I first came across this during The Louis Kahn research, and decided to look into it further, because it seemed interesting, and I think it may be useful to my project. All of this what I got from it so I'm hoping it's accurate enough. The principle of the served and servant spaces is to do with the purpose of the space/room. In a school, the served space would be the all the classrooms, studios, library and sports hall for example. They are spaces that are made so that people can live in, work in etc. They are spaces for the people, habitable spaces essentially. The servant spaces would be spaces that serve those habitable space, and by serving those habitable space I mean that they are services in a way. In the school setting, that would be the stairs, lift, corridors, toilets storage cupboards etc. Louis believed those two type of spaces should be separated, he believed people didn't need to see what helped a building function, pipes, ducts and everything. Now it wasn't new for an architect to choose to hid pipes or ducts, because they're often an unpleasant sight, however Kahn's principle stated that the servant spaces should ordered around the served space, which differed from other architects that would either discard them, hide them or just place them in the middle of spacious areas, very loft like. Kahn didn't treat them like that, yes he separated them but he did not hide them, they were part of the structure, he was just smart about it. A prime example would be the ceiling in the Yale university gallery where the exposed ceiling filled with tetrahedrons was not only part of the structure, but also contained sound proofing, air ducts and the lighting system very different to false roofs that ultimately serve the same purpose but are an ugly quick fix.
Yale University Art Gallery- Louis Kahn (1953)
His idea of creating separations was greatly different to the Modernist approach of architects of like Mis van der Rohe or Philip Johnson at the time. They got rid of walls and had very open plans. However Kahn's approach is perfect for my project, because his approach is what allows for modularity because you are able to section off each of the rooms, and then easily repeat them. Looking at the plans for the Esherick House from Louis Kahn you can see how the served and servant room are sectioned, and then you can just imagine repeating that plan to for example creating a housing complex, and having the same rooms layered on top of one another also makes building much easier, and cheaper which is perfect for a student accommodation say.
Esherick House- Louis Kahn (1961)
I will use the principle to create a clear separation and group the same types of rooms so that the building process can be a lot easier. For example lets say all the kitchens, bathrooms, toilet can be grouped on one side then piping will only need to be there, there could be a column like structure with all the water works and then all the rooms that would need water could be grouped around that column which makes it a lot easier. That is just a quick example, but what imagining is along those lines.
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