Control freak seeks same

My friend AL is kind of a control freak -- I'm sure everyone in architecture is, since we try to design everything in the buildings our users inhabit. She argues that she wants to control every experience users have in her buildings, every moment, every action. Her buildings are great and she does this well, but I don't feel the same way. This causes problems. I don't feel comfortable masterminding every action of users in the buildings I design because I feel that when people can adapt and change the buildings they use they are more satisfied with their environments and develop affection for their spaces. I'm not a good enough designer to guess what might need to be changed in the life of a building, so I want to design for change, design in a way that lets users adapt the building to their needs so the building doesn't need to be torn down because it can't be changed. I don't think anyone is a good enough designer to guess what use a building might have in 50 years -- not even the great ones. The best we can do is design in a way that allows buildings to adapt.

This is part of where the microarchitectural articulations (MA's) come from. It seems like a contradiction: putting furniture scaled elements into a building that I want to last a long time. Wouldn't it make more sense to leave the space as open and unworked as possible? Some natural light and good ventilation might make this a good building. But buildings have people in them, and I don't think it's reasonable to pass the design buck to furniture when the building needs to accomodate users. No one wants to work in a giant warehouse: someone has to make decisions about dividing walls and ceiling heights.

These surfaces are an attempt for the architect to do that. They aren't walls and ceilings. Instead, they are elements that limit where walls and ceilings can go. In the same way as a fireplace in a room will affect where all the furniture goes, MA's suggest different types of use in spaces.

I'm not suggesting that a building be made up of MA's. They are most useful as hubs. Strategically placed combinations of MA's act as social condensors. They create the kitchen party. You know how when you go to a party, especially in a large space, people always cluster together at the least convenient place? It could be the kitchen or the bar, or maybe by the stereo (depending of course on the type of party). This is especially visible at parties in rooms that are basically big open spaces. The reason for this is the kitchen, or bar, or stereo area is often the only part of the room that is scaled to the person. It happens in big plazas too: the whole thing is just so damn big that people cluster at the edges.

So MA's can provide the kitchen at the kitchen party: the human-scaled part of a space. If it is done carefully, it should be possible for them to work in a wide variety of situations. A large courtyard, for example, could be activated by these dohickeys. This is why choosing the program and project for my thesis is so important.

I could stick MA's into a preexisting building -- something warehouse-y and souless, and argue that they give human scale and make the place more liveable. This could work because I would have to use them to mediate current programmatic needs of the building and there would be some constraints because the building already exists. There aren't a lot of really large buildings that work poorly in this way in Vancouver that I can think of, so I'm not sure what building I could pick.

I could design them into an otherwise warehouse-y and souless building and argue that they make it less of both of those things, but I would still need to pick a program and site, and there aren't enough parameters to make the project rigorous. I've proved that I can stick articulated surfaces together to create interesting spaces. What I haven't done is found a mechanism that will help me determine how they should go together. The warehouse-with-MA does not provide this. My thesis advisor, M, has suggested that I do a meta-building that will work with many different programs and can be deployed in different situations.

I could identify two physically demanding programs and merge them by using MA's that address both at once. This sounds great in theory, but I'm having a tough time working out what programs they could be. Some possibilities include:

• Something that varies seasonally: A building that is used for festivals, or where the use changes significantly with the weather. An ice rink?
• A swing space - varies unpredictably: there's one on campus at UBC already... and the thing about swing space at the school is that offices and classrooms are all the same, even if they are needed for different faculties.
• Something that varies by day; something that is used for different programs during the week than over the weekend. Some possibilities could be office space/farmer's market or something like that. What kinds of activities only happen on weekends? Grocery shopping? it's been so long since I've had a real weekend, I don't know.
• Something that varies by hour: I gues this could be a school that is used for something different in the evenings (what, I don't know), or office space that turns into something different at night... It's a tough call, because any place where people spend a significant amount of time is a place where they will want to leave things all over their desk/office/bedroom.

Of these, the seasonal variation sounds the most interesting. Maybe there is a way to create a rental space in one of the parks in Vancouver that can act as a bunch of things: a gallery, a party room, a place for festivals... but these programs still aren't physically demanding enough.

Again, something that bears further thought...