IMMATERIAL - Perceived absence of matter, Philosophically spiritual rather than physical, Realm of ideas, a formless phenomenon Immaterial is an idea where material is an object The richness of the user’s experience of any building depends on awareness of all the senses, but immaterial architecture may trigger a sense more often associated with the immaterial, such as smell and touch

1. IMMATERIAL
-THEORY OF DESIGN
BY
RAJESH KOLLI
kollirajesh888@gmail.com

2.  IMMATERIAL :
Meaning:-
o Un-important under the circumstances;
o Philosophically spiritual rather than physical.
o Realm of ideas, a formless phenomenon
o Perceived absence of matter
 Architects are manipulators of perception
 We tried to conceptualize the ideas into
designs by manipulating material to achieve
spatial aim. the relationship with user is crucial
space only develops from being a void if there
one to perceive it.
 In renaissance, 18th century, the buildings were
connected to the immaterial through the ideas it
presented, which had much to do with form and
little to do with the matter(material) and hence
an architect transcended from being a manual
(or) skilled labor to the intellectual level of
practice through the medium of drawings as a
representation of ideas.
• The heightened interest in “materiality” – the
experienced “reality” of materials-led to a
search for complimentary properties of :
”IMMATERIALITY.”

3.  Immaterial is an idea where material is an object.
 The immaterial in man is the expansive form inherent in him
 A building is expected to be solid, stable and reassuring – physically, socially and psychologically – bound to
each other, the architectural and the material are considered inseparable.
 When we define a space , we try to describe its characteristics with “what it is?”, but not with “what it is not?”
 Architecture is something more than the management of natural and social situations, we except to find a
justification for this claim in philosophical aesthetics / theories.

4.  The richness of the user’s experience of any building
depends on awareness of all the senses, but immaterial
architecture may trigger a sense more often associated
with the immaterial, such as smell and touch.
 The experience of immaterial architecture is based on
contradictory sensations, and is appropriate to an
active and creative engagement with architecture. The
complexity of whole experience depends upon the
user’s interpretation of what is present and absent.
 There are many ways to understand immaterial
architecture – as an idea, a formless phenomenon, a
technological development towards lightness, a
programmatic focus on actions rather than forms.
 Focusing on immaterial architecture as the perceived
absence of matter more than the actual absence of
matter. It dependent on perception, which involves
creative interpretation, fictions rather than facts.

5.  The user decides whether architecture is immaterial, but the
architect creates conditions in which that decision can be made.
Both are creative.
 Coupling of ideas and forms, the immaterial is sometimes
associated with the formless, from which some of its fascination
derives. But the formless is not absence of order, it is order that
is unrealized.
 The soul must be immaterial, which belongs to being whose
thoughts are not confined to the words ‘here’ & ‘now’, but are
able to abstract from every limitation…..by St. Thomas in –
Natural Longing For Unending Existence.
 On a fundamental note, immaterial architecture revels in
qualities – the subjective, unpredictable, [porous and ephemeral
– that are contrary to the solid, objective and respectable
practice expected of a professional.
 THEORIES
1. Vastu purusa mandala / tradition / nature
2. Sound / memory / lighting / virtual
3. Solids-voids: The presence of holes is formed by the absence of
paper. Each hole marks the absence of of a section of the text
but not an absence in meaning because the reader can either
identify the missing word / select a new one to make it
meaning.

6. VASTU PURUSA MANDALA :
• We tend to follow vastu shastra
designing of house
• The allocating of spaces according
shastra now a days belived as some
spiritual but not as an important
science factor.
• Eg: we place kitchen at South-East
direction, so that it gets more
sunlight to dry as it is a wet area.
• So, following vastu purusa mandala
is an immaterial sense which
an order in space while designing
home.

7. SOLIDS & VOIDS
• Space defined and enclosed by
boundaries or perimeters, is more than
a 3-dimensional cartesian X-Y-Z matrix,
but a material & immaterial identifiable
entity, the existence of which depends
on varieated material and immaterial,
such as imaginery, yet definitive lines
implied by edges, columns or other
frames.
• a set of 9 miniature concrete buildings
playing with volume and voids.
• “Each piece is an individually complete
space defined by volumes and voids
that give the human imagination a
glimpse into what could be lying inside.
The nine pieces from this first set can
put together around the central ‘Kund’
to create a community space.”

