"Architecture-People, People-Architecture" - Elisa Ruhl

junior discussant

Crossing the threshold between people and architecture: people influencing architecture – architecture influencing people

Human being was and is the center of building process because it is the reason why things are built. And it's human being that builds. How to explain the relationship between people and architecture? Maybe it's described best by using the word threshold that stands for a flexible passage of giving and taking, communication and bordering/connection. Having a closer look on this threshold the most striking issue is the gap between architect and user in cultural and temporal meaning. I want to have a look at this relationship to get to know how people and architecture can get closer to each other to stay in impulsing communication. I'm going to focus on how people influence architecture or should influence and also how architecture as built reality can be an influencing part in people's life. It's a problem which is important for public and private space.

Looking at the relationship it can be asked: Who transforms – cover or man? (1)

Architecture as a body enlargement: Transferring the own borders to architecture

Long time human body was used to have calculations on it; in this period of anthropomorphism architects acted with human body like a mathematical object. The result of that was architecture adapted to human body through numbers – a very stirr architecture with regulated harmonies and proportions. As one aspect good proportions for rooms were found, but the abstract way of designing by numbers does not correspond to people as individual and flexible living beings.(2)

It is another old topic – not included in anthropomorphism – that is closer to people and their borders: Dividing space into different parts to show levels of intimacy and to express people living in that space. Like we also good architecture has a first level of intimacy surrounding the house. If you pass this level - garden, steps, paths - you just feel you're going into something private. It corresponds to our own intimacy borders (Europe: 50-70 cm) that only should be crossed by familiars. To come close to us you cross this area and enter a gate to the third section of intimacy – like touching someone – spoken for architecture it's passing the door. Clothes and skin can be compared to the facade that expresses our way of living and that is also the part which is sensitive for the “outside world”. The whole construction – body/house – have ways to perceive the environment: facade/skin feel the climate, windows/eyes have a look at the environment, door/mouth are used for communication and exchange. The interior keeps thoughts, soul and our real meaning. To share the interior space with somebody for a longer time means to climb the last step of the intimacy levels. So all our own borders facing environment and other people find a correspondence in architecture. So I can call architecture a body enlargement – it protects and expresses our borders. So the way we act with people and environment is the one of the biggest influences on how the basis of houses is built. Architecture as a body enlargement is an example stressing how close architecture and human being actually are.

Transformed architecture by using and presence of people

The basic structure for buildings is taken from people's behavior, but planning a building consists of more things. All details, constructions and symbols that make architecture talk to us are given by architects. There are many tools and parameters to control the whole planning process to achieve the final building. But although architects and later inhabitants communicate with each other, the inhabitants and users are the uncontrollable factor within the planning process. The presence and use of people transforms buildings in such a strong way that sometimes the former intention by the architects can't be found anymore. Only the presence of people can show how architecture is meant. People give the proportions and the rhythm in and out of the buildings. So a fast rhythm within a slow wide space can create an inspiring communication between space and people, but that contrast can also cut any connection and create uncomfortable feelings. If people really begin to use the planned space they also begin to redesign it. A process of transforming begins that can give a new face to the architecture. For example it can be a process of becoming a more individual space or a more functional space, but it can also be a process of detecting unused room within the space or destroying space. This situation of transformation is a result of the temporal gap between designer and user. The time of planning and building doesn't come together with time taken by the user for living, transforming, expressing. For architects the working process stops when people begin to use their buildings. But for me that's the moment the real process of building begins. Maybe the inhabitants are the best designers for their own cases because they get to know about their open and hided needs in and for the building. The inhabitants are also in a quite good position to design their space further because they communicate with the surrounding architecture 24 hours a day – can an architect be as close to the architecture as the inhabitants? Or can an architect be so close to the people to anticipate this redesigning process? Do architects have to be in longer company with their projects to be a part of the transformation after building? Or is it maybe the best thing to give inhabitants and users more importance although architectural thoughts can be destroyed? There is now a development facing the importance of the individual inhabitant: flexible housing. In this concept architects only give modular basic structures to build your surrounding space as individual as the structures can. The flexible form allows using it private, public and somewhere in between. You can now put the question if people without artistic and design education should be such a big part in the designing process. I think they should: As I already told they live closest to themselves and to the surrounding architecture. Human being is the only living being that designs its environment – every human being does it in its own way. Latest developments in the internet show that big firms take ideas of non-designers for producing – sometimes it gets obvious that art and design education and the hard work in a studio can narrow your creative view on everyday problems. We as architects should support the user as an independent and reflected person to strengthen the reflected use of things at all. It's necessary to have statements of architects and architecture as a part of culture – especially for public space – but it's also time to overcome selfish design used for mirroring the architect: We need more space for for thinking and inventing clever structures which allow people to create their individual and flexible room – view on life, circumstances and familiar structures change very fast. People should get more free space to express their emotions with one of the primary needs. Architects give the rational basic structure for them, trying not to overcharge people. By that the architect doesn't lose his importance, the architect even becomes the most important part in social and cultural life by offering a little promise for more freedom and flexibility in a world with less space.



