Article Surfing Archive

Dear friends, the emergence of architecture in human societyhas taken a wide and distinct role in itself. Starting fromearly eras where man used to live in caves, we have seen aremarkable growth in architecture and allied fields, which includes landscape and interior design

The recent being the use of computers and "Computer Aided Design"in architecture, which allows a kind of perfection in designand execution process of any building and its interiors.

In spite of all the technological advances, the primary functionof any building structure remains the same, protection fromoutside environment and natural calamities.

Starting from a place to "protect yourself' from nature, interiordesign has become a "status symbol". Today's interior spaces havea two way channel, first and the obvious one is the function andsecond one is aesthetical, which is a little complex one.

It is quite obvious that the interior design of a space is directlyrelated to the function of the space. This means that two spaceslike a home and an office have two well defined functions, henceit will reflect in every aspect of the interior design solution.

But apart from the there is one more important factor thatwill affect each and every aspect of the final design solution,and that's the geographical location of the architectural structure.

A hotel building at seashore and the other one at a hill station will have a completely different sets of problems to deal with.Lets see in a short way what are the external factors that canaffect an interior design solution

1) Amount of direct sunlight.

Locations on the far northern or southern hemisphere receive less amount of sunlight than those at the equator. That's why here thebuilding with more use of plane glass are used. Also artificiallighting is given much importance.

2) External temperature.

External temperature directly affects the comfort level of internalspaces. Since external walls act as a "buffer" between internaland external climate, it is necessary to use the right constructionmaterial for walls. Depending upon the wall material the internalfinishes also have limitations. This is especially true forstructure that face extreme climatic ups and downs, such as locations in the gulf countries.

Hence selecting materials that can sustain heavy climatic changeson a daily scale is challenging.

3) Humidity and Rainfall.

Because of the salty nature of air around coastal areas extra careis taken for building construction materials, which can directlyaffect the entire budget of the project.

4)Wind Direction.

Wind direction and wind speed also has direct affect on the interiors.Heavy winds exert a load on the external walls of the structure,thus affecting the construction technology.

5)Land Structure and Topography.

Land structure is the nature of land on which the structure stands.Various types of land structures include rock solid, marshy land,etc...Topography of land is classified as plane or a site with slope.If the site of the structure is on a hill slope, extra precautionsare taken to allow the natural flow of rainwater that the structuremight block. Depending upon the quality of land surface the construction technology will change.

As far as interiors are concerned a well planned structure withproperly thought spaces is a must because internally the spacesget divided into various floors.

From the above short discussion it can be said that external factorsand environment greatly affect the way structures are built and thus directly affecting the interior qualities of the structure.

Technological advancements have allowed us to artificially controlthe internal environment of a building irrespective of what's happening outside. But a carefully studied and well planned architectural space can easily cut the extra cost of air conditioningand other ventilation services.

I hope this article was informative to everyone.

Copyright Shrinivas Vaidya