Proportion + Scale

The Golden Section: The Golden Section, also know as the golden ratio, was first studied by Greek philosophers and originated from the Pythagorean concept of "all is number" and that certain combinations of numbers create harmonious structures in the universe. It is the division of a line so that the whole is to the greater part as that part is to the smaller part (i.e., in a ratio of 1 to 1/2 (√5 + 1)), a proportion that is considered to be particularly pleasing to the eye.

The Orders: The orders pertain to the Greek and Roman architectural style that deals with the relationship of proportion and harmony. The basic unit of measure was the diameter of columns and their proportion to the building that they were supporting. The size of the columns would depend on the extent of the building so there was no fixed unit of measurement. The types of classical orders include Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite. Each order has various measurements between each section of the column.

Renaissance Theories: Renaissance architects believed that mathematics translated into special units that could be calculated through the use of unbroken progressions of ratios. These rations became the proportions in their architecture. Andrea Palladio was the most influential architect that found ways to calculate the ideal plan shapes for rooms and the proportional height of a room based on its width and length. Palladio used Pythagoras’ theories of means to develop the arithmetic, geometric and harmonic means in calculating the height of a room. For each type of mean, the height of a room is equal to the mean between the two extremes of the width and height.

The Modulor: The Modulor is an anthropometric scale of proportions devised by the Swiss-born French architect Le Corbusier and it was developed as a visual bridge between two incompatible scales. Le Corbusier attempted to connect the mathematics of the Greeks, Egyptians and other civilizations with the proportions of the human body.

Photo by Frank Dinger

The Ken: The Chinese ideograph “ken” means distance or interval, and major column distance was the original meaning of the ken as used in house construction. However, the Japanese adapted this unit of measurement and called it the “shaku” and it is almost equivalent to the English unit of measure. The Ken was standardized for residential architecture and is a fixed measurement unlike many others. It has evolved into the aesthetic module that orders the structure, materials and space of Japanese architecture.

Photo by Michael Freeman

Anthropomorphic: The anthropomorphic theory deals with the dimensions of the human body and how it relates to a volume of space. The human body requires rest, movement, and activity so spaces have to take into consideration the scale of objects in a space and the space itself is directly related to the human body and its ability to function in the space.

Scale: Scale is how people perceive the size of objects in relation to another object. When dealing with scale, one must always compare one object to another in order to determine the size of each object. A mechanical scale is the size or proportion of something relative to an accepted standard of measurement. A visual scale refers to the size or proportion an element appears to have relative to other elements of known or assumed size. A third scale is the human scale which relates the size of a human and how it fits in a space.

The example below showcases a sectional that has a scale that allows for the humans to sit and rest on it.

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