave our cover, to gain from it the advantage which it can offer alike to hunter and hunted - namely to see without being seen.'

- Konrad Lorenz

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Isometric Impressions

Whole-House

FIGURE 9-10: Diagrams of ground plan for a typical 'two up, two down, mid-terrace. Viewed from the sky, the building complex is arranged in a series of zones, starting from the semipublic, whose entrance faces the street. Next to it is the symbolic centre of the entire dwelling, the private ‘space of being’. At the back, 'cut off' from everyday living spaces is the sacred enclosure, set aside to create a sanctuary | Scale 1.50

FIGURE 11: Diagram of ground plan for a typical semiprivate front yard wth a view of street | Scale 1.24

FIGURE 12: Diagram of ground plan for a typical private backyard or courtyard | Scale 1.34

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'Western societies have two dimensional cultures [interior and exterior], while Japanese society has a three- or multi-dimensional culture [interior, intermediate and exterior].'

- Kisho Kurokawa

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Orthographic Impressions

Plans

Figure 1: Whole-house roof plan 1.40

Figure 2: Ground floor plan of house-garden relationship 1.40

Figure 3: Ground floor plan of back and front threshold 1.20

FIGURE 4: Elevation of semiprivate front yard with a view of the street. Seclusion - the state of and the place for being in solitude within the house and garden - is expressed in a combination of semi-transparent living screens and slatted filters. | Scale 1.32

Figure 5: Section of semiprivate front yard with engawa verandah and tsubo-niwa garden 1.32

Figure 6. Detail of rain chain [kusari-doi] with curved metal water bowl on plinth 1.4

Figure 7: Section and ground floor plan of French door-window in wall opening 1.20

FIGURE 8: Elevation of private backyard or courtyard. Physically separated by high solid garden walls and the rear façade, the connection with the exterior world is broken | Scale 1.32

Figure 9: Section of private backyard with sala pavilion and tsubo-niwa garden 1.32

Fig. 10. Longitudinal section ee @ private backyard with sala pavilion and tsubo-niwa garden 1.32

FIGURE 11: Section and floor plan of rear reception-dining room with door-window, porte-fenêtre | Scale 1.20

Fig. 12. Cross-section gg @ semiprivate front yard with engawa verandah and tsubo-niwa garden 1.12

Fig. 13. Cross-section gg @ engawa deck/tsubo-niwa garden with water bowl/kusari-doi rain chain 1.6

Fig. 14. Cross-section gg @ private backyard with sala pavilion and tsubo-niwa garden 1.20

Fig. 15. Cross-section hh @ semiprivate front yard with door-window, engawa verandah and tsubo-niwa garden 1.12

Fig. 16. Cross-section hh @ with door-window, sala pavilion and tsubo-niwa garden 1.12

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'We live and act within a world whose deeper aspects are hidden from our physical senses. Yet each of us possesses ther faculties which, when cultivated, can lift the veil that separates us from spiritual knowledge.'

- Arthur G. Zajonc

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Mood & Ambience

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Isometric Cross-Section

Engawa Verandah

Fig. 1. Cross-section gg @ semiprivate front yard with engawa verandah and tsubo-niwa garden 1.16

Fig. 2. Cross-section gg @ semiprivate front yard with engawa verandah and tsubo-niwa garden 1.4

Fig. 3. Cross-section hh @ existng semiprivate front yard with picture window 1.16

Fig. 4. Cross-section hh @ semiprivate front yard with door-window, engawa verandah and tsubo-niwa garden 1.16

Fig. 5. Cross-section hh @ lintel/french door junction 1.2

Fig. 6. Cross-section hh @ french door/threshold junction 1.2

Isometric Cross-Section

Sala Pavilion

Fig. 7. Cross-section gg @ private backyard with sala pavilion and tsubo-niwa garden 1.24

Fig. 8. Cross-section gg @ private backyard with sala pavilion and tsubo-niwa garden 1.6

Fig. 9. Cross-section hh @ private backyard with door-window, sala pavilion and tsubo-niwa garden 1.20

Fig. 10. Cross-section hh @ private backyard with door-window, sala pavilion and tsubo-niwa garden 1.4

Isometric Cross-Section

Front Reception

Fig. 11. Cross-section ii @ front reception with door-window, engawa verandah and tsubo-niwa garden 1.8

Fig. 11. Cross-section ii @ front reception external masonry wall with internal wall insulation and decorative finish 1.2

Internal Decorative Finishes

Natural Clay Plaster by Clayworks

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'Only rarely, here at the opening of the twenty-first century, is architecture both art and commodity. The rest merely provide shelter with a minimum of means.'

