Skin

Skin is defined an organic self-structure, an artificial corpus overlapping meshing systems and subsystems, inhabiting space and challenging its perception. It is an important aspect of architecture. In the early times, people were combining skin and structure, monolithic, such as; they were using brick, stone, adobe, or timber. Nowadays, most architects believe that skin and structure are different, and they create and design buildings in the way that the people could see and inspire separately. Today's discussion is about a skin, from the books of Wiltold Rybcznski, ‘How Architecture Works', and how different architects creates and uses distinct and diverse kind of skins. And we will see some points that he discusses, such as heavy and light skin, manufacture skins and scrims.

Until 1990, architects were following the construction monolithic, and this doesn't cost a lot of money. There are some restaurants or cafeterias that they want to build the building in the old traditional way, such as Panera bread. You can see the skin is actually the structure of the building. However, in the last decades people started to differentiate it and started to give a separate definition to the skin and structure. The pair of apartment towers in Chicago, designed by Vander der Rohe, is one of the modern architectural expressions started to appear in separating skin and structure using steel and glass. Sometimes it is good thing to take some ideas from the older way of designing, and modify it to in a modern illusion. An architect Saarin, one of the masters of American 20th-century architecture, is an example of that; he had used a traditional stone skin, but he used it in an abstract and distinctly untraditional manner.

Also, since skin is related to the delight of a building, it is very important for the architects to make sure their building is eye-catching and striking. For example, the AT&T Building, designed by John Burgee, has mimic traditional masonry, but its skin is hardly shallow. The columns are glad in six inches of stone and some of the ornate molding and profiles are ten inches of stone. Since architecture should include three conditions: firmness, commodity, and delight, architects should have these viewpoints into their mind and have good consideration on the delight of the building by creating a skin in the way that people could be attracted and inspired. I love a building made up of both concrete and glass. In Asmara, Eritrea, there is one international hotel, made up of both concrete and glass. The concrete part is on the side and the glass on the middle, and this makes the skin very light, and the light that shines on the glass is eye-catching. So, I believe covering a building with only concrete or heavy substance could not differentiate the definition of skin and structure.

Rybczynski said, "The most unusual features of a skin is, it covers the roof as well as the wall." It is true that architects didn't give too much attention to the roofs of a building. The main reason is that the roofs are not visible to public so it doesn't affect the beauty of their building. Similarly, architects give special attention to the wall of the building when they are thinking about the skin of their building. However, few architects like Norman Foster have different view about that. He designed the Sainsbury center for visual art, university of East Anglia. He was unconcerned about the nonstructural character of the skin that the skin of his building is manufactured. The stone slabs of the building are exactly the same size as the metal panels, so it looks if they are wrapped in giant graph paper.

Rybczynski also talked about scrims. It is a drop made of gauze that appears opaque when lit from the front, and turns transparent when illuminated from behind (Rybczynski, 172). And it used outdoors to reduce the intensity of, and soften harsh light on subjects/people being filmed or photographed. So, Architects use this for the beauty of the skin of their building. They separate the scrim from the wall made up of glass, and they put light on the scrims, so it would flourishes on the outside and make the building looks beautiful. As the technology is growing so fast, there are many competitions on creating a beautiful skin using a scrim. If we see IAC Building, it has a unique sort of skin. The designer Jean Nouvel extends the gridded skin beyond the edge of the building, he adds a second, overlapping metal grid on the lower five floors, like a layered screen.

To summarize, Skin is important part of architecture. Since it is one of the parts that are exposed to the public, architects always give special attention to it. A building that is striking on inside, but not its skin could easily be judged as an unappealing. In the last century, people started to develop an idea that a skin is different from a structure, and this helps them to practice a new material like steel and glass, beside concrete and bricks. Some architects still use a traditional masonry, and some others just use concrete to incorporate in their modern tools, such as glass. And scrim also is a very common material of a skin that architects use it for the beauty of their building by reducing an intensity and harshness of light.