The built environment consisting of the most gigantic artificial creation is ironically the thing that the people are mostly oblivious to. Architecture is a universal set for the subsets of social space, perceived space, and the conceived (lived) spaces. But, these spaces ludicrously are a blind spot in a person’s subconscious. And, studying architecture unveils this invisibility cloak over the milieu domain and opens up a person to the multifaceted existence of the built environment. Resultantly, one comprehends that architecture attempts to interact with the people by recounting the tale of a spot. And, architects are blessed with the privilege to wear the lens of architecture that persistently lets a person read these beautiful stories, a lens with the competence to generate a notional experience of these stories. Further enabling mental navigability of spaces across different time frames, a person tries to connect the dots between the past, the present, and the future. Powered by these traits, architects have the privilege to impact and uplift society with their works that are adapting, evolving, and corresponding to the changing demands raised by time.
Language of Architecture
For an amateur, buildings are mere objects in an environment. But with architecture being a language of nature flips the grammatical rules making the buildings the subjects and people the objects in any given context. And, the play of nature acts as a verb in this language that sets the places into motion. Architects realize that people’s actions in spaces are rather reactions to the psychological realm created by the built environment. This principle becomes a universal foundation making way for several other concepts to be incorporated.
Architecture: A speciality with no specialization
After procuring the above-said lens of architecture, the art of space-making ironically posits a challenge to architects to think as various stakeholders of the built environment. The challenge makes space-making an incredibly fascinating way to create the subjects (buildings) for the objects (people). The creative process with buildings as a focal point demands architects to switch roles between amateurs and professionals. Stuck in this state of dualism forever, architects realize that establishing a symbiotic relationship between the built environment and people is crucial, only to concede that there is no single focal point in the agenda of architecture. The question that now arises is whether Architecture – the study of the buildings or is Architecture – the habitat studies.
The inclusion of habitat studies further broadens the domain of architecture, implying that architecture is a study of the built and the unbuilt environment. An amateur often associates architecture only with huge constructed masses. But architects come to realize that built and unbuilt spaces are the Yin and Yang of the environment. And, it is these open spaces that add character to the built environment incorporating all the intangible aspects in architecture. The unbuilt spaces in a built environment instill a sense of belongingness in people by generating a reciprocal genius loci by the concentration of the people. On the other hand, the mere congregation of buildings gives rise to an impersonal atmosphere for the users and inhabitants.
Architecture’s Impact on People’s Subconscious
Architecture has the power to influence the actions of people both physically and emotionally without them knowing. And, architects must establish this connection between the building and its inhabitants as a person only remembers how he felt and not what he saw. And also the fundamental of architecture is how one feels in it, how one behaves, thinks, and acts in it. The built environment uses space, light, material, colors, and visual and non-visual connections to nature to affect the mood of a person, which can trigger an emotion or a memory and help to instill a sense of belongingness. Thus a person must sense the intended feeling in a place because it influences his well-being.
Architecture: By the people for the people
Architecture is very tricky as it posits the challenge to include all of the multi-dimensional aspects of the built environment to derive a 3-dimensional mass. Architecture intersects with all the possible professional domains and demands architects to act as a bridge between all. It is funny how a field so intricately intertwined with all others is in itself a vast void and depends on everything but itself for mere existence.
It implies that people aren’t just the consumers; they are also contributors to the space-making process. All considered, architects often referred to as creators of spaces are only reorganizers of the built environment whose job is to generate structural and infrastructural solutions.
The education of architecture changes a person’s perspective towards everything. It puts a person on the other side of the coin concerning their perception of the built environment. And with time, architecture starts to reveal its precarious nature and transmogrifies into something different every time, always keeping its pupils on their toes.
