As you design your building, do you ever think about what will remain “standing” both physically and in the minds of those that experience it in the future?

Yes, buildings weather and must pass certain “tests of time”, but do you ever consider whether your building will be worth “saving”, or will even be in use as time passes? It has been said that “[i]t takes a lot of money to build a building, but it doesn’t cost that much more to...

Within architectural space it is important to establish a sense of place. This is true not only for the architecture to be good but also for your experience within that space to be memorable. Did you know that your memory and your sense of place are closely linked?(1) Creating an environment involves designing for meaningful experiences — to do this, establishing a sense of place is key.

In the paper Neuroscience and Architecture: Seeking Common Ground, both...

What makes architecture sacred? That spirituality that a “place” makes you feel often serves to inspire and provoke memory through the senses. By capturing and triggering important memories, architecture can bring people together to unite individual memories into a collective memory. Architecture can allow important moments to live on, sacredly, in this way.

In some regard, all good architecture has a spiritual quality about it. Such architecture triggers our senses to experience...

Title: Greening Modernism by Carl Stein (affiliate link)

URL: Greening Modernism by Carl Stein (affiliate link)

Purpose: Greening Modernism’s author, Carl Stein, makes a case for a more unified and holistic architecture that reaches a sustainable synergy through building reuse, with particular attention to the balance between the qualitative aspects of science and the more effect-driven aspects of utility and human experience.

Merging the Finite with the...

Title: The Architecture of Patterns by Paul Andersen and David Salomon

URL: The Architecture of Patterns (affiliate link)

Purpose: to explain how redefining pattern today can unleash new developments in architecture that lead toward greater evolution in building design, instead of merely repetitive building design. This book explains how rethinking patterns is key.

Does How You Perceive Pattern Really Make a Difference?

This book, entitled The Architecture of...

The Film Sense (affiliate link)

What Neuroscience is Telling Us

When you design and integrate an architectural feature to engage your building occupant, how do you think it affects them? For example, suppose your occupant is walking toward your building and is just about to enter it — during their approach they can see a waterfall feature just on the other side of the glass which separates the exterior from the interior. How do they process your interior design before ever...

Name: Sensory Design by Joy Monice Malnar and Frank Vodvarka

URL: Sensory Design (affiliate link)

Purpose: to explain in-depth and clearly how humans interact and perceive architectural design

THIS BOOK IS MUCH NEEDED IN OUR DISCIPLINE

Sensory Design is a book to really make you, as an architect, more aware of how your designs impact people. Taking and in-depth look at how humans perceive space and built form, Sensory Design is really quite a remarkable publication.

THE PROMISE OF UBIQUITOUS COMPUTING

When discussing the topic of ubiquitous computing, there is a particular author that really stands out — his name is Adam Greenfield. In his book Everyware: The Dawinng Age of Ubiquitous Computing (my affiliate link), he takes a look at how ubiquitous computing works and how it will affect society, in most all realms. Here, he explains more…

Everyware is an attempt to describe the form computing will take in the next few...

Name: Color, Environment & Human Response by Frank H. Mahnke

URL: Color, Environment, & Human Response (my affiliate link)

Purpose: to explain the physiological and psychological effects of color in architectural environments

THIS BOOK WILL LAST A LONG, LONG TIME

Color, Environment & Human Response is filled with seventeen chapters of detailed insight about how color really impacts occupants within architectural designs. The author, Frank H. Mahnke explains...

Finding One’s Architectural Perspective

Not everyone that experiences your architectural design will perceive it in the exact same manner. This is because of past experiences, that differ from person to person. In fact, according to an article in The Brain periodical, it is stated that people “organize sensory information in a systematic fashion and then match it against [their] own experience and knowledge”. (1) In other words, a person is more inclined to...