- Stephen Kieran and James Timberlake

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Exploded Isometric Drawings

Engawa Verandah

FIGURE 1: Form Substructure [foundations] and timber superstructure | Scale 1.16

FIGURE 2: Assembly sequence diagram of timber post-and-lintel skeleton frame construction. An ancient architectural system utilising a framework of vertical posts [columns] and horizontal lintels [beams] to carry roof loads. The lintels supporting roof system transmit its load to posts that, in turn, carry the loads down to the foundation system | Scale 1.24

FIGURE 3: Assembly sequence diagram of lean-to-roof, hisashi, at solid masonry wall | Scale 1.4

FIGURE 4: Assembly sequence diagram of lean-to-roof, hisashi, at eaves. The deep projecting eaves, which are one of the most characteristic features of traditional Japanese buildings, not only increase durability by preventing the weathering effects of sun and rain, but also effectively function to make the indoor environment more comfortable depending on the height of the sun in each season. They block the sunlight of the summer sun, which is high in the sky; and allow the sunlight of the winter sun, which is low in the sky, to reach the depths of the room, and warm it passively | Scale 1.4

FIGURE 5: Assembly sequence diagram of ... Scale 1.2

FIGURE 6: Assembly sequence diagram of Japanese style ishibatate, or 'standing on the stones' post-and-lintel construction. Only at places of actual structural supports, i.e., at the columns, is the groundsill [concrete slab on grade] provided with a simple foundation of tapered granite staddle stone that raises the whole wooden framework above the damp ground. Scale 1.2

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'[Frank Lloyd] Wright openly admired this particular characteristic of the Japanese dwelling [traditional Japanese post-and-lintel system of construction], having delighted in the fact that it was impossible to tell precisely ‘where the garden leaves off and the garden begins.'

- Edward S. Morse

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Isometric Assembly Drawings

Sala Pavilion

Fig. 7. Substructure [foundations] and timber superstructure 1.20

Fig. 8. Substructure and timber raised floor, post-and-lintel skeleton framework 1.24

Fig. 9. Timber post-and-lintel skeleton framework and noyane [hidden roof] @ gable 1.8

Fig. 10. Timber post-and-lintel skeleton framework @ rabbeted oblique scarf splice [midpoint] 1.4

Fig. 11. Timber post-and-lintel skeleton framework and noyane [hidden roof] @ rake-eave junction 1.6

Fig. 12. Timber post-and-lintel skeleton frame and ishibatate @ raised floor 1.4

Isometric Assembly Drawings

Tsubo-niwa Garden

Fig. 13-17. Finished geometry, edges and water features @ semiprivate front yard/private backyard 1.1-1.4

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Preliminary Working Drawings

Plans

Fig. 1. Roof plan 1.40

Fig. 2. Ground floor plan 1.40

Fig. 3. Ground floor plan @ front and rear door-windows/thresholds 1.20

Fig. 4. Ground floor plan @ rear door-window/threshold 1.4

Fig. 5. Ground floor plan @ front door-window/threshold 1.2

Fig. 6. Ground floor plan @ semiprivate front yard with engawa deck/tsubo-niwa garden 1.8

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Preliminary Working Drawings

Engawa Verandah

FIGURE 7: Elevation of semiprivate front yard with a view of the street | Scale 1.32

FIGURE 8: Elevation of private backyard | Scale 1.32

Fig. 9. Longitudinal section aa @ semiprivate front yard with engawa verandah and tsubo-niwa garden 1.32

Figure 10: Construction detail of curved metal water bowl on plinth. Scale 1.4

FIGURE 11: Section indicating standard distances or spacing of posts [columns] and placement of lintel [eve beam] | Scale 1.32

Fig. 12. Longitudinal section bb @ engawa verandah post-and-lintel structural framework [midpoint] 1.2

Fig. 13. Longitudinal section bb @ engawa verandah post-and-floor structural framework 1.2

Fig. 14. Longitudinal section cc @ front facade and engawa verandah 1.32

Fig. 15. Longitudinal section cc and ground floor plan @ door-window/threshold 1.16

Fig. 16. Longitudinal section cc @ front facade and 'hidden roof' 1.4

Fig. 17. Longitudinal section dd @ private backyard with sala pavilion and tsubo-niwa garden 1.32

