Building Perceptions

Throughout the histories of modern architecture and modern landscape design, two distinct yet broad schools of thought have existed: the intellectual, or rational, and the experiential, or empirical. Intellectual works require a previously acquired knowledge of the analogy, symbol or representation which was used to rationalize each design move. By contrast, in experiential works, human emotions and senses are realized and are given hierarchical precedence in the thought processes of design. The current growth of both techniques of presentation and representation via digital technology as a generative means of creating architecture has taken the inhabitants out of the design process in order for the architect to achieve his or her own personal agendas. Such works represent the pursuit of an “architecture of autonomy” whose target audience is the architectural elite. These intellectually and technologically driven processes produce architecture for architecture’s sake resulting in the creation of inhabitable sculpture alien to everyday human activity. Yet architecture has always possessed the capacity to engage the senses of its users, visitors and inhabitants in order to promote a heightened sense of awareness of the immediate architectural milieu. One’s built surroundings can bring forth the realization that the work of architecture itself is conceived and built according to how a person might perceive, interact with and circulate through the spaces.