Rituals & Enviroments

There are elements in design that are reflected everywhere in our world today, but these ideas originated with past societys. The ideas of circles, groups, and stacks are some of these concepts and through these ideas we learn that in past cultures the enviroment around them inspired their culture and rituals but their rituals also inspired their enviroments. This idea of enviroments influencing rituals and rituals influencing enviroments is key to understanding design and on the UNC Greensboro campus this is reflected. My personal option is that rituals influence our enviroments just like in a kitchen you dont have a couch in the middle of it because you dont use that room in that way so you have a sink and dishwasher and cabinits therefor ritual influences our enviroment.


CIRCLES: repersentation of the sun and the moon, also signifies a sacred spot at the center.  On campus this is shown by the entry way into the EUC building and how when you walk in at the base of the staircase their is a circle layed in tile and the staircase is circular marking a sacred spot at the entrance of the building.

On college Avanue there is a circle layed in brick at the middle point of campus marking the central point to all activites. while walking down college ave. you can see many more circles layed in the walkway all of which mark where another path crosses the walkway.  These circles embeded in our universitys design show our relationship to the sun and moon but more importantly to sacred spots around campus.

 GROUPS: repersents groves of trees, reaching vertically, and groups of people.  Collums are a great example of groups trees because of their verticality and because of their spacing on buildings.  Collums create this sence of entry into a space and create a frontpoarch of sorts which adds importance to a building.

Also plants are grouped when planted to add visual intrest to the landscaping and the arches behind the bushes inforce this virtacal nature of the archatecture.  The arches are repetive and adds contrast to the enviroment also they create a sence of balence and harmony by being symmetrical to one another.

STACKS: Repersentative of mountians and gathering resources.  Stacks are shown thrugh the stacking of bricks on buildings around campus as well as the horizontal slats in the shutters all creating emphasis on the design elements they surround.

Stacks around the entrance to the EUC helps show the grandger of the entrance and adds balence to the largness of the entrance.  These stacks relate more to the circular shape of the entrance rather than just the verticality and emphasis the circles meaning of a sacred spot benieth it.

[PEOPLE] : forms that emulate the human body.  I believe the two collume like structures at the end of college aveanue are like gards the cap stone signifying the head of the gaurds and the shaft being the body and the base stone representing the feet of the human body.  These two elements are often overlooked but if you look down college ave. from the education building facing the path you notice these two stone collums mark the entrancea and aligned with them is light poles all the way down the path creating a boundry for the path and showing harmony and balence as well as porportion.