Ureta 1 Omar Ureta Guvenc Ozel Theory of Architecture 1 February 2013 A day in the life of....us?

What creates a setting? What do you feel when you're in this setting? Look around as you read this paper. What is around you? What objects are there that support the activity you're doing? What kind of place is created filled with these objects? Such objects, a table, chair, lamp, your computer, your home, the building across the street are all important to which Peter Prangnell says that these objects "...manifests human relevance." (Objects 12) Objects are "charged with information we absorb into our personal system of connections." (Objects 12) Prangnell's approach to architecture begins with an experience generated by the objects we have around us. These objects create settings where we perform our day to day lives. Instead of the abstract formalistic approach architecture has directed itself, empty of human relevance. Prangnell proposes a phenomenological proposition towards design. "We have to think less about "space" as an abstract sort of thing and much more of it being the result of things in certain relationships with each other." (Objects 15) I will establish the theories and ideas derived from the phenomenological approach by providing studies and criticisms from architects Peter Prangnell, Christopher Alexander, Kevin Lynch and Aldo Van Eyck. These approaches are justified by the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger, the writings of Gaston Bachelard and anthropologist Edward T. Hall. Our everyday lives and experiences with the built environment should contribute towards richer architectural typologies with meaning and understandings by everyone. What is Phenomenology? According to Professor David Seamon of the department of Architecture at Kansas State University, "...as the exploration and description of phenomena, where phenomena refer to things or experiences as human beings experience them. "

Ureta 2 (Seamon, 2) Architecture provides the spaces for which we experience, as our senses provide the connections. But as Anthropologist Edward T. Hall notes that there are few designers that fully utilize most of our senses to fully appreciate most notably by touch. "Touch is the most personally experienced of all sensations." (Hall, 62) As today's architecture is heavily reliant on visuals sensations, touch is the least used among designers. Hall says we are denied our sense of being in contact with something, relating ourselves with the world in which we live. (Hall 61) Automobiles for example, especially American, "...are designed to give as little feeling of the road as possible, much of the joy of riding in sports cars or even a good European sedan is the sense of being in contact with the vehicle as well as with the road." (Hall 61). There is a wholeness to the experience created in architecture. A home for example comprised of windows, doors, floors, walls and roofs can be compared to the parts that make up a car. The chairs, beds, appliances, within the house allow us to fully experience the elements that make up a home. Similarly in a car, we have the steering wheel, seats, radio, and the dash equipment, all which allow us to fully experience a car. Though this analogy resembles what Le Corbusier mentions in his book "Towards a New Architecture," where he calls for designing on a machine quality that can be mass produced, Corbusier does not go further into the experiential implications of his analogy. The objects of a setting play an important part in our lives. Prangnell calls these inanimate constructions such as a desk or window "Friendly Objects". The use of the word "friendly" is important because is "manifests human relevance." (Objects 12) An immediately useful device that is "responsive to the care, or neglect , we may give them."(Objects 14) In the spaces we occupy with these things, a pattern of the relations is formed. These patterns as Prangnell describes, "suggest what is expected of us (though whether we comply or not is up to us- we may be obstinate and refuse to join in)." But if no patterns are formed we become "disoriented," unable to find a purpose as to what the objects function is or appreciate the beauty behind its form. (Objects 15) This detachment and disorientation is common in today's architecture.

