ANCHORING:RE- UNDERSTANDING THE ARCHITECTURAL PROCESS FROM VOID TO PLACE

ANCHORING:RE-UNDERSTANDING THE ARCHITECTURAL PROCESS FROM VOID TO PLACE BAŞAK YURTSEVEN, T. NUR ÇAĞLAR Başak Yurtseven, TOBB University of Economics and Technology, T. Nur Çağlar, Prof. Dr., TOBB University of Economics and Technology *This paper is a part of the ongoing master thesis in Master of Architecture Program at TOBB University of Economics and Technology. Abstract Ever since the 1980s, architectural discourses have been dealing with concerns about the new millennium. These concerns have underlined that one of the most important aspects of designing an architectural project is to envision the design of the site and the building itself together rather than designing them separately. The paper discusses an architectural design process that focuses on the transformation of voids to place, while developing a sense of place. To this end, the paper suggests that such a transformation of voids have the potential to integrate interior and exterior spaces. Discussions on the integration of interior and exterior spaces have been a commonplace in architectural agenda. However, there is a lack in researches on the means that would ultimately lead such a design process towards the transformation of voids into interfaces between interior and exterior spaces. The objective of this study is to present a possible way for developing a sense of place by exploring the voids as a generator that would trigger a new urban life with the design of a building and its environment. In this respect, these generative voids might be explained with the concept of ‘anchoring’ and its dimensions. Anchoring describes the relation of a building to a site and landscape, to its culture and to its metaphysical-poetic-physical origins, which makes the sense of place. In this regard, ‘the place’ will be examined in detail with paradisciplinary approach by examining a number of projects. The proposed argument of this work is to determine how the life will continue and provide the integration of the people’s lives and the design fields. In addition to that, rehabilitating urban living conditions and regaining the lost spaces in the city would create a new path for landscape and architecture. Consequently, ‘the place’ could have a meaning with the concept of ‘anchoring’ that provides the integration of the interior and exterior space. This interaction will redefine a new architecture in the future and create a paradigm with regard to the urban life. At this situation, Helsinki Horizon 2030 projection showing these justifications would make preparations for the targets of the urban life and help to create a greater sense of individuality on the site. Keywords: landscape, architecture, anchoring, urban life, void, sense of place Introduction The subject matter of this study discusses the integration of the site and the building along with a design process that moves towards the transformation of voids to place with a para-disciplinary approach. Voids created within architectural designs collectively form the urban voids and determine the relationships between interior and exterior spaces. The terms ‘void’ and ‘place’ are different from each other. The void, is really a void, and is a space that is not generated because they usually refer to generated empty spaces. On the other hand, the place is an occupied space and is limited compared to the void, which brings with it spatiality and openness. While designing the architectural and urban spaces, it should be noted that architecture is related to place and the site. Instead of identifying the place as strict and limited, both the site and the building should be examined together with a dimensional approach. On the other hand, in architectural discourses, the subject of the place is considered as superficial and is largely ignored, thus the building becomes estranged to its location. In other words, as long as they are designed separately, the relationship between the nature of the site and the nature of the architectural project could not be healthy. Therefore, the building should convert voids, being a generator for a new urban life, to the place with the design of a building and its environment. While providing the integration of the site and building, the concept of anchoring would be important in terms of understanding the process of the transformation of voids to place and emplacement. According to Steven Holl, anchoring discusses the intention to ground a work of architecture to its place. At this point, the site of a building is more than a mere ingredient in its conception. It is its physical, metaphysical, and poetic foundation. The building transcends both physical and functional requirements by fusing with a place, by gathering the meaning of a situation. Architecture does not so much intrude on the landscape as it serves to explain it (Holl, 1989, p.9). This shows that an architectural object occupying a place in the city creates voids and constitutes the landscape, which enhances the urban life and carries the structure into the future. Ever since the 1980s, architectural discourses have been dealing with visions about the new millennium. These concerns have underlined that one of the most important aspects of designing an architectural project is to envision the design of the site and the building itself together rather than designing