We shape our
buildings; thereafter they shape us.
—Winston Churchill
Architecture affects
everyone and yet most people have no power in shaping it and don't
have the skills to understand it. We spend so much of our time in
built environments, yet we don't participate in shaping this world.
Why
Do We Need Architectural Literacy?
Humans
need shelter for emotional and physical reasons. This phenomenon is
known as “nesting.” “It is commonly characterized by a strong
urge to clean and organize one's home and is one reason why couples
who are expecting a baby often reorganize, arrange, and clean the
house and surroundings.”
Slums in Rio
Housing
is a human right: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living
adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family,
including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary
social services, and the right to security in the event of
unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack
of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."
For citizens to exercise this right they need to be better informed
and able to demand their rights.
Refugee camp in Jordan for Syrian refugees.
According
to Abraham Maslow in 1943, each of our human needs, starting with (1)
Physiology (eating and sleeping, etc.), must be met before the need
above it can be addressed. If a person is not safe, he/she is
unlikely to be overly concerned with getting people to like them or
having a spiritual life, etc. The quality of architecture can help
with (4) Esteem
and
(5) Self-Actualization. 3 Beauty, comfort, good design, light,
attention to details, decoration, and color all contribute to one's
sense of well-being and happiness.
Understanding
and
appreciating architecture can help a person relate to their
community. Architecture design affects the cohesion of communities.
People enjoy visiting well-designed cities that offer plazas,
arcades, street cafes, civic structures, public monuments, theaters,
and libraries. As Jane Jacobs observed in her Life
and Death of American Cities,
“Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody,
only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”
Architectural
choices are environmental choices. We all live on one planet with
limited resources, and buildings must take into consideration their
environmental impact. Some designs are bad for the environment,
consume too much energy, affect the land, and are toxic to users (as
in “sick building syndrome”). Consumers need to participate in
the building design and construction process so the wisest decisions
can be made to protect the environment.
Architects
only serve the need of 1% of the world's population (4). In the
United States it is estimated that 80% of buildings are designed by
non-architects. For humanity to manage 99% of the rest of the world,
we need to inspire the public of all ages to design and build better
architectural solutions.
According
to Gardner's Multiple Intelligence Theory, visual and spatial
intelligences are important means to learning, and teaching young
people to think in architectural and spatial ways will help students
access and empower that part of their brain. Teaching problem solving
through architectural design is beneficial to all students even if
they don't end up working in the architecture or construction
industries.
There
are overwhelming design and architectural problems that face humanity
in many parts of the world: homelessness, refugee populations, slums,
lack of adequate housing for lower income families, better designed
communities for the elderly, parks and recreation spaces for
teenagers, playgrounds for children, housing for young people,
buildings for the disabled, sustainable cities that produce fresh
foods, and many more. Our current design-and-build system, even with
experts, is not producing the solutions.
Historic
Background on the Root of the Architectural Illiteracy Problem
Architecture Literacy
is a life skill or a survival skill. Our naked ancestors would not
have survived brutally cold winters or the dangers of predators if
they were not creative enough to invent shelter. The shelter of
nomadic people developed with the agricultural revolution to become
brick and stone villages and then the monumental ceremonial
structures in larger civilizations. In the 10,000 years of documented
architecture, people were engaged in shaping their human structures.
The buildings they made had ceremonial meaning and held their
ancestral history. The act of building strengthened communities as in
barn-raising or pyramid-building.
During the last 5,000
years architects who sometimes were also priests had specialized
skills and understanding of building technology. Nevertheless, the
masses participated in creating simple houses and shelters based on
tried and true methods and techniques.
Traditional architecture in Yemen ( people knew how to build!)
The industrial
revolution changed architecture by mechanizing building technoloy,
moving people from village to city life in large masses, and making
the building arts into specialized professions. The industrial
revolution introduced new materials like steel and concrete, which
allowed large projects to be built fast. These materials were
foreign to architects and people in the building trades, which led to
wild experimentation with materials like asbestos, and the creation
of buildings that did not pass the test of time. The new cities and
modern transportation allowed for decentralized planning and
high-rise buildings to be built on a scale that humans had never
experienced before. All of these changes together created populations
around the world that are living in slums and substandard housing.
To solve the problem
of slums, architects and city planners started building gigantic
impersonal projects with concrete and immigrants to the cities
accepted them as an alternative to slums. At the same time cars
allowed middle class and wealthier people to move to the suburbs and
that led to fast easy-to-build track housing that was mostly uniform
and had no cultural meaning.
Public housing in Saudi Arabia,designed as if no one care and nobody matters
This revolution of
how we live where we live and what kind of buildings we are spending
time in happened so fast relative to human evolutionary time. This
created an out-of-control building boom that transformed the way the
world around us looks and feels. Societies accepted this so-called
progress without examining what effects it had on society. Now almost
a hundred years later, the results are out. We are surrounded by a
largely inhumane and ugly environment. Our schools look like jails,
our houses are impersonal and don't feel like homes, we work in dark
office cubicles. Our building experiments are taking a huge toll on
society and environmental psychology is confirming these devastating
results.
What I have found
surprising is that the human need for shelter, comfort and community
can be easily met and has been for hundreds of years. My aim is to
take architectural understanding back to people and reintroduce to
them a simple and humanistic architectural literacy. I propose to
teach architecture to every school child as a language and a
discipline. With this knowledge everyone can start articulating their
architectural needs and will be able to participate in shaping our
communities and our world.
How
to Introduce Architectural Literacy to Students
Ancient
Roman architect Vitruvius insisted that three fundamental principles
are essential to architecture. His formula still holds true. A
building must balance all three to be considered architecture. These
three fundamental principles are as follows:
Function: This refers
to how a building is used. Whether a building is used as a house, a
classroom, or a museum, buildings must meet practical requirements
for every use within its walls. A building without function may be
beautiful, but it's sculpture, not architecture. This principle is
easy to teach. Most people understand that a bedroom needs a window
and a door for privacy, comfortable furnishings and good ceiling
height. Christopher Alexander in his great book A
Pattern
Language
demystifies basic design functions based on tried and true methods
and historic precedence.
Structure: This
refers to how a building stands up. Whether it consists of steel
columns, wood studs, or brick walls, the framework must resist
gravity and the loads placed upon it. But to be architecture, it must
do more. It must create beauty from structural necessity; this is
what differentiates architecture from engineering.
I teach structure to
young children by using paper folding techniques and using wood and
glue and they all are able to build well-designed structures that are
ingenious and fun.
Beauty:
This refers to the visual and sensory appeal of buildings. It is what
Vitruvius called "delight." Architectural delight can be
found in a neatly patterned brick wall, a vaulted stone ceiling, or a
tiny window emitting a stream of sunlight. Beauty is the ultimate
test of good architecture. Without beauty, a highly functional
building is merely utilitarian without rising to the realm of
architecture.
I compared this 2 buildings:
Cooper Union's
Foundation Building is an Italianate brownstone
building designed by architect Fred
A. Petersen,
It was the first structure in New York City to feature rolled-iron
I-beams
for structural support; Petersen patented a fire resistant hollow
brick tile he used in the building's construction. The building was
the first in the world to be built with an elevator shaft, because
Cooper, in 1853, was confident an elevator would soon be invented.
The building was declared a National
Historic Landmark
in 1961.
the one below is the new school at Cooper Union. Alien and hard to read as a building. I think many modern buildings fail the test of Function, Structure and Beauty!
