Sunday, September 26, 2021

The problem is?

Comment I posted on: https://youtu.be/u_JQs5CbP1U entitled The First Problem Every Architect Faces

Good review of the factors that go to siting a building. My practice has been that good buildings come from a thorough understanding of the purpose the client has, at a strategic level, the program (what the client needs/wants/is interested in) developed to achieve the purpose, the place and the people (client, users, customers, servicers, builders). Of course, what flows from this is the performance the building is to achieve. The 5 Ps of architecture!

But all that aside, I want to comment on the title: the 'first problem'. At uni my tutors always referred to architectural design programs as 'problems'. My colleages still tend to do so. Engineers, bless them, solve problems, and sometimes very creatively. Architects go further. We organise new potentials for people. So, the problem a city has is that there's no library in a neighborhood? Problem? The idea of 'problem' is reductionistic and turns architects into solution preparers -- like chemists?. This is a triviality compared to what we really do: find opportunities and make places for people to invent their futures. We expand, we don't reduce. We create what has not yet been conceived. Doing that we solve a myriad of problems, or we avoid the problems, or we redefine them to exploit the benefits in an opportunity. A design commission is never a problem, it is always a challenge, an exploration, an opportunity, a desire.

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