Form follows Function

“If high-style architects are not producing what people want or need, who is, and what can we learn from them?”

 

Denise Scott Brown’s view on designing for peoples’ needs takes a stance on accounting for design limitations of all behavioristic analysis.  When architects begin to design for a specific group of people, the background context should reflect that of the potential buyers’, and not the perspective of outsiders.

 

This ideal of background in architecture should differ amongst groups, and not rely solely on their economic constraints.  Everyone deserves to have a sense of identity and pride in their environment, not a retaliation to a lack of functionality within said space, such as (not-so) affordable housing units.  For example, the Vanna Venturi House design was a purely abstract design based on the ideal of centrality.  The heart of the house being the chimney, where the main circulation and functions of each room helped establish the geometry of the outer shell, giving the house a sense of gathering.

I truly believe a person’s response to their environment is more so a survival tactic, and less of a response to the architecture.  To impact an occupant’s design wants and needs, it is necessary for the architect to submerge themselves within the environment for the truest discovery. 

The debate concerning the “Duck” and “Decorative Shed” is perhaps an exaggerated solution to this problem, but if high-style architects understood an unfamiliar canvas from the inside looking out, they could more successfully design a functional space with a complimentary form that exudes a sense of pride in its’ occupants.