them separately. At the same time, many theorists have looked for an answer as to how new architecture and the new urban life will be. Thus, it is necessary to examine both the site and the building as a whole in order to understand the relationship between them. This situation has been emphasized in other disciplines like painting, philosophy, and literature. In Boccioni’s manifesto, he says that the need to revolutionize the exterior of the building was based on feelings and sensations, and it provided the relationship between the exterior scene and interior emotion, which would give birth to the new architectural line (Meyer, 1995, p.163). As stated by Boccioni, the new architecture is built simultaneously with its interior and exterior, so this coexistence becomes meaningful when an architectural design is thought with its environment. In addition to this, the relation between the building and he site is emphasized in literature as well. In his essay Six Memos for the Next Millennium, Italo Calvino mentions that “There is a clear tendency toward dematerialization in design structures that are meant to be anchored to the ground rather than to weigh upon it…” (Modena, 2011, p.142) Upon examination through many disciplines including literature, painting, and art, it is possible to say that the concepts of emplacement and place are actually related with figure-ground. The integration of the themes of the future would provide a meaningful site with respect to the new architecture and would help the re-construction of a new urban life. Many philosophers like Deleuze, Heidegger, and Bachelard have discussed this situation. According to Deleuze, a new way of looking at the relationship between architecture and its environment has developed and that architecture could propose some kind of event in which interpretation of the environment is problematized (Williams, 2000, p.204). This shows that the outside is nothing more than a void of the inside, which constitutes a new kind of harmony between them and develops the sense of place. In a similar way, Bergson says that place is something like a void and a resource waiting to be filled with significance and meaning (Read, 2007, p.5). It means that place is a cognitive and emotional experience while containing cultural values and practices that connect people to place. As stated by Gaston Bachelard, “We don’t live inside a void that could be colored with the diverse shades of light; we live inside and outside a set of relations that delineates sites which are irreducible to one another.” (Casey, 1998, p.299) Accordingly, the integration of the site and the building would bring the idea of a heterogeneous and differentiated realm. Therefore, the transformation of voids into interfaces between interior and exterior spaces should be taken into consideration with its multiple dimensions including spiritual, physical, emotional, poetic, and cognitive links. The void, as a generator that would trigger a new urban life with the design of a building and its environment, could change the spatial configuration and the meaning of the place. At this point, the concept of the site gains importance because the voids, including human movements, may give a meaning to the site in terms of the relationship between architecture and landscape. “A site should be thought of within an evolving self-referential frame, a visual frame meant to qualify and strengthen the natural potential of a city over time… Both vision (that is to say the individual projection on a site) and actions (the individual or collective use of an environment) contribute to our understanding of a place.” (Waldheim, 2006, pp.94-95) This demonstrates that the site creates a new situation and a dialogue between place and architecture. This dialogue creates a constructive conversion in modern life when the relation between architecture and site is provided and expressed in new ways. Hence, looking at the urban life scenarios is significant. The Urban Life Scenarios Looking at “the urban life scenarios” in the last century, it is possible to say that lots of theorists mention the relationship between nature, building, and the sense of place. Norberg-Schulz claims that the responsibility of an architect is to discover the genius loci and design. He states that the architect’s task is to reveal nature by situating and utilizing the landscape. The current interest in constructing the site reflects the desire make a place (Nesbitt, 1996, p.49). According to Norberg-Schulz, the landscape is brought closer to us by buildings gathering the properties of the landscape, thus the relationship between vertical-horizontal rhythms in architecture and landscape play a vital role in the experience of a site. In the same manner, Abraham mentions that just as human life takes place in the physical environment; buildings do as well, acquiring their position in the landscape by forming a relationship with it. The physical environment is a place in which everyone and everything interacts. The man-made environment and architecture exist alongside the naturally formed landscape and topography (Maminski, 2004, p.26). As stated by Tadao Ando, architecture has strong links with the landscape and thus creates a new landscape. Ando emphasized the coexistence of architecture and landscape over theoretical speculations as follows: “The presence of nature within an architecture