The 'Middle Way'
Above. Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha ['the awakened']: a wandering ascetic ['recluse'] who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE; and source of inspiration in following the 'Middle Way' or 'Middle Path'- a distinct, easy to understand spiritual practice, that transcends and reconciles the false duality that characterises most 'suffering'.
'Western societies have two dimensional cultures [interior and exterior], while Japanese society has a three- or multi-dimensional culture [interior, intermediate, and exterior].'1
- Kisho Kurokawa
Look closely at our ‘streetscapes’,2 specifically the ordinary, everyday spaces adjacent to, beside, behind, and in front of our dwellings – in short, the spaces between buildings - and what do you see?3 Thick masonry walls separate the inside from the outside. A large ‘picture window’ facing the street, provides a view out, with nature as something 'out there’;4 What is generally referred to as a threshold – an opening or passage allowing for movement and transition between very private and very public space - is resolved by nothing more than a solid entrance door or 'movable barrier'.5
In what is euphemistically called the ‘garden’ today, one typically sees: flat, empty geometry of ‘brutalist’ concrete and/or grass; 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.6 Under these agoraphobic edge conditions,7 most of us prefer to remain inside; what are most certainly sensory-deprivation environments8 - in front of the television – the greatest mind control tool ever created.9
This clear distinction of house from garden is the equivalent of what psychologists term splitting.10 The most far-reaching and complex of human problems, e.g. psychological need for public, semi-public and private physical space; is sharply divided into oversimplified, all-or-nothing polarisations such as inner and outer space, private and public space, sacred and profane space, etc.11 The Japanese, on the other hand, have a concept relatively unknown to the Western mind; and the missing ingredient in our own civilisation.12 This is En or the edge effect: intermediating space and elements which define and/or blur artificial dualistic divisions, between inside to outside, building to nature, private to public.13
This spatial religio-aesthetic can be further expanded and made clear when one looks at one of the most pronounced and distinguishing qualities of ancient Japan’s beautiful and endearing hermitages, Zen Buddhist temples and ‘folk houses’ - the Engawa or ‘edge-side’: 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; and as a passageway to the garden, among many other miscellaneous functions. But perhaps the most important role of the engawa, in the context of a house-garden relationship, is as an intervening space between the inside and the outside – a sort of third world between interior and exterior.14
Here, one may enjoy well-deserved days and evenings of rest and contemplation [thinking], in the midst of a secluded and beautiful garden, removed and unbothered by the stresses of the secular world.15 The tragedy of the present is that for many of us, there is a place inside that yearns for a restorative space which can easily be accessed as part of everyday life. Yet one is profoundly hampered in their quest - for the modern architect of the Western world - generally pays little attention to the ordinary, everyday spaces between buildings. Instead, they concentrate on buildings; that is, buildings divorced from space [on the human scale].16
In response to this 'tyranny', In-between Space was invented as an architectural movement and philosophy of change. The subject matter is the ‘ordinary’ English and Japanese dwelling. The concept is linked to the question of whether we can’t sympathetically insert or 'retrofit' Japanese-influenced indoor-outdoor timber architecture + secluded gardens into, between or beside an existing building.17 The premise is based upon the notion of ‘small change’:18 ‘small’ because the insertions are on the human range of scales [1.0 cm. – 2.0 m.]; ‘change’, because the insertions provide a use for what is often a redundant or neglected ‘dead space’; and ‘small change’ because this can be implemented in an economic climate, where the living standard does not permit any extravagant expense.19
The ambition is to deliver a diverse body of works dedicated to the adaptive reuse of Manchester’s odd, strange, and criminally underappreciated old buildings for 21st century indoor-outdoor living. The aim is to present a third alternative or Middle Way, in which all the advantages of modern Western architecture and Japanese architectural tradition, may be secured in perfect combination20 - a combination of multi-sensory delights and beauty, I hope all Mancunians, both rich and poor, will someday be blessed with.
Kenward K. Garg
Manchester, England
13 August 2024
Manchester, England
13 August 2024
Bibliography & footnotes
1. Kisho Kurokawa [1988]. Rediscovering Japanese Space, pp. 53. Quoted in David Y. Yen [2012]. Japanese Timber Frame Methodology: Alternative Solutions to Hawaii’s Built Environment, pp. 28-29.
