Experience - Bridging Functionality and Form

Spiral
Originally uploaded by Blisterman.

One of the biggest areas of contention in architecture, in the last 100 years has been, the conflict between functionality and form. How a building works vs how a building looks.

It's an interesting arguement, one which both sides are equally passionate about.
The functionalists believe that the most important quality of a building is how well it performs the task it was designed for.
It's a valid argument. Zaha Hadid's Vitra Fire Station, is aestetically highly regarded, by many critics, architects and casual architecture fans. However, as a fire station, it was a miserable failure. It's now a museum gift shop. Can it still be considered great architecture?

Advocates of putting Aesthetics first, the 'function follows form' approach, argue that looking good is a function. In fact it's an important function, and that's it's easy to create a building that works. The true mark of great architecture, is creating a piece of beauty.

This is also a valid arguement. Purely functional buildings, such as the "Machine for Living" that Le Corbusier described, are often times, sterile, boring and depressing places to be in.

There are of course many architects who fall somewhere between the two extremes in regards to their approach to architecture.
What I'm going to explain here. Is my approach towards architecture. It's not a manifesto, or a style, it's a philosphy.
My approach, through every stage of design is to always consider experience.
What do you want the experience of using your building to be like. It's a holistic approach, taking every aspect of the building into account.
What do you want people to experience, when they approach your building, pass it, see it in context? Do you want it to be inconspicious in its setting, so people don't even notice it's there? Does it stand out and amaze people with its beauty?
What is the entrance like? Is entering it a grand, theatrical experience. Do you want people to feel slightly intimdated, or feel completly welcome?
What is it like to move from one part of the building to another? Is it easy and straightforward? Is it slightly awkward, but interesting and exciting? What is the experience of sitting at a desk in the building like? What is it like to fall asleep inside it?

The possibilities are endless. No two architects would create the same experience, because every architect has different priorities, but if the buildings are carefully thought out in this way, the result should be buildings which are functional, beautiful, good places to visit. And above all, be created with the end user 100% in mind.
There is nothing really new, or groundbreaking about this approach. It seems completely logical, but it seems, not too many architects think about their buildings in this way, and the end result is buildings, which are either functional, but horrible places to visit, or superficially pretty buildings, which are highly inefficient.
The experience first approach, used intellegently and carefully, can result in buildings which work in every aspect.

The Atomium

Atomium from Below
Originally uploaded by Blisterman.

Went to this building over the summer, and man, was it impressive. I;d only seen pictures of it before, and I had assumed it was a sculpture, maybe 3 stories high. I was not at all expecting it to be so big It's over 100 metres tall. Each sphere has a diameter of 9m, to give some idea of the scale.
It's a unique, and very impressive building. The tubes linking each sphere have escalators in them, so you can reach the top, where, despite what it looks like, there are windows, which you can get a great view from.
According to Wikipedia, it was designed by André Waterkeyn for the 1958 World's Fair.
Loads of great architecture seems to stem from World's Fairs, The Eiffel Tower, the Seattle Space Needle, The Crystal Palace in London. It's a shame no one really seems to care about World's Fairs any more. There was one 2 years ago, and I don't remember ever hearing about it. I'd love to go to one.
Well, there's one in 2010 in Shaghai. Maybe I'll go to that.
I'm kinda rambling on here. All I wanted to say, was that the Atomium Rock, and you should go see it.

It's in Brussels, in case you were wondering.

Ornamentation and architecture

Ornamentation is a crime - Adolf Loos

One of the most famous architecture quotes in history, and one of the founding principles of the modernist movement. Adolf Loos claims that ornamentation causes objects to go out of style, and thus become obsolete.
Until the 20th century, most architecture styles had ornamentation, Classicism, Baroque, Gothic, Art Nouveau, to name but a few. Are they out of style?
Well, they definetely are styles. Modernism was never concieved of as a style. It was supposed to be a revolution, that would eliminate the need for styles, and its buildings would never go out of fashion. I suppose it's Ironic that nowadays Modernism is considered a style, and not only that, it's probably the style, that is least in fashion at the moment.
Why is this? Is it because it hasn't had a chance to come back to fashion yet?
I think, that it is in fact, due to its lack of ornamentation. Sure, a building can look good without it. There are countless beautiful non ornamented buildings, but there also an awful lot of crap. People like ornamentation. Need proof? Go to any city, and look at what buildings have the most tourists taking pictures of them. They are the cathedrals, the palaces, the gothic, the classical. There are very few people taking pictures of modernist tower blocks.
If this is the case, why are there so few buildings being built today with any ornamentation? Is the modernist state of mind still overwhelmingly the case?, or are architects just afraid of breaking precedent?
Maybe the problem is that no one knows how to create a building with ornamentation in this day and age. How do you add ornamentation, without creating pastiche? How do you ornament a building to reflect the society of today? How do you avoid being tacky?
I don't know, but maybe it's something we should be thinking about, as architects of the future.

Architects' Websites

Why do so many well known architects have such badly designed websites?
I'll give you some examples.
Grimshaw Architects
Zaha Hadid
Richard Rogers
Gumuchdijan Architects
In fact, just about every architect's webpage I've visited had an annoying flash based page.
Problems with flash:
A: Hard to navigate. you can't press back, without leaving the site.
B: You Can't link to a certain page.
C: You need to install software to view them
D: You can't save images. Seeing as these sites are basically ads for the firms, you'd think they'd want you saving their work.
E: Site isn't indexed on Google. I searched for "gumuchdjian think tank boathouse" in google, and Gumuchdjian's site wasn't even listed.
F: A lot of them open in popup windows, which is very annoying.
and a special mention to OMA for resizing your browser every time you go to their website.

Sure, Flash based sites look nice (I was gonna say flash, but I decided not to. Whoops, too late), but aren't architects supposed to be able to design buildings which are functional, as well as beautiful. I wouldn't consider any of those sites to be very well designed, from a functional point of view.

I was going to finish this post, by giving an example of an architect's page, which was well designed, and was an example of what every architect's website should be, but, I swear to god, I couldn't find one. In fact, the only non flash based one I found was Michael Graves' Website., Which is not even that great, to be honest.

Sorry if this sounds like a big rant, It's just something that annoys me.

Future Systems Bridge

Future Systems Bridge
Originally uploaded by Crapfork.

I just added my Flickr Account to my Blog, so lets see if this works, and I'll be able to post pictures I take to my Blog, because, after all, an Architecture Blog without pictures would be a bit crap.

This is a picture I took of the Bridge designed by Future Systems, one of my favourite firms working today.
It's located ay West India Dock in Canary Wharf. I really love Canary Wharf at nighttime. It's quiet, and the buildings look beautiful all lit up and reflecting off the water. I really like being surrounded by tall buildings, I don't know why. I suppose it gives a feeling of enclosure and security. Like city walls used to in the past.

First Post

Since it's my first post, I should introduce myself. I'm in my third year of Architecture in London South Bank University in London. I'm originally from Dublin, Ireland.
I bore my non architecture friends to death whenever I talk about architecture with them, so I thought I'd start a Blog to express my opinion on architecture, and spare them from it.

The title of the Blog, Pet Architecture refers to a type of architecture, found in Japan, which is basically small buildings built in small undeveloped spaces around the city, which are like pets, to the larger buildings around them. There's a book about it, the pages of which, for some reason turn left to right, so the ends at the front. Crazy japanese publishers.

Anyway, I just like the name, not particularly the architecture (It's a good idea though.), so I probably won't mention that book again. What I will talk about is anything that comes to mind, related to architecture. I'll try and keep it interesting.