Fig. 18. Longitudinal section dd @ private backyard with bin/storage 1.6

Fig. 19. Longitudinal section ee @ private backyard with sala pavilion and tsubo-niwa garden 1.32

Fig. 20. Longitudinal section ee @ sala pavilion post-and-lintel structural framework [midpoint] 1.4

Fig. 21. Longitudinal section ee @ sala pavilion post-and-floor structural framework 1.4

Fig. 22. Longitudinal section ff @ rear facade with door-window and tsubo-niwa garden 1.32

Figure 23: Detail of French door-window in floor-to-lintel wall opening 1.8

Fig. 24. Cross-section gg @ semiprivate front yard/pedestrian path/street 1.20

Fig. 25. Cross-section gg @ semiprivate front yard with engawa verandah and tsubo-niwa garden 1.12

Figure 26: Detail of lean-to-roof, hisashi, at solid wall 1.2

Figure 27: Detail of lean-to-roof, hisashi, at overhanging eave with rain gutter and rain chain [kusari-doi] 1.1

Figure 28: Detail of rain chain [kusari-doi] with curved metal water bowl 1.6

Figure 29: Detail of ... 1.2

Fig. 30. Cross-section gg @ private backyard with sala pavilion and tsubo-niwa garden 1.20

Fig. 31. Cross-section hh @ semiprivate front yard with door-window, engawa verandah, and tsubo-niwa garden 1.12

Fig. 32. Cross-section hh @ front door-window floor-to-lintel junction 1.2

Fig. 33. Cross-section hh @ sala pavilion/tsubo-niwa garden/door-window 1.12

Fig. 34. Cross-section hh @ sala pavilion timber post-and-lintel structural framework/hidden roof 1.6

Fig. 35. Cross-section hh @ sala terrace/tsubo-niwa garden/door-window 1.6

Fig. 36. Cross-section hh @ rear door-window/threshold junction 1.2

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Design and Construction Data

1. Construction Operations

1.01 Preliminary surveying

Specification:

Total external area:

The contractor verifies the major dimensions, roadway geometry, property boundaries, construction limit line, stockpiling areas, and other horizontal measurements.

Tbc.

1.02 Clearing and demolition

Specification:

Total external area:

All trees, shrubs, rock outcrops, slabs, structures, and utility lines within the project area that are to be abandoned or moved. Nb. All trees so designated on the drawings are wrapped or enclosed to protect them from root or bark damage. Some trees may be temporarily transplanted to avoid construction damage.

65 m²

1.03 Topsoil stripping and stockpiling

Specification:

Total external area:

The contractor removes all topsoil within the grading limits and stockpiles the soil in whatever areas will be convenient for future respreading at the completion of the project.

65 m²

1.04 Rough grading

Specification:

Total external area:

By blasting, trenching, backfilling, and cutting and filling to the proposed new subgrade, the contractor prepares all subgrade surfaces to receive foundation footings and subbase material for below- and on-grade structures.

65 m²

1.05 Foundation footings

Specification:

Total external area:

At the completion of the rough grading, 'in situ' or 'cast-in-place' reinforced concrete components such as a slab-on-grade or plinth are set and cured at the site in prefabricated engineered formwork.

26 m²

1.06 Finish grading

Specification:

Total external area:

The project is staked out and resurveyed to establish the finished geometry and the elevations of paving, planting areas, and edges. The paved areas are then graded to finer tolerances, and base material is installed. Topsoil is spread over the rough grades in the planted areas to within a tolerance of ±25 to 75 mm [1 to 3 in].

33 m²

1.07 Japanese timber framed building

Specification:

Total external area:

The contractor assembles various prefabricated timber components such as post-and-lintel skeleton framing on a foundation of natural staddle stones; plank-and-beam framing [decking supported directly by joists]; and single and dual pitched roof structures framed with rafters and spanned with a two-layer system of decking and shingles.

23 m²

1.08 Planting and seeding

Specification:

Total external area:

The contractor plants living barriers or semi-transparent privacy screens - native and exotic, medium-to-tall, and lightly foliaged trees and bushes; a small proportion of compatible exotics; massing plants; moss, rocks, and water features - meant to be seen while seated from multiple viewpoint outside the garden.

