Maybe they're not Bad Participants, but typical Consumers?
Architects are used to telling users what to like. But then again, people are used to being told what to like.
Centuries ago, architects had the "luxury," of only hearing the opinions of a select and royal few in regards to their work. Today, everyone is allowed to have an opinion on architecture. Unfortunately, people's opinions are so critically influenced by marketing and popular culture, that their "opinions" are likely based on superficial attraction instead of architectural merit. That's not just true with architecture, but with EVERYTHING. As Crawford wrote in, "The World as a Shopping Mall," consumers have been conditioned to associate themselves with goods, and architecture is no exception. With common users approaching architecture as they would a typical commodity (that is, based on images or alluring messages), they are naturally going to feel out of their comfort zone when asked to look deeper.
With the user-comprehension at such a low level, it is absolutely the job of the architect to creatively come up with better ways of communicating the design process. To clarify, firms like BIG do a great job of selling their work using the conventional flashy and informative methods, but I'm not talking about how a firm sells its work. This post is about integrating the user into the design process in more significant ways than showing attractive renderings, and flipping through some floorplans (which the majority of users can't read anyway). The architect needs to communicate on the level of the users. I really appreciated Jeremy Till's ideal for the contemporary architect in his statement, "The architect, moving between the worlds of expert and citizen, engages with the world as organic intellectual, a new form of professional."
It is true that architects are interpreters of the users and therefore will never fully achieve their desires, but the challenge is: how can you enable the user to understand your ideas and better articulate theirs?
Centuries ago, architects had the "luxury," of only hearing the opinions of a select and royal few in regards to their work. Today, everyone is allowed to have an opinion on architecture. Unfortunately, people's opinions are so critically influenced by marketing and popular culture, that their "opinions" are likely based on superficial attraction instead of architectural merit. That's not just true with architecture, but with EVERYTHING. As Crawford wrote in, "The World as a Shopping Mall," consumers have been conditioned to associate themselves with goods, and architecture is no exception. With common users approaching architecture as they would a typical commodity (that is, based on images or alluring messages), they are naturally going to feel out of their comfort zone when asked to look deeper.
With the user-comprehension at such a low level, it is absolutely the job of the architect to creatively come up with better ways of communicating the design process. To clarify, firms like BIG do a great job of selling their work using the conventional flashy and informative methods, but I'm not talking about how a firm sells its work. This post is about integrating the user into the design process in more significant ways than showing attractive renderings, and flipping through some floorplans (which the majority of users can't read anyway). The architect needs to communicate on the level of the users. I really appreciated Jeremy Till's ideal for the contemporary architect in his statement, "The architect, moving between the worlds of expert and citizen, engages with the world as organic intellectual, a new form of professional."
It is true that architects are interpreters of the users and therefore will never fully achieve their desires, but the challenge is: how can you enable the user to understand your ideas and better articulate theirs?
Great post. I similarly commented on the idea of architect as expert and citizen, and think it is up to the architect to be able to articulate their ideas in way the public can understand, but at the same time be able to to critically incorporate the users' ideas into their design, should they be derived from informed suggestions from the users.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree. I was actually thinking along these lines when I saw this video that Kindall posted on the facebook page last night
ReplyDeletehttp://www.archdaily.com/781534/the-story-behind-the-most-creative-job-application-weve-ever-seen?ad_medium=widget&ad_name=most-visited-index
The application is SO easy to understand and by combining music, moving images, and a very clear language EVERYONE can understand that this is an application.
Architects need to communicate on a basic level for everyone to understand and effectively meet the users needs.