8. SOUND & SILENCE
• When we put our ear up against the any
metal/surface, we feel the vibrations, sense the
sound emanating.
• The sound materializes not merely through
human ears but in connection with a physical
attachment of listening to it when the
‘vibrations on a surface’ materializes silence
into sound.
• As silence is the absence of sound.
• So, sound is immaterial, that it cannot be seen
except through its consequences.
• Silence is immaterial , through the absence of
sound, so it focuses increased attention on the
senses and materials present .

9. LIGHT
• The relationship between form and
function is established not only in
the quality of the form, but all
above through a sequence of voids
or transparent textures(like glass)
which defines the internal space of
the architectural object, both in the
sense of illumination, lightweight
materials and the architectural view
of itself.
• Eg: glass usage in Gothic
architecture

10. Example:- A VAPOROUS FOLLY BUILT OF STEEL AND
ARCHITECTURAL INGENUITY
Japanese architect sou fujimoto has designed a light and airy
pavilion for the 2013 serpentine gallery in london.
A porous steel cube is iteratively repeated in all directions,
creating a three-dimensional grid or "space frame" that could
withstand the most violent of storms. The steel members are
arranged in an irregular, amorphous shape, almost as if the
algorithmic sequence was cut off before completing its full
course.
"The fine, fragile grid creates a strong structural system that can
expand to become a large cloud-like shape, combining strict
order with softness," Fujimoto says in a statement.
Seen from a distance, the pavilion seems more like land art. But
visitors can actually walk into the sculpture and perch themselves
on raised platforms while enjoying a coffee or a conversation.
It’s an elegant solution that comfortably accommodates human
occupants while not tarnishing the heady purity of Fujimoto’s
geometric concept.

11. WHY MANY OF THE HINDU TEMPLES ARE CONSTUCTED NEAR WATER BODIES?
 A temple is usually designed like a home/ palace in resemblance of god’s residence.
 The appropriate site for a temple, suggest ancient Sanskrit texts, is near water and gardens,
lotus and flowers bloom, where swans, ducks and other birds are heard, where animals rest
without fear of injury or harm. These harmonious places were recommended in these texts with
the explanation that such are the places where gods play, and thus the best site for Hindu
temples.
Temple at Badami
The gods always play where lakes are,
where the sun’s rays are warded off by umbrellas of lotus leaf
clusters,
and where clear waterpaths are made by swans
whose breasts toss the white lotus hither and thither,
where swans, ducks, curlers and paddy birds are heard,
and animals rest nearby in the shade of Nicula trees on the river
banks.
The gods always play where rivers have for their bracelets
the sound of curlers and the voice of swans for their speech,
water as their garment, carps for their zone,
the flowering trees on their banks as earrings,
the confluence of rivers as their hips,
raised sand banks as breasts and plumage of swans their mantle.
The gods always play where groves are near, rivers, mountains and
springs, and in towns with pleasure gardens.
— Brhat Samhita 1.60.4-8, 6th Century CE

12. Daniel Libeskind believes passionately in an eloquent architecture
that tells stories rooted in history. His lecture looked at how several
of his projects — in Manchester, Poland, Italy and the US —
communicate with the souls of visitors
The Imperial War Museum North in Old Trafford, Manchester,
underlines Daniel Libeskind’s belief that buildings should tell a
story. Here, the tale is about war and conflict. This is not a
museum about peace, but of the struggle to attain it and how in this
struggle the world becomes fragmented
The museum comprises three interlocking shards. The
Earth Shard forms the museum space. The Air Shard
holds exhibition, observatory and education spaces. The
Water Shard, with its restaurant, deck and performance
spaces, forms the platform for viewing the Manchester
Ship Canal. These three shards — Earth, Air and Water —
show how war has been fought on the ground, in the air
and at sea.

