Working on Free Space

Minimalist architecture and space

 Term ‘minimalism’ is a trend from early 19th century and gradually became an important movement in response to the over decorated design of the previous period. Minimalist architecture became popular in the late 1980s in London and New York, where architects and fashion designers worked together in the boutiques to achieve simplicity, using white elements, cold lighting, large space with minimum objects and furniture. Minimalist architecture simplifies living space to reveal the essential quality of buildings and conveys simplicity in attitudes toward life. It is highly inspired from the Japanese traditional design and the concept of Zen philosophy.

Concepts and design elements

The concept of minimalist architecture is to strip everything down to its essential quality and achieve simplicity. The idea is not completely without ornamentation, but that all parts, details and joinery are considered as reduced to a stage where no one can remove anything further to improve the design.

The considerations for ‘essences’ are light, form, detail of material, space, place and human condition.Minimalist architects not only consider the physical qualities of the building. Moreover, they look deeply into the spiritual dimension and the invisible, by listening to the figure and paying attention to the details, people, space, nature and materials.Which reveals the abstract quality of something that is invisible and search for the essence from those invisible qualities. Such as natural light, sky, earth and air. In addition, they open up dialogue with the surrounding environment to decide the most essential materials for the construction and create relationships between buildings and sites.

In minimalist architecture, design elements convey the message of simplicity. The basic geometric forms, elements without decoration, simple materials and the repetitions of structures represent a sense of order and essential quality. The movement of natural light in buildings reveals simple and clean spaces. In late 19th century as the arts and crafts movement began to be popular in Britain, people valued the attitude of ‘truth to materials’, with respect to the profound and innate characteristics of materials. Minimalist architects humbly 'listen to figure,' seeking essence and simplicity by rediscovering the valuable qualities in simple and common materials.