austerely constructed by means of transparent logic. The elements of nature bring architecture derived from ideological thought down to the ground level of reality and awaken man-made life within it. Contemporary architecture has a role play in providing people with architectural places that make them feel the presence of nature. Architecture transforms nature through abstraction, changing its meaning. When water, wind, light, rain, and other elements of nature are abstracted within architecture, the architecture becomes a place where people and nature confront each other under a sustained sense of tension.” (Nesbitt, 1996, p.460) According to Ando, landscape and architecture constitute a meaningful whole because architecture transforms the site through abstraction and creates a place which gathers nature and people. In this situation, not only does architecture create a new landscape with the formal characteristics of the site, but it also relates to the senses. In a similar fashion, Manual Gausa states that the new relationship between architecture (building) and landscape (site) is a “hybrid contact”. The mutual inflection of the site and building emanates from a changing attitude toward nature-from a romantic understanding of the natural to a mixed approach (Mallgrave and Goodman, 2012, pp.171-172). Upon examining these discourses, it can be seen that the relationship between interior and exterior spaces have a mutual bond and they are an inseparable whole. Many architects aim to develop a sense of place and examine the integration of interior and exterior voids. There are some manifestos that support the interaction of buildings with the site. In his manifesto titled Anchoring (1989), Steven Holl mentions that architecture explains landscape and that the illustration of a site is not a simplistic replication of its context; and to reveal landscape as an aspect of place may not confirm its appearance (Jenks and Kropf, 1997, p.109). He reminds the fundamental nature of place in architecture. For Holl, the notion of site is a primary architectural motivator. Thus when designing a building, the site operates at various scales that have particular effects upon architectural projects. Actually, Holl aims to transcend the requirements of a structure by combining with a place and landscape within its view. In a similar manner, in his Seven Points for the Millennium, Kenneth Frampton (1999, p.78) mentions that “This greening strategy possesses other pastoral benefits: first, the current tendency to reduce the built environment to an endless proliferation of free-standing objects would be overcome by landscape which would integrate everything into the surface of the ground and second, landscape would have the advantage of being more culturally accessible to the man in the street, than the contemporary built environment with all the seemingly unavoidable harshness of its instrumentality.” As mentioned earlier, the architectural discourses and manifestos between the 1980 and 1990s indicate that the integration of interior and exterior voids trigger a new urban life and constitutes a hybrid contact between them. At the same time, the coexistence of the site and building develops a sense of place by conveying the significance of landscape and architecture. The Discourses about the Sense of Place The architectural views and manifestos of the past determine today’s perspectives. This can be especially seen in the New Futurists, defined by Jean-Louis Cohen, which have various discourses which is related to the architecture in the late 20th to early 21st century. Architects such as Zaha Hadid, Rem Koolhaas, Norman Foster, and Santiago Calatrava have made projections about the future of architecture and the urban life. Zaha Hadid believes that architecture actually consists of human activities and human mood, which are related to the human life. She claimed that “Architecture is not only a closed structure that holds the activities it is built for but it also should make its users calm, think, keep them ‘dry’ and motivate the spirit… Architecture should be a unique thing leaving its influence in the area’s life and attracting people to experience it.” (Abdullah, Said, and Ossen, 2013, p.2) This shows that she designs a new kind of landscape by formulating her buildings. This situation causes to flow together with contemporary cities and the lives of their peoples. Architecture not only includes physical features of the place, but it also affects the spiritual values and the lives of people. Daniel Libeskind and Paul Goldberger (2008) explain this situation with the form of communication. They believe that the architectural site has to be part of the story as an “act of communication”. It is not just a container to be filled; on the contrary, it is part of the symbolism of the building. This means that the site is not a container containing its physical configuration, on the contrary, it is a tool that constitutes interfaces between the architectural and urban voids. In their practices, Norman Foster and Santiago Calatrava integrate nature into their building design. As stated by Foster (2000, p.14), the sensitiveness to the past and the place is significant so as to design the building. He states that the integration with nature or the urban fabric is related to the sensibility of the place. In a similar manner, Calatrava mentions about that “Calatrava’s