Details are necessary for architectural coherence, even for architectural meaning to be conveyed, but it is more often than not by means other than unity, consistency, or abstraction. The first three definitions—the nondetail, the detail as motif, the detail as an order—are not so much bad definitions of detailing as they are definitions of bad detailing. This does not mean these three types are not worthy of analysis, in part because they include many buildings and their architects who have come to epitomize good detailing, arguably erroneously, and in part because these same architects have not been completely understood, because their details have not been understood. While the invisible detail, the consistent detail, and the detail as constructional or structural representation are often necessary and, on occasion,
highly desirable, the most meaningful types of detail are the last two—the detail as joint and the autonomous detail. The good detail is not the part from which the whole is generated, not the idea of the whole carried into the part, not the consistent application of a set of principles, not the paradigm for the totality of the building, but is rather the last of these definitions. At its best it is an autonomous activity, and, at times, even subversive. - The Architectural Detail, Edward Ford, The Details of Modern Architecture, Vols. 1 and 2 (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press,
1990 and 1996).

 

Embedded - adjective
1. (of an object) fi xed fi rmly and deeply in a surrounding mass; implanted. The Vitra Fire Station designed by Zaha Hadid in 1993 located on the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, Germany became the architectural context for the proposed detail. The building itself is composed of linear, planar concrete walls that the program is then situated in the interstitial spaces. The concrete walls are pure on the outside but become punctured, tilted, and folded to create interior spaces.

 

The stair becomes embedded within two of these concrete walls as they cantilever off in space and a linear metal handrail connects the fi rst fl oor to the second floor. The proposed detail continues Zaha’s idea of embedding by having the stair slip into the wall and reveal the steel plate that anchors the stair into the concrete plane. Steel shelves are design to connect to the embedded plates creating the cantilever.

 

The shelves house the concrete and wood pieces that are embedded into each other. The Handrailing is removed from the ground and designed to connect to each individual stair. The idea of the linear handrailing is then used to connect the individual pieces of the handrailing into a cohesive whole. The steel, wood, and concrete are used to create material complexity but maintaining its original geometric intent within the concrete volume. The materials are simultaneously embedded into each other and the overall building.