Structures and Things

Public spaces

We all know what spaces are. We all have personal space. If someone gets in to our personal space, they had better be invited or suffer the consequences of someone who feels trapped in a small space who will strike out at a threatening presence. When we are out and about we operate in the public space, and everyone agrees to play nice and not get into someone’s personal space. The boundaries of somone’s personal space vary slightly depending on where they are. The boundary moves from when we are at work, on the train/subway, and when we are among friends. Public spaces are an artificial creation designed to bring people to a single area for purposes of public entertainment, announcements, and common access to natural resources. Sample platforms include sidewalks, plazas, terraces, theaters, sports venues, retail establishments, markets, and parks. Places that push the interaction from a public to private realm mostly include transportation.

When we are in our car (with our personal attachments), it has its own space requirements, we have boundaries that mimic our own bodily boundaries. Scratches, dings, and fender benders offend our person as if we had received a personal affront into our personal space. However, when we ride the bus or subway and it gets crowded, we make some effort to establish our boundary by physical posturing and positioning. If the subway gets too crowded, we adjust until finally people are in our personal space and every effort is made not to engage people’s private spaces. These spaces that are intimate even to our friends.

So what does this all have to do with structures and buildings? I don’t know. No, I’m just getting there. The point is to create public spaces that address people’s personal spaces. Strategies exist for minimizing the impact of crowding in public spaces. So depending upon the space, you can also make an effort to keep someone from stepping on someone else’s toes.

Exits, entrances, and flow patterns for traffic generated by people are important elements in designing a proper public space. Let us begin with looking at what public spaces we have control over. We have the entrance, lobby, hallways, elevator, parking lots/structures, restrooms, break rooms, emergency exits, patio areas, walkways, mechanical equipment (because a good environment makes a difference), transportation access, traffic control studies for special conditions, and maintenance of the space to minimize the impact during service. (As an aside, did you ever wonder what the people in traffic control were thinking when they schedule work on a major highway in the middle of rush hour traffic?) We have the power to consider something besides occupancy. Providing for flexible and robust public spaces and accessways is the best effort you can put forward in to making sure people enjoy your building or public space.

You define the boundary of these spaces. You define the walls, shape of the building, location of the access points, vehicle access, pedestrian access, elevator location, daylighting, public furniture (for parks, plazas, transportation) and where the emphasis of the building is going to be from an architectural standpoint. People who face these challenges daily are designing hospitals, museums, universities, arenas, stadiums, transportation hubs, churches, apartment complexes, barracks, corporate campuses, oil platforms, submarines, cruise ships, senior care centers, casinos, airports, roadways, retail centers and parks (public/amusement). These are the public spaces of the city and sub-urban neighborhoods.

We find that public spaces used just for leisure and gathering are few and far in-between. Most of our public spaces are mixed-use commercial centers that accomodate housing, retail and professional offices. It seems that they are parking lots with places to spend our money attached. We do not gather at these places to engage in public discourse, cultural enrichments, social engagements, family activities, or as part of our path when we travel by foot. People are best able to appreciate their environment when they are not bombarded by advertising, work reminders and vendors asking them to part with their money.

It is the job of the designer to provide a public space that can be enjoyed by many people in a personal way. Give a path to the public to enjoy your achitecture and not rush them past so that they can avoid being trampled upon. This is not how I would want my building or structure remembered, as a inconvenience that had no place for me. Define spaces for the public with the public in mind.

Equal value & Equipotential spaces

The establishment of order often relegates design to a process of optimization and regulation. Each space that serves the same function must be equal to every other space of the same function. The volume, access and benefits to the occupant must be equalized to provide a flexible platform for operations. In short, no one has it any better than any one else. Well, except for isolated senior positions, and even they have a restrained structure. It seems that heirarchal structures provide clauses for equality of any given level. The fewer the better. The most accomodation for the top in terms of personal space. I’m not going to write about any person’s influence on a company’s bottom line. I’m writing about providing maximum personal benefit from a finite space.

Building structures are divided by design. There are floors, walls, columns and doorways. There is a regular pattern to provide convenience and simplified design accomodations. Regular patterns usually provide cost savings and provide for a space that can accomodate other regular pattern planning methods. This approach is used throughout the construction industry and in fabrication. This is about efficiency and mass production. In our choices about efficiency underlies the principle of equality. We either believe or are led to believe that equality is a good thing and part of some higher principle of justice. It’s about being fair. This ideaology pervades other systems that are used in our present social structure.

