Interview with architect Christine Schwaiger

Interview with architect Christine Schwaiger

My friend Christine practices in Vienna and has architectural projects all over Austria and Germany. Her special interest is to help clients transform and/or design the spaces in such a way that they support and enhance their work activities and life-styles.

CP: What can architecture offer to support people’s well being and health?

Christine: 
Considering that architecture is our third skin - the first being our own skin, the second our clothes - you realize the potent impact architecture has on how we behave and feel on a daily basis.
The quality of the materials, the proportions of space, the sequence or flow of spaces within a building, the relationship of inside and outside, color, lighting and design, all matters and influences us.  Architecture that has the well being of people in mind is the result of an intense dialogue between client, builder and architect with the focus on the functional, cultural, climatic and topographic context.  It is my particular interest and architectural expertise to enhance the qualities of any particular context I work on.  Sometimes to achieve this it is necessary to contrast the context. I am not interested in displaying my “art” but to build for the user.  Therefore I spend a lot of time listening to needs and drawing out the un-articulated to create spaces that serve a variety of uses.

Another important factor I want to mention in relationship to our health is to care for the quality of the air inside the buildings.  We can do a lot in this regard by choosing materials that are conducive to air flow and by avoiding insulations that hinder air flow.  In addition I would always encourage avoiding glues, paints, finishes and materials for furniture that oozes out unhealthy fiumes over years and make people sick. My preference would be that through architecture itself the air is always of good quality and the right temperature so that mechanized air conditioning becomes redundant.

CP:  Since we are both sitting here looking at how landscape and architecture are harmonizing in Tuscany since centuries - what would you say can contemporary architecture take away from this?

Christine:
The majority of buildings in Tuscany are built with local materials - like the stone to keep the heat out in the summer.  A lot of attention is paid to air ventilation with well positioned windows, having loggias with shade giving plants that mediate between inside and outside and the building of terrasses both to facilitate agriculture in a hilly and cumbersome landscape as well as around the houses in order to enjoy cool evenings.  The composition of where the houses, terrasses and the trees are positioned in the hills of Tuscany seems perfect and has a calming, harmonizing effect for the eye and for our “Gemut” (comfort).
The Architecture here stands as an example for enhancing and supporting the life and work of the people, taking into consideration the conditions of the climate and working with the particular challenge of a very stony and hilly landscape. All attemps to work with nature and create protection for the human being gives us the basis for a healthy life.

CP:  Thank you Christine - that was beautifully said.  Cheers - to Tuscany!


~Claudia