Featured Image Takeaway Design Strategy:

Have you ever thought about a building skin being used to broadcast real-time information? Perhaps it doesn’t have to be a direct broadcast, but rather an interpretation of information — a sort of architectural information visualization. The image above is simply to get you thinking about the exterior of your building skin, as an element which can pull or push data. Such data can be conveyed to occupants within or to building visitors in the exterior, or even perhaps to a surrounding community that can see or hear this broadcast. If you could do this for your project, what type of information would you want to broadcast? What type of information would you want to translate through your design? And how would you hope that it impacts your occupants and surrounding culture?

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Featured Image Takeaway Design Strategy:

Be sure to think more holistically about what your building skin can accomplish. The building skin in the photo above helps to absorb traffic noise, and is also said to change perceptually as a visitor moves around the building. (1) So, what perceptual advantages does the design of your building skin give your occupants? While temperature control or amazing interior to exterior vistas are wonderful occupant benefits, how else can you use your building skin to shape your occupants’ experiences for the better?

Image Description Citation: (1) http://www.flickr.com/photos/7539060@N06/4819922319/

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Featured Image Takeaway Design Strategy:

There are many aspects within architecture that designers currently take for granted simply because they have been done the same way for so long. While there is reason and need to meet proper building codes and other regulations, I still do think it is good for a design to question even those aspects which seem to not need questioning. Take for instance Carlo Scarpa’s stair, where his design redefines how one might think of and use a stair — where each step, left and right, moves you upward along its path. When encountering such an innovation in design, just imagine what your occupants might think and feel as they travel through. For instance, is such a Scarpa stair preparing them as an entrance would? Or could it be an exit from a memorable building experience? The main idea is to challenge the assumptions which you take for granted, to not always let yourself settle into that “default” way of thinking, and to open up opportunities for you to explore ways in which to enrich your occupants’ experiences as they journey through your building.

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With so many buildings in the world today, how do you know when you experience innovation in architecture? I think innovation in architecture can happen at different scales, in different cultures and at different times. The following slideshow is an exploration into understanding when you experience innovation, so that you can extract meaning and knowledge from those experiences to ultimately bring back what you learn from them to inject that into your work.

Thus, each photograph within the slideshow below represents an answer to the following question:

When Do You Experience Innovation in Architecture?

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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 and Facebook followers by clicking on the “re-tweet” and “like” button at the beginning of this page.

Image Credits (in order of appearance): Flickr —
Sven Lindner, inspiration_seeker, jglsongs, Jakob Montrasio, George Lu, CHRISTOPHER MACSURAK, sergis blog.

Featured Image Takeaway Design Strategy:

Adding to your design’s effects can happen throughout the day, transiently. Just as sunlight changes throughout the day, other elements impacting your design also change. Shadows created by the light rhythms and axial alignments are one aspect that can change your designs perception minute by minute. Additionally, issues like reflection have the power to create perceptual illusions and enhancements that will help your design relate to its occupants and to the contextual environment which surrounds it. Thus, as you engage in design development phases and you are refining your design using building models and 3-D visualization programs, it is wise to take a moment in your development to think about the materials, light, axial alignments, and reflections that will no doubt impact how your architectural work will function and be perceived.

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Poetic architecture taps into that moment when architecture transcends itself, when it becomes more than simply a physical space — and exudes to a sense of place and beauty that words cannot often describe. Thus, I put together the following slideshow to explore the issue of poetic architecture, to get your mind thinking of how to make more out of your work, and to become more aware of the poetics which surround you — so such poetic thinking will come more readily to you while you design.

Thus, each photograph within the slideshow below represents an answer to the following question:

What Makes a Building Truly Poetic Architecture?

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 and Facebook followers by clicking on the “re-tweet” and “like” button at the beginning of this page.

Image Credits (in order of appearance): Flickr —
UggBoy♥UggGirl [ PHOTO // WORLD // TRAVEL ], Jakob Montrasio, Eustaquio Santimano, seier+seier, seier+seier, o palsson, telmo32

Featured Image Takeaway Design Strategy:

What happens when you use color to dictate a building language to communicate with your occupants? Do you appeal to their sense of structure or contribute to their deeper understanding about the inner-workings of your design? Some architecture conceals its inner mechanisms while other designs go out of their way to reveal them. So, I ask you — how transparent are you with your occupants when it comes to how much your building designs reveal about their operation and maintenance? By concealing you may create a simplicity and mystery that triggers curiosity or appreciation in your occupant, while by revealing inner-mechanisms you provide a new kind of information that your occupants can use along their journey through your building.

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Featured Image Takeaway Design Strategy:

The beauty of design is that you can uncover unique ways to respond to a site and all of its features. By seeing site features — like water, a hill, or even a tree — as aspects that can be leveraged to make your design better, you will discover exciting new ways to engage it, and thus engage your occupants. Through your architectural building design, you have the opportunity to position your occupants, to frame what they see and how they experience it. Don’t take these opportunities for granted. Be playful with your initial ideas about how to make your main architectural gesture on your site. You may be surprised with what you come up with — as it may change your notion about what commonplace experiences should be like — like dining, working or learning.

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Featured Image Takeaway Design Strategy:

When expressing a material through an architectural work, consider its scale and texture as somewhat dynamic. That is, as your occupant moves throughout your building, they will “read” your materials from different distances and angles, in different shades of light and shadow, and with different ability to physically touch or experience them through their other senses — like the visual, the aural or even the olfaction. Your choice in materials, and how you go about positioning them, scaling them, and giving them context, will all add up to the sum that yields your design. Think of materials beyond core functional requirements. Think of them in terms of poetics — where you can invite occupants into an experience they will find meaningful, beautiful and sensitive to their needs.

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Featured Image Takeaway Design Strategy:

As buildings get taller and taller, they are unveiling new perspectives. Different vantage points that you create for you occupants make a difference in how they not only perceive their environment, but also in how they function within it. With nanotechnology developments that improve our ability to build upward, you as an architect may need to rethink what it means to create a vertical community (or building culture) for the future. Strategizing about how vertical structures can uplift occupant lifestyle in unique ways is a great place to start thinking about high-rise building design evolution.

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