Shaping Light
“Silence and light are the threshold to the presence of the spirit” - Louis Kahn
An interesting distinction - light that makes space usable versus light that allows architecture to be. The former type of light is plain light, everyday light that reveals all at once, with no nuance nor mystery. It is a functional light. We will be focusing on the latter, a special kind that is the poetry that transpires when everyday natural light is transformed into considered light, light with intent, light with depth, light that breathes life, light that allows for the emergence of stillness. Shaped light. Where void is just as important as mass, light is as consequential as darkness. A place where presence can emerge out of the silence.
In the preface to his book Zenithal Light, Elias Torres draws an interesting parallel between water and light with respect to the vessels that contain them. He states that “the shape of water depend[s] solely on its container and that something similar happen[s] with light.” He goes on to explain that for an interior space of one such vessel, “water displaces air, and light displaces darkness. For light to show itself in an interior space, it is essential to, first, imagine the space in the darkness or penumbra.”
In this studio we will consider how light can be shaped in architecture, or rather, how architecture can be shaped around light. For it is this shaped light- whether it is directed, washed, reflected, bounced, filtered, dappled, slowed, gathered, scooped, etc.- that creates conditions where the inhabitant can experience a deeper connection with themselves and their surrounds.
The goal of this studio is to understand the role that shaped light plays in the power of built forms to foster meaningful human experiences.
The Science of Light
We turn to Ernst Cassirer’s persuasive argument, “side by side with logical or scientific language, there is a language of poetic imagination.” This studio leans into this assertion. An appreciation of the poetics of light comes from a deep examination of the science behind it. The science of light is the precise study and understanding of the movement of the sun in the sky. The earth’s axis of orientation towards the sun as well as its cyclic movement around it are what animate our experience of it as both a temporal and a spatial phenomenon. Its presence changes as much from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, season to season as it does from one place to another. When speaking of natural light in a scientific sense, we talk of time of day and month, solstice and equinox as well as characteristics of the sun’s path in the sky like azimuth and altitude to fully understand the lighting conditions and the atmosphere of a particular place. With this deep understanding of the science of light we have a foundation from which we can frame the design process. Architecture is a technology that we can tune so that the space resonates more precisely with our bodies’ circadian rhythms and the natural world around us.
Shaping Light: A Monk’s Life
The life of a monk was characterized by simplicity, discipline, devotion and a deep commitment to spiritual practice. The monk’s day was structured around the Divine Office: a series of daily prayers and services that began at dawn and continued throughout the day. Before sunrise each day a monk would be awakened by the tolling of a bell followed by a brief period of time to wash and collect oneself before heading to the first communal prayer at dawn called Lauds of the day. Thereafter, the offices of Prime (mid-morning), Terce (midday), Sext (a conventional high mass), None (mid afternoon), Vespers, and Compline would be celebrated. The last, Vigils, occurred at night after supper.
Meals were simple and usually consisted of bread, vegetables, and occasionally fish or meat. The small breakfast was mixt- a morsel of bread dipped in wine. Dinner was conducted in the frater and consisted of a pound of coarse bread and two dishes of vegetables boiled without lard, with thin beer or sour wine of the country. Leftover bread from dinner could be saved for an evening collation when it would be accompanied by water and possibly a fruit of the season. Each monk received a daily portion of ale or wine which was set before him in an earthen pitcher and was to last him for dinner. A one-hour siesta or meridian was allowed before None service in summer.
In between prayers and meals, monks engaged in manual labor, such as farming, woodworking, or crafting. Monastic life also included studying religious text, copying manuscripts, and engaging in intellectual pursuits. Spiritual reading was often conducted in the cloister under the Abbot’s supervision. This work was intended not only to support the abbey’s self-sufficiency but also as a form of meditation and service to God.
Much of the monk’s day was conducted in silence, including during meals, which was conducive to contemplation and spiritual growth. The abbey’s activities were designed to promote a life of worship, material poverty, chastity and obedience.
Shaping Light: A Monastery Along El Camino Real
In this studio we will consider a new monastery along the California coast that will add another link to the chain of historic religious sites that were built up the coast from the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula to the north bay in the 18th and 19th centuries. When the west was first settled, this loose network of Christian, walled communities was established by the Spanish Franciscans to provide religious services with the goal of christianizing Alta California. These outposts were called ‘missions’ and they were both monasteries and fortified settlements. They were all connected by a dirt trading path called El Camino Real.
