Nature and architecture

Nature and architecture 

I write here about natural environments but not just as journal entries on tourist experiences. I consider experiences with nature an integral part of architecture. What gives an architect any particular right to have views on the natural environment?

One could argue that quite a lot of what we consider natural is actually designed; also that the current association of the natural with the virgin, the unmolested by humans is rather recent notion and a very biased one, too. Living in the dense, small-scale Dutch suburbs of the Randstad I'm constantly amazed by the resilience of the flora and fauna, and their ability to come back and occupy even more than what we make available to them, so I'm disinclined to view my environment from a god-like perspective of human supremacy or to adopt sharp distinctions between the built and the natural environment.

We're just part of the environment, admittedly a very influential species, yet often powerless against e.g. a swarm of insects or a river flood. So, even though I keep writing about "the built environment" I acknowledge the unity of the environment and our partial role in it. Nature is not an accessory of architecture but the wider framework within which architecture and the rest of our culture exists. To understand better human foibles and achievements one needs to see the environment as a whole.

Yet another reason is that our perceptual apparatus has been formed by millions of years of interaction with environments where out influence has been minimal. Over these years deeply ingrained prejudices have developed, which often remain unaccounted for in architecture. Just think of the many buildings with visual cliffs in them and how often some people refuse to walk there. There's a lot to be learned from a less architecture-oriented view of the environment.

Promenade des Artistes

Promenade des Artistes, Spa, Belgium

The town of Spa is a strange sprawl, probably the amalgamation of hamlets, possibly also in relation to the water sources that have formed the main attraction of the town for so long. There are many sources to visit, all strikingly devoid of tourists in the autumn. The water tastes funny, so it must be healthy, full of stuff that doesn't come out of your tap at home. Next to each source there's always a café or restaurant, often a bit worn out, with frequently indifferent staff, Still, they serve as a refuge from the mostly middle-aged visitors, usually hikers without great sporting ambitions and hence also without real hiking gear. There they can get a warm or cold drink, depending on what they need in the particular season, a snack or a hearty meal - an alternative to just drinking source water.

For these visitors there are many enjoyable routes around Spa, usually leading nowhere special - just an opportunity to stretch one's legs in the woods and get a tiny Ardennes experience. One that I have enjoyed was the Promenade des Artistes. I left the car on the side of the road and climbed down to the path next to a stream called La Picherotte. It's an easy terrain, comfortable even for city shoes. You can walk there without much care, just enjoying the scenery and your own movement through it. The path crosses over the stream many times, with picturesque wooden bridges, affording visitors many views of the trees and the mossy rocks.

I'd been walking for some times, lost in the mild, humid atmosphere of the Ardennes, when I started thinking it was time to walk back to the cart before it got too dark while I was deep in the woods but I still kept on going. Suddenly, I heard the sound of an ice cream van. Looking for such a wondrous meeting in the woods, I realised that I'd reached Spa. In fact, I'd been next to it all the time; it was just an illusion of the dense landscape that I was lost in nature.

A walk along the Promenade des Artistes