This approach provides little or no opportunity for reward or uniqueness. The mass appeal of architecture is coupled with economic strategy to provide equipotential spaces lacking any unique or identifying quality. Quality is a word not often muttered. Maybe if you talk about ISO, LEAN or Six Sigma systems and mass production methods. You also have quality control, quality systems, and QMS (quality management systems). This is not quality, so much as consistency. The meaning that I refer to is an indication of value and not of properties. Quality is imbued into an object. Someone values its presence and unique properties. It is about craftsmanship and care. It has personal meaning and provides a unique experience not found any other place in the world. Nature’s architecture is this way. How many people do you know that would drive out in to the middle of the desert and gape at a big hole in the ground? Ask that of the visitors who travel to the Grand Canyon each year. I wonder how many people would drive out in to the desert to gape at a building made by man?

I enjoy visiting new places and experiencing what each has to offer. The places to seek out are not what I would call modern structures in any sense. Architecture is about making a statement with unique spaces that have qualities that inspire us to remember them and our joy at experiencing them. They embody culture, history, forethought, and innovation. Architecture endures in our minds and has longevity. It is used over and over. Clearly architecture is not about technology. Architecture is about putting your quality into a space that can be valued by other people.

If all of our spaces are equal, why seek out any other? Why make an effort to have a corner office or bigger cubicle? Is space really a status symbol?

Afraid to design…get out of your comfort zone!

Designers, architects and engineers all have skills that they rely on. The skills vary and so do the results. If you fall in to one of these categories, then chances are that you have done work on limited types of structures, buildings and products. Belonging to these groups comes with some expectations and a lot of responsibility. You are often asked to be brilliant, daring, efficient, effective, inventive and creative. You are also asked to spend your time wisely, follow the code, think of the little details, don’t waste money, have a budget that the owner will approve, and use as many standard parts as possible so a cost budget can be put together. We are conditioned to forever counter our desire for discovery by having to redefine, refine, and rethink all the same elements that we use all the time. There is no opportunity for a paradigm shift. The rigid structures that define our spaces, interiors, work environments, our internal climates, our paths, and rectilinear transportation systems are all in place. It’s amazing that the first hut was built. What was wrong with the cave? Well some caves were nicer than others. Maybe there were no caves. How about those pesky wild animals that also like caves?

We have an opportunity now, if we do not follow the path of further restriction, to change the citiscape and housing industry for the next hundred or so years. The push to use materials that are of the earth in a more constructive and sustainable strategy is an opportunity to step outside of our comfort zone. Let us forget carbon for a moment. Let us forget green house gases also. Let us decide that any changes we make are from a strategy of abundance and intelligence, rather than a position of fear and public legislation/administration. Do we really have no other choice than to listen to propoganda used for political and economic gain? Are the strategies that we are being asked to use any different that those employed by our ancestors? Our solution varies only in a matter of scale. It is not a different problem. It will never be a different problem, whether we return to huts or build space stations or colonize other planets.

We have let economy, commercial interest, and banking decide how we should live. Their question is always about up front costs, profits from occupancy, and maximum short term yields from investments. They always say that the most important thing is ‘location, location, location’. Is it really? What is it important to and to whom is it important? The local residents, city, and future use of a structure seem to really be what’s important. Aesthetics, citiscape, cultural impact and beauty all contribute to the function of a building. They provide identity, continuity, inspiration, and worth to the residents, occupants and visitors of any significant architecture.

Architecture should challenge the designer, architect and engineer to extract all these values from their structure. Sweeping curves, engaging volumes, inspirational spaces, and culture defining symbols should be our design goals. We have the technology and knowledge to push the limits of architecture through effective planning, design, engineering, manufacturing, construction and occupancy metrics. We are able to tune buildings to their occupants, use passive methods that are age old techniques used before electricity, have sensors and controls that monitor the health of buildings and their occupants. We can provide comfortable spaces that allow people to live healthy, experience the beauty of nature, and work effectively. The way architecture has bent to maximize work from the building occupants, and yield the highest dollar per square foot for a few ammenities lends me to believe that we have not experienced the best from our designers, architects and engineers. Every structure should add something to the community and be a symbiotic component that contributes to the infrastructure rather than burden it with its waste, energy use, and ineffective transportation demands.

There are many strategies, structures, and systems for us to discover. We must not fear our desire for discovery. We must also not suffer and cower below the threats of individuals and administrations that demand we pay in perpertuity for a system created by its regulation. We have already given much to be licensed, funded, taxed, regulated, protected, and misinformed by people seeking a steady stream of income rather than an improvement in the standard of living. Our citiscapes and towns reflect the demand for efficiency and regulation. Roads, signs, arrows, and real estate plots have defined us until this point. We have failed to bring individual choice and public transportation into alignment. We have taken the life-blood of humanity and removed it from our cities. Our food and water comes from hundreds of miles away because we have poisoned our local resources, covered every inch with concrete, and failed in our responsibility to clean up after ourselves.

