A place, no matter the scale, works as a system, and the primary unit of that system is the person and the person’s experience.
Architecture is about making a difference and doing so is done by applying more than what is asked for in the program. What must be addressed is the user’s experience. Projects in general work better when they are literally meant for what they are.
The success of a building, in terms of physical (thermal, electrical, etc) performance can now easily be measured and analyzed, but the same is not true for the measuring of experience. It is difficult to describe what the duty of the designer is, but our training in the understanding of space along with the proportions of the body begs us to not only consider, but to USE that knowledge for further development. The architecture should reflect the needs and patterns of the users, as well as those of the outside environment. A building or project does not sit alone in its site, nor is it responsible for addressing only a certain group of users. By putting an emphasis on the development of a person’s experience within the architecture, that is not to say that the basic (but important) functions of the project should be ignored, rather they should also be considered to enhance the primary experience. A good example of this point is the Highline project in NYC. There the intent was more about creating an urban park and the experience one would get while being there, rather than reestablish a natural ecosystem within the area. The focus was on detail and how the visitors would walk through/use the park; doing so with the use of different layers and textures, some of which being the plants that THEN related back to the environment. Again, good architecture is a comprehensive combination of systems or layers, a hierarchy, where the primary layer deals with the experience of the users.
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How does that system begin to act in its environment? The highline does not exist in a vacuum. How do surrounding systems influence and possibly enhance the systems of the highline? It may be important to take a stance on the boundaries and growth of different systems - ecological, built, social.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting how you're taking a systems approach and applying it to the experiential or phenomenological aspects of architecture as they relate to the individual, but I wonder how you're thinking about the layers that constitute experience hidden underneath a given design intent. The differences between seeing a space from the outside and walking through it, for instance, or weighing the relative strength of each sense perception and how it is triggered might illuminate how the individual and not the space creates experience. You seem to be trying to make the view of the user that of the designer, instead of the other way around.
ReplyDeleteNelly,
ReplyDeleteNot sure what you're after. Not really sure this is a systems approach, except that you are using the word system. What is a system to you?
Regardless, check out The Poetics of Space, by Gaston Bachelard, if you don't know it already. A phenomenological approach to architecture. How can you marry this to systems thinking, assuming that is your intent?
And what then? The position paper remains too general.
Rami