Toyo Ito (new real in architecture): "Twentieth-century cities sought economic performance, so the same kind of buildings were constructed everywhere all over the world. More and more, however, such architecture strikes me as a no environment for vibrant human life, so I've turned my attention to the possibilities in architecture. I feel there is a need to reassure the relationship between materials and people in order to reclaim a more fully human sense experience."





Public space as "public space"

Although private space is very limited, there are at least some things people can decide on their own: color of walls, ground or pictures on their walls and so on. Everything that depends to public space – also parts of private space like the own part of the facade – exist in very strict borders of law.

"Ein Mann in einem Mietshaus muß die Möglichkeit haben, sich aus seinem Fenster zu beugen und – so weit seine Hände reichen – das Mauerwerk abzukratzen. Und es muß ihm gestattet sein, mit einem langen Pinsel – so weit er reichen kann – alles rosa zu bemalen, so daß man von weitem, von der Straße, sehen kann: Dort wohnt ein Mensch, der sich von seinen Nachbarn unterscheidet." (Hundertwasser)

By opening more and more gates between private and public and by taking away more borders between the countries of the world, people have another look on the thing called home. They wish to be a real part of a growing city – public space is wished to be really public, also in the meaning of design. Examples for the wish for taking part at the development of a city and its public space are guerilla gardening, flash mobs or grafitti. They are all illegal! There are reasons for claiming it illegal, sure. But if it's used with the agreement of the neighborhood or in a common sense, the will to be a part of the developing city must be respected. There is one lack at the side of the architects: Too less projects are planned with a concept of interacting people. If people are planned as a creative part in the concept, their designing will is legitimated also for the owners or the state. There is also one lack – a bigger lack – at the side of existing laws, so at the side of our society: Why do laws exist which forbid being a part of designing the own city? If people's design doesn't destroy other designing wills, but only follows the wish to create a beautiful neighborhood or develop space forgotten by the state it's seems to be very helpful for a city. The development of a city is versatile – using people's resources beside state's resources just seems to be clever.

Recognizing human borders for inspiring moments - Architecture as space for interpretation

If people now get more power and space to express themselves in their own way of living, in which way can architecture remain an influencing and inspiring part of life? If the goal to narrow the gap between designer/architecture and use/user is focused it's necessary to remain the power of both sides in harmony. One example having a look at the cultural gap between designer and user: Most people don't have education in design, but they although want to design – I see it a basic need and by that it's legitimated. But by this lack of education architects and designers have the opportunity to be one step further than the people to who they offer their architecture. That does not mean to understand customers as easy and stupid, but the difference in education is the chance to create free space for customer's with some extras. If you have a close look at people's behavior, its needs, its wishes and its borders architects can create inspiring situations in the new flexible structures that don't overcharge but demand people in thinking, using and expressing. If architects try to understand people it's easier for people to understand architects. That stresses closing the cultural gap between both. These special inspiring situation can only happen if architects and people are very close to each other and if they want to understand and appreciate each other. One example could be “linking” architecture. Linking architecture is not new – every public architecture works with links to other buildings, the common or not common culture or landscape. It's a pity that this linking architecture is not given in most private spaces and for public space that it's often overcharging or misunderstood. It's about finding the special links conferring to the inhabitants for widening borders in mind. And it is again the chance to develop a building because by these links impulsing reactions can be provoked. By finding the right links, by finding understandable symbolism close to people's life, architecture and user can communicate in the “same language” which leads to a giving-taking-situation between designer and user. It's not about “selling dreams” - it's about giving proposals to the user to give the opportunity to be linked, too. Space for interpretation mustn't be only allowed – from both sides – interpretation must be demanded. This interpretation space is actually the way to close gaps and give satisfaction to both sides.

Common sense / society

Leaving postmodernism behind us there is no real orientation in which period of time we are and which cultural, moral and esthetic standards are in common or worthy. So it's quite hard to find a common sense or language. More and more signs, symbols and interests divide society into many different parts. As an architect now you can decide if you become a specialist for one of these small parts in order to have at least one perfect communication with one special part of society or if you go on searching for a new language of a beginning period. Sometimes I begin to think that laughing and playing are the most connecting things between people. Laughing and playing exist with own laws of time and place; people can live with these laws as long as the moment of playing and laughing lasts. That means a short or longer stay in another reality – a free space for the users again. Maybe it can be one direction to find a new common sense on humor including irony and satire and remembering the homo ludens. Example: Erwin Wurm – Fat House.

Final thoughts

To face the problem of the existing gap between architect/designer/architecture and user/inhabitant/people, it is necessary letting temporal and cultural issues from both sides overlap. It's hard work to overcome the gap and common meaning and importance of architect and user. The gap is actually a problem of society. Living circumstances go harder – people reflect more on issues which mean comfort, individuality within globalization and protection: home, hometown, home country. This special need is not taken seriously yet as an enormous social and economic issue. I don't think this work can be done only by architects. The way of working in clusters will become the normal way of working for architectural issues. Only by exchanging between architects, artists, social scientists, psychologists (…) and the inhabitants narrowing and closing the gap is possible. Interdisciplinary work was found and confirmed as the most creative and effective way of working. It's now up to us to take this way for finding the missing link to people.