| |
Image: brendan skinner | Flickr
You can work with your building’s surroundings by repressing them, hiding from them, celebrating them, juxtaposing them, making fun of them, uplifting them, supporting them, replacing them, improving them, or even changing them. Look beyond your building’s immediate site, to analyze that which surrounds it. Look at what is permanent and semi-permanent, and at that which is intangible – like the surrounding culture. These issues can inform your architectural site analysis too.
So the next time you are trying to get to the core of your design problem for a particular project, take a moment (or better yet, a physical trip) out to explore what surrounds your building’s site. After all, your building may have a physical site boundary, but it can visually be seen from much further — and thus, experienced from vantage points which you may not consider if you do not extend your own perspective beyond your own site’s boundary.
I mention this because there are times when an architect is asked to design a building within a context that may be challenging because of its unique peculiarities. For instance, during an extensive site analysis you may discover that there are noise issues coming from afar during certain times of day or night that will affect functionality within your building design. Another example is that there may be advertisements or cultural artwork within the surrounding area — it will be up to you, whether to …[Read Full Article]…
| |
Library of the old university in Copenhaan
See how computers are making their way into
the central axis of the library
Image: pnoeric | Flickr
With the advent of the digital age, numerous writers and even artists have given thought to what the future of the library will bring. Have you, as an architect, given any thought to how the digital era is changing libraries today — where certain functions within the library are seeming to fade away while other functions are becoming magnified as they are central to what will make libraries evermore important in the future?
In a thought-provoking article that I recently read, written by Seth Godin and entitled The Future of the Library, Godin’s “take” on the library hits a core point as he explains… “[t]he librarian isn’t a clerk who happens to work at a library. A librarian is a data hound, a guide, a sherpa and a teacher. The librarian is the interface between reams of data and the untrained but motivated user”. And it is here where the importance of library rests, in what I call “sensemaking” — whether that be the “Seth Godin librarian”, or even the library architecture which may act as an extension to what the librarian, patrons and fostered information yield.
Library as a Dynamic Center for Idea Interaction
As books evolve into and from the digital world, they are becoming evermore ubiquitous, where more users are able to grasp more information more quickly. And because of this, there are many people who assume that because information is becoming decentralized, that it may be the end of libraries, deeming them less important as “books” become more widespread. Yet, with all of this information that is “everywhere”, there will, I believe, be greater need for “sensemaking” abilities — that is, the ability to …[Read Full Article]…
| |
Image: Jace | Flickr
There are times where you, as an architect, can learn a lot about what your occupants will need. But during those times, it is important to question the validity of your information — does what you are learning about occupant behavior follow suit with what you have always believed? Or is there something new that you are noticing that contradicts what you’ve always thought about the way occupants behave? Either way, it’s time for you to start challenging what know about your occupants, or at least build upon the knowledge you already have.
Personalized Design By Observing Occupants In Multiple Places
I recently watched Jason Fried in his lecture called Why Work Does Not Happen at Work, and within this lecture are some parallels. In his talk (which I will post at the end of this article for your reference), Jason Fried explains how work always seems to happen everywhere but at work. Of course, I am sure you have seen examples of what he is talking about when you go to the nearest café, travel on a plane, or with your own experience of working from home.
Thus, it is important to realize that your occupants engage in certain behaviors in multiple places. And because of this, if you solely try to design an innovative office building by only looking at the way the office building type has been designed in the past — you will most likely miss out on a wide variety of new opportunities.
In today’s global and more mobile society, you need to look beyond the boundaries of our existing buildings for the secrets to what makes your occupants tick. Observe how they work when they are at work — but also when they are not at work. Observe how occupants learn when they are not in school. And observe how they …[Read Full Article]…
| |
Image: Shoothead | Flickr
As you design, do you get mostly caught up in the ins and outs of building code, review board and specification requirements and/or limitations? And how do you use these “limitations” as you design?
Do they become issues that hamper and, piece by piece, chisel away at your initial design concept? Or, do you turn these limitations into a “game-like” mentality — where you think to yourself that these are mere guidelines that push you to think more deeply about your design, take it through another iterative level of creative thinking, ensuring that it meets others’ requirements, as well as your own.
The Game-Like Mindset of Architectural Design
At times, efficiency can really help the business of architecture. But at other times, efficiency can be its greatest enemy. And this is why the notion of “play” (and knowing when to do it) is key.
When designers play in architecture, they use their talents to compose a space in a manner that takes certain rules and “limitations” into account, but at the same time they do not let those rules and limitations overpower their instinct to think outside the box — that is, they think beyond the …[Read Full Article]…
| |
The sign on the door doesn't look good, pushing heavy doors doesn't feel good, and both can leave a negative impression upon your building occupants.
Image: gruntzooki | Flickr
The other night as I was approaching (to enter) a restaurant, a group of people happened to be exiting. And as they were making their way through the main doors, one of them exclaimed (with a lot of passion in her voice), “we had to eat a lot of food to be able to push these doors open” — the doors were just “so heavy“.
As it became my turn to enter, it also became my turn to hold the door and I quickly discovered just how right she was in her observation.
While this was a good restaurant…There were some lessons to be learned here.
