Architecture as a Sense of Place

In this day and age of architecture, their has been an increase in the tendency to create iconic buildings without regard to context or scale. Especially in cities, a sense of place is essential to everyday life. Being able to experience a building that is sensible to the human scale is why architects design (should?) in the first place. To create experiences for the user. Without the user, the buildings we create are meaningless and become objects in space. People are like hermit crabs, protective of themselves and wanting to feel comfortable in a space. If the "shell" is to big, it feels out of scale and unrelatable". Too small and it feels restrictive and awkward. Finding the right balance between scale and comfort is important for any project and should be considered.

Whether you are focusing strictly on the form of the building, or the function, shouldn't the architecture add something to the place it is being designed for and not take something away? This concept is something we are facing currently in our studio projects, trying to make the architecture "fit" in its context while providing a sense of place for the user. The struggle with this is that we have no idea how people are going to utilize/react to these buildings we create. With thoughtful planning, either approach can work but regardless, we can't forget about the importance of the human scale.