The connection between the user of a building and the environment is important.
We spend about 90% of our time in a building. Whether this is at home, at work or in a store, that is almost a whole day that we spend inside. Especially now with the coronavirus around us, we don’t have much choice but to stay at home. That is why it is good to establish a connection with the environment from a building.
A building cannot be placed somewhere without having any type of context and relationship with its environment. How do you ensure proper integration of a building? First you make sure that a building does not differ too much from the other buildings around it. This allows you to create a neighborhood that can create an even stronger connection together. But especially if your building is also very different from the rest of the neighborhood, you can make a nice connection by standing out and starting interesting conversations with the people around you.
You can also give users an opportunity to connect with the environment through dialogues with buildings, people and/or vegetation.
How can you increase the connection between the user and the environment?
You can do this by allowing the building to blend in with the environment. By having wider windows in a building, you can make a better connection with the outside world. More light enters and the view from the inside to the outside is increased. You learn more about the environment and you do not feel trapped.
You can also bring the outside in. How do you do that? When you walk outside you see trees, flowers and other plants everywhere. You can also bring plants into a building. This helps with the indoor climate and is beautiful as a decoration. So it’s a win-win situation. By placing these plants in the right places, you get a better feeling of connection with the outdoors/nature.
Often when you are in a neighborhood, you will see that buildings resemble each other or actually have some of the same elements. In this way, these buildings maintain a dialogue with each other and together form a neighborhood. For example, you can see that buildings belong together, but they are different, because the functional functions of buildings can differ greatly from each other.
Speaking of usage functions, there is another way to connect private and public. You can place a function in your building that invites the public inside. This could be a studio where beautiful works of art are exhibited, or you could sell something.
In summary, you can do a number of things to strengthen the connection between inside and outside:
– Do not allow a building to differ too much from its neighbors (or, on the contrary)
– Wider window openings
– Bringing plants indoors
– Entering into a dialogue with buildings in the area
– Integrate a function in the building that invites the public in
