HEIDEGGER

1. Yes, our interactions do affect the building; a building can be designed for one purpose but used for an entirely different one. And yet, the next user can decide on another purpose still. Our interactions as designers and clients do affect the building. As designers we are responsible for ensuring that we are creating spaces that are adequate for the user, but are also able to adapt to new users, and as clients we must be sure to accurately describe what we want in a building.

2. It is definitely valuable to search for authenticity in architecture, because without giving buildings solid roots within its place, it is not much better off than the cookie cutter architecture we all know and hate. FLW’s Fallingwater was the first project to come to mind as an example of searching for authenticity. When I visited the house, the amount of care and detail put into joining different pieces of the building together, as well as placing the building on the site, is something that should be more prominent in architecture today.

3. I do not think we can design with a sense of permanence comparable to that of the celestial bodies, and I do not think we can even think of anything about mankind with this sense, either. But, I do think that buildings have another kind of permanence in relation to humankind; building materials are not infinite, and designing and building should reflect that buildings will one day become something else, and it should not be designed to become trash!

-Talisa