Ureta 3 "Buildings are often desert-like. Being either too bland or too precise, they can be preceived as humiliating arrangements of too few, or to many, unfriendly objects." (Objects 15) Prangnell's statement charges that many buildings are simply not useful. As much as the modern movement's attempt to reduce all design to being functional. But being only functional is not the only requirement as modernism seems to have concluded. They are "unreceptive to the propensities, the habits of their inhabitants." (Objects 17) Architect Aldo Van Eyck own observations supports Prangnell's view of modernism, " Modern architects have been harping continually on what is different in our time to such an extent that even they have lost touch with what is not different, with what is always essentially the same...they narrowed down experience." (Smithson 22) Prangnell applies this to his teachings at the Columbia University where his students became engaged with the "day in the life of" aspect of architecture. By designing for the experience one can create more meaningful architecture at a level for the everyday. As Van Eyck simply puts it, "We can meet ourselves everywhere in all places and ages- doing the same things in a different way, feeling the same differently, reacting differently to the same. (Smithson 22) Development of these settings are advanced by relating to historical precedents, built architecture that is similar in setting but different in context. Sitting on a chair in your backyard overlooking the mountains from beyond the fences provides a private view of the natural landscape. Residents of the Casbah in the Algiers with their private roof terraces offer the same setting of a private view of the natural landscape, but in different contexts. An architectural example is Aldo Van Eyck's "Orphanage" project in Amsterdam is an excellent example of using all the senses to create a place. How these spaces are defined is begins with their layout between themselves and other spaces, a program. In an interview with Rem Koolhaas on the importance of program asserts that this arrangement of spaces "where any aspect of daily life could be imagined and enacted through the architect's imagination." (Koolhaas, 7)

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Annotated Bibliography Annotated Bibliography 1. Prangnell, Peter. The Friendly Object. North Carolina: Lulu.com, 2010. Print Prangnell's book defines the phrase "friendly objects" and how such things as the desks we write on, the street lights we walk under give us relevance to the built environment we live in. His critiques of modern approaches in architecture as preordained fixated solutions counter the habits of the user who will eventually use them. 2. Prangnell, Peter. Floor, Wall, Roof: Three building elements: A Primer. North Carolina: Lulu.com. 2009. Print Prangnell's book illustrates the design methodologies towards design. His concept of Support, Fill, and Action redefine architecture " as places for homecoming." To generate life, activities that we do. He explains the principal parts of architecture, the floor, wall and roof as a "system of signals by which we navigate ourselves each and everyday, to many homecomings. 3. Prangnell, Peter. Some Houses, Some Constellations. North Carolina: Lulu.com. 2009 Print Pragnells collection of essays from publication Societa/ Space and Society is his analysis of notable homes built during the 20th century. Prangnell, Peter. Arch. Ed. North Carolina: Lulu.com, 2009. Print Prangnell's book is a recount of his days as a professor at the University of Toronto. His development of a new curriculum in the design studio tests his concepts of approaching architecture with great success. Here he explains the process and the struggles of creating a new program for the school of architecture.

Ureta 5 4. Smithson, Alison Margaret. Team 10 Primer. MIT Press, 1968. Print This book contains a collection of essays from a group of architects identified as Team 10, who are highly critical of the modernist movement. 5. Jarvis, R.K. Urban Environments as visual art or as social settings?. Urban Design Reader. Architectural Press, 2007 This review emphasizes creating settings that allow for social interaction in the urban context. Such interactions support the everyday activities. Jarvis lists three processes to create social settings. 6. Tibbalds, Francis. Places matter most. Urban Design Reader, Architectural Press, 2007 Tibbalds emphasizes studying the often overlooked typology. Designs must have a positively useful relationship between day to day activities and the buildings that support it. 7. Alexander, Christopher. A Pattern Language. Oxford University Press, 1977. Print 8. Lynch, Kevin. The Image of the City. MIT Press, 1960. Print 9. T Hall, Edward. The Hidden Dimension. Anchor Books, 1966. Print 10. Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics of Space. Beacon Press, 1958. Print 11. Harries, Karsten. The Ethical Foundation of Architecture. MIT Press, 1997. Print 12. Salingaros, Nikos. Anti-Architecture and Deconstruction. UMBAU-VERLAG, 2004. Print 13. Seamon, David. A Way of Seeing People and Place: Phenomenology in Environment-Behavior Research. Kansas State University 14. Lefaivre, Liane. Aldo Van Eyck: Humanist Rebel. 010 Publishers, 1999. Print 15. Le Corbusier. Towards a New Architecture. Dover Publications, MOODLE 16. Miljacki, Ana. 2 Architects, 10 Questions On Program Rem Koolhaas and Bernard Tschumi. MOODLE