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> courtyard, garden, landscape, square and street, urban
design
> access, furnishing, readability, type, useIn many cases, the character of a room is dependent less upon
its construction than upon the way it is furnished. In contrast
to the fixed, built structure, furnishings and accoutrements are
flexible components of > situations, which may be subjected
to fundamental changes by means of these secondary elements
despite their unchanged architecture. One and the same space
may be transformed into a cosy living room by means of a
three-piece suite, or instead to a workroom through office fur-
niture; a public square is converted by means of market stalls
into a market square, or through demarcated parking spaces
and barriers into a car park. Through fixtures, a permanent
layer, one decisive for its spatial effect and > use, is added to
a building in the long term; interior architecture is an aspect
of > architecture. In the short term, by contrast, the character
of a room can be transformed via mobile elements. Through
their combination and positioning, events can be guided as
though in an experimental protocol, or directed as though in
a stage play. In many instances, the way in which people be-
have towards one another is expressed through the distances
between, alignment of, or grouping of items of furniture that
are used in common; communication is affected through their
purposeful positioning, progressive adjustment, and changing
mutual orientation. The character of architecture as > event
steps into the foreground.
By furnishing space, we shape our relationship to the
world. The objects that are assembled in a room form a
counterpart that receives us when we arrive home; we live
together with them as though with a familiar co-occupant,
and they may ultimately become an extension of the space of
our own body. As reservoirs of > memory which mirror and
display traces of individual or collective use, they form a spa-Free space
Function
Furnishing