13. Daniel spoke “My aim was to create a
building not just programmed for the events
which would take place inside it but one that
also emotionally moved the soul of the
visitor towards a sometimes unexpected
realisation. Conflict is not simply a story with
a happy or unhappy ending but is an
ongoing momentum which structures one’s
understanding of the past and of the future
to come.”
“I wanted the museum to speak to visitors with dramatic yet simple
forms,” explained Libeskind, speaking last month at the 15th British
Cement Association Berthold Lubetkin Memorial Lecture,
organised by The Concrete Centre

14. This is a list of Christian cross variants. The Christian
cross, with or without a figure of Christ included, is the
main religious symbol of Christianity.
A cross with figure of Christ affixed to it is termed a crucifix
and the figure is often referred to as the corpus (Latin for
"body").
The Greek cross, a cross with arms of equal length, as in a
plus sign, was in common use by the 4th century. The
standard Latin cross, a cross with an elongated
descending arm, is most common.
Latin cross
Roman cross
These symbolisms can be seen in the Christian buildings

15. Hiroshima Peace Memorial
commonly called the Atomic Bomb
Dome in Hiroshima, Japan, is part of
the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park and was
designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in
1996. The ruin serves as a memorial to the people
who were killed in the atomic bombing of
Hiroshima on 6 August 1945. Over 70,000 people
were killed instantly, and another 70,000 suffered
fatal injuries from the radiation.
Today we can very much see the chaos and emotion of the tragey in the building.not only the
ideation
Behind the building tells the immateriality but also the sentiments of the building with respect to
the people
and the influence it make also becomes a part of the building which are not physical in nature.

16. Jewish Museum, Berlin
s one of the largest Jewish Museums in Europe. In three buildings, two of
which are new additions specifically built for the museum
by architect Daniel Libeskind, two millennia of German-Jewish history are
on display in the permanent exhibition as well as in various changing
exhibitions.
The museum is a homage to Jewish people, and the assaults on
them during the world war II, it is a vague interpretation of
holocaust and how the refugee were feeling during their exile from
Germany to various parts of Europe. How they were mistreated
and the humiliation they went through for equal rights. These were
the key ideads behind this work of art of an architecture.

17. the new design, which was created a year before the Berlin Wall came
down was based on three conception that formed the museum’s
foundation:
first, the impossibility of understanding the history of Berlin without
understanding the enormous intellectual, economic and cultural
contribution made by the Jewish citizens of Berlin,
second, the necessity to integrate physically and spiritually the
meaning of the Holocaust into the consciousness and memory of the
city of Berlin.
Third, that only through the acknowledgement and incorporation of this
erasure and void of Jewish life in Berlin, can the history of Berlin and
Europe have a human future.” A line of "Voids," empty spaces about 66
feet (20 m) tall, slices linearly through the entire building. Such voids
represent "That which can never be exhibited when it comes to Jewish
Berlin history: Humanity reduced to ashes

18.  HOW CAN ARCHITECTS
MANIPULATE PERCEPTION?
• The idea of a home is not
necessarily associated with a
physical house.
• Material & immaterial cannot
be separated as physical
and space, mood it creates.
• Architect Jonathan hill says
architecture are objects that
tickle our visual senses and
not function.
• It is a tool, a device for
interpretation to occur.

19. CONCLUSION:
 Immaterial architecture that advocates an architecture that fuses the material and the immaterial,
consider its consequences, challenging preconceptions about architecture, its practice, purpose,
matter and use..…so that they are in conjunction not opposition i.e. material properties such as
heaviness / opacity, together with immaterial properties such as lightness / translucency.
 Finally, an architecture that is immaterial and spatially porous, as well as solid and stable where
necessary, will not change established habits. Rather it may offer those habits with greater flexibility.

20. THANK YOU
BY
RAJESH KOLLI
kollirajesh888@gmail.com
REFERENCE:
Book – Immaterial Architecture…by Jonathan Hill
Book – Weather Architecture…by Jonathan Hill
Article – Immaterial Materials : Materiality & Interactivity In Art And Architecture…by Jonathan Hill & Philip Ursprung
Book – Persistent Modelling : Extending The Role Of Architectural Representation…by Phil Ayres
Book – The Re-Use Of Urban Ruins : Atmospheric Inquiries Of The City…by Hanna Katharina Gobel
Book – Materializing The Immaterial : The Architecture Of Wallace Cunningham…by Joseph Giovannini