As an architect you must make a concerted effort to go beyond the visual and aural senses — for, in the restaurant design that I recently experienced, it would have helped immensely if the designers had made their entrance/exit “gateway” feature more than just look good…because despite their best efforts to do this, once occupants interacted with the doors, their negative perceptions reflected badly upon the restaurant and their dining experience.
So much of architecture is a touch-based and tactile experience. Just think of how many times your occupants “touch” something (architectural details) while experiencing your building design.
It may help to actually walk yourself through their journey, while paying particular attention to what their sensorial journey will be like. For instance, what do they …[Read Full Article]…
| |
Image: Oversocialized | Flickr
As the World Wide Web and social media encourage more and more digital and virtual social interactions, will the role of the architectural building system have a new place in contributing to or detracting from the way we humans interact with each other? With so so many people now using social media, I think the answer is yes.
In an article I read recently called Is a Social Crash Coming, the notion of a “hyper-connectivity” surfaces along with its ramifications in terms of human touch — or the ability for people to engage in person-to-person interactions. As an architect, I think this is a very interesting topic, especially when thinking about the role architecture has had. As an example, think of the effect of the “agora” as a Greek gathering place…it changed the dynamic of how people interrelated and behaved.
As the World Wide Web and social media make us more “present” in the minds of so many more people than ever before, I think that architectural design will need to …[Read Full Article]…
| |
Image: batintherain | Flickr
Now that science is advancing in a way that impacts building innovation from an architecture material standpoint, you as an architect should look to bridge the gap between selecting materials and designing materials to be used in your building designs. After all, this is a great way to increase your design abilities by finding more tailored and bottom-up ways to meet the global push toward more sustainable, healthy and happier designs for your occupants. Needless to say, being able to give input into your design in such a refined and detailed way will also help you stay on the cutting-edge.
That is why very specialized consultants are now surfacing to help designers work together with scientists to innovate new material compositions to be used in all kinds of products. Just imagine if you as an architect could specify a very unique and personalized material as you are working on a particular aspect of your building.
If you stop to think about the possibilities here, you might begin to realize that you can create some very exciting effects by changing the qualities of many materials that we know today — think about giving the material of your choosing different colors, transparencies, temperatures, textures and so much more. In fact, if you look around, you will see signs that materials scientists are taking action — as can be evidenced in a recent article I read in SEED Magazine this month.
Designing Happy Spaces from the Bottom-Up: Material Composition
Specifically, the article entitled Living in a Material World, shows an entire library where new innovative material compositions are not only researched and cataloged, but are also judged for competitions. This, in turn, serves to inherently push the trend towards …[Read Full Article]…
| |
Image: it's life. | Flickr
Why is it that truly innovative building design is practiced few and far between? Yes, many architects spend their energy building buildings, but few built architecture that uses the design of build environments to uplift lifestyle for their occupants. So, how can you as an architect push your buildings ahead, to break the mold and go beyond the status quo?
Do you find that you are at times stuck in a rut — using the same building materials, building after building, simply because you know they work? While it is by no means a bad thing to use materials that have proven to be successful in your designs, it can be rather limiting if you do not set your sights further ahead, perhaps to some new materials, new design methods or even design thinking that you have not yet explored.
Wouldn’t it be a sort of vicious circle if you wanted to design innovatively, yet did not because you are too afraid to pursue your innovative ideas
| |
Image: FireChickenTA99 | Flickr
What happens when a building is both futuristic and visionary in its own time, but has its life cut short when it is demolished? Is the cost of maintaining such a building so great that it has to be destroyed? This is the topic of a new documentary called A Necessary Ruin: The Story of Buckminster Fuller and the Union Tank Car Dome.
The following is a trailer for this 30 minute documentary, which I think poses some interesting questions for us to consider when taking part in the demolition of building spaces. As you watch it, ask yourself how you would make a decision about whether to salvage, renovate, demolish or create a “memorial icon” of a building:
When and How Would You “Pull the Plug” on a Building?
Let’s go back to this question about the making of a building icon. By definition an “icon” is a a sign or representation that stands for its object by virtue of a resemblance or analogy to it. (Definition here) Considering this, at what point does a building become more than a sum of its parts in the minds of a people? And what makes its iconic status live on through decades and even generations?
The fate of a building seems to lead toward its evolution as a ruin. Maintenance is economically costly, yet its demolition can bear an emotional or intellectual …[Read Full Article]…
| |
Image: dbking | Flickr
In an underground building, what if the boundary to celebrate is as much the vertical one as it is the horizontal one? You may celebrate its “below-ness” by making connection with what is above your site’s grade in a not-so-typical way.
With a “sensing” design mindset, you can bridge the two worlds with much more than a dramatic entrance into or exit from the natural light. For example, you can use new lighting technologies.
In the image above, you can see how an LED lighting display at the National Gallery of Art makes use of the long underground corridor which connects the East and West Buildings illustrating that what happens below grade is not a place to be boring, but rather a place that presents you, the architect, with an environment maintaining different rules and different opportunities.
So, instead of always trying to replicate what happens above into what happens below, you should make use of the qualities that the underground brings: light differences, temperature differences, construction method differences, material differences and so on. Make what happens underground an experience to remember, not just an out-of-the-way appendage to your architectural project.
Please Tell Me What You Think
I would really like to get your feedback on my post today, so please leave me a comment in the form below. And if you enjoyed it, make sure you share it with your Twitter followers by “tweeting” it using the re-tweet button on this page.
