The Novelty of an Unfinished Basement

 

This weeks reading and lecture deal with the importance of the user in the design process and less about the architect. In the lecture, it was discussed when referring to Habraken’s first reading, how the role of the architect as a profession is a relatively new concept, and that before this the user had been both the designer and the user. Habraken then continues in this first reading about the importance of flexibility and adaptability of the design in order for the user to act on their own creativity, 

Between the text and specifically the example of the illegal construction in the Canary Islands with the houses that were built on top of adaptable space, I had thought of a lighthearted personal example. Growing up we had an unfinished basement with concrete floors, exposed CMU, and steel columns scattered throughout. When my little sister became really interested in volleyball, she had used the basement to create a smaller version of a court, with painters tape on the ground for the boundary and string tied in between columns to create a net. Not at all how the designer intended the space to be used, but because it had been left unfinished, its flexibility allowed for a whole different space to be created that was catered to and designed by the user and their creativity.