In this new monastery, monks will live their lives as they would have in one of these older missions without the goal of colonizing and defending. The complex will be inwardly focused. Monks will inhabit the spaces, the grounds, the halls and the light. They will practice their faith as they have at monasteries all over the world for thousands of years. They will live according to the monastic traditions outlined on the previous page and adhere to code of silence and a life of spiritual reflection. Their prolonged length of stay allows time for their bodies and, in particular, their circadian rhythms to slow down and to come into harmony with the place and its cardinal orientation, with the seasons and the ever-changing light throughout the day. The daily schedule will be modeled on the Divine Orders. Light will structure the day as much as architecture will structure the experience.
To quiet the mind, the architecture should be quiet. We are particularly interested in how light can be bound up in an architecture to define the story of this place. Sunlight will emerge at the break of day as a monk will emerge from sleep. Natural light will guide monks from being at rest, to cleansing, and to the first meal, from space to space, a sequence choreographed in the light of early morning. Light will calm or heighten the senses to support prayer in mid morning. After the second meal of the day and a one-hour siesta or library visit, natural light will guide the monks out onto the farm and garden where they will be for the rest of the afternoon. What is the experience of transitioning from inside to outside and then from outside back in? Finally, light will signal the close of the day, when it’s time for the final meal near sunset and then the final meditation before rest.
How can architecture be shaped by light to facilitate these activities and guide daily rituals in different spaces of the complex? How can the sequence of spaces be oriented relative to the sun to support their use. The architecture will be the framework, the vessel, and the pattern of light and seasons will animate the monk’s experience. Silence, proportion, order, scale and the use of direct materials will characterize the spaces.
El Camino Real Monastery: Site
The site is located about an hour and a half south of downtown Los Angeles along the historic El Camino Real trail that was first used by native Americans and later used by Spanish colonialist settlers to connect various missions and outposts. The original settlements were approximately 30 miles apart which was roughly the distance that could be reliably traversed on horseback in a single day.
The site occupies a pristine stretch of coastline within San Onofre State Beach, between the historic missions of San Juan Capistrano to the north and San Luis Rey to the south. Nestled between the Pacific Ocean and the Santa Ana Mountains, with Old Pacific Highway tracing its eastern edge, this narrow strip of land is defined by a series of wild coastal bluffs that rise above the beach below.
The landscape unfolds along Trails 5 and 6, which descend through the bluffs before converging at the cliff’s edge and continuing toward the shoreline. The gently sloping terrain is blanketed with native coastal vegetation including California sagebrush, buckwheat, coyote brush, coastal scrub, and a variety of succulents rooted in sandy soils. Sheltered from the highway by the natural topography, this remarkably intact bluff offers sweeping, unobstructed views across the Pacific, creating a landscape that is both secluded and expansive. See Appendix for more information.
El Camino Real Monastery: Environmental Sensitivity
The Sea Ranch, a renowned planned community on the coast of Sonoma County, California, further north of our site, began development in the 1960s. The initial purchase of the land, a 5,200-acre sheep ranch, was made in 1963 by Oceanic California Inc. The community is known for its distinctive timber-frame architecture designed by a group of architects, including Charles Moore, William Turnbull, and Joseph Esherick, with the goal of integrating buildings with the natural landscape.
The California Coastal Act of 1976 and the history of Sea Ranch are significantly intertwined. Sea Ranch became a focal point in the debate and activism leading up to the passage of the Coastal Act. In 1976 the people of California passed the California Coastal Act that significantly restricted building within a buffer zone stretching inland from the ocean. In actuality, one could not build on this site.
Because our site is located within the California Coastal Boundary, we will approach the this studio with the same ethos as Sea Ranch: designing with a real sensitivity to the land and the ecology. This means thinking along the lines of minimal disturbance and using sustainable, environmentally friendly materials. We want these structures to have a light touch on the land and be able to age with the grace of the grasses and oak trees that characterize these coastal lands, and to be able to be recycled when their use here is done. Lightweight, low carbon materials.
One last thing to keep in mind about the site is that it is as beautiful and untouched as it is geologically unstable. The soil is composed of highly erodible soils of unconsolidated to poorly consolidated sedimentary layers resting on older marine rock, making it highly susceptible to deep-seated landsliding, mudslides, and cliff retreat. We do not want to disturb the beauty of the place with a heavy handed approach to construction. With this in mind, we want you to design with materials that could be brought in by hand or small vehicles. We would prefer not to carve new construction roads or cut down excessive amounts of ground cover for heavy machinery and earth moving equipment. The site is unspoiled and we want it to feel just as special when the monastery is complete as it was before we arrived.