The Agent's How and Why

In John Habraken’s writing on “The Structure of the Ordinary,” he discusses how we as people see and experience the world around us.

“… the built environment escapes rigorous scrutiny because humans live as an integral part of it. We engage the built environment not to observe from a distance but to act on it, as an object. In judging it and projecting values onto it, we are not accustomed to simply watching it, to learning how it behaves.” (201)

Later on in the work he talks about the identity of agents and their interactions with each other as well as their environment.

“The goal is not to observe how agents interact, but to understand the structure and behavior of the form that is the cause and the goal of their interactions.” (211)

These two quotes along with last week’s readings provide an interesting look on “Architecture for Whom” and really show how we as designers should be designing. Last week we talked about incorporating the user into the design process and giving them a participatory role. This week we look at a different method of collecting their input by watching their interactions. If we say that the user from last week is equal to the agent this week, it becomes a little bit clearer.

I’d like to quickly argue that Habracken is somewhat wrong in his first quote. I believe that we are accustomed to “simply watching” a space, what we aren’t accustomed to is a deeper analysis of the space, through which we learn how it behaves.

What is typically seen in many site analyses is a notion of what happens. What buildings of a context are of what type of occupancy? Who uses this space? What are the paths of the pedestrians that walk through this space? We all do this. What we don’t typically do is discover why these things happen. Why are the housing buildings over here? Why do the people use this space rather than a similar space over there? Why do the pedestrians walk this path rather than this other one? The answers to these questions may seem pretty simple (just look at where things are placed in relation to others) but until we begin to observe the agent-user more closely we cannot truly understand their actions. Perhaps there may be a cultural or historical connection to a space that would not be discovered just by looking at a map.

To truly incorporate the user into the design, we not only have to allow them an input in the design process, but we must observe and talk to them to understand not only the how but the why. For if we do not understand why something is happening, then how are we do design around it?