2. The contents of the city ‘streetscape’ can conveniently be classified into two types of elements: paths, and edges. Paths are the channels along which an observer customarily, occasionally, or potentially moves i.e., street, pavement, footpath. Edges are the linear elements not used or considered a path by the observer. Such edges are more or less penetrable boundaries or barriers between two phases, linear breaks in continuity: walls, gates, fences, etc.; Kevin Lynch [1959]. The Image of the City, pp. 47.
3. Larry R. Ford [2000]. The Spaces between Buildings, pp. 4.
4. Kisho Kurokowa [1994]. The Philosophy of Symbiosis. Chapter 8, Intermediary Space.
5. The Sleep of Rigour [2013]. Threshold: Link and Separator; Nato Giorgadze [2008]. The Greater Reality Behind Doors, pp. 21.
6. Jan Gehl [2011]. Life Between Buildings: Using Public Spaces, pp. 31.
7. ‘In a study of the preferred areas for stays in Dutch recreational areas, the sociologist Derk de Jonge mentions a characteristic edge effect. The edges of the forest, beaches, groups of trees, or clearings were the preferred zones for staying, while the open plains or beaches were not used until the edge zones were fully occupied. Comparable observations can be made in city spaces where the preferred stopping zones also are found along the borders of the spaces or at the edges of spaces within the space. The obvious explanation for the popularity of edge zones is that placement at the edge of a space provides the best opportunities 'to see without being seen' [Konrad Lorenz [1952]. King Solomon's Ring. pp. 181]. A supplementary explanation is discussed by Edward T. Hall in the book The Hidden Dimension, which describes how placement at the edge of a forest or close to a facade helps the individual or group to keep its distance from others. At the edge of the forest or near the facade, one is less exposed than if one is out in the middle of a space. One is not in the way of anyone or anything. One can see, but not be seen too much, and the personal territory is reduced to a semicircle in front of the individual. When one’s back is protected, others can approach only frontally, making it easy to keep watch and to react, for example, by means of a forbidding facial expression in the event of undesired invasion of personal territory:’ Jan Gehl [2011], pp. 149.
9. Both traditional [pre-1920] and modern [post-1920] residential architecture are the archetypal examples of sensory-deprivation environments: ‘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.
9. Wayne McRoy [2023]. 9/11, 22 Years Later: The Devil In The Details.
10. Dr. Adam Kaasa [2016]. Cohabitation: Against the Tabula Rasa and Towards a New Ethic for Cities. pp. 2.
11. Robert J. Lifton, M.D. [1961]. Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of ‘Brainwashing’ in China, pp. pp. 423; Andreas Vogler; Jesper Jørgensen [2004]. Windows to the World [Doors to Space]: A Reflection on the Psychology and Anthropology of Space Architecture, pp. 2.
12. Gunter Nitschke [2007]. Japanese Gardens, pp. 33; Walter Gropius, Forward. In: Heinrich Engel [1964]. The Japanese House: A Tradition for Contemporary Architecture, pp. 18.
13. Kisho Kurokowa [1994]; Gunter Nitschke [1993]. From Shinto to Ando: Studies in Architectural Anthropology in Japan, pp. 85.
14. Kisho Kurokawa [1988], pp. 53-54. Quoted in David Y. Yen [2012], pp. 28-29.
15. Heinrich Engel [1964], pp. 245; Mark Hovane [2020]. Invitations to Stillness: Japanese Gardens as Metaphorical Journeys of Solace. Hidden Japan.
16. Larry R. Ford [2000], pp. 4.
17. ‘Insertion is an installation-based approach to remodelling: characterised by the placement of a series or group of related elements into, between or beside an often redundant or neglected space. It is at its best when the clearest possible distinction between the crisp new contemporary work and the crumbling antiquity of the existing is established. The strong symbiotic relationship between the two - based upon juxtaposition, counterpoint and contrast – strengthens and reinvigorates the existing building, as though new life has been drawn to it:’ Graeme Brooker; Sally Stone [2004]. Re-readings: Interior Architecture and the Design Principles of Remodelling Existing Buildings, pp. 102-103, 127-129.
18. Nabeel Hamdi [2004]. Small Change: About the Art of Practice and the Limits of Planning in Cities, pp. xxiii.
19. Heinrich Engel [1964], pp. 245.
20. ‘There are in reality not only, as is so constantly assumed, two alternatives - town life and country life - but a third alternative, in which all the advantages of the most energetic and active town life, with all the beauty and delight of the country, may be secured in perfect combination;’ Ebenezer Howard [1898]. Garden Cities of To-morrow, pp. 15.
In-between Space 2024
inbetweenaspace@gmail.com