Architecture as identification place-Analyzing architecture :
The idea that identification of place lies at the generative core of architecture can be explored and illustrated further. In doing this one can think of architecture, not as a language, but as being in some ways like one. The architectural actions of a prehistoric family making its dwelling place can be replicated and updated in a beach camp. The fire is the focus, and also a place to cook. A windshield protects the fire from too much breeze, and as a wall begins to give some privacy. There is a place where the fuel for the fire is kept, and the back of the car acts as a food store. There are places to sit, and if one were to stay overnight, one would need a bed. These are the basic ‘places’ of a house; they come before walls and a roof.
Place is to architecture, it may be said, as meaning is to language. Learning to do architecture can seem to be like learning to use language. Like language architecture has its patterns and arrangements, in different combinations and compositions as circumstances suggest. Significantly architecture relates directly to the things we do; it changes and evolves as new, or reinterpreted, ways of identifying places are invented or refined.
Thinking of architecture as identification of place accommodates the idea that architectures participated in by more than the individual. In any one example (a building for instance) there will be places proposed by the designer, and places created
By adoption by the users, (these may or may not match). Unlike painting or a sculpture, which may be said to be the intellectual property of one mind, architecture depends upon contributions from many. The idea of architecture as identification of place asserts the indispensable part played in architecture by the user as well as the designer; and for the designer who will listen, it asserts that places proposed should accord with places used, even if it takes time for this to happen; So called ‘traditional’ architecture is full of places which, through familiarity and use, accord well with users’ perceptions and expectations.
The fire remains the focus and a place to cook, though there is now also an oven—the small arched opening in the side wall of the fireplace. The ‘cupboard’ to the left of the picture is actually a box-bed. There is another bed upstairs, positioned to enjoy the warm air rising from the fire. Under that bed there is a place for storing and curing meat. There is a settle to the right of the fire (and a mat for the cat). In this example, unlike the beach camp, all these places are accommodated within a container—the wall and roof of the house as a whole, which itself, seen from the outside, becomes a place identifier in a different way).
Although nobody is shown in the drawing, every one of the places mentioned is perceived in terms of how it relates to use, occupation, and meaning. One projects people, or oneself, into the room, under the blankets of the bed, cooking on the fire, chatting by the fire-side…. Such places are not abstractions such as one finds in other arts; they are an enmeshed part of the real world. At its fundamental level architecture does not deal in abstractions, but with life as it is lived, and its fundamental power is to identify place.
Reference: analyzing architecture book for Simon Unwin (Architecture as identification place-Analyzing architecture)
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