Bricks, foundation, nuts, and bolts, who cares for them?
There was a time when architecture was a gate-kept secret for me. What goes on behind the scenes? Talks of Norman Foster’s genius, the innovative bamboo architecture of Eleanora Hardy, or the occasional keynote speakers of architects that talk about their design. Knowledge seeps through the public consciousness now and then, but why have few only grown up with it? The IT in question is a frame of thought.
I had just finished architecture school and decided to return home to my parents’ house. I met up with good friends and decided to chill around on the sofa. One of them decided to cast a YouTube video of someone interviewing a homeowner who decided to make a 3–4-person family house in a 44 m2 plot of land.
Designing with small spaces will always be a topic of interest in this economy. YES! But why?
My other friend who is planning to start an education in architecture, seemed interested in something other than the design idea. He had a say in how ugly the house’s colour palette was.
Another, who, despite having no educational experience in architecture, commented on the video. It went along the line of, ‘they always ask about the design concept of the house, but rarely make time to talk about electricity bills or water systems.
I wanted to know about the cooling strategies of the house.
And how? How did we reach these points of discussion on different frames of thought? I had wanted to know more about cooling strategies since it was heavily hammered during the third year. My one friend always had a keen interest in houses, seeing that she recently made a room extension to her house and kept house-building magazines around. The other who wanted to start an architectural education has experience from a simulated game that lets you build houses— Minecraft.
First-hand experience and education goes a long way.
So why have few grown up with it where other music, sports or mathematics practices get a great deal of everyday attention?
An easy answer to this would be something that a friend from architecture once said: “who cares about how different bricks are arranged or how the bolts of a building are placed? They barely make for an interesting topic.”.
This comes from the cynicism of a first-year architecture student.
Two years later, he got his answer, telling me, “I guess now we have to.”
To interrogate this talk of ‘architecture in the public consciousness’, the answers will depend on how prevalent Architecture, with a capital A, exists amongst communities in question.
There are a few ways to bury this argument as having a limited scope.
It might not be the case that ‘not everyone grows up with architecture’ might be a statistically true statement. Yet you see the access to gain knowledge on architectural drawings are few in the level of details it would go through and far from the everyday people that would bother to look in Detail magazine. Much more, in the case of the author of this article, a Southeast Asian background.
I will limit the scope of my argument to one book, Detail Magazine. Magazine issues that provide detailed 1:20 down to 1:5 drawings that I have witnessed Technology tutors in architecture swear by. Hence, this argument ought not to be taken as well-framed and supported truth, but to humour the pain of living in Southeast Asia and wanting to order the book.
To order the cheapest option of getting a copy of Detail Magazine, found on detail.de, you must choose the ‘DETAIL TEST Short Subscription’ option, which costs € 36.90 including VAT.
Since this article’s author lives in the ‘Rest of the World’ category, a single issue would set me back at € 7.00.
That amounts to € 43.90, which equates to roughly Rp—705.000,00 (Rp. as in Rupiah or Indonesian currency).
Quite a hefty price for anyone looking to buy a magazine that gives inspiration on architectural details.
At this rate, with the proven expense of sources of literature and even knowledge of the existence of this book, there are already two stated roadblocks to having this on hand growing up.
Southeast Asia might not be the only place where this would seem true. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics indicates a job outlook at architecture to be 3% slower than the average. An article by Kevin Dickinson indicates the urgency by architect Vicky Chan for architectural ways of thinking and methods to be taught in schools from an early age. A way of thinking that steps away from learning with memorisation and key information recital and learning to embrace problem-solving with uncertainties.
We need not imagine what human existence without architecture would look like because many of us would have experienced it already in the first 17 years. As anyone who has gone through prepping for an exam would imagine, it is.
So why have few only grown up with it? Perhaps a lack of accessibility to cheap literature or systems in place that does not prioritise creativity and problem-solving? The need to change priorities towards architectural thinking lies in the system’s willingness to allow such changes. The question now becomes the following things that I would think about on such topics:
What kind of people, places and activities would stimulate people to learn from an architectural way of thinking?
What images would be adequate to question the way we see the world through an architectural lens?
When will Detail Magazine open a Southeast Asian branch for cheap mass consumption of their issue?
References:
DETAIL. (2023) DETAIL TEST Short Subscription. DETAIL Business Information GmbH. [Online]
[Accessed on 14th June 2023] https://www.detail.de/en/de_en/versandkosten.
Dickinson, Kevin. (2019) Should architecture be taught in grade school?. 2nd April 2019. BigThink.
[Online] [Accessed on 14th June 2023] https://bigthink.com/the-present/architecture
school/.
US Bureau of Labor and Statistics. (2022) Occupational Outlook Handbook: Architects. 8th September
- [Online] [Accessed on 14th June 2023]
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and engineering/architects.htm.
Image References
Blockworks Ltd. Uncensored Library Fist. [Online Image] [Accessed on 23rd of June 2023] https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/58665ccfd482e9e92a7ff561/1584016702945-ET37T0XBPIHG97TVGDXX/02_Uncensored_Library_Fist+%281%29.jpg
DETAIL. (2023) Subscribe to Detail banner. [Online Image] [Accessed on 23rd of June 2023] https://detail-cdn.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/media/catalog/product/g/1/g158_01_detail_abo_banner_trial_en_1920x494px.jpg?width=265&height=265&store=de_en&image-type=image
