White Water

Reading Habraken’s “Questions that will not go away”, I became truly aspired by his comments in the follow passage: 

“Good architecture, we instinctively believe, is the stone in the midst of running water. The common environment, however is the running water and change by way of adaptation over time is essential for its continued existence.” 

Now to provide some background for why this really stood out to me. During the summer of 2006, while working as a summer camp counselor, for one day during each week I became a river raft guide for the Boy Scouts. It was an experience that has remained vivid in my mind and anytime I read anything about water movement, I ponder back to those days. You can be the judge on how successful I was a guide from the image below: 

 

(Poor kids didn't stand a chance... ) 

In the passage Habraken describes that architecture could be thought of similar to a stone in a river, or broken down further in my mind as a rapid. The stone in the river can cause the water to do many different actions such as shift course, run over on top of stone, or break against the stone. Rapids are form by this very action. While white water rafting you look for these opportunities on a river to increase the enjoyment of trip. Thus this made me think about the user or public as the passengers on the river experiencing the river and the impact that these moments have on the users. Which is what Habraken was crafting with this use of this passage. 

The water within the river will flow at the same rate no matter what is in its path. As architects we have the opportunity to sculpt the experience for the users by the placement of these stones or rocks. One single stone/rock can cause a rapid on a scale like a Class 1 to Class 2 (possibly Class 3) depending on the magnitude of the stone. Similar, depending on how impactful an architectural wonder is craft, it can have a larger single effect on the user compared to other works. The large rapids or higher class rapids, come about when rapids work in succession. Which can lead to the question can we craft architecture to relate to other works to provide a higher impact on the users? One single work can provide an example that will be remembered for a long duration of time but a group of works will be remembered as a collective and will cause the public to flock to it for the unique experience.  

I truly enjoyed Habraken's writing and his description on the passage of time on architecture. I think the one notion that wasn't referenced in his writing was the notion on memories. The public's experience with our work should be a primary point of consideration when we are designing. Memories can last for a lifetime. So go out there, make a few memories for yourself and remember to paddle faster when you hear bango music!!