Heidegger

Personal interaction I believe does have an impact on building.  The attitude someone has can greatly influence the experience someone feels within space, however, I also believe that design can influence that attitude and interaction.  Clients and designers do influence buildings, which is why it’s important to understand what clients are looking for in their spaces and how designers can accomplish that feeling.  If a designer has a deep and understanding interaction with their designed space, the space will potentially become close to the intended experience.

Heidegger is using one of humankind’s greatest tools: language, in order to authenticate his claims.  An example of authenticity in architecture is the use of day lighting and orientation of buildings.  Through out history there has been a form of understanding the paths of the sun and a response to that phenomena in the built environment.  From the oculus in the Pantheon to the PV systems utilized today, there is always a correlation directed toward the solar understanding of that time.

One of the things I get from Heidegger’s words is that to dwell means to have a certain sense of  impermanence.  That greater systems of the sun, stars, sky all have a greater agenda and that we are here for a shy moment of that.  Human kind might have its impact now during their time but our “dwelling” is for the most part very temporary, and therefore has no hope of permanence across the span of all time.  However, I don’t think he wanted to discourage the attempt or push for progress.  We still have our time in history and can make a mark onto our sense of history.  Permanence I think is a relative term:  We can build and generate things and ideas that will last through out the ages, however if the society to which those ideas were important is gone, then so is the life of those ideas.  I think permanence is more concerned with the preservation of ourselves, witch deals with important issues of today like ecology and environment impact, then it does trying to design something that preexists us.

-Ben Nelson