By Sam Hewitt
Frames
Consider the Physical Structure, massing, materials, and overall composition through firsthand observation:
Explanation: When analyzing a building, first use your senses and observe the structure or what you can of it; what are the materials the shapes, the overall composition? Try to linger and understand this first before analyzing other aspects of the structure. Maybe look at details and textures as well. First experience the structure through your senses.
Example: The EMU Building on the University of Oregon Campus looks plain from the exterior. I initially judged the building to be simply designed and knowing that it was a student center thought it would be gimmicky. Walking in, and feeling the height, and observing the different elements my experience and opinion of the building changed. Before judging the structure understand it experientially. Firsthand observation is vital for a critical assessment since you need you own opinion to contrast against others.
References: What is Modern Architecture and Crafting Architectural Criticism.
Consider the User Experience and how people will interact with the space:
What are the main programmatic purposes of the structure? In what ways will the built structure guide people in their daily tasks. This is a look at the building’s functionality in relation to people. What are the different paths through the space and how will interacting with the space change people for better or worse (Or not at all)? Consider many different users to gain varied user perspectives.
Examples: Casa Mila By Antoni Gaudí, is a great example of a very experiential building. The ornamentation, color and design is captivating and yet it is an extremely functional building. The program in this case co-evolves with the form instead of form following function or vis versa (If anything, it leans towards function following form and aesthetic.
How does the structure interacts with the surrounding environment:
What are the landscape features, climate, vegetation, wildlife, and ecosystems? Apply these observations objectively to the design and seek how well it directly, instead of judging based on mainstream ideas that you. may have picked up on unknowingly.
Example: Falling Water by Frank Loyd Wright is a great example of a building responding to the environment; in this case the flow of water down a river a waterfall. The buildings form balances out the flow of the river and the series of waterfalls remains unobstructed while enhancing the house itself.
Scale: Room/Whole Building
How does the style, symbology, and composition reflect the architect’s ideas?
Explanation: The central purpose with this rule is to understand the design through the designer; their ideas, biases,and intentions. In Ornamentation and crime it becomes obvious that the author holds a lot of strong bias and isn’t very open to exploring other ideas. When looking at These skyscrapers and other modern architecture, it helps contextualize it all.
Examples: Reading ornamentation and crime it becomes clear that Loos holds a lot of bias toward modern architectural principles. Understanding this basis and biases it becomes more clear the style and purpose of his designs and more importantly the ideas his design support and do not support, as well as the people included and rejected from the design concept. While looking at a barren modern architectural piece like Mies Van Der Rohe’s Farnsworth house, the purpose of the lack of ornamentation is somewhat ambiguous. Understanding that Mies was simply a minimalist stylistically, informs the structure as opposed to a minimal building of Loose, which would be a statement that denigrates the artisans and workers in favor of ornamentation.
How does each room function and how does it respond to the needs of it’s inhabitants/users? Or how do the users adapt to the space?
Explanation: Inhabitants and users of spaces will adapt to and be shaped by the desi gn elements of the room, and understanding to what extent they adapt can inform how well the design is working. Since functionality is still important for a space. It is vital to look on the small scale how the kitchen, bedroom, and various other spaces work and don’t work for the inhabitants. This can both inform the success of the building and combined with other frames can get at the root of why the structure was designed as it is.
Examples: In Home Planning and gender in mandatory Palestine, the author talks about the Frankfurt kitchen as a means to optimize the kitchen and reinvigorate the housewife. Notably this design didn’t fully take into account the desires of women users so wasn’t fully successful.
Scale: Private
Reference: Home Planning and Gender in mandatory Palestine
Who were the people funding and in the positions of power and what were their intentions and goals?
Explanation: When looking at a design, I think that it is important to understand the economic side of things since the flows of money and the sources of these channels help shape the project program, intentions and ultimately built form. Analyzing projects from this perspective is also a way of understanding the levels and positions of power within a project. THis analysis may require researching people and thinking critically about their intentions, goals, and biases.