buildings don’t impose on landscape or a cityscape. They are respectful of the fact that the world was there first. They don’t demand space, they enhance it. They don’t fill space; they give it meaning-a new dimension to the landscape, opening new horizons.” (Sharp, 1992, p.28) According to the New Futurists, place identity is a basic element that contributes to the sense of place. It is clear that the creation of place identity is necessary in order to constitute the cognitive dimension of the place and the design concept of a void. Thus, architecture should be thought with landscape to give meaning to the urban life. The integration of voids and the relation between site and building have been discussed at several architectural congresses throughout history. In his speech for the Pritzker Architecture Prize, Robert Venturi (1991, p.1) offers that the determinant factor of design is the context, thus while designing a site, it should be from the inside out or outside in. This act may create valid tensions between the inside and outside and constitutes a spatial record as an architectural event. In a similar manner, Peter Zumthor generally designs his buildings according to surfaces, which creates a topological spatiality, so the transition between inside and outside and the spatial continuity are provided (Ursprung, 2009, p.2). This transition between the building and ground shifts from the abstract to concrete, and causes a renewed interest in the specific surfaces. In light of the information which has been offered above, the building and site having a profound effect on the various movements in the decades of 1980s, caused to think about the sense of place. Developing the sense of place in relation to a particular system of activities, physical features, experiences, and meanings is important for the inside and outside dualism on the site. According to Bachelard, “outside and inside form a dialectic of division, the obvious geometry of which blinds us… Outside and inside are both intimate- they are always ready to be reversed.” (Relph, 2008, p.49) Thus, the transformation of interior and exterior voids to place and the qualification of voids within these discourses may be expressed with the concept of “anchoring” that was first described by architect Steven Holl. This concept would create a goal for Horizon 2030 in Helsinki which is a development plan that aims to improve urban spaces by providing high-quality living and working environments due to the necessity to rehabilitate the conditions of today. ‘Anchoring’ as the Design Concept of the Void In the dictionary meaning of the word, anchoring is to moor a ship to sea with an anchor. On the other hand, in architecture, this word means the relationship between interior and exterior void. That is to say, some buildings have a strong connection with their places, thus they are unimaginable without their sites. In 1989, Steven Holl published a manifesto called “Anchoring.” He states that “Site and situation offer a particular field of research for each design, which provides him resisting not only homogenous building practices, but also the replication of context. In using the term ‘anchoring’, a particular relation between building and the site it is located in is made manifest.” (Yorgancıoğlu, 2004, pp. 33-34) According to Holl, the term of anchoring is used as a metaphor to show the fixation of a building onto a particular site. The physical relation with site and building is taken to a deeper level. In addition to this, anchoring designates a particular situation through which a building is rooted into its site. However, it is used as a philosophical metaphor as well as a physical relation. Holl explains this condition as a fusion as an intertwined relation between the intellectual levels of the idea with the experimental level of phenomena (Yorgancıoğlu, 2004, pp.33-34). At this point, not only does this fusion create the space, but also carries symbolic, metaphysical, and poetic meaning. Steven Holl (1991, p.9) supports this view as follows: “Architecture and site should have an experiential connection, a poetic link. He maintains that a constructive transformation in modern life is possible when the link between site and architecture are found and expressed in new ways. Holl explicitly considers the importance of physical and psycho-environmental processes of the site as he implements his anchoring theory which considers the importance of a building’s site to be more than a mere ingredient in its conception. It is its physical and metaphysical foundation.” Within the context of architectural design today, the concept of anchoring describes how a building fixes itself upon the site on which it sits and gradually changes its surroundings. These changes in the environment are later reflected on the people that occupy these spaces. In such circumstances, voids can take form and may be designed with the notion of anchoring. Similarly to Steven Holl, many architects and philosophers refer to the concept of anchoring. As stated by Peter Zumthor (1998, p.18), “I believe that buildings only be accepted by their surroundings if they have the ability to appeal to our emotions and minds in various ways. Since our feelings and understanding are rooted in the past, our sensuous connections with a building must respect the process of remembering.” In a similar manner, theorist Carol Burns (1991, p.155) says that every site has a unique intersection of land, climate or production and is constructed of its specific features. Adding a new building to the site transforms its use in terms of topography, circulation and senses. Therefore, while the building is shaping its surroundings, the site should be thought both physically and conceptually. On the other hand, the connection between the site and architecture may reflect the spirit of the place. Simon Bell refers to the concept of genius loci in order to express this situation. Simon Bell, a landscape architect, in Elements of Visual design in the Landscape writes: “Genius loci, or the spirit of the place, is that quality or characteristic which makes one location or landscape different from any other, and that is unique and individual to it. The concept is somewhat abstract and intangible and tends to be more commonly understood on an emotional and subconscious level. It is, however, a most important attribute in a place and may be fragile and vulnerable when changes occur in or around the particular location.” (Karamanea, 2015, p.115) This means that the spirit of the place is natively associated with beliefs with regard to the sacred character of places. Likewise, Raimund Abraham supports that architecture begins with the creation of the site rather than with elements of architecture such as aesthetics, materials or forms (Maminski, 2014, p.27). This shows that the site is the source of the creation of architecture and place. As mentioned in the notion of Anchoring, the dialogue between the site and architecture constitutes a third situation and infers a new meaning of architecture. Moreover, while architecture is creating the interior and exterior void, at the same time it creates its own relations. At this point, the concept of the site may be investigated in three dimensions as the physical, metaphysical, and poetic in order to clarify the relationship between interior and exterior voids. The Dimensions of the Concept of Anchoring Physical Dimension Towards a new conception of architecture, the concept of the site is important to examine with a para-disciplinary approach. The basic dimension of the relation between the building and site is the inevitable physical and functional connections. In his article The Murmur of the Site, Rafael Moneo claims that the site is the ground in which a building is rooted; the site, he states, should be evaluated as the basic material of the building. For Moneo, architecture can be thought of being since “without the presence of the site, a singular and unique site, architecture and urban life cannot exist.” (Yorgancıoğlu, 2004, p.35) The physical dimension of the space is actually related to the environmental experience which occurs from the integration of perception, sensation, and conception. (Figure1) Figure 1. Experiential Perspective (Tuan, 1977, p.8) Steven Holl describes that the nature of architecture is experienced in movement. The movement of the body as it crosses through overlapping perspectives formed within spaces is the elemental connection between us and architecture (Peters, 2001, p.16). This shows that the movement just materializes into the voids and without void, there can be no movement. In addition to this, the German philosopher Otto Friedrich Bollnow, who in his book Mensch und Raum, indicates that the notion of space is connected with human actions. He claims that space is conquered through man’s actions. Therefore, the German word Raum (space) meant the action of freeing a place for settlement, before it came to denote the place as such (Schulz, 1988, p.29). There cannot be any doubt in the fact that architecture begins with movement, since the body adds dimension to the site. Through motion, perception and conception are evoked and the site may be perceived differently. In relation to this Micheal Hays (1998, p.469) states that “A simplistic view of human experience, derived from the projection of scientific models onto human reality, exemplified by certain aspects of behaviorism and positivistic psychology, has hampered our understanding of the essential continuity between thought and action, between mind and body.” Experiential perspective is related to the sensual impacts qualified by thought. Sensual impacts enable human beings to develop the strong feelings for the place and the spatial qualities. According to Yi-Fu Tuan (1977, p.12), the sense of touch is significant for physical dimension of the site. He says that the skin registers sensations and it is not a distance sensor. However, it enriches the apprehension of spatial character of the site. In a similar manner, Michel Foucault (2002, p.20) states that “Those things are ‘convenient’ which come sufficiently close to one another to be in juxtaposition; their edges touch, their fringes intermingle, the extremity of the one also denotes the beginning of the other. In this way, movement, influences, passions, and properties too, are communicated.” This shows that physical integrity depends on the experiential perspective which contains sensation, perception, and sensual impacts, especially, the sense of touching. This is because the proximity between the site and the building creates a physical relationship and provides for a deeper sense of communication. In The Manhattan Transcripts, Tschumi mentions that architectural spaces need movement and