Ep. 331: How do walls control what we see and feel? with Phillippe Fouché

The Gyaan Project

In this episode of The Gyaan Project, host Kedar interviews Phillippe FouchÃ©, a principal at SAOTA, to explore the architectural and philos

Key takeaways

Phillippe FouchÃ© defines a wall primarily as an 'instrument of relationship' that mediates between the interior and exterior worlds.
The etymology of the word 'window' is linked to the concept of an 'eye into the wind,' reflecting its role in protecting against elements while allowing sight.
FouchÃ© notes that the thickness of a wall, such as the heavy cavity walls in Cape Town, significantly alters the depth of reveals and the resulting atmosphere.
True architectural beauty is found when function and form are authentic, rather than using facades merely for spectacle.
The discussion highlights how architects like Carlos Scarpa use architecture to frame and respect existing historic fabric.

Main topics

Architectural philosophy of walls
Privacy versus openness in design
Historical preservation and heritage

Notable quotes

A wall is an instrument of relationship.

Conclusion

The episode provides a profound perspective on how structural elements

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Hello and welcome to The GAM Project. This is the third and a concluding episode of a three-part series in collaboration with The Drawing Board, a platform that continues to challenge and inspire architecture students across the world. The Drawing Board is an international architecture competition for undergraduate students hosted by Rohan Builders and Mindspace Architects. We are partnering for the fifth year in a row. This year's challenge is particularly interesting, Story of a Wall. Ask students to reimagine Chikkajala's historic enclosure. in Bengaluru for a new public life. The submission deadline is 18th September 2026. You can find all the details in the show notes. To explore how walls shape, form, openness, privacy and emotion, we have Philip Fouché with us. Philip is a principal at Saota in South Africa, where he began as a project architect in 2008. His work is guided by Saota's design principle of light, space and life. You can read more about Philip and his work in the description below. Let's begin. Welcome, Philip, to the Gyan Project. It's Speaker 2 (0:59) a Speaker 1 (0:59) pleasure to have you on the show and thanks for giving your time. Speaker 2 (1:02) Hi, Kedar. Nice to meet you. Thank you for having me. Speaker 1 (1:05) So this year's drawing board competition is called the Story of the Wall. And with other juries, we spoke on like with Prem, I spoke about wall as politics. With Channa, we spoke about wall as experience. And with you, the idea is to explore wall as... light space in life given Savata's design philosophy while briefly touching upon the historic wall of Chikijala. And yeah, looking forward for this conversation. And I wanted to open up with a more open-ended question that what does wall mean to you, right? I mean, philosophically, metaphorically, in terms of shape, light space and the life around it. Speaker 2 (1:43) Yeah, it's such a fascinating question. And since you've sent me the questions, I've thought about a wall again, almost in the kind of the... primal sense of it. And I think a good description would be to say that a wall is an instrument of relationship. It kind of mediates between, of course, inside and outside in Africa. And I think many parts of the world, the wall started off by something that you manage protection with, you know, whether it's keeping cattle in or keeping dangerous animals out or, you know, there are so many layers to this and so many fascinating. differences as well you know if you if you think about how in the north in europe how people made walls compared to how people made walls in africa how many ever years ago so they were fulfilling the same purpose basically providing protection from you know to keep the cattle in or to keep the the dangerous animals or you know enemies out but that that comes back to the cultural aspects of walls and and that for me has been a fascinating just thought journey But ultimately, it really calibrates how exposed or how protected or how connected and aware we feel within our surroundings. Speaker 1 (2:53) Is wall primarily a structure or a surface or just a frame to experience something? How do you look at it? Speaker 2 (3:01) I probably think it's all four. The one that I think is exciting for architects is the experience that a wall brings. The difference in experience between a wall that's 1.6 meters versus a wall that's 1.8 or 2.5 meters, it all relates to experience. So for us as architects, that is the fascinating thing. You know, is it a straight wall? How tall is the wall? What's the material of the wall? So certainly it can be all four things. And, you know, again, it goes back to how connected we are to whatever's behind that wall. But I was reminded of a discussion that I heard earlier this year about the difference between architecture and construction. And this is where it's so fascinating. And that for me comes back to the experience of what kind of emotive connections there are in the presence of a wall. So I think it's probably all four Speaker 1 (3:47) to answer your question. Interesting. If architecture seeks like complete openness, like how can one think about what remains closed? Because you have to find that right balance that the openness is still there, but it's meaningful to be protected from some things. How do you see that? Well, Speaker 2 (4:07) firstly, I think constructing walls make me think again about what we're primarily doing as architects. We are primarily creating shelter, bits of this outer shell of our planet and aggressively transforming that to create shelter for human beings. That's more or less what we do. And it's quite liberating in the sense because it reminds you that walls can be many things. And I was also reminded about the idea you talk about the openness of a wall and what that means. You know, if you think about the meaning of the word window, it's an old, old word that goes back all the way to, I think, the Vikings, where they talk about it's an eye into the wind. It's a wind eye. Speaker 1 (4:49) And Speaker 2 (4:50) that's fascinating because that's where... where the wall opens and they didn't have glass, so there was something that they plugged that with. The wall was there to protect them from the elements, in that case the weather or the wind. But when they wanted to look out and see what's going on outside or whether the enemy is approaching, it's a buy into the win. So your relationship with wall... where it dissolves or where it becomes more solid becomes such a fascinating discussion. It relates again to what we said in the first point, you know, what is the height of a wall and what does that do for you and your experience inside a space? So astonishing examples, for instance, are in the Corbusier's work, you know, where he really kind of connects the inhabitant with the horizon or frames very specific aspects of it. of what's happening in the context, which is very much Speaker 1 (5:39) what our work is also about. It was very fascinating to hear like the wind of the eye is window. And then when can a wall be intimidating? You know what I mean? Like, is it because of the scale, material, relationship with light, space? Like, is there any way to understand or like, I mean, this was this part from the earlier conversation with Channa that he said that it all depends on the seer. And so I wanted to know your perspective that if there's a structure, which separates or which kind of is covering you, and let's call it a wall for now, when can it become intimidating? When can it become full of window in the case of cobbizier style? Like, is there a way to understand and look at it? Speaker 2 (6:24) Well, I can think about some of our projects where we've explored the idea of the thickness of a wall that's expressed in a certain way. So you talk about when does a wall create some kind of sense of wonders. So imagine we've done a project in Saint-Tropez in France where quite a heavy wall that kind of becomes a spine throughout the project. At the entrance part, that heavy wall, which you kind of in your mind's eye always expect to be something growing out of the planet. it actually floats over a water body, but very, very delicately. So there's a kind of a tension between something