Architecture as a filter for everyday life

With our comprehensive project, Clair and I have attempted to address the filter that inherently exists in the built environment – many spaces, neighborhoods, and areas are not for everyone. Guy Debord saw urban space as a place to overcome consumerism because it was inherently inclusive. What public spaces, then, can we create with the goal of breaking the filter, and establishing a new standard of inclusiveness?

We talked a good bit this week in class about architecture as a filter for everyday life. With this statement, we believe that we need the built environment to understand, and ultimately enjoy, everyday life. What is the limit to this environment, and what is its minimum and maximum? Does it need to be something built at all?

I love the cover image, shown below, of Margaret Crawford’s book Everyday Urbanism. Even though the image is completely blurred out, you still understand the space and its context – a colorful market. How far, then, can we blur the filter – architecture – and still positively influence how we live our daily lives? As for Clair and I, this filter is public space itself, which can be as free or as programmed as needed, and gives every user the opportunity to make it their own.


Concept Diagram, Spring 2016 Comprehensive Project
Clair Dias and Alison Martin


Everyday Urbanism cover, Margaret Crawford

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