events to achieve an architectural experience, which conceives a dynamic manner (Havik, 2012, pp.127-128). As highlighted above, the physical dimension of the site is related to movements and events. At the same time, these events evoke the perception and conception of the human being, which enhances the spatial and experiential dimension of the outdoor environment. Therefore, architecture becomes an active participant on the site. One of the most important examples showing the physical dimension on the site is the renovation of the Lincoln Center Plaza in New York City by architects Diller Scofidio and Renfro with FX Fowle Architects. “Originally designed in the 1950’s, this space was supposed to create an inviting space not just a place for those visiting an event at one of the many venues. Based on the limited success with this goal and the need to attend to the aging exterior space the Lincoln Center organization decided to redesign the space. This space was meant to create the urban refuge, a public space and be an emblem of Lincoln Center’s new accessibility and openness to the public.” (Griswold, 2010, p.2) For this project, the interaction between the inside and outside is significant in terms of experience and perception because the voids in the project are perceived as a cube in spite of having various dimensions, demonstrating varieties in terms of perception. Metaphysical Dimension The metaphysical dimension of the site is related to the branch of philosophy that explains the fundamental nature of being and the world. To put it another way, the understanding of architecture requires metaphysical and spiritual aspects, thus looking at philosophy is important in order to comprehend the relationship between interior and exterior voids in architecture. The philosophy of the place is actually based on the relationship between the human body and void. In this situation, the site becomes important metaphysically. When looking at the metaphysical fusion of building, site, and landscape, it can be seen that phenomenology underlies attitudes toward them. Actually, according to Norberg-Schulz (2007, p.415), architectural phenomenology is referred to a “return to things” against abstractions and mental constructions. He mentions that the place is not just an abstract site, but also is a totality arising from material things. At this point, the essence of the place is related to the sense of place or genius loci. He says that, “A place is a space which has a distinct character. Since ancient times the genius loci, or spirit of the place, has been recognized as the concrete reality man has to face and come to terms with in his daily life. Architecture means to visualize the genius loci and the task of the architect is to create meaningful places where he helps to man to dwell.” (Trancik, 1986, p.114) The site has a spirit and particular identity, so it is needed to be understood, accepted and respected by design. This is because; the architectural phenomenology depends on the spirit of the place. Like Schulz, Heidegger states that buildings are related to their environment by resting on the ground and rising towards the sky. Man-made environments comprise artifacts or ‘things,’ which may serve as internal foci and emphasize the gathering function of settlement (Schulz, 1979, p.10). To put it another way, for Heidegger, the site makes sense gathering. According to Heidegger, “Man needs to gather the experienced meanings to create for himself an image mundi or a microcosmos which concretizes his world. Gathering evidently depends on symbolization, and implies a transposition of meanings to one place, which thereby becomes an existential ‘centre’. Visualization, symbolization and gathering are aspects of the general processes of settling; and dwelling, in the existential sense of the word, depends on these functions. Heidegger illustrates the problem by means of the bridge; a ‘building’ which visualizes, symbolizes, and gathers, and makes the environment a unified whole.” (Heidegger, 1971 p.152) To go into further detail, the example of the bridge of Heidegger gathers the earth as landscape around a stream. It connects both banks and makes a place come into presence. He mentions that “The words ‘earth’ and ‘landscape’ are not used as mere topographical concepts, but to denote ‘things’ which are disclosed through the gathering of the bridge. Human life ‘takes place’ on earth, and the bridge makes this fact manifest.” (Schulz, 1988, p.42) Moreover, not only is the metaphysical dimension of the site related to the spirit of the place, but it is also includes the phenomenological voids. These voids of the site respond to the individual events that have occurred within a city. To put it another way, they contain historic transformations and clearings of the urban realm on account of natural disasters or wars, which embodies strong memory and various emotions (Hall, 2010, p.9). Daniel Libeskind designed his “Jewish Museum” in Berlin with an emphasis on this concept. In his project, he created voids that changed the spatial configuration, the experience, and the meaning of the space significantly. These voids that connect memory and remembrance are not simply the physically empty spaces in the city of Berlin that were caused by allied bombardment. It can be constructed architecturally. The ‘constructed void’ in the midst of the museum comprises