Examples: We can uses any building as an example since power structures and biases exist in all projects. Once ancient example are the Primdids at Giza. While we can only infer about how they were built because there is barely any documentation, we can infer much about the power structures since we have a better sense of the social, cultural and political system then. For one we know that the Pyramids are meant as a burial structure, and that some sort of “technology” was used from documentation. The technology was likely not advanced but since we know the purpose, pride and importance of the structure as a religious structure that Pharos would spend a lifetime building, we know that there was a devotion and religious adherence to these projects.
Reference: Incompletion, Arindam Dutta in that it focuses on the pitfalls of large scale projects that try to do too much as well as the pitfalls of bureaucratic processes for large scale architectural and planning projects.
To what extent is the design tied to past and present social and cultural movements?
Explanation: It is valuable to understand the context of a design in relation to its place within a geographic region, city and even country. What is the history of the city, what are the social movements? How do these movements impact and inform the designer and design of the building. This is an attempt to understand place from the perspective of the social and cultural place.
Examples: The Open City, (Ciudad Abierta) a commune with experimental architecture in Chile is deeply tied to the socio economic situation in Chile and also is tied to the cultural change within the field of architecture in Chile and more broadly Latin America. With the economic instability and the rise of Pinochet, along with the formalist universal modernism taking hold, Alberto Cruz and others responded in a partially escapist in the more communal experimental projects in the Open City. Whether this was a response isn’t fully clear but there was definitely an interplay as architecture was very enmeshed into the culture and political arena.
Reference: Chile Research
Scale: City/Country/Public
In what ways is the design a response to the local culture and needs?
Explanation: A key part of architecture is its functional aspect. There is a sliding scale of projects being monetarily driven and purpose driven. Where on this sliding scale does the project sit? Maybe this scales isn’t mutually exclusive but understanding who this project is responding to in the local community if at all is vital. Since housing is a necessity people will pay pay for housing out of need. This need can be taken advantage of with weak or no design.
Examples: A prime example of this is how ArchiAid helped design better communities in the rebuild efforts in Japan after the 2011 Earthquake. This shows a direct response to the needs of the local community. In many cases this is not present and it it important to understand in evaluating the importance or impact of a design and structure.
References: Radically Public Architecture
What is the Balance Between Technology and Culture? Are the design choices aligned with trends or design framework?
Explanation: As talked about in Towards a Critical Regionalism, the author talks about balancing the side of technology with cultural impulses. I think this is a great framework for more generally understanding architectual choices. There can be contrivance on both sides of the spectrum, but understanding if technology or symbology is used for the sake of a trend versus responding to a need is an important framework.
Example: The ECLA building in Chile, serves as a great example of a building responding to the geographic environment and to the cultural environment (It’s success is debatable). The building responds to the environment in many way. In one instance, there is a ramping stairway to a lookout as a viewpoint to look out into the andes. These mountains are a prominent feature. Along the spiraling ramp up, there are culturally significant symbols relating to ancient tribes that inhabited the land. In this way it was a response to social and cultural environment. Whether these responses were authentic responses is up for debate yet there is a response to the surrounding environment.
Reference: Towards a Critical Regionalism, Chile Research
Revised Guideline
These are the series of questions to go through to better understand and analyze any design. This guideline is based on the previous iteration but revised based on the frames found throughout the course readings and research.
- Start with experiential observations
- How does the design respond to the unique environment?
- What is the massing, materials, unique physical features?
- How does this design affect the broad spectrum of users; how does it affect them the same or differently?
- What are the feelings and associations that this structure evokes?
- Where are the flows of power and capital?
- What were the incentives of the designers and stakeholders, who was this designed for and does this align with the incentives of the flows of capital?
- What is the program and the function?
- How does the function interact and relate to the form? Is one given preference?
- What social, cultural, and political context does this building reflect or was influenced by?
