Scale And Proportion

Steen Eiler Rasmussen was a famous architect and urban planner. On his book, “Experiencing Architecture”, some of the things he pays attention to are scale and proportion.

In our last session, we got the chance to learn more about scale and proportion. Proportion refers to the relationship of parts of a body to one another and to the body as a whole, whereas scale is the comparison we make of a form to the size of another form. In architecture, scale is used to compare the size of the drawing to the size of the actual building.

There are two types of scales: Visual and Human Scale.

The visual scale is the act of comparing the sizes of two forms visually.

The human scale compares our human size to a building or a form.

We saw examples of how different architects have used the human scale in the past. Michelangelo purposely enlarged the sizes of the doors and windows, so he can give the building a simplistic view.

Proportion refers to the harmonic differentiation of one part to another or one part to the whole. This is also important in the compositions we make where we have to consider the part to part relationship and the part to whole relationship.

There are some theories of desirable proportions that can assist order and the perception of buildings.

The golden section is the most common used order. The ratio is defined by the number Phi (1.61). It is used way more than we think in buildings, nature and the human body as well.

The regulating lines are the lines that help us connect to form with each other. These are really important in every design, especially on the compositions we are making.

Le Corbusier developed a theory called The Modular, which is based on the golden section and the human proportions. He took the average human size 183 cm. He adapted his designs on a way so they can be more approachable and usable on our day-to-day life.

Anthropometry is the act of designing based on our body measurements and designing for the disabled people.

During our lecture, we also got to see and learn more about the principles of compositions, how important they are, the ways we can follow them on our compositions and how architects follow them on every design.