one-third of the total volume of Libeskind's addition (Lahiji, 1997, p.149). It is clear that the metaphysical dimension in urban spaces is related to memories and spiritual reflections within the human psyche. Poetic Dimension The place always moves through the spatial volume. It sees forms and objects, hears sounds, and feels the breeze. On the one hand, the place is a physical essence like wood or stone. On the other hand, it is shapeless in consideration of its nature. Its visual form depends on the quality of light and its dimensions. If space is regulated or stereotyped by stylistic elements, architecture has a particular identity. Therefore, poetry is related to the simplest daily observations such as smells, weather conditions, colors, light or shadow with the complexity of human senses and emotions. Juhani Pallasmaa (2005, p.41) mentions the relationship between senses and space in his essay The Eyes of the Skin. He states that “Every touching experience of architecture is multi-sensory; qualities of matter, space and scale are measured equally by the eye, ear, nose, skin, skeleton and muscle.” In a similar manner, Steven Holl describes that the place may also be perceived with the senses, thus multi-sensory fusion is significant to experience voids. As stated by Holl, “Though the eye, acting as what Steven Holl describes as a ‘phenomenal lens,’ is essential in the interpretation of architecture as a ‘quality of light and shadow shaped by solids and voids, by opacities, transparencies, and translucencies,’ the experience of architecture must be a multi-sensory fusion. Architecture has the potential to ‘simultaneously awaken all of the senses.’ In so doing, a design strengthens beyond a functional solution, and into a phenomenological experience with embodied meaning; an event both site and circumstantially specific, molded for an architecture of the present.” (Mouch, 2009, pp.65-66) This means that sensory perception of spaces containing light, shadow, colors, transparency, and materials engage in the complete experience of the void. Architecture and landscape evoke poetically the emotional power of the senses. Peter Zumthor thinks that senses and memories have a major role in designing and uses a core theme in his works. He states that memories, including the deepest architectural experiences are reservoirs of the place, and addresses the sensory experience, forms, and public spaces on a particular site (Havik, 2012, p.59). In addition to this, in his The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard (1994, p.222) mentions that the poetic imagination of landscape and architecture allows people to notice the physical reality of the site. According to Bachelard, the phenomenology of poetry allows us to explore the being of man as the being of a surface, of the surface; that separates the region of the same from the region of the other. This shows that space is not homogeneous; on the contrary, it exists with its dreams and memories, which constitutes a developed sense of lived space. Consequently, it could be stated that while the building is designed, it should be thought of its surrounding and a para-disciplinary approach containing physical, metaphysical and poetic dimensions. As stated by Steven Holl, the concept of Anchoring is significant in order to understand these qualities. This is because the relationship between the site and the building natively express the dialectics of interior and exterior void. Conclusion Today, voids enabling the movement of people have been disappearing. As stated by Bruno Zevi (1990, pp.11-12), while designing cities and buildings, it is necessary to think open spaces and free fields because the urban life continues everywhere limited by the gaps like in open-close spaces, cities, streets, parks and gardens. Especially, the life of a citizen formed with the approach of modern life is in a broken state and this situation decreases the human activities and efficiency in space. Citizens no longer gather in these spaces, thus the urban life loses its quality. In a similar manner, in his book named as On Streets, Stanford Anderson states that one of the most important architectural and planning problems of the modern life is about voids between the buildings. Functionality gradually substitutes in the internal spaces rather than the external spaces. The building is in a tendency to be an object rather than relate to its own context (Trancik, 1986, p.8). In conclusion, since the 1980s, there are some architectural discourses including the sense of place and the integration of site and building. Within these discourses, voids as a generator for a new urban life have an important role, since the transformation of voids could develop the sense of place in the city. It is necessary to enhance and contemporary architectural design to solve the problems with respect to the urban life. At this point, the concept of anchoring would help to establish a link between past and future, and the dimensions of the site would give some clues to create a new paradigm. However, there is the “Helsinki Horizon 2030” projection which aims to create a greater sense of individuality on the site. As stated by Aristotle, “A city exists not just for the sake of living, but for living well. Similarly, design only has true meaning if it improves the quality of life. 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