Form and Impression
At the VELUX Daylight Symposium in Bilbao in the spring of 2007, the insight into how America treats its children gave particular cause for reflection. In California, pupils are forced into derelict, shabby, unattractive rooms with no daylight. You don’t need to be a professor of psychology to realise that depressing environments of this kind, with a complete absence of experience, lead to problems with unhappy and maladjusted children. The atmosphere is evidence of a lack of welfare provision that appears to be contagious. It is not surprising that the performance and happiness of the children improves by up to 25% when daylight is let into the rooms (as architect and researcher Lisa Heschong discovered) – and, importantly, through windows that the children are able to see out of. Lisa Heschong’s research has produced clear evidence that daylight and a view are imperative for physical and mental health.
But what about all the other factors that contribute to a complete spatial experience?
How does our environment affect us? The town, the building, the room, the landscape – even the last is designed by humans. When it comes down to it, our entire environment is the work of humans. But is it also humane?
Space plus form equals impressions. But how are they created? We know very little about this, and science can help us little in understanding more about it. There are too many factors that work together here. We need to develop different methods to ensure that architects and builders build for people instead of jumping on the next mega-trend in the international flying circus of architecture.
There is not enough research that is able to qualitatively analyse building environments and consequently provide support for planners and constructors. There are various approaches to this, but there is no real research carried out about the mental and emotional effects of architecture. At least we do know something about human behaviour in different types of urban space and under different climatic and cultural conditions. Among others, architect Jan Gehl and a network of urban researchers addressed this subject, and for a generation, it has been one of the basic principles for avoiding social planning errors. Even if, in building projects, many other objectives often elbow this information out, there are also already certain guidelines for humane urban development based on a behaviouristic approach. But we still know little about what exactly goes on inside people.
In many ways, architecture has become removed from its origins, in other words, the intention of creating a stimulating framework for human life. Moving in time with technological development (and assisted by helpful computers) we are faced increasingly with newer, more fantastic and seductive designs, that sprinkle a builder’s glittering magic dust over projects. But what is it really like living and being in these phantasms that express more what we can do that what we actually want?
The architect’s responsibility is still to create a humane, healthy, sustainable and life-affirming space for the lives that flow through the channels of architecture.