We have been led to believe that we are ‘consumers’ with no opportunity for balance with our environment. Is this how you see yourself? For I surely do not. We have a great potential to live, and we just need to choose the path we will take to realize it. We will err many times. We already have. Let us not be afraid or intimidated in to giving away our power of choice by people seeking a regular return on their money or tax base. Administration and regulation never lead to a paradigm shift. Dare to design and get out of your comfort zone!

Nomad Architecture

I have an architect friend (currently in Qatar, from California) whose concepts of architecture, professional practice and path revolve around a concept he calls ‘Nomadic Architecture’. I’m not sure what it means to him. From what he has told me, it is about freedom, the spaces between spaces, experiencing the world, and using your talent for architecture and not keeping a seat warm in an office.

I would think that a nomad would bring a lot to the table because of their varied experiences and cultural influences. Finding out what works, what environments are best suited to a particular architecture or strategy. It is the life of a ‘master builder’ who is always learning, exploring, trying, and living the moment. This is the person I would want on my team. I did, in fact, have this person on my team. I believe that each of us practiced ‘nomadic architecture’ long before we met each other and he told me of his vision.

I hope that this concept will flourish and that people will expand their vision of the world. I see the nomad as a self assured individual who lives in the world environment. They receive many gifts during their travels and bring them to cultures in need of their wisdom. Travel safe my friend.

Architecture and building space

It would seem like a contradiction to be building space. In fact, what’s done is the confinement of space, harnessing of space, defining of space and assigning function to space. Space in its self has no definition. Unless you’re a phycisist and would argue that space is defined by mass-energy-quantum-particles and influenced as a medium by gravity, dark matter and unseen forces, then we can state that space is undefined until people step into the equation. We define spaces for living, working, sleeping, eating, bathing, and so many other activities.

The defining process is architecture. So in order to satisfy architecture, we ask many questions regarding those elements that will help form and develop the undefined space in to occupieable space. Will it be for groups of people? Will it be for private occupancy? Will the outside world impinge on the interior space? How will the space be lit, sound controlled, access given, and what geometric configuration will the space occupy? How does the space interact with other space?

It might be argued that each space is a dynamic environment that must see, listen, breath, process, recover and endure. It is not living, though it may be alive when used. It’s artificial heating/cooling mechanisms, its apperatures to control daylight, its electroluminecent contol mechanisms (lighting), its sound control mechanisms, warning messages for danger, its interior linings and entry/exit passage ways. It has similar characteristics to living organisms. It has some self awareness through sensors, controls, and corrective algorithms. However, it lacks the ability to achieve self-preservation through fight/flight mechanisms. We as architects and designers provide all of these mechanisms to defined space so that it can care for our needs without our active efforts. It protects, entertains, feeds, joins us together, and seperates us from one another.

Should space be so defined that it can only perform one function for us? Is space a specialized feature of our lives? We don’t live that way, changing our minds, habits and activity every day. Do rooms provide us a place to act or do we act according to the room? From experience, we have seen people live their whole lives in a single room that serves all their daily functions. It does not necessarily serve their needs. It is limited to be only what it was designed to do. We sometimes need confined comforting spaces and sometimes vast unending spaces. We sometimes need to sit and concentrate, while other times we need to run free from a single place.

When we design, build and engineer architecture it is up to us to remember that flexibility and the use of a particular space will not always be what we think it should be. To provide longevity to a particular space, we must be willing to provide the space with the needed mechanisms, controls and features that allow it to adapt over the years to serve many differing people. Open floor plans, so popular in high-rise complexes, office building and convention centers, provide unique conditions in the built world. This practice is so different from our residential design practices where each room and space is assigned a specific function. It is becoming more rare that an individual or family will live a single generation in a home, much less mutliple generations. The needs of one family will often differ considerably from the next and as different cultures begin to occupy foreign architecture, the challenge is to provide space and platforms for people to live their lives.

When was the last time you learned of a major city coming into existence? I’m not talking about sub-urban city centers or expansion of an existing metropolis. I mean a city, founded near a natural resource, grown and planned to meet a growing population and commercial interest. The closest thing is perhaps a college campus or new corporate campus. This is not the same. I don’t think we’ll see too many fresh opportunities to define communities or large city centers (except perhaps in countries outside of America). I think we’ll define and redefine existing spaces to serve the current population and technological method.

So, with this in mind, seek to provide flexible space both inside and out when defining new architecture.