16 m²

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Design and Construction Data

2. Project Data

2.01 Summary

Client:

Project name:

Project category:

Project type:

Building type:

Location:

Completion:

2.02 Existing building dimensions

Semiprivate front yard area:

Private backyard area:

Total external area:

Ground floor area:

First floor area:

Total internal area:

Total site area:

2.03 Total useful floor area [TUFA]

Existing 2-bed 'back-to-back' mid-terrace
Home for the future

Private
Home for the future
Residential
Remodelling

2-bed 'back-to-back' mid-terrace
Greater Manchester, North West England
2025

17 m²
48 m²

65 m²

50 m²
50 m²

100 m²

115 m²

100 m²
133 m²

Note 1. Site area [SA]
The term ‘site area’ [SA] means: ‘…the total area of the site within the site title boundaries [or the total area within the site title boundaries defined by the employer as the site for the building], measured on a horizontal plane.’; NRM1 [New Rules of Measurement]: Order of cost estimating and cost planning for capital building works.

Note 2. Total usable floor area [TUFA]
The term 'total useful floor area' [TUFA], or 'total usable floor area' means: ‘...the total area of all enclosed spaces measured to the internal face of the external walls.’; Part L of the Building Regulations. It suggests that this is equivalent to the 'gross floor area' as measured in accordance with the guidance issued to surveyors by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors [RICS].

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Bibliography and Footnotes

1. Mrs. Basil Taylor [1912]. Japanese Gardens, pp. 1.

2. Carl G. Jung [1960]. The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche [Collected Works of C. G. Jung].

3. Theodore John Kaczynski [1995]. Industrial Society and Its Future, pp. 6.

4. Carl G. Jung [1960].

5. Theodore John Kaczynski [1995], pp. 6; Jerry Mander [1978]. Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television, pp. 56.

6. Kisho Kurokawa [1994]. Philosophy of Symbiosis.

7. Nato Giorgadze [2008]. The Greater Reality Behind Doors, pp. 21.

8. Jan Gehl [2011]. Life Between Buildings: Using Public Spaces, pp. 31.

9. In spatial theory, Agoraphobia is an ‘anxiety disorder characterised by an unpleasant state of inner turmoil or feelings of dread in large, open spaces without cover or concealment’.

10. Traditional and contemporary residential architecture are the archetypal examples of a sensory-deprivation environment: ‘The spaces are square, flat and small, eliminating a sense of height, depth, and irregularity. The decor is rigidly controlled to a bland uniformity from room to room and floor to floor … Most … have hermetically sealed windows. The air is processed, the temperature regulated. It is always the same. The body’s largest sense organ, the skin, feels no wind, no changes in temperature, and is dulled ... The light remains constant from morning through night, from room to room until our awareness of light is as dulled as our awareness of temperature, and we are not aware of the passage of time … When we reduce an aspect of environment from varied and multidimensional to fixed, we also change the human being who lives within it. Humans give up the capacity to adjust, just as the person who only walks cannot so easily handle the experience of running. The lungs, the heart and other muscles have not been exercised. The human being then becomes a creature with a narrower range of abilities and fewer feelings about the loss. We become grosser, simpler, less varied, like the environment’; Jerry Mander [1978], pp. 61-62.

11. Wayne McRoy [2023]. 9/11, 22 Years Later: The Devil In The Details.

12. Jan Gehl [2011], pp. 49; Ebenezer Howard [1898]. Garden Cities of To-morrow, pp. 15; Vaclav Havel [1985]. The Power of the Powerless Mass. Citizens Against the State in Central Eastern Europe [Quoted in Academy of Ideas [2022]. The Parallel Society vs Totalitarianism | How to Create a Free World].

13. The Sleep of Rigour [2013]. Threshold: Link and Separator.

14. Michael Lazarin [2014]. Phenomenology of Japanese Architecture: En [Edge, Connection, Destiny], pp. 138; Heinrich Engel [1964]. The Japanese House: A Tradition for Contemporary Architecture, pp. 248; Gunter Nitschke [1993]. From Shinto to Ando: Studies in Architectural Anthropology in Japan, pp. 85.

15. David Y. Yen [2012]. Japanese Timber Frame Methodology: Alternative Solutions to Hawaii’s Built Environment, pp. 28-29.

16. Kisho Kurokawa [1988]. Rediscovering Japanese Space, pp. 53-54.

17. Alan Seale [2019]. Resting In the Act of Contemplation.

18. Rudolf Steiner [1904]. How to Know Higher Worlds: A Modern Path of Initiation, pp. 33-36.

In-between Space 2024

Japanese-influenced indoor-outdoor timber architecture
+ small secluded visual gardens.